In Which I Explain How Canvassing Led To Atheism

July 27, 2015

 

I promised this post to a group of Ex Sevys, and thought it would be easier to post it here than to try and hook up something up to my fakebook account.

For those who are lucky enough not to know, Canvassing is what Adventists call Literature Evangelism. It basically means going door to door with religious books and trying to sell them. The reasons they try to sell them instead of just give them away are as follows:

1.  If people pay money for a book, they value it more. This makes them more likely to read it, and less likely to throw it in the trash can. I agreed with this principle, as I’ve seen churches send out mass mailings of The Great Controversy, and I know that a lot of those books end up in the garbage cans because people don’t want it and don’t know what to do with it.

2. Let’s face it, book printing is expensive. What we were selling the books for barely even covered the cost of making them, but it helped.

Selling religious books is seen as a way to evangelize. Ellen White, the Adventist prophet, was a very strong supporter of this, and wrote about it constantly. At my interview, I was given a book of compilations of her writings on the subject. It wasn’t a terribly thick book (for once) but it was good sized.

Actually, I was already an ex Adventist when I signed up for canvassing. However, I was still a Christian, and I was running with an Adventist group at school because Adventism was what I knew growing up, and it aligned closest with my theological beliefs.

I had some reservations about canvassing. I didn’t believe in Ellen White as a prophet…. how could I sell her books? I also didn’t agree with door to door sales…. how could I participate in something I was uncomfortable with? I believed in Jesus and his love, but not half the other things Adventists where selling, and definitely nothing out of The Great Controversy, which is THE book they want you to try and sell.

However, I wanted to love God. It bothered me that I did not love God. Even at my fundiest, I never loved God. I wanted to love God. I wanted to share his love with people. I was promised by veterans of the canvassing program that canvassing had helped them grow so much closer to God, and they just loved him so much. Also, they had had these amazing experiences where they got to reach out and help people.

So I put my reservations aside for 3 months, and signed up for canvassing.

I wrote about a lot of my experiences in canvassing on this blog, so I won’t get into them too much. If you want to find them, they are the first year’s worth of entries.

Right away, it was clear that I did not fit in with the others. In fact, I almost got kicked out 4 times. I’ll talk about that later if you want, but it’s not really relevant right now.

According to my journal entries that I don’t remember writing, I began to question God pretty early on. I have a mental illness, and for the longest time I’ve been wanting help. Well, my friend Callie said she could probably get someone she knew who was a counselor to talk to me. I was excited about this. I wanted to get my life together. However, the person she was referring to refused, on account of he has a penis and I have a vagina, and you all know what THAT leads to.

How could god exist? how could a God exist who would want that and think this was good? Didn’t God understand professional relationships vs private ones? What kind of a God would TELL someone that a penis and a vagina could never be alone in the same room together or they’d end up boinking?

However, I did the same as I always did with questions that, after searching and praying and seeking out advice from others, I could not find satisfactory answers to: conceal it, don’t feel it; don’t let it show.

About a month into canvassing, my friend Callie told me that she’d prayed about it, and God had told her to not speak to me for a while, at least until I learned to love God more than her.

Now, a break from me was probably what she needed. I have mental issues, and I can get rather clingy. If she had been up front about that, if she had just said, “Hey Abby, you’ve been really clingy lately and I just need some space,” I would’ve been ok with that. I would still have been sad, but I would have accepted it and known that this was what she felt she needed in order to remain friends with me.

I even asked her if that was what this was about. She said no, that I loved and relied on her more than I relied on Jesus, and that needed to stop. And….. after that, all mental hell broke lose. In all of this, Callie was the one friend I had trusted the most, and in the time I most needed her, she left me.

And all my questions had to be put aside. I had to love Jesus. I had to. I had to so that Callie would talk to me again…. but no, if I think like that, then it’s about Callie, not Jesus. I have to learn to love Jesus….

If Callie had done one thing that would ensure that I would never love Jesus more than her, this was it. From now one, loving Jesus and loving Callie were one and the same, because without one, I could not have the other.

Every time I tried to love Jesus more, some small part of my brain would pipe up “and then maybe Callie will speak to me again!”

And then I would feel guilty for thinking about Callie when I was supposed to be thinking about Jesus.

The guilt…. oh satan the guilt! This mental gymnastics went around in circles….

And wouldn’t God have known that? Wouldn’t he have known that this would only intertwine things more closely, so that I could not sort out loving God from loving Callie? Wouldn’t an all knowing God know that this was a bad idea?

No, god is real. Conceal it, don’t feel it. Don’t let it show.

How does one get to the point where they love Jesus? I asked James, who told me to read the bible, particularly the gospels, in conjunction with the Desire of Ages (Ellen White book about the life of Christ.) Instead, I opted to read Christ’s Object Lessons, which is about the parables of Jesus specifically.

And so, the one and only time I ever got picked to do a morning worship talk, I talked about a chapter from Christ’s Object Lessons. I vaguely remember the chapter I was reading. It was some minor tidbit about Judas, and the discrepancy was over exactly WHEN he’d left the priests to go betray Jesus. Or when he left to go hang himself…. or something. Can’t remember exactly what, but it had to do with Judas.

Now, I did not believe in Ellen White as a prophet, and had not since the age of 15. However, when one is immersed in the brainwashing, stuff creeps in around the edges. My unconscious compromise was that, where Ellen White contradicted modern science and psychology, she was wrong. Wherever she talked about the bible, or science had no opinion one way or the other, she was right. I was not conscious that I was doing this.

Not only did Ellen White contradict the bible, the bible contradicted the bible. In all 2 gospels that discuss this (or it might have been 3, I don’t remember) it was different. It was a minor detail, surely I could ignore it? No, because all Adventists read the bible this way; in the most literal way possible, and God’s word never changes. Ever. Sooooo what the fuck was it doing contradicting each other?

All of a sudden, all the contradictions I’d noticed in the bible over the years but stuffed down deep inside when I had no answers came rushing back to the surface. Ellen White contradicted the bible. The bible contradicted itself. Ethics and morals in general contradicted the bible.

I spent the summer praying a lot, and at the end, God told me, and very firmly, that I was not to be involved in ministry. That this was his purpose in taking me canvassing, to show me this. I accepted this, and was at peace with his decision.

That night I was talking to my friend and team leader, James. Apparently, God had told him that, now that I had a whopping 3 months of canvassing under my belt, I was just perfect for the ministry. Next year at school I was to be involved in giving bible studies, speaking more often at Wed night bible study (I do have a talent for pubic speaking, shame I’ll never get to use it again.), etc. I was going to do all this work for the Lord! James was really excited about all this. He was really going to disciple me, and become my mentor.

I told James that God had told me the exact opposite, that God had shown me these past 3 months that he did not want me in the ministry at all.

James countered back that God had told him that I should be in ministry, and of course he was the one listening to the “right” Jesus, whatever that meant.

I was very very confused.

But I couldn’t think about it. If I wanted my best friend Callie back, I couldn’t think about it. Otherwise, Callie would never speak to me again. Jesus would tell her I still loved her more than him, and that’d be the end of it. Even worse than that, I wouldn’t love Jesus if I thought he wasn’t real. And loving Jesus was something I did want, at the time.

So I stuffed the confusion and questions down deep inside me, same as I always did when I had questions that, after prayer and bible study and seeking the advice of pastors, I couldn’t find answers to. Conceal it, don’t feel it, don’t let it show. Love Jesus. You have to, or you’ll never hear from your best friend again. Also, you’ll never love Jesus.

Callie eventually did start speaking to me again, sometime in late September or early October.

All I could feel was relief that it was no longer so urgent that I learn to love Jesus, and that made me feel angry. I had wanted to love Jesus, regardless of whether or not I got my best friend back. And now, it seemed that all that had really mattered to me while I was trying to love Jesus was that I wanted my best friend back?

I was even more confused now than I was in canvassing.

I couldn’t stuff things down anymore, I just couldn’t. “Conceal, don’t feel” wasn’t working, and all the doubts and questions I had ever had in my life came boiling to the surface like a volcano. I stopped going to bible study, I stopped going to classes. Going to work was the only thing I COULD do. I failed every single class that last semester.

I spent most of my time researching whether or not god was real.This took up the entire portion of the schoolyear and the summer after that.

Then there was some drama that went down, about a year after canvassing, this was, with the pastor of the local SDA church. He acted like a total asshole, and it took me months to deal with the fallout. When the dust settled, I returned back to the question of “is there a god,” and found out that my faith was just gone. There were other things besides canvassing that led up to this, and there are other reasons why I came to this conclusion. However, canvassing was the catalyst that triggered the whole thing, or at least, expedited a process that could’ve easily taken another decade.

This has been by far the most devastating experience of my life, but, I’m glad it happened now while I am still young. Now I can begin the process of picking up the pieces and starting over.

It has been two years since I left Christianity, and 11 since I left Adventism. It has been the hardest experience of my life, but through it all, through the dark times, the darker times, and the utter loneliness and isolation I feel after losing my whole community, I knew that I had made the right decision. There is no going back, and I have no regrets.

McGee and Me, Episode 4: Twister and Shout

The bible verse of the day is Psalm 23.

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2     He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3     he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
    for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk
    through the darkest valley,[a]
I will fear no evil,
    for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
    they comfort me.

5 You prepare a table before me
    in the presence of my enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
    my cup overflows.
6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me
    all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
    forever.

During the psalm reading, we get to watch McGee. First he goes fishing by a nice stream with green grass. Then he gets pulled into the water by a tiger shark, which is depicted as an orange shark with black stripes. Sigh. As someone who occasionally dabbles in elasmobranchology, (YES WordPress that IS a word) this kind of makes me cringe.

And for the record, I was rooting for the shark because McGee annoys me greatly.  Anyway, McGee  God defeats the shark, and then God prepares a banquet for McGee in the presence of the shark, who is in a fish tank with a bandaid. Poor shark. It is way too big for that tiny little fishbowl. Somebody should report him to The Society for the Protection of Pet Sharks. Or something.

Nick opens the episode by saying that something weird must happen to you once you turn 14.

Well, yeah, dude, it’s called HORMONES.

The episode, however, does not agree with me.

Nick’s older sister Sarah turned 14 recently and she’s been acting weird. Not, Nick assures us, that she was ever normal to begin with. Right as he says this, Sarah throws what looks like a grape into the air and tries to catch it in her mouth, then laughs and shakes her head when she misses.

Apparently Louis is spending the weekend at Nick’s house, and Sarah is babysitting. Oh, and she’s babysitting this other little kid, whatshername. Because the small child who played Jamie was sick that day, so they needed another little girl. Actually I don’t really know that, but neither she nor grandma are in this episode. The official in movie explanation is that grandma and Jamie have gone to visit relatives. I think this is a way to get rid of grandma, because it lessens the tension if there’s an actual adult in the house. As for the kid change, I’m going to assume it’s to shoehorn in some preaching later, setting up a possible conversion scene for future episodes.

Nick and Sarah’s mom and dad are giving her last minute instructions, as they are going out to the press club awards and won’t be back till later that night. Mom and dad’s friend whatshername (No, we never do get a name for her) drops off her little girl: Renee.

Nick’s mom is wearing the UGLIEST dress. I think I saw this exact dress on a doll once, and I had to take a seam ripper to it to make it even semi acceptable.

Even for the 1990s this was bad!

Mom keeps telling Sarah the emergency numbers are on the refrigerator, but we get a clear shot of it in the background, and there is NOTHING on that refrigerator. Which is odd, because Nickolas is always drawing, and you’d think his parents would have the darn thing covered in drawings by now.

Anyway, Sarah says it’s no big deal to watch Renee, because “what’s one more munchkin.”

After more worrying and fretting, and McGee yelling at her to take the dog out –for good (It’s the dog’s house McGee, you don’t like it, you move out.) the parents leave, and Sarah sets the ground rules.

1. Don’t bother me

hmmm. I like this rule.

2. Stay off the phone

If she wants to keep the line open in case mom and dad call, that makes sense. It’s never explained, though, leaving it open to interpretation as to whether or not Sarah is being selfish.

3. I’m not going to spend all night playing referee, so try and act a little more mature than usual.

Reasonable, but I think she could phrase it better.

4. Basically, do whatever I say, whenever I say it.

Yeah, even  I would hate her for that one.

The next scene shows Louis and Nick chasing Sarah and Renee around the kitchen, to “teach Sarah a little respect.” They then set a fake mouse on the girls that makes them scream.

Next we are shown Mom and dad at the press club awards, where everyone congratulates them and Nick’s dad is fake humble about the acceptance speech that he’s been practicing in the shower.

I’ve heard of shower singers, but shower speeches? is that a thing?

Nick’s mom says she brought an umbrella because it looked like rain, which is our cue to tune back in to Sarah and Renee getting their revenge on Nickolas and Louis by putting a bucket of water above the door which dumps on them when they open it. Sarah then declares a truce, because they’re all even. She declares an end to the practical jokes.

Nick complains about Sarah having declared a truce only after she’d won. Really Nickolas, really? You totally got her twice, and when she decides to only get back at you ONCE and declare herself done, you have the nerve to complain?

He throws a fit, saying Sarah can’t just say it’s over and have it mean it’s over. Which, yes she can, she is in charge, and really, someone needs to put a stop this before someone gets really hurt, or the house gets destroyed. Or both.

Nick: “I’m not just some little kid you can boss around!”

Sarah: “Yes you are,”

Which, as everyone knows, is the worst response ever.

I’m going to pause here to note that Sarah and Nick are brother and sister in real life, so I have to wonder how much of this sibling rivalry is actually acting.

Nick: I’m 11 years old!

Sarah: I’m sure that seems old to you, but to the rest of the world, you’re still a kid.

Nick: Oh like 14 makes you an adult!

Well, actually Nick, in some cultures….

Let’s not get into that.

It’s raining. Nick and McGee are plotting revenge. I don’t care. And not just because it’s not the main plot point of the episode, it’s because I don’t care that Nick is sulking.

Nick gets scared by the lightening and thunder and goes downstairs “In case anyone else is scared” and is disappointed when they’re not. Sarah asks what his “major malfunction” is.

We’re not supposed to like Sarah in this episode, and yeah she is being kinda rude, but I don’t blame her for not being so friendly toward Nick after he sprayed her with silly string and scared her with a robotic mouse thing, then got all upset when she tried to end the war before it got out of hand. When Nick approached suddenly, she probably thought he was coming at her with water balloons or something.

The parents, back at the award ceremony, are trying to call the kids because they’re worried. They’re not getting through because Nick is calling “every 2 seconds” trying to win concert tickets. Poor Sarah, not very good at enforcing the rules, is she?

Just then the TV comes on with a notice that a tornado is extremely likely to form. And I immediately have flashbacks to every single campmeeting I ever went to.

Sarah, Louis and Renee look worried. Sarah changes the channel.

McGee goes into an animation of him being chased by a tornado with teeth. I wish it had gotten him.

You know, I really don’t understand the point of McGee in this episode. He has nothing to do with anything related to the plot, is absent for large portions of the episode, and when he does show up, it’s to make Wizard of Oz jokes that are completely unrelated to anything else.

Get it? Wizard of Oz? Because Tornado? Get it?

We cut to Nick’s parents, where we learn that the phone is dead. I’m not sure if Nick’s dad means the phone on their end is dead, or their house phone is dead.

A woman comes rushing up to them, exclaiming, “this storm has caught everyone by surprise! The power is down and the lights are out all over.”

This despite the fact that the lights right next to her are on. So “all over” apparently means, “everywhere but here.” Her dress is much nicer than Nick’s mom’s. It actually looks like a nice dress you’d wear someplace not a funeral home. Anyway, Red Dress informs mom and dad that a tornado has been spotted near their house.

The parents are freaking the ever loving fuck out because they can’t get a message to them. Oh noes!!! the kids will not know what to dooooooooo.

Sarah is 14. She’s young, but she’s not stupid. I’m not entirely sure what state this takes place in, but, having lived my whole life in a state not exactly known for being tornado alley, even I know to

1. Go to the basement

2. Or a room without windows

3. For the love of GOD stay away from the windows

4. Try not to touch anything that could conduct lightening

5. Do not go outside to watch the tornado.

 

Am I forgetting anything? Oh yeah

6. Pray. It won’t actually help anything, but it’ll make you feel better and give you something to concentrate on.

Sarah’s parents would have told her this, and, while they’d still worry, they’d know she was smart enough to remember what they told her to do in case of tornado.
Nick’s dad declares that all they can do is pray that their children will be alright. He hugs Nick’s Mom. Red dress comes up to them and says, “that’s something I haven’t done in a while.”

She’s referring to the praying, I think, not the hugging. Although given that we later find out she’s divorced, I could be wrong.

This is their cue to switch back to Sarah and co, who are laughing in front of the TV, minus Nick, who is presumably still trying to win concert tickets. Or plot his revenge. Or sneak ice cream out of the freezer when Sarah’s otherwise occupied.

An alert comes on TV (Remember when TV just interrupted your shows with severe weather alerts? Ah, the good old days.) that a tornado has been spotted in the area.

Sarah’s response to this is the same as it was last time: she changes the channel. Does… does she think that will solve the problem? Do the directors of this film know how real humans behave?

Renee asks if they should all move to the basement. Nick says that would be a great idea –if it wasn’t flooded.

Everyone starts shooting out ideas of what they’re supposed to do. These include:

1. Hide in a ditch somewhere
2. Gather in the center of the house
3. Open a window
4. open a door
5. open 2 windows, one on each side of the house.
6. open the refrigerator, so I can put the ice cream away

Option 4 makes the most sense to me*,but they all end up going for option 5. Wait a second, how long have they been watching TV? Why has the ice cream been out of the freezer this long? If my ice cream is melted and refrozen, there’s gonna be trouble.

Renee, who is rocking that side pony tail (oh 90s fashion, you kill me every time) asks if they are in trouble. Nick starts to tell her that they’ll be fine, when suddenly the TV signal gets cut off. Sarah decides to call her parents, which she probably should’ve done a longass time ago when the first alert came on. Anyway, there are still no numbers on that refrigerator, and the phone’s dead.

Sarah tells them all to relax, so of course that’s when the movie decides the power goes out. It’s also the moment my cat decided to attack my chocolate. I may or may not have jumped a little. Bad cat.

Nick lights some candles, and prays (out loud) that the Lord will help him to trust Him and not be afraid.

Yeah, no, at this point in the sequence of events, I was usually praying something like, “DEAR GOD! PLEASE! DON’T LET ME DIE! I wanna LIVE to see adulthood!”

I always found it weird when people prayed out loud in movies. Prayer is kind of a personal thing, and it’s weird to feel like I’m intruding.

Nick brings over the candles, and tells Sarah to go get dad’s camping lantern, and he’ll get the flashlights. They light the lanterns at the same time as the candles, which seems like a bit of a waste to me. They should use one till it runs out and save the other, rather than running the battery and the wax all down at once. But hey, what do I know.

Buckle up, because we’re getting ready for a lot of heavy handed preaching.

Sarah: Dad says God is bigger than our fears

Nick: that’s right, at least we know that god is with us

Louis: yeah….

Sarah: You don’t believe in God Louis?

Louis: I don’t know… I guess.

We have finally figured out what Louis is doing in this episode: Sarah and Nickolas needed someone to preach to, because staring at the camera spouting off religious “wisdom” just looks weird.

Sarah tells the little group a story about the old house they used to live in, that had a big heating grate, and whenever it came on it used to creak and scare her. She’d lie in bed imagining someone was creeping down the hallway. But of course, there was no one there, it was just her imagination.

Come to think of it, she never heard the vent when dad was home, and neither did Nickolas. (No, the mom is not mentioned in this conversation.)

Renee says she didn’t notice her house creaking till her parents got divorced. (Because there is no longer a penis bearer in the house.)

This… is clunky. Nick and Sarah mentioning them not hearing the vent when dad (not mom!) was home is clumsily tacked on to the dialog. I’m guessing it was added to the script because it was a way for them to inform the audience that Red Dress is a divorcee.

Hmm divorced parents in a TV show made by Focus on the Family. They’re probably not Christians. And because they’re not, it’s not a huge leap for me to assume that Renee’s probably not a Christian either. At least, I assume that that is what the writers of this TV show want me to assume, because that’s how logic in these TV shows work.

Sarah continues her sermon.

Look, I know that the storm outside is real, but maybe the real reason we’re so scared is because we think we’re alone. But we’re not, we have GAWD.

Renee: So, what you’re saying is, God is watching over us right now?

At which point I facepalm because every small child in America knows that God is (supposedly) watching over us all the time. At least, my non Christian neighbor kids all knew that.

Sad violin music is playing. I vomit a little in my mouth. Louis says something random about tornadoes doing weird things, and Nickolas continues preaching:

Nick: we just have to have faith that God will give us the strength to make it through.

Louis: you know I’ve never really thought about it much, but you’ve got a point

I am rescued from having to hear the rest of this conversation by a tree branch coming in uninvited through the window.

The tree is my favorite character in this episode.

Jee, I’m really glad that scary music is there to remind me that this a scary moment. I wouldn’t have known otherwise why Sarah was grabbing Renee in a hug and hiding behind the couch.

Nicholas says he’ll get the branch out, and tells Louis to go get some cardboard so they can patch it up.

Um, shouldn’t he be  staying away from the windows? What if another tree branch comes through while you’re clearing away that one? Shouldn’t you find a windowless room to vacate to now that it’s clear you need to stay away from the windows? The gang should all relocate to the bathroom, though in fairness to the writers they probably don’t have the budget to build a new set.

Nick starts bossing people around. Renee should get a bucket to put under the leak, while Sarah should sweep up the broken glass and I have to type one handed because her majesty insists I pet her.

Music plays as the children clean up the mess. There’s a 2 minute montage (exactly 2 minutes, I counted) of the siblings and friends working together and getting along. It’s kinda boring.

They get out their sleeping bags and set up in the living room.

McGee, whose absence I have not been missing, comes up to Nicholas and says, “ya did good, kid.”

“Thanks McGee,” Nicholas says before turning off the light. Music continues.

Nick and Sarah’s TV parents are back, they were so worried, bla bla bla. Nick shows how he repaired the window, and instead of chastising him (what the heck were you thinking repairing the window before the storm was over?!) He says, “good job son.”

Red Dress is apparently Renee’s mother, which I missed on my first 3 watch throughs. Renee said earlier that her parents are divorced, so if Red Dress is her mother, that would explain why Red Dress hasn’t prayed in a long time.

I like this. For a Christian movie, this is subtle. Red Dress doesn’t give a small speech at the banquet about why she hasn’t prayed in a long time, and Renee doesn’t belabor the point about her parents being divorced causing her to have issues with Jesus**. There is no conversion scene for either of them. We are simply given the two statements and trusted to put them together. For Focus on the Family, that’s well done.

The scene changes. It’s the one we’ve all known was coming and I’ve been dreading. Sarah knocks on Nicholas’ door and they have a talk. It is exactly as painful as it sounds. Sarah apologizes for treating him like she did, and he really came through last night. Because 14 year old Sarah, who has shown herself to be a pretty capable person in the beginning of the episode,  was really scared and didn’t know what she’d have done without him.

Look, I get that the writers were going for a “Nick isn’t such a bad little brother after all, he’s great to have around in a crisis” scene. But they could have done that without making Sarah seem like a scared, incompetent little girl.

I get that they probably thought Sarah was too proud and needed to be taken down a few notches… and sure, she could’ve been less mean at the start of the episode, but really, we could have had her realize that Nicholas was just as capable as she was without making her seem incapable. We don’t need to bring Sarah down to build Nicholas up.

We still could’ve had the “guess you’re not such a little kid after all,” scene without all that nonsense.

The adult part of me is screaming that 11 is still “little kid” territory. Of course so is 14, but there’s a lot of difference between 11 and 14, particularly across genders.

We get a shot of McGee sweeping by the broken window, saying, “there’s no place like home.” (Get it everyone? Get it? Wizard of Oz? Tornado? Get it? GET IT!!!!!!) Mercifully, he falls off the ledge before he can get too annoying.

The episode ends by Nicholas breaking the 4th wall. He talks about all his blessings: he lives in a house, has a mom and dad, etc. When things like the storm come along, Nick realizes he takes all these things (and god!***) for granted.

The episode ends with him running after Sarah with a water balloon, because, “I owe her one.”

Um, actually, I counted, and she owes you two. But whatever. I’m assuming they shut the camera off before Poor Sarah actually got soaked. Then again, these two are siblings in real life, so, Nick probably threw the balloon at her anyway after the director said cut.

 

*I actually have no idea, I’m just guessing you’d want some kind of cross breeze so the high winds didn’t break the window.

**Because in movies like this, having divorced parents always causes the child to have issues with Jesus.

***No really God is just kind of stuck in there like an afterthought

 

 

 

 

 

The New Year’s Post 2015

My new year’s resolution was to finish this post by the end of January. Unless January has 31 days, this is it.

It took me so long, because, when I sat down to write it, I realized that I don’t really remember much of last year. Oh I remember the key points, and I’ll get to that in a minute. However… I don’t remember much because half the time I was drunk. Functional, but drunk. Or at least, nicely buzzed.

I don’t believe there is anything wrong with getting nicely buzzed, or even getting drunk. But I think I am doing it way too many times, and that needs to stop.

This is another way Adventism has fucked me up. Seventh Day Adventists don’t really believe very much in grey areas. Well, maybe the adults do in some parts of the world, but growing up, I was told, In SDA school, mind you, that there were 2 ways to approach drinking:

1. Abstinence

2. Alcoholism

And I was getting bloody tired of abstinence. So I said fuck it and started drinking. And drinking…  and drinking. Until one day I woke up and realized It wasn’t fun anymore. The thrill of rebellion had kinda worn off, and I was no longer drinking because I enjoyed it, I was drinking because it was a habit. I was also starting to worry about my health.

But I didn’t and don’t want to quit drinking entirely. I don’t think it’s wrong for me to love booze, and I don’t even think it’s wrong for me to drink a lot of booze. I’m just beginning to think it’s wrong to drink a lot of booze a lot of the time.

And so, I set out on a journey, a journey that doesn’t end in a drunken state of mind, but a journey to find The Grey (Gray?) Area(tm). Where is this gray (grey?) area exactly? What does it look like? (and don’t tell me it looks “gray,” because that’s not funny.)

What exactly is responsible drinking? What does it look like? I can Google for absolute numbers all I want, but I don’t think those numbers really fit me because of my wicked high tolerance for alcohol (thanks, grandpa G, for passing down that gene).

And really, that’s not what I want. I do not want someone to tell me what is the right way to drink alcohol. Because that’s what I did in Christianity. In Christianity I let others tell me what God said was right. (I even tried to listen to “god” myself but that wasn’t working out so well.)

Whatever this gray area looks like between Abstinence and Alcoholism, I need to find it myself. I need to try and see what works for me, not just blindly follow what’s worked for everyone else. I’m done with that sort of life, and I’m done being black and white. That means I will make mistakes along the way, but that’s ok. Mistakes are a part of life, not some sinful calamity to be avoided.

What does responsible drinking look like? I don’t know. Let’s find out.

Help Me