My Two Cents On “I Left My Religion” Memoirs

I'm in an interesting season right now. I am undergoing a LOT of changes in my life, both logistically and spiritually. I'll write more about all that once I know which end of me is up.

Lately I've been drawn to memoirs written by people who made significant changes in their belief system, whether that meant joining a religion or leaving one. I think that's because I understand where people on both sides are coming from. Joining or leaving a religion is a big decision, and if you're going about it wisely, it's not something that happens overnight.

I don't have an opinion on the genre as a whole, for the record. I can't say I like or hate all “I left my religion” memoirs any more than I could say I love or hate all fiction books. I've read some memoirs that are very gracious and well-written, and others where the author clearly meant it as an attack on their previous religion and the people who still believe in it.

There are two important things we have to understand about “I Left My Religion” memoirs:

1.) Those of us who joined a religion later on in life are in the same boat, in a way, because we traded in one belief system for another. Even if you did not “grow up religious”, you grew up with a set of beliefs about the world. If you joined a different religion, you probably rejected at least some of the beliefs you grew up with. If you are spiritually healthy, your beliefs will evolve over time, even if they don't drastically change. So I would caution anyone who has issues with “I left my religion” memoirs in general not to turn it into an “us versus them” thing.

2.) Whether or not an “I left my religion” memoir is positive or not depends on who the author claims is responsible for their wounds. The more negative authors tend to blame their ex-religion as a whole, as opposed to naming abusive behaviors and situations such as mind control, abuse, and cults. These are situations that can happen in any belief system, and it's possible to call them for what they are without attacking a specific religion or particular people.

Feel free to share your experience with “I left my religion” memoirs or “I joined a different religion” memoirs! I've love to hear what you all have to say!

Ask Kati: "Are you Conservative?"

I get this question a lot and it's a fair question, considering that I'm somewhat egaliatarian-ish and support “common sense” feminism, yet cover my hair and hardly ever wear pants anymore.

It depends on what you mean by “conservative.” In this instance people can either mean politically conservative culturally conservative, or theologically conservative. Since these are three very different things, my answer has three parts.

Politically, I definitely do not identify as conservative. I guess you could say I'm a moderate. I think liberals are right about some things, conservatives are right about others, and on other points both are right or both are wrong. I think we lose out on a lot when we care more about parties than about particular candidates and issues. But I really hate blogging about politics so I'm going to stop there.

Culturally, I suppose you could say I'm fairly conservative. Taking my husband's name when I got married meant a lot to me. I would much rather be referred to as “Mrs.” than “Ms.” because I am happily married and I'm not ashamed of that. Even before I became a Christian, I didn't think pre-marital sex was a smart idea, especially for teenagers. I'm not going to go so far as to say teenagers should never date. That being said, I'm also not going to encourage my teenagers to date in high school, for a number of reasons. Modesty has become pretty meaningful to me in the last couple of years. I wear long skirts almost all the time, and I have covered my head full-time for over two years. I don't think it's incompatible with feminism. If anything is incompatible with feminism, it's succumbing to societal pressures to flaunt everything you've got.

You could also say I'm theologically conservative, although this one is a little more complicated. I'm theologically conservative in the sense that I believe the Bible to be the only religious text that is fully true and free of error. (And for the record, I don't deny that there are some issues in translating Hebrew and Greek into English. The more I learn about those cultures and languages, the more I realize how much we lose trying to translate it into English. But that doesn't negate the truth of the Bible.) Every Christian has their own definition of “theologically conservative”, so I will have to elaborate more about my definition in a different post, but that is the gist of it. 

I love answering questions like this!  If there's anything you'd like to ask please leave it in the comments section and I'll do a post about it! 

Fasting From Self-Loathing

I have a love-hate relationship with the Lenten season, to be honest. I don't hate it, and most of the time it's spiritually meaningful to me. But I'm starting to have serious issues with this whole idea of giving something up for Lent. Maybe giving something up can be meaningful for some people, and if it is, I have no judgment against that. But are we giving these things up because G-d is leading us to, or because “everyone else is doing it?”

To be honest, giving up the things that most people give up for Lent (or, in some cases, try to give up) would not enhance my life or my spirituality in any significant way. I am a recovering anorexic, so any type of food fast would be a HORRIBLE idea. I run an Etsy shop, so fasting from the internet is out. I don't drink coffee that often, but on days I need it, you don't want to be around me until I've had it. So there goes that.

This year I was trying to discern if/how G-d was leading me to observe Lent this year, and He had an idea that blew my mind.

G-d asked me to give up self-loathing.

And I'll be honest: most of the time I'm simply trying to give up self loathing, but you know what? It's already life-changing. I can stand to be around myself. Heck, I actually like myself some of the time! I'm not plagued with that feeling of “Ugggh, I'm everywhere I go, I can't get away from myself!”

Now I'm not going to lie: Giving up self loathing, ok, trying to give up self-loathing is Freakin'. Hard. It's not as tangible as giving up coffee or the internet. It's as counter-cultural as you can get, and boy will you feel that. But this is important, because self-loathing is both extremely common and fatal. Think about it. You don't become suicidal if you love yourself.

After I posted on Facebook that I'm giving up self-loathing, a friend suggested the idea of taking something up for Lent, not just giving something up. I decided I'm taking up self-love.

Or rather, I'm trying to! ;)

A Winter-Bashing Parody of "My Favorite Things"

I'm sick of winter, to put it nicely.  I don't have the time or coinage to go someplace warm.  My car has gotten stuck three times in as many weeks.  So I decided to channel all this frustration into writing a parody of "My Favorite Things".  Here it is:

Warmth is a concept with which I am smitten;

I'm sick of wearing my parka and mittens;

I want this winter to melt into spring;

Ice and cold are very un-favorite things

I'm done with snowflakes that stay on my lashes;

I'm done with falling and getting red gashes

I want geese to fly back with sun on their wings

Ice and cold are very un-favorite things!

No more snowing;

No more skidding;

I am way past mad

I try to remember that spring will be here

And then I won't feel so bad!

Living With Both Eyes Open

I've mentioned several times on this blog that the past year and a half has been a rough season. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that there has been more pain in the last 18ish months than in the last ten years of my life. And those of you who know the more nitty-gritty details of my life know that that is really saying something.

Last summer I posted about leaving the conventional workforce and focusing on my Etsy shop. The hope was that my husband and I would be able to move out to a hobby farm this year when our lease is up, at which point I would have to be able to stay home full-time to keep everything running. Well, that depended on my husband breaking into the field of tech support and getting a better paying job. And while the job market for tech support is fairly decent in our neck of the woods, things still haven't been exactly happening on our timetable.

This led to a lot of frustration as well as a depression and anorexia relapse. I didn't talk much about it at the time, but this past fall was really tough. I was performing in my church's production of “It's A Wonderful Life: The Musical” but in all honesty, I didn't feel like I had a wonderful life.

Sometime around Christmas, I realized that I needed to make some changes, both in my attitude and my home environment. Since there is the very real possibility of living in my current apartment for at least another year or two, I needed to make it feel like more of a home. Since we're not allowed to paint the walls, this meant decorating. I got out my old books and handouts from when I was in rehab for the eating disorder and got my diet back on track. I also made the decision to go back into childcare on an extremely part-time basis, both to generate a little more income and to give myself a reason to actually get out of the house.

I've been trying to figure out how to explain where my mind is at right now. The only analogy I can come up with is having eyesight restored via surgery after being blind since birth. Being able to see would be awesome, but think about what an adjustment that would be. You'd have to learn when to turn lights on and off. You'd have to remember to bring sunglasses. You'd have to learn how to drive and maintain a car and heck, even filling it up would be a learning curve. You'd have to learn how to read print. If you hadn't been able to see color, you'd have that to get used to. It would cause serious changes in your life. It would be equal parts awesome and terrifying.

That's where I'm at. I'm so glad I'm back in recovery mode, but at the same time, the sheer magnitude of food choices and the world outside my apartment is a huge shock. I'll get used to the “new normal”, but it won't happen overnight.

Kid Stuff: homemade play dough

I got an iPhone a couple weeks ago, and I'm experimenting with adding pictures to the blog from the phone but still using the computer for most of the typing.  (No, I don't have a tablet.  Someday, hopefully!)  So please bear with me while I get the hang of this!

Now that I'm doing childcare again, I want to start sharing some of the crafts, recipes, etc. that I've done.   Today I tried making homemade play-dough using the recipe in one of my early childhood textbooks.

Homemade Play Dough:

2 cups flour

1 cup salt

2 cups water

2 Tablespoons oil (I used vegetable oil)

2 teaspoons cream of tartar

food coloring

Stir all ingredients over low heat until mixture has coagulated into  a dough.  Allow time for the dough to cool thoroughly.  I took the pot off the stove and covered it with a dish towel until it was mostly cool, then put it in containers.  While kids definitely need to be taught not to eat the dough, all the ingredients are edible and they would probably have to eat a ton of it before they'd even get a stomachache.  This recipe made two pint containers (shown here), and the recipe can easily be cut in half.  I will probably cut it in half for future recipes because I don't need that much.