I didn't come out of christianity at all. I went to a catholic school for socio-economic reasons. In my formative years, in a widely mixed faith family, I was given the advice "you want to worship something? Worship that tree [actually pointing to a specific tree]..it was here when we got here it'll be here when we're gone and we're only here for so long as it bares fruit". In retrospect, that was probably one of the most formative piece of religious instruction I ever received.
I think that the intent was to make me, as you would put it, a critical thinker. To micro-aggress against the prevailing narrative where I grew up. A component of familial identity even as we navigated and benefited from those things which we did not ourselves believe. Still, the advice came from a person who would go out of their way every single day to put me into and familiarize me with the sorts of narratives they opposed.
It worked out in a weird way, as I was more actively involved in the actual nuts and bolts of american christendom than most of the faithful (and I still am, I spend a significant amount of my time organizing christian outreach events and efforts for my own reasons), and as a consequence I appeal to and sought out extremely faithful and traditional women. The people who raised me resolved their dissonance by teaching me to be a chimeric subversive specifically equipped to exploit christian faith to a better end...at least as we see it. That made me The Wifes antidote to her overbearingly evangelical father who on the one hand she wanted to please, and on the other..reject. Created a situation where a very faithful christian woman genuinely desired for her own children to be raised "in my manner"...as she always puts it. Granted, she thinks my way is character building but that....also...anyone of character will eventually come to believe what she does. My own self excluded. Do as we say!
I only once managed to attract the attentions of a pagan, and despite her being a more natural match for me on those grounds she was completely unsuitable on every other. I remember one of the big divides being that she wanted me to make a clean and open break from all that I came from even as she herself hoped to benefit from it. It was never going to happen, no matter how much I wanted it to..and I did...I powerfully and painfully did. I wanted what I couldn't have, and she's better for the break since. I only know this..because, like a fucking common christian creeper..I keep tabs on her to keep tabs on my estranged daughter.
The closest thing I can think of to what you went through was, likewise, a societal conceit. We knew we weren't what we presented ourselves as, and I was under immense pressure to conform to a standard that wasn't even the private standard of virtue within my own family, in house. So that we could become what we wished to be seen as. It didn't work out, and it caused a huge rift, on account of how nobody told my dick...and even if they did..it's not like it has ears.
A rift that probably wont ever be resolved. I'm packing all the kids up friday afternoon to go see the people who made me for what is entirely likely to be the last time. We'll get there saturday morning and by monday morning we'll be there (and leaving to go somewhere else, to visit equally fading people) with baited breath, hoping the chemo went well..knowing that we leave that day, either way, to visit the other half of family for the holidays that we dont celebrate at home.
We'll be there with all of his greats, and....realistically, there wont be any time to resolve these things..and...... realistically, I'll never see either of them again, alive. Even though it will all be immortal on some shelf in my house some day. Do I tell them what my daughter is going through? With what time, and why would it matter? They're far less in the loop than I am. There wont be any come to jesus moments before they breath their last.
The last time I distanced myself and my family we put 1k miles between us..and that was just rehearsal. We'll do it again in the next year or two and the distance will be larger. Empowered, in a sense, because they will be no longer and all that they ever were will be subsumed by what I am and what they made me. I wont explain to them, for example, that their great grand dottir is going through what she is. I wont rehash my own shameful conflicts with gender and other things in a context they palpably and intentionally created.
Fighting or disagreeing with my children, upon whom every action I've taken in my life depends as it play out....when my own parents are gone, wont be a departure for me or for my family. I cant comfort him, a man who only had dottirs, himself, with the fiction that the son he had, such as it it is, such as I am.....has come into his own authority.
-and that, with all of my traditional upbringing outside of contemporary tradition...is facing a situation circumstantially identical to what your family faced with respect to your own situation, exists.
I think that the intent was to make me, as you would put it, a critical thinker. To micro-aggress against the prevailing narrative where I grew up. A component of familial identity even as we navigated and benefited from those things which we did not ourselves believe. Still, the advice came from a person who would go out of their way every single day to put me into and familiarize me with the sorts of narratives they opposed.
It worked out in a weird way, as I was more actively involved in the actual nuts and bolts of american christendom than most of the faithful (and I still am, I spend a significant amount of my time organizing christian outreach events and efforts for my own reasons), and as a consequence I appeal to and sought out extremely faithful and traditional women. The people who raised me resolved their dissonance by teaching me to be a chimeric subversive specifically equipped to exploit christian faith to a better end...at least as we see it. That made me The Wifes antidote to her overbearingly evangelical father who on the one hand she wanted to please, and on the other..reject. Created a situation where a very faithful christian woman genuinely desired for her own children to be raised "in my manner"...as she always puts it. Granted, she thinks my way is character building but that....also...anyone of character will eventually come to believe what she does. My own self excluded. Do as we say!
I only once managed to attract the attentions of a pagan, and despite her being a more natural match for me on those grounds she was completely unsuitable on every other. I remember one of the big divides being that she wanted me to make a clean and open break from all that I came from even as she herself hoped to benefit from it. It was never going to happen, no matter how much I wanted it to..and I did...I powerfully and painfully did. I wanted what I couldn't have, and she's better for the break since. I only know this..because, like a fucking common christian creeper..I keep tabs on her to keep tabs on my estranged daughter.
The closest thing I can think of to what you went through was, likewise, a societal conceit. We knew we weren't what we presented ourselves as, and I was under immense pressure to conform to a standard that wasn't even the private standard of virtue within my own family, in house. So that we could become what we wished to be seen as. It didn't work out, and it caused a huge rift, on account of how nobody told my dick...and even if they did..it's not like it has ears.
A rift that probably wont ever be resolved. I'm packing all the kids up friday afternoon to go see the people who made me for what is entirely likely to be the last time. We'll get there saturday morning and by monday morning we'll be there (and leaving to go somewhere else, to visit equally fading people) with baited breath, hoping the chemo went well..knowing that we leave that day, either way, to visit the other half of family for the holidays that we dont celebrate at home.
We'll be there with all of his greats, and....realistically, there wont be any time to resolve these things..and...... realistically, I'll never see either of them again, alive. Even though it will all be immortal on some shelf in my house some day. Do I tell them what my daughter is going through? With what time, and why would it matter? They're far less in the loop than I am. There wont be any come to jesus moments before they breath their last.
The last time I distanced myself and my family we put 1k miles between us..and that was just rehearsal. We'll do it again in the next year or two and the distance will be larger. Empowered, in a sense, because they will be no longer and all that they ever were will be subsumed by what I am and what they made me. I wont explain to them, for example, that their great grand dottir is going through what she is. I wont rehash my own shameful conflicts with gender and other things in a context they palpably and intentionally created.
Fighting or disagreeing with my children, upon whom every action I've taken in my life depends as it play out....when my own parents are gone, wont be a departure for me or for my family. I cant comfort him, a man who only had dottirs, himself, with the fiction that the son he had, such as it it is, such as I am.....has come into his own authority.
-and that, with all of my traditional upbringing outside of contemporary tradition...is facing a situation circumstantially identical to what your family faced with respect to your own situation, exists.
I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight… wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I AM THE INFANTRY! FOLLOW ME!
