But OH MY WORD, I GET IT NOW.

I just spent two hours burning a Bible and two prayer journals.

Mind you, I have over 20 prayer journals, ranging from high school, through 2 years of college, to Japan as a missionary (2 more years), and another 2 years of college.

Despite being prayer journals, I wanted to keep them so I could read them when I am 80 years old and remember what it was like as a teenager and young 20-something.

I finally pulled one out today and skimmed through it. It dated from my second year in Japan. Several things I learned:

1.  I was a really good kid. I had a really good heart. I sincerely wanted the best for everyone around me.
2. But I thoroughly believed I was awful, sinful, imperfect, and hopeless. And those were on good days.
3. I put myself over hot coals believing perfectly natural parts of being human were sins, ones I should repent heavily of and abstain from.
4. Since it was always my policy to be entirely honest and upfront in my journals, I did not hide my doubts and questions. And I had many.  I wrote them down, and prayed that god would answer them. He never did, of course.
5. I truly hated being female. The male missionaries all around me shat sunshine and their words were honored, while I was considered a lying whore.

Since becoming an atheist, I wondered how many of my memories were genuine, and how many I had “revisioned” to fit my new worldview. I felt like I had had doubts my whole life, but did I really?   This journal confirmed it– I hadn’t revisioned anything.

Holding that Bible though, with its worn pages, underlining, highlighting, notes in the margins, I felt both sickened and awed. I regretted so many years spent so earnestly searching and trying to mold myself into what others thought I should be. But I felt so impressed that I had  dedicated so much time, energy, and study into something I genuinely wanted and believed. That showed a strength, dedication and perseverance I never knew I had. Misdirected, yes, but real all the same.

I ripped out and crumpled those crispy little pages, tossing them into the fire. And I was smiling. With each page burned, I felt released, free, happier. The hate and anger I’ve felt toward religion, Christianity in general, SDAs in particular, and specific religious assholes– a certain level of  badly needed revenge was taking place, and I relished it.

I feel about 5 pounds lighter.

And I still have over 20 journals left. They DO take forever to burn though, so perhaps every time we have a fire, I’ll drag out another. Hah, I’ll be a sky fairy myself by the time I’m done!

I won’t keep them til I’m 80. There’s too much pain, too much wasted time recorded in there. Why relive it later? I know all I need to about those years– I was a wonderful person, and religion made me feel like shit. I don’t need the details to hang around, haunting me til I’m 80.  Besides, it’s so freeing to watch them burn now.   Besides, now I am an awesome person. And I finally know it.

My parents constantly fought about it. We never had enough. I remember the talks, “Well, we really have to cut back for a little while, so don’t use so much toilet paper and don’t bother asking for new things. But don’t worry, we’ll be ok.”   I never got the talk, “Well, things are back to normal! Let’s go out!” It seemed like an ever-decreasing funding crisis.

So now Eric and I both work, and we’re doing ok. We have our toys, we can pay our day to day bills, but suddenly, things come up. And we can’t do it.  We just did our taxes, expecting money back, and instead we owe a lot. I just saw the oil company outside, so that’s gonna be a large bill I wasn’t expecting this month. My car needs new brakes, and Eric just got a new (used) car because his was dying, which is another monthly payment.

And it starts that familiar panic, that “We’re not gonna make it” feeling, and even more, scares me that Eric and I will start fighting too, because we just can’t pay these bigger bills. I guess it’s not the bills that scare me, it’s what they’ll do to our marriage.

We’re working as hard as we can. That should be enough.

[Edit: Yes, yes, I know. We are much luckier than most. We still have our house, we can buy food, we have great healthcare. We even can afford to keep our toys, instead of contacting a pawn shop. We have jobs!  All true. But at the same time, that doesn't take away the fear that low finances start fights.]

Me: “Your, uh, what?”

Jack: “My FACHINA.”

Me: “Are you saying that on purpose?”

Jack: “Of course!”

Me: “Because, it actually makes sense. The word is ‘vagina’, and you are from China . . . so it’s a China vagina.”

Jack: “My VaChina!”

Eric: “Oh lordy.”

Monica,

The first thing that I noticed when I walked into our motel room was this beautiful 3 foot tall rooster .  It was adorable!!!  I wish that I could have brought it home for you.  It would have been perfect for Eric.  It made me chuckle each time I looked at it.   See you tomorrow.

Love ya,  C—-

Ke$ha the Large Wooden Chicken

Ke$ha in her native habitat

Once, I think I was around 8 years old or so, which would make my brother Tim about 7, my dad was digging up some land in the front yard with his tractor. Tim and I were playing in the dirt nearby. Tim started screaming bloody murder and went running to the house. I followed, curious.

Turns out, Dad had unknowingly unearthed a hornet’s nest. Being in the tractor, he heard nothing, they didn’t sting him, and he moved away to dig somewhere else. Tim walked over to the new dirt to play and got stung.

So we’re sitting on the front porch, while Mom administers first-bee-aid to Tim when Dad comes up to see what happened, and my grampa comes around the corner of the house for the same reason.

We yell to Grampa that it was hornets– “Don’t go in the front yard!” and we point to the area.

Grampa gets this grin on his face, smiles and says in his characteristic, gruff and heavily-accented English, “Bee stings are good for you!” marches out there, waving his arms and dancing around trying to get the hornets to sting him!

We look at each other with wide eyes like he’s INSANE. It becomes a family joke, “Bee stings are good for you!”

But Grampa had the last laugh years later when research studies came out saying that bee/hornet venom is good for arthritis. But he knew that all along.

[He even had the balls to complain about American bees being weak. He said the ones back in Slovenia were much stronger, with much better stingers. Not pansy-bees like the ones in America.]

So, Nurses at Euclid Hospital, if this seemingly crazy old man says he feels fine, he does. And he’s not crazy. And he won’t give up trying to get out of bed just because you say its a bad idea. He’s a Znidar. He’s Grampa Znidar, the one whose genes helped create two more generations of intensely stubborn people. There’s really no arguing with any of them, least of all the Grandfather!

Learning to greet each day with a thankful heart has been one of the best things I’ve done for myself…life is too short for bitterness and envy, that’s for sure.

Now, this entry has nothing to do with this particular friend. What bitterness she has or what envy she is feeling, I do not know. Or for that matter, what she’s thankful for.

My argument is with the spirit of the words.

I tried. I tried so hard to be thankful everyday. And yes, I had things to be thankful for. But when in a depression spiral, or even in a general bad mood, being told to have, or trying to convince yourself to have a “thankful heart” is a bunch of bullshit. Your heart isn’t there, it doesn’t work, and generally makes things worse.

Because its tantamount to straight-up lying. And lying to myself made me feel worse than the general bad mood did.

So I have no idea how she accomplished this “thankful heart” thing. It probably involved praying or something. Which never, EVER worked for me.

It took giving up religion for me to greet each day positively.  And I did that by greeting each day HONESTLY.

Christianity told me to be happy and thankful and loving, etc, etc. And if I wasn’t, I should fake it until I feel it for real. Faking it was extremely destructive to me.

But waking up HONEST turned my world around. If I woke up angry, I owned it. I am angry! Because of ______! It pisses me off! And I have a right to be angry! Because ________ wasn’t right!

And immediately, I’d feel heard, even if only by me. I’d feel respected. My feelings were acknowledged as legitimate. And THAT made me feel better.

Honesty set me free. When I stopped living according to Christian guilt and started living honestly, my whole world turned around. And I guarantee you, I am not waking up with a “thankful heart”. But I’m not waking up with negative emotions either. I’m waking up honest, I’m waking up me, Monica. 

And that is SO MUCH BETTER than waking up with bitterness, envy, or even a “thankful heart.”  :o)