crushing daisies - ways in which patriarchal fundamentalism harms its children #4

I've had the privileged opportunity to talk to the kids of some of my old fundy friends recently and hear about some others. Their stories share some common threads and I learned a whole lot from listening to them. Here are some brief notes on that:

• Kids leaving fundamentalism face some special challenges. Unlike most of their fleeing mothers they have no frame of reference to help them build a life in a world filled with ordinary folk. That capacity to harken back to our pre-fundy lives is probably one of the reasons that we as mothers were so slow to realise how damaging sheltering our children was: we understood the world and knew we would be able to re-engage at any time. Some of us lost sight of the fact that this was not true for our kids. 
• All the young people I've spoken to say they continue to struggle relating socially to peers into their late teens and twenties. They say it takes a long time to begin to feel 'normal' and lose that fear of a generalised evil they believe lurks in the world outside their homes. Even once their own experience has shown them that this was not wholly true, vestigial worry remains. Further, the guilt and self-hatred that some of them endure make developing normal relationships difficult. And often they are competent conversing with adults but just don't know how to do small talk with kids their age. These are crippling disabilities for a young adult.
• I'm saddened to hear that more than one of the girls has suffered from eating disorders as my own daughter K has. The lovely young woman I spoke with today told me that restricting her eating was her way of gaining control in a life that was micro-managed by her mother, and in which she suffered dreadful abuse at the hand of her father. When my daughter was being treated for her ED in an adolescent mental health unit, she commented that Pentecostal kids were significantly over-represented on the ward. I'd be interested in looking into that further.
• These girls who have fled fundamentalism with its strict modesty regulations seem to take a very special delight in girly things like glam shoes and pretty dresses. On so many levels patriarchal fundamentalism tells children that the things they think and feel are wrong and must be suppressed. It's a joy, but a little bit sad too, to see these gorgeous gals enjoying indulging their tastes without guilt.
• Growing up is hard anytime you do it but it's extra tough on kids who were kept 'young' and so had to make the journey in late adolescence - and often in a time of significant family upheaval. It's a testament to their resilience that they are growing into such lovely young adults. One young man told me that when he and his family left fundamentalism, they all threw a lot of babies out with the bathwater. He told me that, over time, he realised that he wanted to dust off some of those values and add them to the growing entity that is the adult he is choosing to become. He agreed with me that being a grown up and feeling equipped to make those kinds of decisions all by yourself is a very nice thing to be.

So that's some thoughts on the kids. But growing up is also hard - perhaps harder in some ways - for the middle-aged women who leave marriages and controlling church situations unused to navigating the myriad options available to them once rules are not a given. Some of us enjoy a brief revisiting of our teenage rebellious years. I suppose it's only natural to take some time to try out new freedoms and practice making discriminating choices.

One of the themes I've noted when hearing stories of child survivors of fundamentalism is that not every woman leaves in search of Integrity. I've heard about mothers who have ended their marriages and made moves to build new lives but who haven't really left behind a lot of the fundy baggage that caused them and their kids so much harm. Sadly, I've learned that more than one mother persistently refuses to canvas the possibility that they may be in some ways culpable for their children's suffering. They don't want to discuss it or they argue that things were not the way their child remembers. This causes their children a great deal of grief.

I empathise with the sorrow of those women but I am not able to sympathetise with their self-protective self-centredness. I understand that it is a frightening and distressing prospect to face the dreadful truth that some of your efforts to show your kids you love them more than breathing were misguided and have left them with scars. But our kids' recovery and growth seems to be linked to our own willingness to honestly accept that which is ours to own.

In my view, our children need us to be absolutely truthful in this regard. They need us to do some thinking about our mistakes, to approach them unbidden, to tell them they we understand how our beliefs and actions have harmed them, and to ask their forgiveness. More than once. And we need to be open to our kids approaching us with another bucketful of hurt, and another, and another. They need to know that we love them and we get it and that we are sad too. We need to let them tell the truth about how angry they have been, that even though they love us such a lot, they feel a need to say just how hurt they were by our mistakes.

I don't mean that we all move in to a perpetual Beat Up Mum Camp - we also need to know what is *not* ours to own. And as one of the young men I spoke to told me, 'I'm an adult now. My past has defined me to this point...but now I'm making decisions for myself, growing myself into the person I want to be.' At some point kids need to take responsibility for making the best of what they've been given. I just think that a mother's persistent refusal to allow them to revisit the past or to ask us to validate their feelings about it may actually inhibit their progress toward adulthood. And we don't have the right to do that, no matter how deeply it hurts to revisit our culpability in their suffering.

We mothers need to man up and hear what our kids need us to hear. I sincerely believe that every time we refuse to face a truth, every time we stick our fingers in our ears or manipulate our children into feeling that they should consider our sorrow ahead of their need to address issues from the past, we say 'No'  to growth. And that is a very dangerous thing to do. I believe we shrink a little bit each time we refuse the opportunity to take another baby step toward Integrity. I believe we need to embrace the pain that honesty brings us, to learn to love the agony of growth, to value Truth above all things.

There is no excuse for going easy on ourselves in this. Our children's healthy futures may depend on our opening our hearts to share in the truth as they see it. And the big payout is: every time we squeak open the door to those dark places, a shard of light rushes in and frightens away one of our own demons. And we find that we were wrong: the worst thing that can happen today is *not* that someone will confront us with something dreadful we may have done, but that, when that moment came, we didn't grab it with both hands.

crushing daisies - ways in which patriarchal fundamentalism harms its children #3

The crippling weight of sin-consciousness

I am likely to say this more than once here but one of the most important things I learned as I made my way out of delusion was that integrity is vital for mental health....it's vital for survival. In fact, I believe that when all is said and done, who we are and who we know ourselves to be is all we've got to offer ourselves, our families and the world.

The scary thing about delusion is, of course, that you can't see it. It's not just dummies that are drawn into cultic groups like QF patriarchal fundamentalism. A lot of clever, strong, thinking women find themselves there too. Getting dibs on a guru's formula which is guaranteed to please God and produce great kids is a big drawcard. And once you enter in Delusion begins to build a wall of ideology-protecting self-deceit around you. In the end, for many of us, it takes a major disaster to open our eyes.

The disaster works wonders because it activates a sledgehammer of truth that knocks a hole in our wall and lets in some honest light. And that helps us begin a journey that starts with telling ourselves some painful and frightening truths.

I adore my children. Admitting that my beliefs and practices had harmed them was truly agonising and something I did in increments as I was able to cope. But truth, in particular painful, life-altering truth like that, is the only way out of the prison cell that is legalistic delusion.

I've observed large numbers of women who have parented similarly to me. By and large they have produced disasters at both ends of the spectrum - either they have simpering, dominated 20-somethings still cringing around their dinner table, or rebels who busted out leaving an unsightly mess. While there is obvious collateral damage when kids are forced to fight their way to adulthood, injury is just as present in the quite, respectful ones who are of age but have failed as yet to make that journey. 

For some children, the element of their parents' faith that harms them the most is a fundamentalist view of the inherent sinfulness of humankind. That's how it was for my beautiful oldest son, D. 

We were pretty strict on D. He was our firstborn and we adored him. He was so smart, so funny, so lively. I remember saying that the saddest thing I could imagine was for a child to grow up in a home where the Saviour was known without ever having encountered the Christ for himself. I was going to make sure that didn't happen to my darling boy.

I read psalms to D before he was even born and thrilled that he jumped as though he enjoyed to hear them. I sang songs of God's wonderful love over his cradle. I taught him that God made him and loved him and wanted him to live a life of abundance and joy. In those days while I did use spanking as a method of discipline I believed I handled it as lovingly as was possible. D, as I often told him, was the most loved boy in all the world. He was my heartbeat, my breath.

But somehow D missed grace. I mean, he completely missed it. He got sin, and guilt, and judgement and hellfire alright. But he missed grace.

This grew D into a perfectionist who struggled to avoid mistakes at any cost. Inevitably, he would fail and this would lead him to go to lengths to conceal his wrongdoing and avoid subsequent consequences. Unlike my other children I don't ever remember a time when D came to me to say his conscience was bothering him and he wanted to get something off his chest. He would just wait until he was caught out, and then furiously deny his involvement.

When D finally would confess, he'd sob that he was foul and make promises that he would never, ever do it again. I would explain that he certainly was not foul but a flawed human like the rest of us. I'd remind him that he didn't have to carry the burden of his sin but as a much-loved son of God could come to the cross, lay it down and be free. D would repeat the prayers but the burden remained.

And I couldn't convince D that in his determination to be perfect in future he was setting himself up for inevitable failure and self-condemnation. He simply couldn't grasp that we all make mistakes and need then to say so, make amends, seek forgiveness, brush it off and move on. D dealt with the weight of guilty feelings with a never-ending regime of internal self-flagellation and continued to conceal and vehemently deny even minor contraventions of the rules.

I didn't realise the degree to which D was living in fear of being overwhelmed by the monster Sin that apparently lived inside him, crouching and ready to drag him off to misery and damnation. As he grew older these fears left him unconvinced of his intrinsic wonderfulness - no matter how often I told him it was so - and unable to grow into the strong man I always known he was born to be. D wore every little misdemeanor he had committed on his back and remained unable or unwilling to lay a single one down and find forgiveness and freedom.

Ultimately D's fear, spiritual emptiness and lack of self-esteem made him an easy target for the advances of M, a self-appointed leader in the Christian homeschool movement and a trusted friend of many years. At the time we failed to discern what we see so plainly now - M was also an accomplished sexual predator. I think it may have been after D's sixth suicide attempt that he finally began to disclose the nature and extend of M's abuse. 

My precious son has attempted to take his life more than 10 times now and has literally hundreds of appalling scars all over his body where he has cut himself horribly with knives. Last year D spent more than 5 months in a psychiatric hospital where he diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and possibly Borderline Personality Disorder. Currently he on a concoction of meds including anti-psychotics, is not able to work or study and has lost all his friends. He self-medicates with drugs and alcohol in an attempt to dull the pain of his traumatic memories. If you had known D before he was abused, you would never believe he could come to this.

It has been a challenging couple of years for all of us. For months I hardly slept as I struggled to find a strategy for living with the unrelenting dread that is part of awaiting the next horrific incidence of suicidality or self-mutilation. During the worst times I would not be sure if I was going to faint or vomit any time the phone rang so often had calls brought terrible news. It took me time to learn how to love my son while keeping my own heart safe. I still very much feel for D but I no longer am at risk of being destroyed by internalising his pain. Efficient compartmentalising has become a matter of survival.

Whatever the Bible says about vengefulness, the day D finds it in himself to report M to the police will be a happy one for me. I would gladly see the bastard who stole my son's soul get some of his own back in prison and I don't care who knows it.

But however much it hurts, it's really important that I accept responsibility for the part I played in D's sad story. Thankfully, our relationship remains good and strong. Just yesterday when he was visiting we talked about this again. I believe it strengthens him to be reminded that some of the things he struggles with were produced by the unbalanced sin-consiousness that his dad and I mistakenly imposed on him when he was little. It helps him to know that others have come out and recovered. It helps him to know that I am so very, very sorry. 

D is both gracious and increasingly realistic. He's glad to be able to talk about the difficult parts of his childhood without fear that I'll take offense and he reiterates that he knows I was sincerely trying to love him the best way I knew how. But he rightly agrees that I made some very bad choices and that he has been hurt by them. Truth is a very powerful medicine. I like to believe that each time we squeak open a door and welcome a little more truth into both our hearts, we get one baby step closer to D being well again.

Those domineering parents like 'Leigh', who played the Jonathan Lindvall 'obedient adult children' card so well that they succeeded in preventing their teens from wriggling out of the nest and into healthy adultood really frighten me. I've made a lot of mistakes but when I realised my beliefs were harming my children - and it's pretty hard not to notice when they find their voices in their teens - I dumped my bundle. I chose to love my kids first and figure out the rest second. I get it that I will be criticised for that in some circles but I'd suffer any punishment rather than turn my back on my kids when they are floundering as I've seen some parents do. Owning our mistakes is the only way out of delusion and self-deceit and on to integrity. And come what may I'm going there.

Sin doesn't figure in my conversations with my kids now. They hear enough of that from their dad who rarely lets the opportunity of a good finger wagging condemn-a-thon slip by. At my house we focus on how fabulous my kids are, how emotionally intelligent, how intuitive, how capable. I listen to them and tell them to listen to their own hearts, to trust their instincts and to know when to seek wise advice. I encourage them that they are capable of making good choices. Sure, they'll make some lousy ones, we all do, but we are learning how to admit it when we screw up, make amends, seek forgiveness - forgive ourselves - and move on.

I want my kids to be emotionally healthy, growing, thriving and courageous. I want them to be adventurous, to walk boldly into the world trusting that they really can do great things. I want them to be aware there is real evil out there, but to live confidently, unafraid of a sin-monster within that dooms them to live as pathetic slaves to their own wicked desires. I want my kids to be flawed but fabulous. I want them to be free. That's what legalistic fundamentalism stole from D. That's what he's missing.

D has had a pretty good couple of weeks. The depression which constitutes a large part of his illness has given him a few hours reprieve most days. He's been good company when he has come to stay and is talking about the future and maybe even applying for university one day. I know enough to realise that this is a journey of 10, 000 steps many of them backward but nevertheless it's encouraging. I hold on to the firm hope that the time will come when D is not just functional but truly well, thriving and making the most of the wonderful gifts God has given him.

I believe it and I'm waiting.

out fundying the fundies

 

pilfered with thanks from stufffundieslike.com

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Warning: this post may contain traces of nuts

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Coming out of a cult-like mindset is a journey of a thousand steps. As I've said before, for me it was discovering an increasing number of things I didn't share with the QF/Christian patriarchal/Fundamentalist camp that formed a large slice of my escapee education pie. 'Leigh' (not her real  name) unwittingly taught me one of my most memorable lessons.

I first heard of Leigh when a mutual, and very lovely, fundy friend asked if we could put Leigh and her son up for the night at short notice. My friend regularly had them to stay but unexpected circumstances prevented her offering a room this time. I said I'd be happy to find them some space.

Leigh and her 23 year old son James (also not his real name) needed to fly to across the continent two or three times each year. James was studying a Bachelor of Music through a university in a city near us and was periodically required to attend in person to sit his exams. Apparently this was the only uni in Australia that offered the course James wanted to study but allowed students to complete it from home. Home university - within limited approved course choices - is pretty popular in QF circles.

Leigh arrived in a particularly dull and dowdy home-made floral frock, her uncut hair wound up tight in a bun and wrapped in a crochetted 'covering'. This bun cover was not intended to be decorative but was worn as a religious garment, a symbol of her submission to her husband. Leigh wore no make up or jewellery, her calves were swathed in a pair of peculiar fuzzy socks and I'd seen more stylish footwear on psych ward night nurses.

It quickly became apparent that Leigh liked to hold court from a position squarely in the centre of things. She fended off all direct contact with James. Whenever we could get the lad to answer a question for himself Leigh would either finish his sentences for him or chip in and correct the details with a brusque, 'No, no, James. It wasn't like that!' It seemed James was used to being harried by his mother but, despite his charming manners and respectful fascade, there were unmistakable signs he was embarrassed and annoyed at her constant chiding. I managed to get Leigh's to loosen her grip once or twice and allow James to play table tennis with my boys in another room. The boys said James was transformed from a nervous, twitching mummy's boy into a regular, jovial bloke at these times.

Leigh, not unexpectedly, turned out to be one of those fundies who likes to let loose every hobby horse in her not-inconsiderable stable right up front without regard to the possible opinions of her beleaguered audience. Indeed, she didn't allow for alternate positions at all but treated us to an unabated tub thumping from the moment she arrived until she finally was forced to sleep that night. I've met a lot of these sorts of fundies and suspect they persist in such thick-skinned, anti-social, brow-beating monologues in part because of a short-sighted assumption that if one has 'Christian homeschooler' tattooed across one's forehead one must also be in happy receipt of the whole box and dice. In addition, I suspect they think it good policy on the off chance they have struck some poor fellow not fully right-minded quite yet. Then, as their victim is lucky enough to be in attendance while the fundy pursues their favourite subjects ad nauseum and without drawing breath, there is a fair possibility the wayward one may be brought round. I'm ashamed to say I have indulged in this sort of arrogance myself on many occasions.

So...Leigh began by holding forth on the 'right' kind of homeschooling. ACE, of course. I gathered as she continued that in general the only 'suitable' material for the consumption of children was overtly Christian both in authorship and message. She assumed we were in agreement about the evil practice of reading literature containing animals or inanimate objects that talk. The kids smiles froze and they shot panicked glances my way. I crossed my fingers and hoped Leigh wouldn't look too closely at any of my many bookcases containing as they did contraband favourites such as The Hobbit and D'Aulaires Book of Greek Myths. Still hoping she wasn't a Pantry Checker (I've known a few), I made a metal note to remove my wine to a safer location under my bed just in case.

Leigh went on to treat us to sermons on modesty and feminine submission. My girls and I were past wearing skirts by this time but, suspecting our houseguest may tend to the conservative side, I had dug one out for myself so as not to cause offense. I had stopped short of imposing that on my girls.

At that precise moment twelve-year-old K unwittingly entered the room dressed modestly enough in jeans and a blouse. It was now that Leigh revealed she had rebellion-spotting super powers. These enabled her to detect the tell-tale whiff of a rebellious seed '...even as young as 12...' She narrowed her eyes to suspicious slits and cast a despising glance K's way. Leigh had, apparently, the only 'saved' kids left in town. She said they started homeschooling with 40 other children each and every one of whom she assured us had 'gone off the rails'. She said that she was well-known for being the only parent of their acquainance who had been able to raise 'godly' children. Subsequently, Leigh volunteered a deal of her time to support less successful mothers in their grief. Occasionally she took one or two wayward souls into her home for a time, fixed them and then sent them back home for their hapless mothers to ruin again.

At one point I asked Leigh why she accompanied James each time he flew to Queensland. I thought she must have friends or relatives nearby that she wanted to visit. With a disappointed look, Leigh, sat up a little straighter and explained that obviously it wasn't safe for James to catch a plane and then a bus on his own so she came along every time to make sure that he'd be safe. What made Leigh think she'd be able to keep a grown man safer than he could keep himself was not specified.

As it happened, I'd managed to kick the hobby horse closest to Leigh's heart. She took the opportunity to explain that she lived on a farm (brownie points there for sure) and shopped in the small, quiet country town nearby. But, she said, she would never let her two girls - aged 18 and 21 - walk from one end of town to the other, a distance of some 500 metres, unchaperoned even when she was shopping nearby. She was worried that men might try and....I'm not exactly sure what men might try and do but it was something and it was bad. Consequently, her girls had attained adulthood with virtually no opportunity for unsupervised conversation with a non-family member. 

Leigh had chosen careers for all her children that would keep them safely with mama for the long haul. She and her husband had built a music studio in their home so that James could try and earn a living teaching piano and still be able to eat all his meals with his ma. Leigh had helped her daughters establish a business making and selling modest clothing to other fundy women. The business name was based on 1 Timothy 4:12 and revealed the object was not just to keep certain body bits under wraps but to be - and be seen to be - better than everyone else because of your exemplary dress standards. Anyway, those young adults were kept safely under Mother's gimlet eye 24/7 and were apparently not due for parole any time soon.

It eventually became plain that the rest of James' life was pretty well stitched up for him. He had managed to select a prospective life partner from a mother-approved shortlist. This gal was from a similarly-minded fundy family who lived in another state. (It is common for QF families to start making connections like these as their children reach their teens - marriage partners not being thick on the ground in your average homeschool kitchen. In Australia ACE families seem to do this best.) James had met his chosen at a fundy-only 21st birthday party and after much prayer and character-sussing on both sides a betrothal contract agreeable to both families was negotiated.

All that remained was for the lass to come and enjoy an extended visit where she would be subject to a final bout of scrutiny from her mother-in-law-to-be. In due time James' beloved arrived, endured 10 days with Leigh, then rushed home to her own mother refusing to speak to James or any of his family ever again. This hard-heartedness despite Leigh's offer to section off a bit of unsaleable land on which James could erect a house for himself and his bride, and a promise that, faithful matriarch, Leigh would be on hand every single day to mentor the poor ignorant thing and help her properly raise the hoped-for tribe of grandchildren. Ungrateful wench! Leigh could not find it in her heart to forgive the girl or her family and would not brook my gentle suggestion that it was perhaps better after all to call it off now than after the wedding.

Don't ask my K about bedtime that night unless you want an earful. At 8.30, after phoning her husband and tersely delivering a full menu of instructions and reminders, Leigh announced that it was well past James' bedtime and insisted he head off at once. James offered a sheepish goodnight to my pre-teen children who were still up and about and headed obediently for his nigh-nighs. And he almost escaped without further humiliation. At the last moment though Leigh called him back, offered her cheek and insisted on a 'kiss for Mummy'. Honestly, we were all starting to feel a little ill.

The following morning Leigh was up and floral-frocked nice and early. She wandered the halls for over an hour (I kid you not) until everyone had seen her with her Bible (in hand-made quilted cover) and so knew she'd been at her 'devotions' while we were all still dribbling on our pillows. It was the day of James' big exam so I asked him what he'd like to eat. He cast a worried glance at his mother whose glare left us in no doubt that I was sadly mistaken if I thought James was the honoured guest at this little party. Nevertheless I made James coffee, bacon and eggs and porridge and told him to help himself and have as much as he liked and not feel it was too much trouble. Leigh was pissed at all the attention James was receiving and also because, the service being a little slower than usual that morning, she had to shout from the dining room and hurry me along with her cutlery. All this without a word of a lie. And there was so, much, more more besides.

Leigh is not exactly typical of the women I met in QF fundamentalism. Certainly, she was uncharacteristically rude. But her meanness and self-absorption aside she is really only slightly more extreme in her views than many - both women and men - I knew personally. Still I was staggered at her self-rightousness and the depth of her self-deception and appalled at the abusive and inappropriate control she inflicted on her children

Truthfully, Leigh scared the shite out of me. I realised that Delusion was a near and dangerous enemy and wondered if I was looking at a portrait of me in twenty years time. I determined then to ask others to hold me accountable as I searched my heart and pleaded with God to show me whether I might be on the same path. I told every friend who would lend me an ear about Leigh and reminded them that if they saw characteristics like that in me and didn't tell me, they couldn't rightly say they loved me. I decided I didn't want to build myself into the kind of woman whose kids don't visit her once they are given the choice. It was a good plan.

Sadly, although Leigh is a shocker she is not unique. Neither was she relegated to the outer corners of QF Fundidom. Leigh had real cred and was an honoured stateswoman in the QF pool in which she swam. I don't doubt she had moulded many, many young women in her image over the years. I met her when I was already on the way to asking some difficult questions about the belief igloo I'd built around myself and my family. Consequently, Leigh repelled rather than attracted me. I wonder how I'd have responded if I'd still been in the throws of fullest QF zeal. I know this for sure, if she came to stay today I wouldn't fail to challenge her nonsense. What a coward I was then.

James was a nice young guy though and I suspect he'll make a decentish sort of man if he can ever get out from under his mother's thumb. Perhaps he has. I sure hope so.

I'd also like to say that I hope this post serves to more clearly define the parameters of fundamentalism such as I will use the term on this blog. When I say fundy, I mean legalistic, self-righteous, delusional folk like Leigh. Sometimes I'll be referring to homeschooling, homebirthing, home churching, home businessing, frock-wearing, KJV 1611 sorts. Other times I'll include independant conservative and charistmatic/pentecostal believers.  I do not mean to cast my net around Christians who simply believe the Bible is true and seek to live as though Christ is real - whatever I happen to believe myself. I fully intend to criticise a bunch of church practices that may be common across the board but I want it known that I love and respect many of the mainstream Christians I know who identify positively with the term Fundamentalism as they understand it.

And, I should note too that I have a lot of love and respect for QFers who are sincere believers and seekers after the truth - whether they are still in or have found their way out. But I'm not wasting any warm fuzzies on Leigh or her sort.

she is not tame

 

"So you think you can stone me and spit in my eye
So you think you can love me and leave me to die
Oh, baby, can't do this to me, baby
Just gotta get out, just gotta get right outta here"

A common thread amongst the women I know who have come out of patriarchal fundamentalism is that they revisted their teen rebel stage in one degree or another as they fled. This was certainly true for me. I suppose that's because I willingly gave away my adventurous youth as I entered Christianity when I was 19.

Some of the things I did as I clawed my way to freedom were rather silly, others were more lastingly meaningful. While my ex- and I were still separated under the one roof, I remember going in to a music store and feeling very daring purchasing a Queen album. Playing Bohemian Rhapsody LOUD while I did the vacuuming was a little bit empowering. And I admit I liked the shock value it provided for the X-man. And, if I'm honest, I just enjoyed pissing him off with my 'racket'.

Shortly after that in a fit of giggles my friend L and I had our noses pierced. I've taken mine out now but at the time that little diamante stud was a little symbol of my personhood, a glimmer of the me that 25 years of patriarchal fundamentalism had not been able to tame. I also reinserted the 7 earrings I had worn during my punk days. I've taken most of them out but still wear my helix ring. I haven't gone and got a tattoo but it's feels nice to know that I could if I wanted to.

I gave up so much to become a Christian - much of which was absolutely harmless and did not need to go. I remember burning my Eagles records on a huge bonfire in the grounds of the charismatic church I first attended. One girl 'manifested a demon' as her Madonna LPs went up in smoke further fueling our anti-satanic zeal. Later I gave up all 'secular' music, television and movies and some years later threw away my jeans, jewellery and makeup. It might sound silly but a small part of me died as I relinquished each of those seemingly unimportant preferences.

My 17 year old daughter K tells me that in her darkest hours she found a catharsis in screaming cuss words. That may seem strange to some but I can understand how a girl who felt herself without a voice and full of suppressed rage might discover empowerment in making a lot of angry noise. She wouldn't be the first to have discovered the powerful therapeutic effect of a well-timed obscenity.

Christianity, if it is worth anything at all, is surely not about what believers *don't* do but what they *do*. It is not found in what they turn away from but what they turn towards and pursue with all their hearts. Either Jesus Christ is so intrinsically wonderful that knowing him becomes the foundation and joy of our lives or none of it is worth a tinker's cuss. Whether I drink a glass of wine and whether my kids play with Barbies matters not one jot. When it is all boiled down integrity - who you are and know yourself to be - is all we've got.

I now cannot imagine that a man of any worth would want a tame woman running his errands and sharing his bed. The wildness and power of women allowed to be truly themselves is surely a much more exciting prospect.