Lenten Project: Day Thirty-eight (Maundy Thursday)

Lent is almost over. Today is Maundy Thursday. We've moved from self-reflection to a reflection on the ultimate selfless gift: Jesus' gift of dying on the cross for us.  We celebrate the institution of the Last Supper of our Lord, that time when He gathered together his disciples and taught them what is love and forgiveness.

This day is a holy day that's brimming with restoration and hope, looking to the future Easter, while remembering the beginning of the Passion.  For me, I keep in my heart the hope of reconciliation with my sister Elizabeth, though reality is discouraging.  Since my divorce, my sister, still a Fundamentalist, has been shunning me, denying repeated attempts to seek forgiveness or reconciliation, saying that I have the "spirit that worketh death" on me.  (I don't know what that is or how a Christian could be marked in such a way, and none of the pastors I've asked have understood what she means by that, either.)

I've emailed repeatedly, trying to keep the door to the relationship open, but all my offers and suggestions to restore harmony have been rejected. I honestly don't know what else to do.  She claims I'm unrepentant and unchanged since I divorced.  I suspect she believes, agreeing with my parents, that I'm a walking, talking adulteress.  That, unless I "prove" my penitential spirit by following a specific list made by her, I've not actually repented.  She and her husband reject the testimony of pastors (from several different churches and denominations--Anglican, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Baptist), friends, family, those who have counseled me, those who have observed my life up close over the years and see a pronounced difference in me.  She demands that I let her "hold all the cards" and dictates that I must personally apologise to everyone who knew of my first marriage and divorce, since I broke my marriage vows to them and dishonoured God. Why my not having done these exact things must result in her refusal to have anything to do with me, I'm still not sure.  Most of what she has said makes little sense when viewed through the lens of Scripture and the light of the Gospel.

Hannah and Elizabeth sing together, Singapore, 2000

My friends, I want you to know that Jesus says his burden is easy and yoke is light, and his forgiveness is freely given, not earned through apologising to everyone you know. Jesus doesn't seek to break those who come to him, but to heal their brokenness. When you start living a life of redemption, the evidence is clear to anyone who will look--repentance has occurred, is occurring, and will continue to characterise you. This is what Easter, Christ's Passion, is all about.

I will admit, I've been tempted to fall back into my old habits of just pretending, of saying what my sister wants to hear so I can create a false peace, have a shallow reconciliation. But one thing I have learned, something I think has been shown through my posts this Lenten season, is that faking it never works.  Pretending all is well, embracing passive-agressivism, or even willfully choosing blindness and stunted spirituality, results in death, not life.

So I choose Christ.  I choose living a life of repentance.  I am marked as a child of God, and I want to be characterised by reconciliation.  But I can't force people to reconcile when they refuse.  I can't force people to act like Christ when they believe His virtues (peace, unconditional love, free forgiveness to those who don't earn or deserve it) are anathema.

I don't give up hope for my sister.  But I give the struggle up to God.  Because trying to convince a spiritually blind person that God is good and forgives is futile until that person willingly hears the Holy Spirit's voice.

This was a hard post to write. I wrote, deleted, rewrote, deleted again, scrapped the whole thing, prayed, pondered, wondered, and rewrote it all again from the very beginning.  It was not easy.  But it's right.  Because reconciliation is my theme. Hope and life are together threads entwined to run through every story I've told in this Lenten Project.

Hannah, Mary, and Elizabeth, mid-90s, Grenada

I hope that someday this episode of my life will be a testament to the reconciliation found in Christ, that Lizzy and I can be friends, or at least speaking sisters again.  Until then, it's a story of how Christians can be stubborn, proud, and often very unlike the Christ they serve, but how forgiveness is always available, always free, not earned. My comfort comes from the Lord. I'm reminded every Sunday during the Eucharist that we are one Body, Fundamentalist Baptists, Lutherans, and Anglicans, and everybody else, united in Christ, whether my sister Lizzy can see it through her blindness or not.  The passion of Christ was not futile or worthless.

Lenten Project: Day Thirty-seven

After working so hard to secure employment at Bob Jones University, I felt like I'd achieved the highest level of spirituality.  Now, despite never getting to be a "spiritual leader" during my undergrad days, I was a respected staff member, someone who could influence students for Jesus, and also learn from the other BJU employees who had suddenly become my peers.

Senior portraits.
Why is it that yearbook staff always pick the worst pose?

I loved my job.  I was a staff dispatcher for the campus security, and often worked the 12 hour overnight shift.  Anything could--and did--happen in the middle of the night on and around campus.  One night, in mid-July, the campus watermain sprung a leak and flooded a part of campus.  I was on the phone with the fire department, coordinating the directing of outsiders to the cleanup crews to get everything under control, while also accomplishing all my other nighttime dispatch duties: recording everything on the blotter, paying attention to the alarms checking, and keeping track of entrances and egresses from the main gate of the campus.  It was fun, but also exhausting.  With all that, I barely had time to wonder about a summons I'd received that late afternoon from the head of human resources.  I was to report to his office in the morning, two hours after my shift was over (rather inconvenient and inconsiderate, since I'd have to attend the meeting on no sleep, plus find some way to keep myself awake for two wasted hours in waiting around on campus).  My coworkers had assured me it was probably just routine, to finish paperwork, or maybe even to get commended for working so hard all summer.

          

I napped in my sister's room for a couple hours, or at least attempted it.  Now that there were no distractions, my mind went to work imagining what the summons could be possibly be concerning.  Turns out, it was NOT for a commendation.

The HR head was there with the head of my department.  They weren't smiling.  HR glared at me and said, "I'm afraid I have bad news.  You are being terminated."

I was flabbergasted.  I stammered out a, "Why?" while I struggled to recall if I'd broken any rules in the two months I'd been employed. Nope, I'd been perfect, but BJU standards.

He said it was because I'd proven myself to be a bad influence and a poor example of Christ.  When I pressed him for example of what in the world he was talking about, he pulled out, quite dramatically, a sheaf of heavily highlighted papers.  He'd printed one of my emails to several of my friends who were still undergrads.  This email was one of those silly quizzes that kids forward around, what's your favourite food, what's your best childhood memory, what's the most daring thing you ever did, etc.  I'd filled it out a month prior, and sent it on to a few of my friends and coworkers.

Apparently, some of my answers on the quiz were less than pleasing and were downright evil.  I'd put The Patriot as my favourite movie.  HR head explained that, since that movie is rated R, I was being a bad example to the students by saying I liked it.  I shouldn't be even watching rated R movies, and definitely not leading others by example to appreciate or desire to watch them.

I'd said I'd gone skinny dipping. As a kid in the Caribbean Sea.  That was wicked to admit, because it brought to mind nakedness and encouraged young people reading my email to pursue wantonness.

I'd joked that I enjoyed kissing my husband (since all physical contact between genders is banned at BJU, I'd never kissed anyone or been kissed till I started dating and then married my husband, so it still felt a bit illicit, even to admit that I'd done it).  That was bad because it displayed my proud spirit, bragging about physical sexual contact to students who were not allowed to follow my example but who would be expelled if they tried to be like me.

And on the list went, HR man got really heated in his ranting and raving, while my department head just sat there, not saying a word in my defense.  I'd burst into tears after about five minutes, but HR man kept going, alternating between waving the sheaf of papers in the air and shaking his finger under my nose.  He spat, "You have no integrity. Can't you see that you're unqualified to be an example to students, to represent the University?"  He told me I should be becoming more reserved with my friends who were still students, because now I was staff and I had to be over them.  Never mind the fact that I'd been an undergrad too just a few weeks ago, or that school wasn't even in session yet.

What I was afraid of most of all was being barred from seeing my sisters. Friends I could leave behind, but the usual procedure for people who get fired from BJU is for them also to be blacklisted and banned from campus.  I'd been well-schooled in the Black Book during my time with campus security.  I knew how it went.  I finally broke in through HR man's incoherent sidetrack story of how he could not witness to people at his first job because he needed to glorify God by applying himself to working hard.

I asked him point blank if I'd be banned from campus and kicked out of the Alumni Association.  He said no.  He further said he'd make sure that didn't happen, since I hadn't actually done anything wrong, I certainly didn't deserve to be punished beyond losing my job.

With that, the meeting was over.  My department head finally spoke up and offered me a ride home. I could barely see through my swollen eyes, but I refused.  The man hadn't defended me or said much of anything at all during the entire meeting.  I didn't want any help from him if that was his definition of "stand up for and protect the ones in my department."

I walked home.  When I got there, I immediately checked my email to see if my campus account had been locked yet.  I found an email from my new brother-in-law, accusing me of being a horrible, inconsiderate, cruel, deceitful person, a slut, someone who he wished his brother had never met, much less married.  He'd sent a copy of his email to everyone in his family, even aunts and uncles I hadn't met yet.

One person on the recipient list contacted me and assured me his opinions were not shared by the family, but no one stood up to him directly and said what he'd said was wrong or that he shouldn't have emailed everybody like that. Even his brother, my husband, kept quiet. It made me feel so worthless. I was unworthy to be staff at BJU, and also not worth defending. All on the same day. 

I spent the rest of the day with my head in the toilet, throwing up.  A few days later, I received a letter from HR man and from the Alumni Association. I'd been banned from campus, blacklisted.

I blogged about that meeting, describing my feeling of shock, asking why it was morally and ethically okay for my personal emails to be read, printed, and held against me.  Why had it been acceptable for me to be closed in a small room with two older men I barely knew, one of whom then verbally abused me while the other watched?

I wasn't allowed to go see my sisters on campus (I had three sisters who were students that new school year).  It meant I was banned from attending their concerts, recitals, speeches, and even just picking them up to go shopping, or dropping off clean laundry in their rooms.  I was totally blacklisted.  (And no one I left behind knew why--that sort of thing is never explained, so everybody always assumes the worst.  People later told me they all thought I'd broken the law somehow, or had an affair.)

I wrote a letter to Stephen Jones, the president of the school, begging to at least let me be un-banished.  I didn't want my job back, I told him, but I shouldn't be excommunicated for forwarding a silly quiz to some students.

He wrote me back and approved my request to have my blacklisted period cut short (it's policy for all those who part ways with the University on not-good terms to have to prove their repaired testimony after one year of banishment has elapsed).

But before I could be allowed back on campus and special passes for my sister be approved, the dean of students demanded to see me.  He said that, while the University president had said one thing, he was saying another and would not let the un-banishment go forward till I met with him.

I went to see him, and he accused me of doing things I'd never done (he later called me up and apologised.  Apparently, he'd gotten me confused with my brother-in-law's fiance, who had also worked in campus security, and who had done some bad stuff, I guess. Yes, the fiancé of the same brother-in-law who had written me that horrible email).  He also waved some papers around (print outs of my blog) and demanded that I delete everything I'd written about my firing from BJU before my punishment could be lifted.  In order to have the privilege of my sister's company, I had to comply.

So, in exchange for reuniting with my sisters on campus, I did everything he told me.  I never promised never to blog about it again, though, and this is the first time since then that I have.

Bob Jones University is a terrible place, filled with abusers and enablers of abusers.  The focus is all Law (in made up rules which are hardly biblical), and little Gospel. Sure, sometimes the light of God breaks through and good things are accomplished, but it's clear that it is in spite of the people in charge over there, not because of them.  There is joy there, in small pockets, but not because Christ is modeled by the Administration.  There are good people there on staff and in the faculty especially.  I loved my teachers and respect them immensely, for the most part.  But even they are mistreated and abused by the school leadership. I sometimes feel like cursing them all for they did to me, for almost destroying my faith, for totally crushing my spirit, but I remember what the Scriptures foretell about those people's fate, and all I can only say may God have mercy on their souls.

Do I want BJU to be destroyed?  No.  I do, however want change.  I'm not the only one who was hurt while a student or staff member.  There are scores and even hundreds of others who have more horrific tales of abuse, sexual, physical, verbal, emotional, and spiritual.  Ignoring them won't erase the pain and won't bring about healing for anybody. Until BJU can admit past fault, without qualifications or excuses, and seek to actively repent, no change will be appropriate or effective.

Lenten Project: Day Thirty-six

I graduated from Bob Jones University on May 7th, 2005. I'd worked so hard to get to that point, and I don't mean academically. The spiritual abuse I'd suffered while living in the campus dormitories had squashed my faith, nearly killed my hope, and half-convinced me there is no god. Yet, even so, BJU was comforting in its familiarity.

My fiancé had nixed my fantasy of living on my own abroad for a year before getting married, so I agreed we'd get married sooner (a week after graduation), and I needed a job. I figured, BJU had trained me and molded me, and the plea for students to "donate" a few years of their lives to the school that had sacrificed so much for them went out often from the chapel pulpit, so I'd at least be a shoe-in for some job on campus. I checked first with my student job's supervisors--sure enough, they encouraged me to submit my application and assured me they wanted and liked me. 

I applied. And was turned down. I had the jarring realization that BJU molding me into a caricature of myself still didn't make me good enough for them. And I knew that was wrong. So I fought. I met with the deans and tried to find out exactly why my application for employment had been rejected. I knew it wasn't just because they didn't have any positions open; it had to be some kind of character flaw or defect they held against me.  And if, after all that time being counseled, I still had character flaws, well, then, something needed to be done, right?

The dean of students told me unashamedly that it had been his recommendation that I be spurned, even though he personally knew me and had been following my journey through BJU since I arrived. 

He even came backstage and posed with me
for pictures before my opera performance!

When I asked him if there was anything I could do to get him to reconsider, he said I could write a letter explaining my position and he'd bring it before council. 

I slaved over that letter, pouring out what was left of my heart, begging the council (but really the dean of students) to see that the spiritual counseling they'd required had worked and I was a better person now. The dean of women told me she'd been led to believe (by the dean of students) that I wouldn't turn people in, since I never had as a student. A faculty/staff member is vital to keeping up the standards of the school by ensuring everyone is following the rules, she said. I turned two people in that week, to prove I didn't have too compassionate a heart and would make a good strict rule-abiding staff member. One of the people I tattled on ended up getting socialled and not allowed to speak to her own fiancé. Never more had I regretted my foolish attempts to prove my worthiness than then. 

I got the word that my letter had been well-received by the council, the dean of students had been overruled, and I could have a job at Bob Jones University.  I would remain in my department, but become a staff member instead of student worker.

This medallion indicated that I was
a second generation BJU graduate

So on graduation day, I walked into the Founder's Memorial Amphitorium relieved that my plans were working out and that God could still use me, even though I was pretty battered and barely believed in him. I claimed, "all things work together for good" for myself as evidence that God wanted me to serve him at BJU, because, obviously, the obstacles had been overcome.  It never crossed my mind that maybe God could or would use me anywhere else, because the sacrifice of BJU faculty and staff was always touted from the chapel pulpit as being one of the highest callings a Christian could have.  What other humble service could I possibly have wanted to dedicate my life to?

Lenten Project: Day Thirty

After the disappointment I experienced with the "youth" of one church, it took me a while to gather up the courage to try again. When I did, though, I went head first right into another bad situation with more loneliness as the result.

In 1999, I started going to youth meetings at another Independent, Fundamental Baptist church in Singapore. I devoted myself wholeheartedly to this youth group, believing it was heaven-sent just for me. I went to the watch night service on New Year's Eve, volunteered during vbs, sang in special youth services which I attended while not at my parents' church, and basically spent all my time with the kids at this church. My parents blessed my activities, and encouraged me to continue my participation, knowing the American missionary couple who ran the church were keeping an eye on me.

The youth at this church were mostly teens close to my age, but also ranging up to people in their late 20s. I got dragged along as they went door to door witnessing, inviting people to special services. We played a lot of table tennis and practiced playing musical instruments together.  I enjoyed the late night meals at hawker centers. This was a time that I embraced Singaporean culture and learned to love this country and its people. I invited my sisters to come see this amazing group of friends I'd found, and two of them started going regularly, too.

But slowly I started to notice that I wasn't truly fully accepted into the group. I was a tagalong, a wannabe really, who inserted myself into these events because I desperately wanted to belong. But when I skipped events, no one called or mentioned later that I'd been missed. I wasn't a vital part of the group, and sometimes it was obvious I wasn't wanted. This youth group had a serious case of the cliques, and I didn't belong.

It's possible the reason I never fit in totally was because I'm white and American. Or maybe I was just too opinionated and obnoxious. Perhaps my trying too hard was so obvious it was a turn off. I don't know. All I know is that no matter how hard I tried, I was never fully accepted, never fully a member of this youth group, even just with the other youth.

There were several other kids who didn't attend the church but were still members of the youth group, so I wasn't the only one. The pastor strongly urged the kids to all become members of his church, though. Those of us who came from other churches always felt like second class citizens. It wasn't enough to be Christians, or even attenders of a church.  We had to be members of his church to be fully approveable.

After almost a year of throwing myself into this new venture and only getting hurt over and over again (the girls my age I tried to befriend were cold, the boys standoffish, and the American missionary daughter went off to college, leaving me behind), I finally woke up and realised I have more value than settling for whatever meager friendships (really acquaintanceships) I could scrounge. I was so over being a group's unwanted addendum. I didn't have to paste on a smile and pretend I was happy to have no close friends, alone in a group. Of even bigger importance to my self respect, I didn't need to force myself to endure the pastor's wife's sharp criticisms. Gosh, was she critical! And rude. And really cruel, especially when she was criticising me in front of others, like the time she loudly proclaimed me a miserable failure when I played a chord wrong on the piano during practice one day. It took me a long time to understand that that kind of behaviour is not okay.

So I quit going. And no one called. No one tried to contact me to see what had happened. My sisters kept attending, but didn't bring back greetings or questions for me. On the home front end of things, I observed the changed dynamics of our family, with kids who were constantly leaving to go to youth and church activities across town. They had little time to devote to our family or even our own church anymore. It made me really sad to realise that I had caused that by convincing my sisters to go get involved with this other church with me. My sister Elizabeth especially was really sucked in and rarely had time for family anymore. She was always over there at the church, hanging out with the youth group.  I had been like that until I took that step back and stopped going. I felt really responsible for the breakup of our family's unified front. No longer were we working together in one ministry. We were spread out and sometimes even working against one another. 

After some time had passed, my sister Lizzy invited me to a special service at the other church. I went, and noticed how hardly anyone spoke to me in the youth group to which I had dedicated myself all that time. They had no time for a "deserter" like me. The mentality was if I wasn't all in, for them, I was against them. 

One of older guys had left for college a couple months prior, gone away to BJU to study for the ministry, and I received an email from him around this time. He accused me of having a divisive spirit, of actively and purposefully trying to harm the ministry by abandoning it.  Others would see my leaving as a statement that they should stop being Christians too.

Honestly, that was the gist of this guy's letter.  It hit me pretty hard.  And further convinced me that his church was a cult.  Because if not going to this one little church meant he believed I probably wasn't a Christian, there was something seriously wrong with his indoctrinisation.

So I renewed my efforts to save my sisters. My sister Mary was okay, never having fully committed herself, but Lizzy was wholly enamoured and overtaken by them.  One of her good friends from that group continually urged her to spend more and more of her time there, so I wrote him an email telling him he needed to encourage her to spend more time with her family.

I'm afraid I wasn't very nice to him in my letter.  I basically accused him of helping to steal away my sister, since I believed that the cult was of a higher priority in her life than anything else.

My parents, who still monitored all my email (I was a few months from turning 18 at the time), were not pleased at my interference.  I was put "on suspension" and denied all computer privileges indefinitely.

That's when I gave up.  My intention had been to repair the damage that I'd helped cause by dividing our family's loyalties, but I'd been severely reprimanded for it.  Instead of recognising that I'd finally decided to fight for our family, my parents punished me for my misguided attempt to fix it.  So I went headlong into rebellion.

Lenten Project: Day Twenty-three

In the summer of 1994, I was 11 years old and traveling all over the States with my family on a short furlough. We lived in a trailer which we pulled around with a borrowed truck.  At one point, I was riding alone in the truck with Dad.  I don't remember where the other kids were--maybe riding in another vehicle with Mom.  At any rate, it was just and my daddy, and I was thrilled to get some alone time with him, since usually we all had to share him.  (Large family problems, y'know.)

The inside of the small trailer. The youngest child got her own bed...in the bathtub. So lucky!

I remember watching the white lines on the highway disappear under us, and vividly recall gazing at the glove compartment, absentmindedly staring at the plastic latch button. Nothing much was going through my mind, other than a stray thought that I wished I could think of something witty to say to impress my dad.

Hannah, 11, with two of her sisters

Then, out of the blue, he said, "Tell me your spiritual experiences, Hannah."

And I had no idea what he meant.  I asked him.  He just repeated what he'd said.  "Share with me your spiritual experiences with our Lord."

I got scared, because I didn't have any. And I didn't know what he wanted me to say.

Now, in the Fundamentalist world, the hatred for charismatics is strong.  The only context I had for "spiritual experience" was from sermons raging about those mushy minded Bible twisters and stiff-necked heretics called charismatics.  I didn't have any of those experiences, and if I did, I wouldn't be a true Christian.

So I thought it was a test.  Was my dad was trying to trap me into admitting that I was a heretic, or an unbeliever?  My mind scrambled with something convincing to say, and I may have babbled something mostly unintelligible, but it of course didn't pass inspection.

He repeated himself several times while I dissolved into a sobbing mess, my lack of "spiritual experiences" to share making me believe I was unsaved and on my way to hell.  I could imagine the heat of the flames, ready to swallow me up for not being a true believer. Maybe I failed the test by crying for ten miles.  But if I had had any spiritual experiences to share, it would have proven I was a heretic.  So it was a lose/lose, and I was the biggest loser of them all, having fallen from God's Grace.

Two of these girls don't belong. One isn't even a Schaefer girl (and none of us remember
who she was), and the other (Hannah, second from the left) was a doubter of her salvation.

This encounter formed a foundation to my childhood suspicion that I was not very tightly held in God's hand, that not only were my parents ashamed of me, but God also wouldn't mind if I didn't turn out to be one of the Elect after all. Sure, the Fundamentalist teaching is "once saved, always saved," but there are plenty of things a person can do to prove that he or she was never actually saved in the first place, like coming out as gay, getting divorced, or becoming a charismatic.

Apparently, there was some sort of "spiritual experience" that was acceptable for a Fundamentalist, and necessary for proving one's status as a believer.  But, at eleven years old, I couldn't figure out what it was.  Later on, in college, I'd be asked something similar: "How do you know for certain that if you die tonight, you'll go to heaven, Hannah?"  And my answers then would still not be satisfactory ("Because I asked Jesus into my heart when I was three.").  It wasn't until I discovered Sacramental theology that I realised my assurance in salvation comes from nothing I can or have done.  It all rests squarely on Christ, and His work in me through the waters of Baptism.

Lenten Project: Day Twenty-two

"When I grow up, I want to be a marine mammal biologist!"

I said this many times as a kid and teenager, because I had my heart set on it.  I don't know where this desire originated--maybe one of our family trips to Sea World--but I latched on to the idea that I could be someone who studied and discovered more about God's creatures.  And I was consistent in it, never changing my mind or seriously considering other possibilities.

I adored the World Wildlife Fund, even though my parents told me it was worldly (those tree-huggers didn't understand that the world would end in fire, so their conservation efforts were futile and misdirected, amen?). I got books about marine mammals and created quizzes to test my knowledge.  I collected anything I could get that had a dolphin or whale on it.  I used old calendars as posters on my bedroom walls.

But my family, with my parents as the ringleaders, and my younger sisters following their example, mocked me.

"Why do you want to be a marine mammal biologist, Hannah?!  How does that serve the Lord?"

For a Fundamentalist female, there are few choices in what kind of life a girl can have, or even desire.  For a missionary kid or pastor's kid, the options are even more limited, because the belief that "people are dying and going to hell today," was kept ever forefront in our minds by our family's vocation.  How could we choose anything other than a life of service to save the world?  And by world, I mean people, because animals are just creatures, far below humanity in God's esteem.

The choices I felt I had, when I was privately honest with myself about the futility of pursing anything to do with environmentalism, or conservationism, or even just plain old science, were to be a nurse, a school teacher, pastor's wife, missionary, and, of course, the highest calling for a girl: a wife and mother.

I had no role models besides other missionary women.  My own mother had an unaccredited degree in elementary education from a Fundamentalist college, and now she was a wife, mother, missionary, and church piano player.  So this notion of mine that I could do something different with my life puzzled my parents, I'm sure.

And they did all they could to discourage it.  "You can't glorify God if you're pursuing your own interests....Sometimes God asks that we sacrifice our lives to his service....Don't you want to serve God, Hannah?...You'll never be a marine mammal biologist, so just give up that crazy idea now....If you pursue this, you'll only ever end up a traffic director in the parking lot at Sea World."

Not pictured: the parking lot is bigger than the park!

Yes, more than once I was told to just give up.  I remember the pain and anger I felt at being told that what I loved and desired was worthless, that my dream wasn't good enough to please God. And I honestly couldn't understand why studying a part of God's creation was so bad, anyway.  I could see that saving souls and saving dolphins weren't exactly the same in value, but why did that mean I couldn't still choose to do the latter and remain pleasing in God's sight?

This is me, petting a dolphin.  I wanted to do this for the rest of my life.

I went to college in 2001 and majored in biology.  When I registered and declared my major, I did so with a bit of obstinate glee: "I'll show you all!"  My whole family openly took bets about how many weeks it would take for me to quit and change my major to a more "respectable" vocation.  I enjoyed my classes, though, and stuck with it. I even took zoology my second semester, way before I should have, since it was an advanced class and I wasn't prepared for real science that wasn't just out of a textbook (which is all I'd had, being homeschooled). I loved it.

My family still mocked, saying, "When are you going to change your major, Hannah?  Just admit it already! Be a teacher; you'd be good at that."

Between my freshman and sophomore years, the years of pressure and mocking from my family combined with the similar cultural expectations of women at BJU to finally bring me to the breaking point.  And I quietly, shamefully changed my major to English.  Not English Education, because I didn't want to teach.  No, just English.  Because I liked to read.  A lot. I figured, if I couldn't have one thing I loved, I'd go for another thing I loved, and maybe they'd stop making fun of me.  Sure enough, the sarcastic comments stopped once I was in an acceptable degree program.

Looking back, I know I probably never would have worked directly with marine mammals. For one thing, I'm scared of deep water (too many Jaws marathons late at night will do that).  I have an irrational fear of putting my face underwater, too, probably developed when I nearly drowned in the rough Atlantic during a beach trip on the seaward side of Grenada in the mid-90s.  I'll never forget the overwhelming helplessness when I felt the pressure of the deep water on my body, realised I had no more air in my lungs, and couldn't figure out in which direction was the surface.  I now associate the feeling of being underwater with a resignation that death is imminent.

I'll keep my feet firmly planted on dry ground, thankyouverymuch. Let the fishies come to me.

Yet, I can't help but wonder if there really is no way to honour God in a vocation like that. Could I not have ended up as some sort of researcher?  A scientist seeking to promote the care of God's creation?  Why is that so disreputable and shameful?  And even if I'd ended up working at Sea World the rest of my life, why would that have made me a failure in my family's eyes?  Can't a Christian serve God anywhere, even in the Sea World parking lot?  More questions that Fundamentalism can't satisfactorily answer.

My youngest sister is about to go away to BJU, and she wants to be an archaeologist.  Yet no one in the family makes fun of her, even though her dream is way more unreachable than mine ever was.  Not only is it a vocation not on the list of acceptable ones for Fundamentalist women, but it's a career that is almost impossible to achieve without a handful of terminal degrees (from reputable, accredited colleges, which BJU is not).  My jealous little heart beats violently with indignation that she gets a "free pass" to pursue the improbable, with full encouragement from everyone in our family, while I was mocked and shot down till I caved and gave up.  I'm trying to be happy for her and encouraging, but it's difficult to forget the past, especially when every girl (but one, the lucky dog!) in my family has followed the same path to BJU, and ended up married to a Fundamentalist within a week of graduation.  Our journeys into BJU all look the same, except I was the only one mocked and belittled for my choice of major.

Join the conversation

When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Did you family approve, or steer you in another direction?
Do you think certain vocations are more pleasing to God than others?

Lenten Project: Day Twenty

At Bob Jones University, everything, and I mean everything has a spiritual component.

Taking out the trash shows you are honouring God with your time and want to be clean, as He is clean.  Obeying without question shows you have a teachable spirit (always an attractive quality in an IFB female).  Never being late to class demonstrates that you are respecting the teacher's time.  Wearing the long skirts/pantyhose/closed toed shoes displays your desire to be set apart and holy, as He is holy.  See also: modesty.

When you fail at those things, or anything else listed in a massive student rulebook, demerits were given.  A student could only accrue 150 demerits before being expelled. And, since the awarding of demerits would exponentially grow upon repeat infractions, it could be too easy to get in the danger zone.  I got 50 demerits just for wearing jeans to a private home.  If my dorm sup had not been "merciful," I would have also received another 50 for watching The Lord of the Rings.  That would have put me in the danger zone.

The school has special punishments for students to get into that danger zone.  A student can lose the privilege of going off campus at all (being campused), and can also lose the privilege of being able to speak to anyone of the opposite gender (being socialled).  I knew many students to whom this happened, and it was not lovely.

I still have my very first demerit slip.  I'd forgotten to take the trash out that morning.  It'd only had two pieces of crumpled paper in it.

I got better, because I was trying harder, over the years.  I was only ever late for a class once in my entire life, and the teacher was late, too, so I ended up not being punished. Ha!  I was never, ever late for chapel.  I never talked to my neighbour during chapel or class, or fidgeted, or fell asleep.  I was too terrified of being called out from the pulpit, to come stand on the stage in front of 6,000 people.  Yes, that really happened, many times while I was a student.  Bob Jones III was ruthless.

I never skipped class, because back in my day, that was never allowed.  Apparently, the rules have changed some, and students can have a few days to skip if they are feeling tired and need to take a personal "day of rest."  But when I was there, we certainly didn't have that luxury.  If one was a sick, one had to either be in the hospital (right on campus) or in class.  No sleeping in.  No recovering in one's room.  There was no "calling out sick" at the various campus jobs, either.  You either reported for work, or went to the hospital, where you were required to stay for 24 hours upon admittance.

I got really good at staying demerit-free.  So good that I even got a letter from old Triple Sticks himself, congratulating me on my fine testimony.

Looking back now, I rather wish I hadn't been such a goody two shoes, and had let the demerits pile up.  Then I would have been expelled for not taking out the trash, and I would have been set forward by a few years on my journey into freedom from the cult of abusive, toxic spiritualism.

Lenten Project: Day Nineteen

Spiritual counseling at Bob Jones University is the worst kind of torture.  I was required to undergo this counseling the first semester of my junior year due to the wicked sin of "spiritual pride" uncovered the year prior.  Apart from that, I had no other clues as to why I'd been singled out for the terror of spiritual counseling.

20 year old Hannah

I'd been assigned to room with a hall leader in my dorm (hall leaders are prayer captains who are in charge of all the other prayer groups on the hall--they have a lot of power, and usually were nasty pieces of work who would turn a student in for the smallest infraction).  I'd been put in the hall leader's room because the dorm sup and dorm counselor wanted her to "keep an eye on me."  This is not mere paranoia--I was actually told this!  While the hall leader amazingly turned out to be a nice enough girl, I lived in constant fear of accidentally getting into trouble for forgetting some rule, or for talking about theology too much, or for not having the right kind of friends. (I'd been accused of not being a good Christian the year before, due to the fact that I didn't hang out mostly with my roommates.)

My counselor was a girl a year or two older than I, in her first year of grad school at the University.  She was the dorm counselor, but had no training, no experience, no skills whatsoever to qualify her for the job.

She demanded that I tell her everything, that I make her my confidant, but she made clear that she was not my friend.  She was my counselor.  Yet another spiritual leader to direct me.  During one meeting, I tried to share about my past doubts, asking questions, trying hard to understand, to get a foundation to my beliefs, and she mocked me, saying if I didn't know by now, then it was clear I really needed this counseling!  She didn't answer any of my questions, either.

She wanted me to confess things to her each week, but I had nothing to confess, so I caved in to pressure and just made up stuff to satisfy her.

"I was dissatisfied with my roommate when she talked on the phone too loudly.  I repent of the sin of discontentment."

"I felt anger at the boy who stood me up at my society's dating outing.  I repent of my bitter, proud spirit."

"One of the Academy kids I worked with last year has been asking me theological questions about salvation, and is unsure he's saved.  I repent of thinking I am a spiritual leader to him, since I haven't been appointed to that role by the University.  I should tell his parents and then stay out of it."

By the end of the semester, I couldn't remember all the things I'd confessed, but apparently I'd been marked as a bad apple, because I still couldn't advance in the spiritual hierarchy.

When I say Hell is Bob Jones University, this is what I'm remembering.  My futile efforts to try to be relabeled as good.  Trying to convince my APC that I really was saved, and she didn't have to hold a prayer service/intervention over me with the other APCs and PC (she even called in another hall leader to take me out for coffee...and a conversation trying to convince me I truly was not redeemed). Trying to show that I really did have a relationship with God, even though I didn't want to share all the details.  Trying so hard to live up to the BoJo model, to fit in and be like everyone else.  And failing, over and over again.

I would have given up all my questions, my doubts, by wonderings about greater Christianity, if only they'd accepted me into their group.  And I did, when I managed to convince the Administration to hire me as a University staff member the next year.  I conformed, tried not to think much, and did a very good job of being an ideal BJU model, till this messed up past came back to bite me in the arse.  That's a story for another day.

Lenten Project: Day Eighteen

We're halfway through Lent.  Far from running out of stories to tell and things to post on this blog, I keep uncovering more, remembering more. I'm facing myself in the mirror and coming to terms with a lifetime of abuse, and it has not been as easy as I imagined.

Today I dug out all my diaries and journals, from 1998 to 2003.  They're horrifying.  Not just my recounting what happened each day (usually not positive things), but also myself, who I was.  I was not an admirable person.  True, I was a product of my upbringing, but I was also a jerk.  A selfish creature with an ego the size of an airplane.

My husband likes to look at my old pictures and say he would have liked me and had the biggest crush on me if we'd known each other in my childhood.  But I was not lovely.  I was not nice.

In spite of my enormous character flaws, a few of which I've outgrown by virtue of the simple fact that I've grown up, and a few others which have been shed since I left Fundamentalism and then Evangelicalism, the truth remains that what was done to me was not merited at all.  It was not right, it was not good, it was not of Christ.

Two months after my 18th birthday, I wrote in my diary that all I wanted was to explore this faith of my parents, to be able to express doubts without fear of punishment.  I admitted I didn't believe God existed.  I confessed it, with much shame, in a prayer I wrote in my journal. (My father, in a strange attempt to save me from my rebellion, required me to write a prayer of at least 100 words each day. He also required me to correspond with him through another journal.  I still, to this day, don't know why he didn't just talk to me face to face.  We lived in the same house, after all.)  After trying and proving some of the teachings of Fundamentalism to be false, I jumped to the conclusion that all of Fundamentalism must be false, and that God was nothing, not true, not real. (Because I was taught that Christianity is Fundamentalism, and Fundamentalism is Christianity.  Everything else was pagan.  So to reject Fundamentalism was to reject God.)

Then, a few days later, I fearfully backtracked and apologised to God.  Later I wrote that I had to conform so I could survive.  And that's really sad.  I was never encouraged to believe because God is true and real and good.  I was compelled to pretend to believe "for the sake of the ministry," and because that's what was expected of me.  Doubts were not allowed. Exploring life, trying new things, deciding for myself were not allowed.  Challenging the teachings of Fundamentalism, examining our rules and practices, and trying to understand why, were all strongly discouraged.

Since I had to do all of those in secret, my attitude was nasty.  I didn't like hiding who I was or what I was discovering.

When I read my diaries, I agree with what my sweet mother-in-law said again this weekend: That is not true Christianity.

Lenten Project: Day Seventeen

Bob Jones University violates federal law by interfering and tampering with students' mail coming through the US Postal System. It happened to my mail in the spring of 2003.

I'd subscribed to TIME magazine at the beginning of the calendar year, and several had been delivered with no problems. Then one day in February I received a call slip in my post office box. It said to see my dorm supervisor within 24 hours of the slip being put in my mailbox. (Funny how students could easily get in trouble for not responding to a call slip, even if the student didn't know about said slip if he or she had failed to check the mail that day--a demerit accruing offense.)

When I went to see her that evening after dinner, she held up the latest copy of my TIME magazine and informed me that it needed to be edited. She handed me a pair of scissors and watched while I cut out the pages she indicated. An ad for cigarettes on the back cover, another similar ad inside, an artistic rendition of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and the cover art all were snipped out, crumpled into little balls, and tossed into the wastebin at her feet.

Maybe she really didn't approve of this interracial couple singlehandedly
bringing about a one-world government and the subsequent Apocalypse?

Notice she didn't cut the pictures out herself, but forced me to mutilate my own mail (refusing would have resulted in a punishment of 50 demerits for "failure to follow instructions").  It was humiliating and frustrating, especially since there was nothing inherently wrong with the pictures she made me destroy.

Taking my mail and holding it hostage till I censored it for her is something I have a hard time forgetting.  But this particular woman was always on a massive power trip, and I frequently ended up in her crosshairs.

This dorm supervisor (a single woman who was a recent graduate of BJU) displayed her love of power over me again when I was invited to a BJU staff family's home along with a few Bob Jones Academy students who I had befriended over the summer in our mutual workplace, the BJU Dining Common. This staff couple, parents of an Academy student and two in the elementary school, had us over for pizza and a movie.  Before extending the invitation to me, a University student (I was only a year or two older than the rest of the young people there, though socially much younger), the host checked to be sure showing the Lord of the Rings (NOT rated G) would be okay.  She received special permission, and told me I could also wear jeans, since she had some yard work she had in mind for us to do for her while there.

Well, I went and had a lovely time.  I was back on campus and checked in by 10:25pm, as per the regulations.  When I walked into my room, one of my roommates, our room's University-designated "Assistant Prayer Captain," said in horror, "You didn't wear that, did you?!"

Turns out, that semester the rules had changed.  It was no longer appropriate nor permissible for female students to wear jeans on or off campus, for any activity.  This belied the handbook, which stated jeans, which had been checked by the dorm staff, could be worn to specific off-campus event, such as horseback riding and outdoors/hard labour activities (like yard work).  The rule change was announced during a 10:30pm hall meeting a month or two prior to this.

During hall meetings, all the girls in the dorm sat in the hallways and listened to
announcements and rants from the dorm supervisor over the speaker system.

Well, I hadn't remembered the rule change, because I didn't memorise what was said at every hall meeting.  We weren't given extra pages of the new rules to glue into our already-huge rulebooks, so how was anybody supposed to keep track of that sort of thing?  I'd followed directions by wearing jeans, as I'd been told, and hadn't questioned the staff member's instructions.  I suppose I was too trusting.

My roommate turned me in, that is, ratted me out to the authorities.  (Turning people in is very much encouraged at BJU--if you don't, you are an accessory to whatever broken rule you witness, and may receive the same punishment as the offender.)  I got called in to the dorm sup's office again.  She asked me what I did while wearing the offending garment.

"I watched a movie and ate pizza in a mixed-gender party off campus.  Yes, I had a Dean of Women-approved pass.  No, I didn't think to double-check my outfit.  No, I didn't remember that jeans have been banned this semester; I wore these same jeans off campus just a couple months ago at a University-approved community event, and it was okay then."

Her disapproval and displeasure were highly evident.  She said she'd check with the staff lady to see if my story proved correct, but that staff members aren't required to memorise the rules, so she could not have been able to tell me to wear jeans.  A day or two later, she called me back in.  No, the staff lady was not authorised to override the rules to let me wear jeans.  I was also in trouble for watching Lord of the Rings, even though special permission had been given.  But, since special permission had been erroneously given (meaning the mix up was the Deans' fault), my punishment would be lessened.

She said, "I really ought to give you 50 demerits for failure to follow instructions in watching an inappropriate movie, and 50 more for the jeans (immodest dress), but I'm going to be merciful to you and only give you 50 total."

She repeated herself and emphasised her mercy.  She was having mercy on me.  How I despised her for equating that disdainful and condescending attitude with God's mercy!

I escaped without further accrual of demerits and stayed clear of her for a while, till it was time for "spiritual evaluations."  Every student at Bob Jones University is required to fill out a form rating themselves on their spirituality, and I could never get mine right.  My freshman year, I'd rated myself too high, according to the roommate who "graded" me.  The first semester of my sophomore year, I'd not been honest about my failings, according to the roommate who graded me that time.  This time, I rated myself below what I really thought, and still it wasn't acceptable.  My room's spiritual leader accused me of not taking it seriously enough, and turned me in to the dorm sup again.

My dorm supervisor told me in a matter-of-fact tone that I was not above reproach and would need to receive spiritual counseling the next semester.  She would not give me details or explain, saying, "You know why, Hannah."

So, sure enough, the next year, my junior year, when it was expected that upperclassmen students be serving or the very least recommended for service as dorm spiritual leaders, I was made to undergo "spiritual counseling."  I was never told the reason why.  But it was a horror-fest.  Maybe I'll be able to talk about it soon.  But not today.

Lenten Project: Day Fourteen

At Bob Jones University, the pressure to date is high.  And the definition of dating when I was there was insane: any time two members of the opposite sex are together in a social setting, that counts as a date.  So if you sit with a classmate at dinner, and that classmate happens to be a boy?  You're dating.

If the guy with whom you ate dinner walks you back to your dorm--that's a date.

If you sit together at the Sunday Morning "Mass" in Founder's Memorial Amphitorium, you're dating. 

The literary societies organise "dating outings" each school year, usually a picnic at a local park or hiking or horseback riding. The school has frequent "Artist Series" programs, like musical performances, Shakespearean plays, and operas. All of these are considered BIG dates. 

If you do any of those things more than three times in a row, everybody else around you believes you are going steady and will expect a diamond to appear on your finger by Christmas break. 

When I was a student, the then-President of the school, Bob Jones the Third, repeated his father's words often: "Any boy good enough to be at BJU is good enough to date!" So turning down a request for a date was discouraged. 

My mother echoed this by encouraging us girls to "date around," which always seemed very slagish to me. I mean, if every first date was for the purpose of seeing if this was God's mate for you, then every second date was agreed to with the intention of marriage.  So there could be a lot of emotional attachments right up front. Doing this with loads of different guys each semester would be really heartbreaking, not to mention tiresome. Plus, there was the whole "loose woman" factor. No guy wanted to date a girl who had been emotionally attached to every other guy on campus, right? So I didn't take my mother's advice, and only dated a handful of guys.

The guys, to avoid the whole mess, often just didn't ask girls out, so girls would rove around in packs, like wild dogs, loudly decrying the state of their singleness.

I secured my first "date" when I'd been on campus only a few days.  I went to the social parlour to hang out with the boy, and it was thrilling.  Our first real date came a couple weeks later, just a few months before my 19th birthday. In my mind, it didn't matter who the guy was, really, or his character or anything, because I was certain they only let good guys into BJU, and therefore all I had to worry about was getting one to like me (so I wouldn't be alone for the rest of my life, or have to move back to my parents' in disgraceful failure).

We dated for most of my first semester there.  Early on, while sitting on the dating couches in the student center, some pompous, self-important student approached us and accused my boyfriend of inappropriately touching me.  He'd had a strand of my long hair in his fingers.  We got off with a warning, but it reinforced the idea that all touching is inappropriate, that every interaction between the opposite genders is sexually charged.

It all culminated at the last artist series of the year in 2001, when he held my hand when the lights were dimmed.  It was as illicit as sex, in our minds.  Now I understood why there were so many rules against it!  No boy had ever held my hand before.  I don't even remember the play we saw--all my energies and focus were on his sweaty hand as it held mine.

We look like kids playing dress up...because that's what we were.

A few days later, he broke up with me in a very public manner, right in the middle of the Student Center (not that he could have done it any other way, since we weren't allowed to be alone anywhere on campus, and phone conversations were limited to 15 minutes).  I couldn't understand it!  Everything had been going so splendidly!  But he said he felt convicted about holding my hand and breaking the no touching rule.  I still didn't understand why that meant he had to dump me.

I felt like I'd been used and discarded.  As though I weren't good enough, were somehow unworthy, because I'd let him hold my hand.

I bullied him into taking me back, at least till Christmas break was over, mostly because I couldn't face my parents and admit that I'd blown it and lost my first chance at getting a godly husband.  After Christmas break was over and we were both back on campus, we quietly went our separate ways.  It took me a long time to recover from it, though, because my emotions had been so engaged.  If dating was for the purpose of getting married, we were almost married in my imagination.  So it was pretty devastating to have my dreams dashed.

Thankfully, this happened early on, so I was scared away from seriously dating for a couple years.  It was probably a really good thing, though I certainly wouldn't have agreed at the time.

Do you have positive or negative feelings about your first girlfriend/boyfriend?  How old were you?  How did it end?

Lenten Project: Day Twelve

My sisters and I were all homeschooled from Kindergarten though high school.  At first, the reasoning was because, in Grenada, the schools were all terrible.  But when we moved to Singapore, we were too dumb to make it in the academically strong schools there, so Mom just kept homeschooling us.

We primarily used A Beka books.  We had a few BJPress textbooks, too, and dabbled in Saxon Math.  Once, we used Alpha & Omega curriculum for a year.

I hated it.  In 1998, we were on furlough in the States, getting ready to transition to Singapore, and I was allowed to sit in on afternoon classes for a couple weeks at the school attached to our home church in Miami.  The thrill of daily being around other kids my age almost eclipsed the excitement of having a different teacher for each subject.  I loved it!

One other MK sat in classes that week with me, and we had an amazing time.

Some of my MK friends got to stay in the states and attend their senior years of high school in their home church's schools, and I was so jealous.  My parents wouldn't go for it when I begged to be allowed to stay behind while they went on to Singapore. Later I was glad, because I loved living in Singapore.

It wasn't till I did go on to college that I realised what a terrible education I'd received.  I barely knew how to write a research paper, and I certainly did NOT know how to cite sources, as I discovered to my dismay my freshman year.  It took me almost two semesters to figure it out and save my grades.  I certainly didn't know how to do any math at all--and barely scraped by in remedial math in college, only passing with the help of my teacher's private tutoring and padding of my grade.  (I still can't add or subtract anything past ten without the help of a calculator. I wish I were joking, but I'm not.)

The one thing I could do was read, and read very well and very fast I did all throughout my childhood, though I wasn't exposed to much beyond the classics and really badly written Christian fiction.

Part of the problem was that my mom had a degree in Elementary Education, and no training or skills in teaching high school.  So we just muddled along as best we could.  The videos we got for some of the upper grade subjects were from A Beka Books, which are poor school textbooks, and filmed at Pensacola Christian Academy, which had classrooms filled with sheltered Fundamentalist kids (which means that no one ever asked any deep or profound questions).

I only had a few video classes towards the end of my schooling.  Mostly I just had textbooks and workbooks. The curriculum itself was atrocious. A Beka books teaches everything through repetition and memorization, so there is little to no critical thinking required of the student.  I could get all my schoolwork done daily without engaging my intellect.  Besides, everything begins and ends with the premise of "God did it," so there's little reason to dig deeper or explore further. 

The Trail of Tears seems like a sad, terrible story about genocide? Well, God used it "to bring many Indians to Christ," my A Beka American history textbook said.

One of my history books from A Beka insisted that only ten percent of Africans can read and write, and that this illiteracy is the fault of Communists who have prevented missionaries from opening and maintaining educational institutions.

The Health textbook urged me not to like science for science's sake, or even to use science just to help people, because loving God should always come first.

The same textbook also taught me that sexually transmitted diseases are almost impossible to contract in a monogamous relationship such as marriage, since “people who live according to God’s standards of waiting until marriage to have sexual relations are very unlikely to acquire venereal diseases.”  With a sexual education limited only to that and LaHaye's Act of Marriage, which my mom gave me just after getting engaged, it's no wonder I was clueless about sex when I got married at the age of 22.

My favourite bit of scientific wisdom which came from one of my science textbooks was an explanation of electricity.  There's no way I can adequately describe the nonsense this schoolbook stated as fact, so I went and found a shot of this particular page.  I do remember that I was more interested in the girl in the picture than the words below.  I wondered what she was like, if she had siblings, and if she had lots of friends at school.  I also wondered just what in the world she was doing with that hairdryer.  So maybe I escaped anti-intellectual brainwashing in this particular case due to being distracted.

While homeschooling may be the best choice for some families, especially if they use a solid curriculum and expose their kids socially, for me, it wasn't so great.  I needed the challenge of other students competing for top spot.  I needed the social development that would have come from being around other kids my age who were not immature, socially-stunted Fundamentalists.  I needed the academic integrity which my textbooks simply could not offer.

A Beka was probably the worst, and that's what we mostly used.  But there were the times when we ditched the textbooks and created our own unit studies.  Those were great!  We did a big study on the American Civil War while we were on furlough once, and visited tons of battlefields and cemeteries all over the States.  We also did special history studies of the countries we lived in, going around to all the historical spots. I really enjoyed it, and I feel I learned more (and learned accurate information) during those times.  But those were few and far between.

Please tell me, because I really want to know, are regular schools as bad as this?  I was only homeschooled, and the sole "regular school" exposure I had was to Fundamentalist institutions.  Were your school textbooks like mine?