Taking The Scissors To The Strings

[R. S. Martin]

Someone mentioned that these forums aren't being used all that much anymore and I realized I'd been away for a while. I was laid up for several weeks and needed help with stuff like taking out the dog, shopping, and cooking. I may have mentioned it on here earlier but anyway, my sister from a town half an hour away helped me a lot, as did others closer by. Now that I'm getting on my feet again this sister is praising god and blessing me for all the good things.

 

The thing is, we were raised Christian but not the type to be so demonstrative. She left the old church some years after me, and like always, follows in my footsteps, now attending a church I joined fifteen years ago but thinks she's got something I never had. I suspect this religious talk may be the result of me being open with my feelings of vulnerability and appreciation, etc. She probably thought it indicated a ripeness for conversion--as though that wasn't going backward in my spiritual or life journey. I didn't think I had to take it and wrote the following email: 

 

 

M_______, you do realize, don't you, how offensive your God-talk is with praise and blessings, etc.? If it weren't for antibiotics, I would be a very sick woman, possibly on my deathbed. If God wanted the credit for antibiotics he should have taught humans about them thousands of years before the twentieth century. Antibiotics were a human discovery, pure and simple. Do be honest enough to give credit where credit is due, or at least just cut the religious talk when not talking to like-minded people, please! 

 

We weren't raised to talk like that and I liked the way you talked ordinary when you were here to help me. I believe in respecting people, in treating them right, in being kind and generous and helpful as one is able. I believe in being honest and open with one's feelings. All of these are human traits and not signs of a heart ripe for conversion as some Christians tend to think.

 

You may think being honest and open with your feelings means to praise and bless. Not so. You can find acceptable language to express those feelings of gladness or best wishes. You can do your worship and prayer in secret as Jesus commands and share feelings of gladness with others in ordinary language that does not offend. That is what Jesus taught and what the Old Order Mennonites taught and I think it is a very good teaching that I still try to live by. 

 

I hesitated to mention this because I really deeply appreciate all the many hours and many miles you put in to help me these past weeks. I don't want to appear ungrateful or offend in my own way. But I notice the religious talk is creeping back in and I feel it may be time to set a few boundaries just so we each know where we stand. When and if you can show me how you know God exists I will evaluate the evidence. But as I've said before, it has to be much more than a writing in which someone says so. 

 

Guess what. She responds that she feels hurt that I speak evil of her Daddy, and goes on with a long sappy email about God's unconditional love and how we were never taught about it, etc. Basically, she's blasting the teachings of our original church that both of us belonged to until our forties and fifties. After all my studies in theology, I still believe they had the basic teachings of the Bible as good as anyone.  I looked back over my email and the only remotely "evil" thing I can see in it is my statement about God failing to teach humanity about antibiotics before the twentieth century. That's not evil! She asks me if I want to believe in God. Here's my reply:

 

It sounds to me like you have forgotten pretty much everything we were taught from childhood, and the sermons that the preachers preached, and the literature that we had access to in the Pathway Papers and the Bible and church hymnal. Or maybe you just didn't understand. If a person looked for it, there was also other literature available. One does not have to leave the OOM church to hear "news" about a God who loves and cares for you no matter what. All one has to do is believe, repent, and obey. That is what you are still doing but you have moved the line of what this means.

 

<I know that God exists because of what He has done in me. If it weren't for the transformation of my thoughts and attitudes that He has done, I would NOT have come down to help you as I did. I would have thought you can get rid of your dog then you could get along. But the love of God which has been shed abroad in my heart by His Holy Spirit gave me the desire to go and help>

 

I think maybe you are telling me things about yourself that you don't want me to know, i.e. what a very hard-hearted and immature person you really are. Atheists dropped everything the minute I said I needed help. It's what decent human beings do if they are able, no matter what their life philosophy. This includes myself. If they can't go themselves they send someone else. 

 

You seem to be the kind of person who needs someone to spell everything out for you and tell you what to do, unfortunately. Like an immature child, you won't think for yourself and figure things out unless you have the endorsement of a parentlike authority. Since both our earthly parents are in the grave you imagine an invisible Daddy in the sky who directs your thoughts and actions. I don't know about you but where I come from, it is disrespectful of both God and the people who believe in him to use that kind of language (calling God Daddy, making him a sky Daddy) yet it is the way you say it. 

 

I looked again at the email I sent you on July 28. I said nothing "evil" about God though it was not reverent or worshipful, either. It was a statement of fact that you refuse to acknowledge. Here's another fact: This life on this earth is one life we know for sure that we get to live. Unless you are willing to acknowledge that fact, and the importance of accepting other facts about this life and God's relation to it, it is useless for me to answer your question re whether I would like to believe in God. Anyway, I'm quite sure I told you in the past but you refused to believe me. When people disbelieve me when I tell them the truth, I clam up. Period. No use repeating myself.

 

I am disappointed that you didn't just tell me if you couldn't help me. You did far more than walk my dog. Shopping and cleaning and dishes and cooking--those things needed to be done whether or not I had a dog. I do appreciate that you helped me but I wish you had not attached strings and would have just done it out of the goodness of your heart like we were taught, like Jesus teaches, like the others did. Life was easier because of the things you did--Thanks again so much for all the miles and hours--but I hereby cut the strings. 

 

I have no idea if this is a decent reply but I'm sick and tired of not being respected. Being treated like someone's mission project feels so...dirty. For a while it felt like maybe she was a real sister again, like when we were little and did everything together. Now it feels like she just used me to get more stars in her crown or something equally selfish.

 

And she calls God her Daddy. Yuck!

 

[florduh]

I think you responded perfectly.