Comments on: What’s That I Feel?

By: aimai

aimai — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:26:00 +0000

J.L.
You really, really, really need some quiet time meditating in a corner about just why so many people seem to misunderstand you. Hint: its because you aren’t actually saying what you think you are saying. And you are offending people right and left. If you *want* to offend them, go ahead. But if you constantly find yourself surprised at how often you are misunderstood? You need to go to your special place and work on it for a while. Maybe it will come to you.

aimai

By: J.L. Hinman

J.L. Hinman — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:07:00 +0000

Um... Did everyone miss the post by Vyckie in which she more or less says: "Please stop witnessing to us and telling us that we just haven't found the 'right' kind of Christianity yet." Jeez...

not really what I said. It's not so much that you haven't foudn the right kind as it is that you find the wrong kind.

I don't know if there is a "right kind."

One could certainly find better churches than the one's you've been going to.

By: J.L. Hinman

J.L. Hinman — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 14:01:00 +0000

As always, you are defending women. I appreciate you so much, and so does everyone at equalitycentral.com.

There's a new message forum you might want to comment on over there:

thanks!

I don't really know who you are, but I assume an ECA person?

By: Hollis M.

Hollis M. — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 01:43:00 +0000

To Kristin, Iansome, and everybody else, thanks for bringing up the point about the problem with the word “should.” I think that it is very common for people to feel that if you make a different choice than they have, or than they would, it invalidates their choice. I went through this when, after graduating from a prestigious university with good grades and high scores on standardized tests, I announced my desire to become a nurse. Everyone from my mom to my classmates to casual acquaintances was aghast and told me I “should” become a doctor. I got very tired of telling people that I was not interested in going through years of medical school and racking up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt when what called to me was the helping patients aspect — which, in the American health care system, is almost always done more by nurses than by doctors (not the doctors’ fault; their time is just so costly that insurance groups pressure them to minimize the time they spend with each patient)! In any case, my point is that it is great to let a person know about an option that exists if you actually think she has not considered it, but if your only motivation in saying “you should really do X” is to say, “I believe that X is right for me,” then… say that!

By: Becky

Becky — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:18:00 +0000

You definitely looked tired. You definitely look better with your hair cut shorter, as well! You’re looking great…and younger.

I can only imagine how tired you were. I was nursing or pregnant for the first four years we lived overseas and I felt like I was living in a fog. To live that way perpetually, year in and year out, would be extreme indeed.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 03:33:00 +0000

Vyckie,

This is for you:

http://equalitycentral.com/forum/index.php?topic=934.msg12135;topicseen#msg12135

It’s quite entertaining. I think you will appreciate it.

An anonymous person who supports you!

By: EmK

EmK — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 23:23:00 +0000

Calvin,

I guess your post was a direct message to Vyckie, because the last bit sounded like you knew her personally: ("I'm so glad to read that you are finally taking responsibility for your own decisions, admitting that they are your decisions and that the results of your decisions are your responsibility. I'm also glad to see that you are making good, responsible decisions.")

If it's a personal message to her and you know her, then feel free to ignore my comment.

But it seems not to fit with the situation. How exactly was Vyckie "not taking responsbility" for her actions before? It's sort of hard to take responsbility when you are being abused and living 24/7 in an abusive environment that tears at your spirit. She needed help, she needed her abuser to take responsbility. There's nothing wrong with holding up your hand and saying "Yes, I've been brutalized, please help."

I suppose I don't understand the idea that survivors of years of mental cruelty somehow had the same type of agency as someone who lives free and healthy and has practice making her own decisions for herself and her kids.

The phrase "take responsbility" doesn't seem to fit here. The phrase "good decisions," also...it seems to suggest that her decisions in the past were "bad." Perhaps we can agree that abused people who stay with abusive partners are making "poor" or "clouded" decisions, but I'm not on board with the word "Bad." Nothing is that simple. It also shifts the majority of the burden from the abuser to the abused. And, "bad" implies a moral judgment, which I think we who have never been abused simply cannot/must not make.

But, I am delighted that you've been feeling energized and renewed, Vyckie!

By: Indigo

Indigo — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 21:55:00 +0000

I too am getting really sick of hearing “but you can still be a Christian!” from various commentators.
I was raised in a very liberal Christian household. When I became an atheist, various people tried to convince me that religion doesn’t have to be evil and oppressive – but I already knew that. I can’t remember, for example, ever having a male minister in church; they were always women, and I grew up in the belief that that was normal. I think I’ve mentioned elsewhere that until I was a teenager, I thought hell was something like the belief that there were gods living on Mt. Olympus – something nobody really believed in any more, just “mythology”. People tried to tell me I could become a Buddhist or a pagan or a Ba’hai if I “didn’t like” what Christianity taught, and that I didn’t have to give up on spirituality altogether. But that wasn’t the point. It wasn’t that I didn’t like what I learned in Sunday school. In fact, if it weren’t for that pesky “Jesus was the son of God” belief, I would probably still be a member of my parents’ church. I admire many of the things they do, and I often wish I could find a secular community as powerful and welcoming as theirs.
But when something shakes your belief, it is very hard to just switch to something different. If you’ve been confident your whole life that you have been following the right path and other paths are, not to put too fine a point on it, made up crap, then realising you are on the wrong path doesn’t mean you suddenly change your mind about the other ones.

By: lansome68

lansome68 — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 18:45:00 +0000

Thank you, Kristin! I know these people mean well, but saying “you really should do XYZ” no matter how benign XYZ may actually be, is such a trigger phrase to anyone who has come out of a controlling, performance-based system. Vyckie and Laura are all too familiar with the “Jesus is coming, so you’d better look busy” ideation. I don’t care how liberal your church or your doctrine, if you’re still saying that people “should” believe what you believe, there is fear at the bottom of it.

By: Kristin

Kristin — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 17:25:00 +0000

Um… Did everyone miss the post by Vyckie in which she more or less says: “Please stop witnessing to us and telling us that we just haven’t found the ‘right’ kind of Christianity yet.” Jeez…