I've Taken A Stand

[R. S. Martin]

Got another letter from family today. Took it to the postal outlet. Told the lady behind the counter I keep getting letters from this person and I don't want them. What to do about it?

 

She looked at my last name. She looked at the last name of the sender. She pointed out that it's the same. I said it's a relative. Didn't feel like owning the person as a sister. She said just return to sender every time. She did the writing.

 

That's what I wanted. I didn't want my hand-writing on it. The impact might be stronger this way. Let her think I moved. Let her think they've lost contact with me, that I disappeared--whatever.

 

It's going on a year that I told these folks with the same genes that I don't want letters from them. They don't respect that AT ALL. So far, I've just been taking the passive approach and throwing out the letters I didn't want to open. Today something snapped inside of me and said "enough is enough!"

 

She will probably call to verify that I still live here, to inform me what a painful and hurtful thing I did by rejecting her friendly letter (apparently it doesn't matter how much *I* hurt). I am quite sure that it was friendly and not "religious" insofar as any letter from her can be free of religion. I am sure that if ever there is another funeral in the family I will not be allowed to eat at the same table as her. (For that reason I won't attend.) In other words, she's too good to eat at the same table with me. Her religion won't allow her to see me as an equal. Therefore, everything in her letter will be tainted with superiority and condescension.

 

If she calls I am prepared to tell her that I will no longer talk to people who think they are too good to eat with me. If she makes lame religious excuses I will hang up.

 

There's nothing left to say that hasn't already been said. All the negotiating and reasoning that can be done has been done.

 

To them I am and will always remain the evil monster atheist, cohort of Satan, hater of God.

[Ro-bear]

I am so sorry about your family situation, Ruby. I guess it's just hard for me to imagine breaking off with family. I can't help but hope you are wrong, that reconciliation can still happen. Knowing your wisdom, though, I fear that you are right. You deserve better.

[R. S. Martin]

I am so sorry about your family situation, Ruby. I guess it's just hard for me to imagine breaking off with family. I can't help but hope you are wrong, that reconciliation can still happen. Knowing your wisdom, though, I fear that you are right. You deserve better.

 

I cannot imagine feeling that way.

[a skeptical believer]

One thing I have tried to teach my children is that you can't change someone else’s behavior. You can only teach them how to behave by modeling your own behavior. It's funny, my older sister who would always would question me as to why I didn't have any faith has told me that she actually came to the conclusion that she feels the same way I do. That saying empty prayers to an invisible presence isn't cutting it for her either. And that one must do what's right for ones self/family instead of trying to please others by conforming to beliefs you no longer share.

[Rev R]

I say good for you. It's not right for them to keep doing that, and you don't have to tolerate it in the slightest. I'd take it to the next step and change your phone number and your e-mail. Make it clear that there is no more to say. I stopped speaking with my family on Dec 25 2005 because my mother disapproved of my life and her lack of say-so in it.

 

It's a tough call to make yourself an orphan, but sometimes it is necessary to be free.

 

Good luck to you.

[R. S. Martin]

Changing my phone number never occurred to me. It would feel like quite a relief--safer. Email is not a problem because their particular church does not allow computers.

 

I do not feel like a complete orphan because I am organizing a surrogate family for end of life issues. Ever since I started that process I have felt like now I can live--I no longer depend for my most vulnerable times on people who hate my very being.

 

I started this process several months ago. As time passes, I feel more and more release from "voices from the past"--from my former identity. It is allowing me to develop a new identity, an identity I can live with comfortably. For me, this is very important. I've been living in this neighbourhood for several years now and I do a lot of walking. So do some other people. It's a way to develop new relationships, casual acquaintances, people who know each other and look out for each other, and care for each other just because that is the way humans are.

 

It's a fairly new part of town so it's not like we newbies have to find our niche in the lives of old-timers. I'm a real territorial person which means I need to put down roots before I feel at home and that takes time. I've been living in this particular house for over two years and there has been a lot of construction since I'm here. I've seen major changes. I've seen developments and know how it all fits together. This helps put down new roots, a feeling of belonging. I can tell newer people how it all came to be. That sort of thing becomes part of my new identity.

 

So I don't feel like a complete orphan or like I am totally alone in the world. But does it ever feel good to talk with others who have had to take radical measures for their own sanity and emotional well-being. Thanks for sharing that, Rev R.

[Rev R]

Whenever you need it, you know how to find me.

 

Some people have this idea that family is just your relations through genetics or some legal process (marriage, adoption whatever). I say that family is anyone that is close to you, anyone you can share all the deepest darkest corners of your life with, people that accept you for who you are, not who you could be or who they want you to be.

 

Becoming who we are is not an easy process. It takes strength to get there and it takes strength to stay there.

 

*edit* most folks just call me rev.

[Grandpa Harley]

"*edit* most folks just call me rev."

 

You'll always be 'sexy legs' to me...

[Onyx]

Ruby- Leaving your physical family's never easy but as one said, family are what you make for yourself. You may share the same physical traits but if they are evil to the core or extremely dumb and wilfully ignorant, it's better to leave them alone. Better to be with a peaceful group of friends who think you are absolutely great than an ingrate family of fundamentalists who wants you to conform and kill heathens for God if they could.

 

So do what you have to do, don't put it off any longer. Sometimes it is good to be cruel to ensure your peace of mind. In this case, I think you deserve it.

 

Good luck, Ruby Sera!

[Rev R]

"*edit* most folks just call me rev."

 

You'll always be 'sexy legs' to me...

 

don't be spreading that around puddin'

[R. S. Martin]

I've been asking myself how do I know what is right and wrong. I was raised with the idea that there is a definite right and wrong. But the rules kept shifting. Everytime I thought I had it I got scolded all over again. I could not for the life of me find a consistent role model among family or community members. Eventually I did find role models and I did begin to set values. And I asked myself how did I know that I wanted to accept these values. Probably my sisters challenged me on it. I realized that the values I chose were values examplified by people I respected because of the way they lived. I feel good inside when I feel respect for a person. I feel horrible disgust when I cannot respect a person. I don't like feeling that way.

 

The answers on this thread evoke a good, positive, clean feeling inside of me. What's more, tonight I had a heart to heart talk with a good friend who has agreed to serve as medical power of attorney for me when or if I need it. So I feel like I have family--here on exC and in real life. It just so happens that we don't share genes and bloodlines. No rusty water in the mix, Gramps, as you have said on occassion. Just pure, clear, unadultrated human connection, understanding, and support.

[Guest MetalHead118]

many of my family members treat me as an outcast due to my rejection of the "brainwashing". My aunt will treat me like i'm a disgrace to the family and taint the powerful bond between her god due to my vagabond and heathan like behavior. I know how you feel, being rejected and i'm sorry. i haven't been able to say anything to her because i don't want to piss my family off. guess that's how it works

[R. S. Martin]

Thank you, Metal Head. It's always good to know there are others.

[Guest Ephesos]

Looks like your "folks" are really somewhat backward... (no use of computers? wtf...) So far, I got my family to accept I am "different" if it comes to religion. Lately, we had two funerals... I simply asked when the actual funeral took place, since I did care about the people involved, and I simply would not take "church starts at..." for an answer, since I won't step inside one of those places... they seem to finally have got it. I have no problems with monotheists as long as they keep their blabbermouths shut... and they do by now. So, some sort of perseverance might be the key. either they learn, or they leave, and both possible results better the situation for you, no?

[Grandpa Harley]

I'd hesitate to use the word 'backward'. I think the phrase 'studiedly primitive' is probably more accurate.

 

It's like Shaylaman's 'The Village'

[Robbobrob]

Gotta be careful when you call others backwards...because someday the next generation will look at you and call you old fashioned and backwards. And with todays technology, being backwards is just a few months down the road.

[R. S. Martin]

Thanks Rob and Gramps. Ephesos, you might not have been around enough to know it but my folks are horse and buggy Mennonites so you should not be too surprised that they don't use computers. I don't call it "backward," I call it another culture because that is what it is. I know one horse and buggy Mennonite group that does use computers but this group doesn't. This gives me a freedom many other exChristians don't have. My family will not accidentally stumble across my webpages. Because the culture is so different, funerals are done very differently, too, from mainstream.

[junkpoet]

I'd hesitate to use the word 'backward'. I think the phrase 'studiedly primitive' is probably more accurate.

 

It's like Shaylaman's 'The Village'

 

i admire you ruby for your strength and integrity. i am still in the closet for the most part.

 

ever had a thread discuss the symbolic meaning of that film (villiage)? could be interesting. how many moves have you seen that seem to have a somwhat obscure athesit message?

[SWIM]

I feel your pain! I have an inlaw that HAMMERS baptist crap into thier kids, home schooling, buybull studies CONSTANTLY going to church. She is absolutely certain that I am going to hell, won't let her kids near me, won't sit near me... Air of superiority... gahhh I so hate that crapola!

[R. S. Martin]

I am so sorry about your family situation, Ruby. I guess it's just hard for me to imagine breaking off with family. I can't help but hope you are wrong, that reconciliation can still happen. Knowing your wisdom, though, I fear that you are right. You deserve better.

 

Ro-Bear, I think this feeling is mutual--I feel you are one of the wise voices on these forums--and that is what made it so difficult for me to respond to your post. I would so much like for me to be wrong and for you to be right. Just now I was writing about the family situation in a personal email and some things came back that I had all but forgotten. I recieved a few nice letters from family this summer. I tried responding to them. But it left me feeling shaky and drained all over. I felt really seriously upset. I didn't know why. Maybe it was the associations. I don't know. But I decided it was best just not to be in contact. At least not for now. Maybe not for a very long time. I feel most peace that way.

 

I have given major amounts of thought to this shunning thing that they believe in. I looked it up in their confession of faith, and I looked up the scriptural references on which it is based. Yesterday I was looking up something else and found some more insight.

 

Their rules about formal excommunication are based on 1 Corinthians 5. (Scripture references are all in KJV.) That is the chapter about the man who was sleeping with his father's wife and bragging about it. Paul severely scolds them for it and says to remove such a man from the church for "the destruction of the flesh" lest "a little leaven leaveneth the whole." I never sleep with anything that moves, least of all men old enough to be my father. Here are the sins Pauls says not to allow Communion:

 

1 Cor. 5:11: But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.

 

I don't think I do any of those things. If that is all there is to their rules, they have no right shunning me.

 

However, what I read yesterday in Rom. 1 might shed some light on the matter. Paul's psychology is lamentable but perhaps that is the best he was capable of. However, people of the 21st century are "without excuse" (to use their own Bible against them) to use this archaic pscyhology.

 

I will quote bits and pieces as it suits my purpose. V. 17: The just shall live by faith. I guess God is righteous in that he has revealed this to humans. V. 18 God has also revealed his wrath "against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness." (Okay, fair is fair.) V. 19&20 Paul says we are without excuse because God revealed this and we understood it. (I am very unsure about the "understood" part.) Oh I see. Paul thinks that where I should have been thankful for the revelation I imagined vain stuff--should that be "vain-glorious"?--so God darkened my heart. (Seems very strange to me that all of my questions meant nothing to god. If Paul was writing through the Holy Spirit and not of his own understanding, then there should be something in there for people like me and the hundreds of others who searched diligently day and night IN VAIN for answers that ARE NOT IN THE BIBLE. But no,--so very convenienty--no, everything is there that we need to know, my dear, just have faith--YUCK!!!!) That was V 21. On to V 22. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, (Yes, many xians who come on here love to rub that one in, as though they actually had one over us).

 

Okay, Paul has now firmly established that by rejecting (read, not understanding, the revelation of God) we have called upon ourselves the justified darkening of our heart and understanding by God himself--how very much like God hardening Pharaoh's heart for similar reasons in another chapter. What happens next is that we make images of all kinds of birds and animals and insects and worms to worship instead of God Almighty. (I'm not sure at all where all that comes from or how it fits into reality.) This leads to homosexuality in women and in men, which leads to a "reprobate mind." (See what I mean about bad psychology?)

 

Here's the real slammer. He's got the deck so set that with one gust he can send the whole lot to hell without a second thought. Verses 29-32:

 

²⁹ Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, ³⁰ Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, ³¹ Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:  ³² Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. 

 

That is a list of 24 crimes. If you're guilty of one, you're guilty of them all, which makes absolutely NO SENSE to me. Atheism is not listed per se but it is described as Christians normally do, i.e. V 28: And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge...., and V 30 haters of God. I am quite sure that this list is so all-inclusive that it includes the list you can't have Communion with (1 Cor. 5 above). Are lying and bearing false witnesss listed? I don't see them right off, but I know that they are listed in some of the NT lists of sins. All liars will go to hell, according to some lists. This leaves me in a double bind. The only real sin I have committed is atheism. I could lie and profess to believe but then I would go to hell for lying. Worse yet, I would be a kind of person I don't want to be. And THAT is what counts in this life on this earth. HOWEVER....if you have not yet disclosed don't be too quick to do so.

 

I did not plan to disclose; it was an accident. A fundy pried where he had no business, and then evangelized when he was supposed to be examining my eyes--yes, he was my optometrist and yes he did a quick job of testing my eyes. But after I got home and realized what he had done re evangelizing I told him in very definite language (via personal email that he had given me--he must have really figured he caught a big one that day) that he had crossed boundaries he had no right to cross. Next thing I knew I was discharged from the entire clinic. Naturally, I shared this with my sister with whom I shared a lot of big things that happened in life. She took major offense and by the time I had a chance to talk with her again she had spread it to the rest of the family. Instead of making up, she grilled me on how I believed the universe came into being if I didn't believe God did it.

 

To those of you who have not disclosed, unless it is terribly important, or if you are absolutely sure (and you can't be) that your folks will take it well I would advise not to be too quick to disclose. I have not disclosed to the family with whom I live (I have my own rooms so I don't live right in with them). I think they may suspect but I don't know. I have disclosed to extended family that I did not have to disclose to. I am not sure if this was good or bad. I don't hear from them at all anymore. There is one cousin to whom I did not disclose. I don't know whether or not the other cousin told her. She continues sending me group emails about her job search. In her emails she keeps asking for prayers. I never promise any prayers but I express best wishes like we do on here. Since it is a group email and we barely know each other I don't feel obligated to her beyond that.