My father, the Bethelite, was severely abusive. I dislike being so different from my classmates. Love was impt to me. When I was in fifth grade, I could read better than the brothers. I had to hide my knowledge. My brother was ooh and ahhed over for having a penis. I was nothing.
When my father died, my mom would not coerce us. I declared I had stopped believing completely for years. She was told I would not even comply with a court order directing me to attend. I embrace the world fully as a good creation.
Against my father's express wishes, I graduated high school and received scholarships to Ivy League colleges. While I was a student at Columbia, I was astounded that neutral, historical New Testament studies was offered. With my fear, I took the course. We had to read the Bible in consecutive order with no skipping around. This process freedly me completely. I discovered clear misstatements on my own. I was stunned b/c the practice of quoting from so-called worldly scholary sources impressed me. I took Jesus as a historical person in the next course. Women used to hang around after class and talk about being female. My prof is one of the leading experts in Gnosticism. I learned of the diversity within Christianity from the beginning and what processes led a certain belief to have legitimacy.
I'm not free after decades. Demons still scare me. I can't watch horror films. Under stress, I check my housing for my demon suspicious areas. 1975 was one of the worst years of my life b/c of fear. There is my rational, higher level brain and then there is my fear based reptilian brain.
I became Anglican through a series of circumstances. The beauty of the architecture, music and liturgy appealed to me after the KH. Despite being active in church and its politics, sometimes I sit and smell incense, wondering, Who is really me? The JW girl in the ugly, ugly hall with the rif-raf or this more sophisticated person? I want to cry for the beauty. Certainly, God has aesthetics.
