When I first started thinking about what event, practice, or story I wanted to write about for my Community Discourse, I really didnât have a clue. As I thought about it more, however, I came to realize that part of the reason that I couldnât think of what to write about is that I am no longer (for the most part) part of the main community that I grew up in.
I have no memory of the first time that I entered a church. This lack of memory is a result of the fact that the first time I entered a church would have been while I was still in my motherâs womb. My attendance at church was never a question. Both of my parents had been raised in the church. My grandfather is a Church of God pastor. (And, really, so is my grandmother, she just doesnât have the title.) The majority of my family on my momâs side is deeply religious, with several pastors or church officers within their ranks. Going to church, specifically a Church of God church, socializing with the Christian community, and adhering to Christian values is deeply rooted in my family.
In fact, for much of my childhood years (0-9), my entire life revolved around the Christian community and church. If the church doors were open, my family was there. Wednesday night service, Sunday morning service, Sunday evening service. We were there. A week long revival with a service every night that week. We were there. A special event or speaker came into town. We were there. And, for the most part, we were also one of the last ones to leave.
My familyâs involvement in the Christian community didnât stop at simply going to church, either. My dad was a clerk for the church for several years. My mother was the church secretary. Both of my parents taught Sunday school. My mom sang in the choir and my dad directed it.
And for the first 9 years of my life, my parents adhered to a very strict and legalistic view of Christianity and what it meant to be a Christian. I was not allowed to wear pants, and I have a very clear and vivid memory of the first time I ever wore a pair. Make-up and jewelry were off limits. So was going to the movie theater or listening to any music that wasnât southern gospel or old church hymns. And donât even think about going to the beach. That would have gotten you a ticket straight to Hell.
My familyâs relationship with church and Christianity drastically changed when we moved to Atlanta. My parents no longer adhered to strict religious viewpoints, and going to church became more about actually connecting with others than a rule that had to be followed.
During this time (10-18), I was very active in my churchâs various youth groups. (I moved to different ones as I got older.) I attended their weekly meetings on Sundays and Wednesdays, and if I didnât get to attend my youth group for whatever reason, I wasnât happy about it. I was part of the youth group choir, went on two choir tours, and competed twice in Teen Talent (national youth group competition). I went to summer camp every year (sometimes twice a year, if I was a teen volunteer for the elementary school camp), and going to Camp Greenville during the fall/winter was one of the highlights of my year. In fact, I still have a Camp Greenville shirt that I consider to be one of my priced possessions.
Connecting with the Mystory
As I mentioned in the opening, for the most part, I am no longer a part of the Christian community that I grew up in. I do still consider myself a Christian, pray daily, and draw strengthen from the Bible. But gone are the days of attending church on a weekly basis, and as far as adhering to the strict religious viewpoints of my childhood...definitely not.
In fact, for my entire adult life, I have refused to adhere to one of the main premises of my childhood religious experience. The words âstrictâ and âlegalisticâ as I used them earlier may not strike the same meaning and feeling for you as they do for me when I hear them. For me, those words are language memories of the idea that a person must not only conform to the rules of Christianity (especially the Church of God version), but that you must also shame and shun those individuals and those things that donât. There is one right way to do things, and for the most part, the world is not to be explored and understood, it is to be feared and avoided. (At this point, it should be noted that Christianity itself doesnât actually call for this type of belief or behavior. This belief arises out of how the individuals in my life chose to practice their religion, not out of the religion itself.)
Connecting my refusal to follow this dictate of my religious experience to the other parts of the mystory is fascinating for me, because I can see direct connections between this discourse and the others.
For undergrad, I majored in Sociology, which is all about understanding humans, their behavior, and why they do things, while (at least attempting to) staying objective and passing no judgement on humans or their practices.Â
In grad school, I found my career interest within a field that doesnât stick to one âcorrectâ way of finding the answer or doing things, and relishes in the idea of a flexible process instead of a rigid set of rules.
And there is absolutely no way there isnât a direct connection between my strict religious upbringing and my desire to escape my circumstances. Just as Belle longed for âadventure in the great wide somewhere;â somewhere that didnât have townsfolk who mocked her and her family for being different, and who were contended to only associate with those in their small community, while shunning the outside world. Or just as Rapunzel longed to be free of her tower that confined her from the rest of the world, a world that her mother tried to tell her was full of things to be feared and avoided.
Even further, there is no way that my love for the Web and its uniqueness, acceptingness (not the people who use it, necessarily, but the Web itself accepts all who wish to use it), and its ability to showcase the various viewpoints and understandings of the world, is not rooted in my very unaccepting and rigid religious upbringing.
My religious background permeates almost every aspect of my life.
