Theologizing in Exile

Deryn Guest discusses the concept of being in exile from one's spiritual home in When Deborah Met Jael. It's a good concept, and one that I think fits my experience with Christianity better than some of the metaphors I've thrown around.

I'm an exile from CofCdom. I could not remain a part of the CofC out of fear for my soul, yet I find if difficult act like the rest of America and ignore the CofC's existence, find some other spiritual home, and get on with life.

I feel pressured at times to simply be silent about the degree of hurt I feel from the CofC. I feel as though I am supposed to just get out and stay out, and never speak to the damage done by their exclusionary practices -- of being shown each Sunday that I was unworthy of distributing the Eucharist (okay, they didn't use the word Eucharist), unworthy of speaking to God publicly, unworthy of sharing my thoughts with the congregation. I have been sexualized in unwelcome ways by being told that if, as a girl, I was allowed to formally debate the boys, then I "might dress provocatively in order to distract them." (Ha!) My right to existence has been constructed as entirely contingent on entering into a patriarchal marriage, and my sanity and the existence of a heart have been questioned because I had no interest in doing so. I have mocked by peers and teachers for being nothing more than young, immature, and anger -- all of which might be true, but none of which should result in open disregard and mockery. CofCdom -- at least, the Tennessee version -- is hostile to my sense of myself and not above using spiritual violence to try to break down and reform my sense of self. I have felt abandoned by God, created only to be an anathema and scapegoat. And yet, I'm supposed to not take it personally, get over it, and move on. Forget, forget, forget -- and definitely don't talk about.

I do not mean to suggest that my injuries are cases of extreme spiritual violence. They is far worse done on a daily basis. I acknowledge that the majority of the people who have hurt me and attacked my person never intended to do so, and yet, this doesn't change the fact that violence was done. Violence of a more systematic than individual nature, but violence did happen. If I repress that, how am I supposed to move past it in any real way? And if I remain silent, how many more of my siblings will be injured by the unjust structures that govern CofCdom?

Despite all this, I have a sense of loyalty to CofCdom. I have been shaped by indelible ways by Restoration Movement thought. I'm an exile, an expat. I left my home behind, and I despair of ever being able to return, but still something in me continues to hope. To hope that the regimes and structures of CofCdom will change, and it will be a space that doesn't do violence to my person.

Bad Language! Bad, bad language!

No cookie for you, English.

Holy Fools. Fools for Christ. Holy Foolishness. Etc. Etc. and so on and so forth.

You see, I would presume, how these are not good terms. Especially for net and database searches. What with different people using different versions and making up their own and making me sad.

Russian has a nice, concise word for this amorphous-in-English concept: юродство / yurodstvo.

This proves (at least until I change my mind) that Russian is a superior language.

Shame on you, English.

And, I have reminded myself why I don't like donut holes. Oh, well, college campus -- they shan't go to waste!

How do I get out of this one?

I know! I'll use a plot device!

This Dominic Deegan strip makes me smile. I should probably print it out and hang it over my desk.

If, that is, it looks as though I will ever have time to write another word of fiction again.

I wonder if the Religious Studies department has ever had a major turn their senior paper into performance art before. But there are so many possibilities for a project on Holy Fools, and such a frustrating lack of blindingly obvious scholarly resources on the Internet.

Who knows -- should the insomnia keep up, performance art of a follyful persuasive might cease to be optional.

Pet Peeve

People commenting that I must not have read a text because they either disagree with my interpretation, or, in some cases, are in fact pointing out a legitimate flaw in my interpretation. Second time this has happened in recent memory. Incidentally, the texts in question were both religious.

I'm far more likely to consider your interpretations and critiques of mine, if you give me the benefit of the doubt on having read the text. Because, while you may think I haven't read something, you don't actually know whether or not I have.

And for the current instance, yes, you do get points for otherwise being polite, which I appreciate. And for having legitimate critique. But still...

Oh, I had better get brownie points for having read Judith Butler and Monique Wittig.

On my own, no less, because we all know how easy it is to find classes on queer theory up and running in Memphis. Even if I haven’t quite yet made it around to Foucault.

Okay, moving on to the point of the this post. I noticed while having another revision session with my paper that WordPerfect 10 doesn’t recognize “deconstructed,” “gendering,” or “anathemizes.” Or rather it didn’t. I added them to the dictionary, of course. Silly WordPerfect!

On to finding a new title since I can no longer use “Origen and the Angry Inch.” *sniff* I’m currently meditating on the merits of “Breaking Both the Vessels: Narrating the GenderQueer Kingdom of God.” Not as much fun, but I dig the Bible verse twisting.

Teehee. As I told a friend the other day “I have losted my mind.” Oh, yeah, RSL – must do RSL things. But having made it through the oral presentation for the nationalism in Eastern Europe class, I deserved a trip to go play with the ascetics.

Yes, I play with ascetics. They have a great sense of humor. ;D

And now, it's really getting on my nerves...

Or, how Church of Christ gender discrimination is now screwing up my writing. All of this could have been averted by not having seperate classes for the boys and the girls.

So, I'm trying to write a character. Name: Lawrence. Male. Early twenties. Raised CofC, conservative side of mainstream Tennessee. Still is CofC. Not a sheltered Freedom-Hardly boy though, would probably fit in nicely with the Abilene crowd from what I've seen of the Abilene crowd on the Internet. And not the type of guy whose morals are based on exactly what he's been told since birth, but he places more weight on tradition/letter of the scripture than I do.

All of this makes him a delight to write. He's got a nicely complex system of morality. And I have to work a bit to get into his head because he and I don't have the same and or closely overlapping views on things. But you would think that the raised CofC thing would help with figuring out my character's mental landscape. I should know, at least, what programming he got on X subject and then be able to figure out how that will interact with the other influences and ideas floating about in Lawrence's skull. Right? Well, it depends on the subject.

See the sticky moral dilemma I've pitched my Lawrence into involves *cough* sex *cough* Now, this is not to say I haven't had a full CofC sex-education. But, I've had the programming for the "young ladies." Mind you, this programming was all about the boys, and how the boys just don't have control, and how we young ladies have to be extra careful to not cause the boys to lust. Never ever heard anything that about dealing with, sublimating, or repressing lust, because it was apparently assumed that young ladies never experienced lust. Frankly, I think that's all bollocks. Both the first and the second propositions. My opinion on all that wouldn't matter so much for the figuring out what's in Lawrence's skull (there are other things I believe to be bollocks that Lawrence takes quite seriously), but I also highly doubt that that's the CofC sex ed that the boys got. We were carefully segregated for these things. If Lawrence were Larissa I'd be confident of knowing what lurks in her skull. (But that would also add another fish to the kettle now wouldn't it.)

Anyhow, I need to know what programming the boys got. Did they even focus upon the dating, marriage, dating, marriage, find a mate, with the intensity that the girls were forced to? I've suspected for quite some time that they didn't. I'm managing to get a bit of an idea from male responses on Facebook CofC group threads, but it's not enough for a full reconstruction. And, I get the feeling that just flat-out posting a question, of "hey, what'd they tell you, man?" wouldn't get a good reception. I've poked around some of Focus on the Family's online material for the boys (I hope the CofC isn't quite that screwy, fyi), because the CofC doesn't have a standardized propaganda system of their own. But, I can only do so much of that at once.

It's getting tempting to just e-mail the youth minister and ask him what they tell the boys. He already knows I'm as strange as they come. Not quite there yet though. Time for poking about the website for one large CofC youth rally and some more discussion board lurking.

I got a Rejection Slip!

And it was a rejection slip with ink! Which means someone actually read the story before deciding not to publish it! Woohoo! I feel like a "real" writer now.

(Isn't sad that I'm happy about a rejection slip?)

The Americano is Getting to Me

I really like the words, "further" and "suggests." I use them far too much.

Also, I really want to put the sentence, "Vehement prohibitions of self-castration found in both Church Fathers and the canons of Nicaea further attest to the presence of voluntary eunuchs in Christianity as more than isolated occurrences when someone let a very zealous young man be alone with a knife." into my paper, but I think dropping the last clause is a good idea.

Plurals formed with "-i" are just more fun.

Over the summer, my muse and I had moment that involved me stepping out of the shower one morning and promptly curling up on the bathmat waiting for a menstrual cramp to go away. I believe I muttered something to the effect of "It my uterus had any value I would sell it on the black market." Which, as anyone who knows me knows, wouldn't happen. As such a process would likely involve needles.

But the muse whispered in my ear: There's a story in that statement.

Having made in out of the bathroom floor to my computer, this obedient little slave of the muse hit the internet and discovered that uteri have no black market value. Rather upset at first, I soon began to consider other things characters could sell, like eggs. (This, by the way, resulted in a rather strange story.)

But now, perhaps, I can indeed pursue the black-market uterus story! It could be a fun sci-fiesque thing.

Although, my mind remains boggled, but to each her own.

Of music and martyrs...

My brain apparently links "Imitation of Life," by REM, with martyrdom, and particularly martyrdom as a physical imitation of Christ. Interesting, brain, interesting.

Seneca's theme song is now Soundgarden's "Blow off the Outside World." Because "nothing seems to kill him, no matter how hard he tries."

And, Mieke Bal tells me in Narratology that characters have no psychological reality. To Mieke Bal I say: Tell that to the voices in my head.

Authorial Sadism

What a topic for a first post!

**Spoiler warning for any random people who might be reading Carol Berg.**

So, last night as I'm plugging along through my "OMG I have time for braincandy, gimme some good high fantasy" reading, the question occured to me, can an author be too sadistic to their characters. I'm currently reading Guardians of the Keep by Carol Berg. It's the second book in a series. In the first book, we met the main character Seri, who was a typical protagonist for Berg -- rather older than eighteen, flawed, and the owner of an extremely tragic past. Ten years before the story opened, Seri's husband was burnt at the stake for the practice of sorcery and then her infant son was murdered by her brother because he just might inherit magical ability. This isn't at all uncommon for Berg, whose characters have typically suffered through a mental, if not also physical hell (Seri had gotten off rather easily, she wasn't enslaved, nor had she been locked in a prison cell having her fingers systematically broke for ten years). By the end of the story, things look a bit brighter for Seri, although not perfect (this is something I admire in Berg's writing, things rarely end perfectly, just improved). She's been able to forgive her brother (who was manipulated by evil exterior forces beyond anyone's control, of course), which it doesn't heal the loss of her son seems to provide her with some closure, and her husband's soul (that's to good exterior forces meddling in the affairs of mundane humans) has been reincarnated, and gets to kick major ass saving not one, but two worlds from exterior evil sources beyond anyone's control. Now if he only didn't have amnesia -- but the meddling good exterior forces are working on this problem.

Moving on to book two. Husband finally remembers Seri. Unforntunately, due to the circumstances under which he remembers her, he goes completely nutty and offs himself. Poor Seri gets to watch this episode through a window. Futhermore, her son was actually swapped at birth with her brother's son, so the kid she thought was her nephew is actually her son and he's been kidnapped by the evil exterior forces. (And, yes, we did have a "Luke, I am your father." moment of sorts.) Seri hasn't had a mental break yet, but my god!

So can an author simply be too sadistic to their characters?

Berg's case is different from the average sadist author. For one thing, she's a good writer. Sure there are cliches, and she does use her own set of stock characters. But she writes well, and she writes convincely. I care about her characters, and futhermore, they are real, flawed people. Not all of Seri's problems are based in the fact that the fates of the world hate her. She frequently makes things worse on herself through pride or through anger. Her characters also grow and are changed by the shit that they live through, rather than simply enduring it to show how strong they are or how evil the bad guys really are (*cough* Terry Goodkind *cough*). But, occasionally, it would be nice to have something good happen to the characters I like.

On one hand, no story can be entirely positive. I love the definition of plot as get your character up a tree, throw things at her, and then get her back down. Something has to go wrong. Characters need to make mistakes, and they need to suffer the consequences of making a mistake. Characters should lose some of the time -- especially in a genre like fantasy, where things tend ot magically work out for the protagonist.

On the other, writing is for an audience. And when the audience is rather attached to a character (through good writing) throwing things at the protagonist relentlessly can become painful for the audience, particularly when there doesn't seem to be a reason -- plotwise -- for the pain.

Oh well, I'm not done with the book, so perhaps there is a good reason for the further beating of poor Seri. I hope.