Dear My Twin

 Dear My Twin, Last week, I didn't write much, as you know, and I've lost my rhythm a bit. It was a difficult week. At the end of the difficult week, we hung out with Jordan's parents, which was also: difficult.  One of the things that was difficult, was because Jordan has a LOT of religious trauma that is tied up with his parents, and the church environment he grew up in. So seeing them, and being in the same area and environment he grew up in, it brings up a lot of stuff that really hurts.  Church trauma ... is such a strange term, isn't it? It hurts to say it, I think. It's also scary to say it, because so frequently - and so quickly! - the response is "What are you talking about?" "That's not real!" "You're overreacting." "Don't be so dramatic."  It is deeply ingrained in us that Church is supposed   to be a good  place! Just like there is an almost genetic imperative, it seems, that your parents are supposed  ...

 Dear My Twin, The heart of abuse, is control. And the methods of abuse, build up a co-dependent relationship between abuser and victim, in very specific ways. It is a complex, and on-going series of reward and punishment behaviors that undermines the victim's ability to think independently, experience their own emotions, believe their own experiences, and entwines them completely around the abuser for any sense of self, and survival in the world. Abuse follows specific patterns, to produce specific outcomes. As I studied abuse, to figure out what had happened to me, and my relationship with Shannon, I was horrified as the same abusive patterns I was learning became clearly reveled in the practices and theology of the Church I grew up in.  N.B.: Not all abusers are deliberate and calculated in their abuse. Many ARE, but many are also just repeating the patterns they learned from their families of origin, patterns that effectively got their physical, emotional, and relational n...

 Dear My Twin, Here are a couple resources I ran across, that are pertinent to the things I've BEEN talking about (emotional integration) or am planning to talk about (trinitarian theology). Emotional Regulation:  Podcast: The Next Right Thing   An interview with Dr Hillary McBride, this talks about how are emotions are always integrated with our decisions and our body, regardless of how "separate" we think we're operating, and also gives instruction on how to use our emotions and discern what's going on under the surface.  Inseparable Operations:  Doctrine of Inseparable Operations I haven't touched on trinitarian theology and the WILDLY UNORTHODOX TRASH that's been going around about it, yet . But here's an article about one aspect. If you've heard or wondered how God the Father could "put His Son on a cross and abandon Him," this is an answer to that question. Which is an excellent question that stems from the horrible trinitarian teac...

 Dear My Twin,  I think often, that the BIG issue with Christianity starts way back in the 3rd century. When Constantine decided that he needed a good luck charm to win a battle. So on the soldier's shields, he painted Christian crosses. They won the battle, Constantine converted, and then forcibly made Christianity the state state religion.  We all know the saying, "Power corrupts," and that has been true of Christianity as well. Married with political power, things have just continued to go south, past Antartica, and way off the planet. I'm not sure if south has meaning once you're off Earth, but wherever South is, off planet, it then kept going.  The schisms. The splits. That one time there were THREE popes and they all excommunicated each other.  Even the Pilgrims! Coming to America to practice their religion (by the way, other nations frame it differently. Instead of the pilgrims leaving to find "freedom for religion" they were leaving to "prac...

 Dear My Twin,  One of the big parts that lead my deconstruction was beginning to study abuse. When I realized Shannon had been gaslighting, manipulating and abusing me, I was shocked. I thought I had learned about abuse, and could recognize it. Little did I know I had been in the middle of intense abuse for a couple years at that point.  My response, of course, was to start learning about abuse. Ha! That's always my go to. "COME! LET US ... LEARN!"  Little did I know that learning about abuse, what it looked like, who did it, how it changed the brain, how it forged enmeshed and trapped relationships, was going to circle me right back to the evangelical church.  That was even more shocking than the way Shannon had been treating me.  This is a hard one to explain and detangle. I'm sure where to begin, because there's SO MUCH information spinning in my head. How do I make it clear, concise, and understandable?  I guess I'll start with the book, "A Church...

Dear My Twin,  I'm not the only person who has started radical deconstruction lately. I think the American church has been careening wildly towards this since 2016. Things sped up after the 2020 election, and the insurrection at the capitol on January 6, 2021. (Can you believe that was only slightly more than a year ago?)  The pandemic has contributed too. The reactionary way the church has responded, the long amounts of time at home to just think, and yes, not gathering every Sunday to mitigate or quiet uneasy thoughts has led to a LARGE group of people who are questioning and deconstructing evangelical christianity.  At this point, I'd say it's about time.  There are many voices in the evangelical church who are condemning the deconstruction movement. Saying "People just want to sin!" "They don't believe the Bible!" "They're just upset that someone hurt them!" (Note: not the church hurt them; not the system of church worship and theol...

 Dear My Twin,  On re-reading what I wrote yesterday (I ran out of time), I realized that I hadn't gotten to the second harmful teaching Evangelical christianity pushes on marriages. By harmful, I don't mean, "Ouch, I got a boo-boo," I mean, completely destructive. This teaching is being referred to as the "obligation sex message."  It's a grotesque twisting of 1 Corinthians 7:4-5, "The wife's body does not belong to her alone but also to her husband. In the same way, the husband's body does not belong to him alone but also to his wife. Do not deprive each other except by mutual consent and for a time, so that you may devote yourselves to prayer. Then come together again so that Satan will not tempt you because of your lack of self-control." In this teaching, the wife becomes totally ignored as a mutual partner, and completely subjugated into a sex object for "his release" (to quote "Love & Respect," a best selli...

 Dear My Twin,    After the the weird evangelical dichotomy of a "loving" God who does terribly abusive things, the horrible, abusive misogyny is what drove me to question things.  The misogyny in the church is ... it's overwhelming. At the extreme ends, women are not only barred from any  type of leadership position, their married lives make them less than human, simultaneously removing all power from them by order of "submission," diminishing the Imagi Deo in them by defining them as "help meet" alone, removing them as co-heirs, inheritors, children of God, humans made in the image of God, and while they are powerless in marriage to even speak up (as that would be disrespecting their husband's position as the mini-Christ in the home), they are simultaneously blamed for everything that goes wrong in the marriage, even in extreme abuse, sexual, physical and marital affairs. She either wasn't being submissive enough, or not giving enough sex.  W...

 Dear My Twin,  So much has changed in the last year, it's really hard to know where to start. So I'll start with the thing that didn't change: I believe God is love. I'm not sure why this is the one thing that I can't escape, and when things were very dark and unclear, it got very hazy what "God" even meant or could mean. But even though things were really awful and hard, I couldn't escape this annoying, nagging certainty, that there was a Force in the universe, that made good, intended good, and ultimately, would bring total good to pass.  Maybe it's because I'm an optimist, at heart. But even though I was really going through difficult things, and I've endured so much abuse, survived so much trauma ... There's also so much beauty in the world.  There's you, for example. Jordan. Cats. Cats are wonderful. Sunrises. Butterflies. The ocean.  Platypuses. Those are hilarious. How can you not laugh when you think of them?! And laughter ...