Shunning

Adventures in Recovery ~ Pearl Clutching

November 16, 2010
Print FriendlyPrint Friendly

by Calulu

The other day I had to attend a meeting at work. One of the big subjects was a new dress code. Now, instead of our usual jeans or casual skirts with tees, we’d have to wear business attire. The boss was insistent that if you couldn’t wear pearls with your ensemble and look appropriate then you were under dressed for work. My jaw dropped when she suggested pearls and a twin set. Most everyone else in the room started clutching their pearls by voicing negative opinions. No one on the work team felt happy about the new rules.

Bosslady was especially concerned with the fact that there we were at a team meeting and three of us were wearing flip flops in late October. For added giggles our own very old team member was busily violating that Letitia Baldrige rule of no whites after Labor Day with her white leather flats. Oh heaven forfend! Polite society is affronted!

I bit my tongue and didn’t point out that at a 7 am business meeting she’s lucky we’re not all rolling in wearing pajamas and slippers with our hair standing straight up like Don King troll dolls.

I feel especially bad for 24 year old Erica as all she owns are jeans, tees and sneakers.

There’s nothing wrong with trying to appear civil in an uncivil world but who decides what is civil and what isn’t?

Dispelled ~ One Girl’s Journey in a Home School Cult ~ Part 3: Drinking the Kool-aid

November 12, 2010
Print FriendlyPrint Friendly

by Chandra

I was a tender fourteen when my world fell apart. My parents had become entrenched and enmeshed with The Movement and because of this, The Movement had become everything in our life. The Movement had become a feudal lord, demanding everything from us: time, money, and resources. My family felt that The Movement WAS our family and it was The Movement that we served- from the rising of the sun to the setting of it.

John and Candi, and their four children, had become to us closer than blood. It was The Movement that joined us- heart, body, mind, and spirit. We lived and breathed for The Movement, and followed John and Candi’s every lead. My mom and dad were John and Candi’s devoted second-in-command leaders. Our two families were a potent force, having climbed The Movement’s social ladder to the head of the State of Missouri’s homeschool organization in just a few short years.

But through all of cult-like demands of The Movement, and my family’s worship of it, there was a teenage girl who longed to be free, understood, and accepted.

The 49 Character Qualities of Ruth #23: The Decision

November 4, 2010
Print FriendlyPrint Friendly

by RazingRuth

As we stood outside the courtroom, it was clear where the lines were drawn. The divide in the room was less physical, as the space was small, but it was a mental and emotional chasm as large as the Grand Canyon. My attorney had told me to be prepared for an emotional outburst from my mother. My attorney warned me that my father might become overly warm and try to entice me to “drop this whole charade”. About my father, she was correct. As soon as we crossed the threshold from hallway to courtroom, my father turned on the charm and charisma. He held the door for me and as I passed, the jerk actually smiled. We took seats in the small gallery and by virtue of it’s lack of chairs, my father stood behind me. When my attorney went to the counsellor’s table behind the gate, my dad put his hand on my shoulder and patted it reassuringly. The judge, hearing another case, looked up just as my father did this and I thought, surely, my case was sunk. Here was this girl trying to run away from such a loving, concerned father, right? No judge would see through his gesture to the controlling message the gesture betrayed. No judge would see his smile for the manipulation it was, right? I had been trained by years of brainwashing to believe that the world would always see my father as a righteous man.

My attorney returned to the gallery area and softly confronted my father. Asking him to take his hands off me and step away. He acted hurt, but obeyed. My mother sat staring straight ahead this entire time. She didn’t look at me. My heart ached for her and my resolve started to dip. I knew that by continuing this, I was putting her in harms way. I knew she couldn’t look at me because of his orders.

The Dead Village: Living With Disapproval

November 2, 2010
Print FriendlyPrint Friendly

by Sierra

Leaving quiverfull/patriarchal Christianity means losing approval. It means your parents, children, or spouse may reject you – or worse, implicitly disapprove while claiming to maintain a loving bond. That means that every time you talk, there’s another dagger through your heart – the feeling that you’ll never again have their respect (if you ever did in the first place) or be a whole person in their eyes (if you ever were).

It almost certainly means your community evaporates like a holographic illusion. You walk away, and it’s like you left behind a burning village with only ghosts pacing the streets. Sometimes they haunt you – follow you into your new life, reminding you at every false step that you’re on the wrong path, that they know what you really need, that you need to stop this foolish stubborn sinful willfulness and surrender to God. He loves you – the ghosts remind you when your heart is crushed – and there you went and walked away from him. Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame. But if you’re penitent enough, he’ll take you back, they say. Except there is no going back. There are no living things left in the village.

You are accused. Suddenly you’re worse than your abusers – sometimes the abused person you tried to defend tells you it’s all your fault. Sometimes your children curse your face. When you finally drop leaden umbrella of protection under which you were staggering, others accuse you of exposing them to the elements. Their pain is your fault, they say. Shame, shame, shame.

A Woman’s Place

October 31, 2010
Print FriendlyPrint Friendly

“Sunday Night” ~ an Australian news program’s expose of Above Rubies and Quiverfull, features Colin & Nancy Campbell and includes an interview with Vyckie Garrison and her oldest daughter, Angel.

Adventures in Recovery ~ Your Momma Can’t Dance & This Church Don’t Rock & Roll

October 26, 2010
Print FriendlyPrint Friendly

by Calulu

Early this summer I decided that perhaps I needed to find another church. It wasn’t that I was unhappy with the big mainline denomination that my family had landed at post fundamentalism. I just felt that something essential was missing. Most people there were content to sit in the pews and play church. I was missing that passion I’d experienced in my old church and had seen in many other congregations. Passion and excitement for the things of God. Just not mixed with hateful theology of ‘Can’ts’ ‘Don’ts’ or ‘Submit’

Even during my years at Possum Creek Christian Fellowship* I’d loved worship with all my heart. I’d been part of worship team and I’d spearheaded creative worship there. As I’ve moved along from Quiverful to Main Street I still loved worship, still led worship from the new church. As I left our new church this summer to visit many of the churches in our community worship was one of the big things in my mind. I wanted to land somewhere with not just passion and excitement but also with alive worship that would be open to allowing me to join. Worshiping is like breathing to me.

Every place I went was welcoming, but I wasn’t really seeing what I was searching for. I visited old friends, made new friends and tested the waters. Heard interesting sermons but sensed none of these places was really right for me. Once Possum Creekers heard I was church-hopping one of them called me and begged me to return (and drink the Koolaid again) She also explained that they were believing it was Last Days and everyone had bought hand guns to practice killing off attacking heathen hordes. Seriously, now they are arming up for the end of the world. Which really made me think that the mainstream church wasn’t so bad after all.

Justice is No Lady: Chapter 3 ~ Company of the Faithful

October 19, 2010
Print FriendlyPrint Friendly

Warning: This story series contains descriptions of physical abuse.

by Defendant Rising

At Regent University, I had lots of role models. Sweet-tempered women were submitting to their husbands, keeping their student apartments immaculate, and having babies right and left. I learned to buy wheat berries from the local co-op and grind them to bake bread. We were Stepford Wives, only hugely, proudly fertile. We grew herbs. We read books on natural childbirth. We prayed for God to make us more meek and submissive. And we prayed for our dear darling hubbies over at the Christian law school who were going to usher in a new American Revolution and turn this country around. “Shh! Quiet! Daddy’s studying!”

It was a total time warp. Everywhere you looked, it was Ward and June and Wally and the Beav and Wally and the Beav and Wally and the Beav and little Chastity Grace Mary Martha Hope Cleaver.

I got right into the spirit of the place by watching the “700 Club” and getting pregnant. I still didn’t have the right lingeré—speaking of which, for some odd reason, pornography was being mis-addressed to our mailbox with my husband’s name on it. This was a sure sign that we were under Satanic attack. “I swear, honey, Nate swore, aghast, “I don’t know how they got my name. “That needs to be destroyed. Give it to me.” And with eyes brimming with tears at the sorry sinful state of the world, Nate went off to destroy it. Oh, that devil was a wily one, but nothing could deter my husband from his calling in the Lord.

Time Heals All Wounds ~ Part 10: It’s in the Lord’s Hands

September 30, 2010
Print FriendlyPrint Friendly

All beautiful the march of days, as seasons come and go; The Hand that shaped the rose hath wrought the crystal of the snow

by Shelly Cruz

I walked over to the phone, and dialed Cecilia’s number. My first thought was that it would possibly be disconnected, but who knows, maybe they finally moved. Cecilia always talked about how the time would come, and their house would be demolished, and then they would have to move. They were living rent-free in an old farmhouse. Someone had blessed them years ago with a property. They had to care for it, and in return they could live there for free, but once the owner passed away, they’d have to move.

They were even given a 15-passenger van as a blessing too! Regardless of their ways, the Lord always saw fit to bless them, in abundance, too. Oftentimes, I wonder why all the big families always get so many blessings? If being Quiverfull, is an Old Testament mandate, why does it seem like extra-large families always get extra-large blessings?

I have seen this in church many times, the family with the 8+ kids, receive box loads of children’s clothing for their children. They get free food dropped to their doorsteps, their mortgage paid for them, or they get a blessing of not having any mortgage at all. Do people feel sorry for them, or are they really the “chosen ones”? I know I should not be questioning these things, but sometimes I do. It seems, to me, like the most legalistic people I know are the ones who get enormous blessings.

Anyway, the phone rang three times, and then someone picked up, ”Hello, whom may you wish to correspond with please?”