“You’re brainwashed.”
Sharp words from my sister.
We had escaped Pastor Strict’s draconian church, watching everything we own bouncing around in the back of Pastor Kind’s trailer as we followed behind in our rusty Escort. There’s a reason for every name in this story and honestly, Pastor Kind was SO kind that he literally built a trailer and drove on down. We pitched all our stuff in and headed back up to the UPC church in central Wisconsin. It was a relief to be headed back home, and I was VERY excited to see my UPC friends, and my family.
Which brings me back to my sister’s accusation.
I am in tears because I’m honestly convinced she is really, truly, going to hell in a handbasket (What do they do with all these baskets in hell? Are they kindling?). According to what I believed, she was. Ensuing was the latest argument with my formerly closest sister, and one REALLY big bone I have to pick with the effects of this belief system. There are verses teaching about separating from family members to follow God, thus, what is called brothers and sisters in Christ often takes the place of family, if family is not involved with the Church. Yeah, well…my own actual family was a big buncha booze drankin’, face paint and pants wearin’ heathens, not the kind of influence you want in your good Holy life (Translation: My family was normal.). As you might imagine, by this time I had very little in common with them. One of my biggest regrets about my years in the church was the distancing effect it had on my family, who would be considered “worldly”, and let me tell ya, they were not exactly jumping up-and-down to unlock the secrets of the Bible. The same could be said of my friends outside the church, you’re supposed to be spending time with the people who will build your faith… so my circle of friends became the size of a little churchy Cheerio.
I’m very grateful to have been able to reconcile with my family later on, but I definitely missed out on my 20s and 30s with them. Church was top priority, twice on Sunday, once on Wednesday, Bible studies and various groups through the week, and revivals on weekends. I will always be grateful that when I got out and made my family a priority again, they all welcomed me back with open arms, killing the fatted calf (or at least a bottle or two of Kendall Jackson.)
I saw this pattern many times over the years, the church would frown on or outright forbid family or friends who had different lifestyles or moral choices, or living arrangements, or in the case of UPC, didn’t follow those doggone Holiness standards, the heap of craaaaazy rules about dresses and hair and card games and theaters and whatever else the church decided was Holy And You Need To Do This.
Back in my hometown again at Pastor Kind’s church, we resumed our slightly more relaxed-and much more fun-life with my UPC pals. We would travel all over visiting different churches, they would hold “revivals” and everyone would flock to the latest Revival like pigeons descending on an abandoned Happy Meal. One of the places we visited quite often was a church about a half hour away, this is where we met Pastor South. I don’t recall where he was from, but definitely the South. And he was funny, and wore a mustache, which told you a bit about him, because facial hair on men was commonly disallowed in the UPC. (Apparently on women it was okay, heh heh)
His wife, who was a wonderful person, had a VERY old-school hairstyle, a kind of mushroom-shaped, teased pouf with a topknot. Years later, I discovered the reason. When she became involved in ministry, the church lady Gestapo sat her down and informed her THIS is how she was to wear her hair. No choice for you! I thought she was in her fifties, and was surprised to discover one day she was actually like 30somethingish. Later, when she was done with UPC and had normal hair, she looked MUCH younger, and you could actually see her beautiful face. Wouldn’t be the first time Pentecostal hair made someone look a lot older than they were. I probably looked older at 22 with my UPC approved hair pile than I do today.
I worked an entry-level bank job (meh) and kind of lived for leading worship because secular music was forbidden fruit. DH taught piano and studied the Bible constantly.
Funny thing thing about studying obsessively…it has a tendency to breed questions.
Remember how I said in Chapter Six things were about to change?
Worship Leader Gone Wild 