I grew up in an extremely conservative, strange, and cult-like church. It took me a long time to figure out that there wasn’t something wrong with me, that the problem was the church.
When I was in elementary school, the music minister’s wife, Patty Jo, disappeared. We learned years later that her husband had killed her after years of abuse. Quiet Moments
tells the story from the perspective of Patty Jo’s niece, who wasn’t a member of the church. This is how Patty Jo’s niece described the church:
Members of Rick and PJ’s church were huddled around the front of the church as if forming a human shield….The church members watched us warily, even stared, and were reluctant to talk with us… The unfriendly atmosphere made me feel creepy…
The River of Life Church was located in a private community called Sonshine Farm. It was surrounded by houses owned by members of the church, most of whom lived within walking distance. The women of the church wore little or no makeup and simple clothes, were as unfriendly as the men, and seemed to be comfortable that their husbands were in charge. Their lack of friendliness made me feel put off. Unlike those women, PJ was a friendly, gracious person, always the perfect hostess. But like them, her domestic talents of sewing, crafting, and painting and her dedication to her husband indicated to me that, for reasons I didn’t fully understand, she fit in pretty well….
Some of the men had long beards, which isn’t strange. What was strange was that they always wore dark glasses and neither they nor the women ever made eye contact with us. There was a hippie type of look and a seemingly strong nonconformity to everything. They clearly didn’t like to welcome anyone who didn’t fit the mold of their ways, and they seemed wary that we might find out something that they knew.
Patty Jo was very gentle and kind and I cared for her as a child. I remember being so upset and confused when she disappeared. I don’t remember Patty Jo’s family, but I was there that day. It’s fascinating to read how someone else saw those same events and vindicating to see how apparent the wrongness of the church was to an outsider.
Yesterday I was supposed to go to a meeting about my research and take an exam. This weekend I had two migraines, but they weren’t very bad, so I pushed through them to prepare. Working through those migraines is likely why I got the kind of migraine on Monday that made it impossible for me to attend the meeting or take my exam.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have worked through those migraines on the weekend and rested more. I probably would have been well enough to take my exam and go to the meeting, but I would have been unprepared.
Perhaps I should have started preparing earlier. I do try to stay a little ahead and avoid procrastination, but with so many migraines, I feel like I’m just playing catch-up all the time.
This semester I’ve been pretty frustrated with migraines. I’m behind at work, in my classes, and have piles of paperwork I need to take care of. At least the weather looks nice this week – some sunshine & migraine free days should go a long way towards cheering me up.
From Karen Armstrong’s A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam:
Science demands the fundamental belief that there is a rational explanation for everything; it also requires an imagination and courage which are not dissimilar to religious creativity. Like the prophet or the mystic, the scientist also forces himself to confront the dark and unpredictable realm of uncreated reality. … [T]he scientific vision of our own day has made much classic theism impossible for many people. To cling to the old theology is not only a failure of nerve but could involve a damaging loss of integrity. The Faylasufs attempted to wed their new [scientific] insights with mainstream Islamic faith… Yet the ultimate failure of their rational deity has something important to tell us about the nature of religious truth.
I’d like to stay home this morning with my coffee and a novel, or maybe finish up some blog posts I’ve started, but not finished, in the last few weeks. But you’ll have to wait to hear what I think about The Wild Trees
, to analyze February’s migraine data, and to find out what music I’ve been particularly enamored with lately.
Because today, I’m going to work, and I’m going to stay there much later than I’d like. I’ve got a meeting tomorrow about my research, and I want to have some exciting new model runs to show off!
I have a pretty serious love of yellow shoes, but I only own one pair. They aren’t nearly as lovely as these:
Maya Vintage by Frye
A friend of mine recommended The Dark Tower series to me almost 7 years ago, but I’ve only recently begun reading it. I put it off for so long partly because I’m not much of a Stephen King fan, but the first two books in the series (The Gunslinger
and The Drawing of the Three
) were a pleasant surprise.
The story isn’t particularly novel, but that doesn’t hurt the books. They pull from a lot of different genres, which makes the story feel new and the world the story is set in feel both strange and familiar. The characters, especially the main character, Roland, are very interesting.
Roland isn’t a character I can identify with at all. It’s hard to understand how he works and why he does what he does. And that makes him seem a bit unpredictable and is utterly fascinating. He can be hard to like, but is very easy to respect.
I’m hoping I’ll get the third book
in the series soon through swaptree.
Any thoughts from those of you who’ve read the books?
Over the last year, the frequency of my migraines has increased. Then last week, I had a new and frightening kind of aura. If I were seeing a neurologist, those two statements would be certain to worry her, and she’d likely demand all kinds of fancy brain scans.
Unfortunately, I can’t afford health insurance. While I have plenty to pay my bills (I’ve even got enough saved for almost a year’s rent!), there is simply no way I could afford being treated by a neurologist. So, like the many other Americans without health insurance, I’ve just got to hope it’s nothing serious and that by some miracle our government gets some real health reform passed – soon.
From Karen Armstrong’s A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam:
The problem of predestination and free will … indicates a central difficulty in the idea of a personal God. An impersonal God, such as Brahman, can more easily be said to exist beyond “good” and “evil,” which are regarded as masks of the inscrutable divinity. But a God who is in some mysterious way a person and who takes an active part in human history lays himself open to criticism. It is all too easy to make this “God” a larger-than-life tyrant or judge and make “him” fulfill our expectations. We can turn “God” into a Republican or a socialist, a racist or a revolutionary according to our personal views.
The latest edition of Berry Go Round is up at The Phytophactor. I’m more than a little late with this announcement, but I promise it’s not because I’m bitter about missing the deadline with my Archeopteris post. That would just be petty and despite what my sister may tell you, I really don’t hold a grudge like that.
There are a great many very cool posts (and blogs) featured in the carnival. I was especially pleased to find the blog of ArtPlantae Today.
Botanical illustration is quite difficult. My drawings of mosses in my plant morphology course just weren’t this good. In fact, I can barely recognize what I was trying to draw when I page back through my old notebooks.
I am refining my skills a bit this semester in my plant taxonomy course. I still find it easier to copy a line drawing than to draw from live plant material, so I spent most of last weekend looking up drawings of grasses and painstakingly reproducing them. Drawing plants in such detail forces me to really think about the different structures and to appreciate their complexity.
I find that I really enjoy the process. It is very different from the kinds of work I normally do. Most of the time it’s both entertaining and soothing, whereas the work I normally do usually puts me somewhere close to elation or pulling my hair out without much inbetween.
Chatter