In a previous chapter I spoke about how there was an uncurrent of sexual tension within the church. Along with that there was an emphasis on money. I can remember many times hearing about how it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. I heard that message over the pulpit and in Sunday School class. It was a popular message so you might be inclined to believe that money was not important within the church but you would be wrong. Wealth was often on display and as a kid I knew that I was poor in comparison to others. I do not blame anyone for having more money than we did but I have to question how those with more treated those with less. Calvary Gospel did not teach prosperity gospel in the way that we think of it now but the seeds of that teaching could be seen. The message my mother and others received was that if you had your life right with God you would be blessed and if you did not have enough resources to survive you should look toward your relationship with God. This was a tough pill for me to swallow. I prayed all the time in order to fix our poverty problem. I repented constantly and asked God to bless my faith and nothing really changed much for us. Even during the good times we lived in conditions most people would not tolerate. I also observed my mother’s incredible work ethic. She worked hard until her body couldn’t do it anymore. Her jobs were physical and then she would come home and work to try to make our home more liveable. For many years she prayed and prayed and I have to wonder if she just gave up and maybe that is why she stopped attending church.
I know my mother felt like she never had clothing good enough for that church. Growing up she always told me to wear my best for church because in doing so I was showing God respect. Once we started attending Calvary Gospel there was the added pressure to wear clothing that fit within their holiness standards. When my mother started to get sick she started to gain weight. She was on a lot of steroids. This made finding the right clothing even harder. There were not many shops where she could find affordable items that fit and also were in line with holiness standards. This became even harder once she became pregnant with my brother. She would tell me that she felt dumpy and embarrassed when she went to services. As far as class goes our family was at the very bottom. My mother had married a Mexican, my father, and they looked down on her for that. Then she divorced so that was another strike. She worked a job that required her to wear pants and then just because she decided to cut her hair. The fact that we were poor and it showed only pushed us farther down the ladder. Before I was making a little money babysitting my clothing was really awful. My mother pretty much only bought me clothing second hand. During one of our toughest times financially I only had three acceptable outfits and I wore them in rotation. My pantyhose, a requirement, often had runs and I was constantly trying to fix them with clear nail polish and hairspray. I almost missed out on a field trip for the honor roll because my school shoes had a hole in them. These shoes had been leaking water in making my pantyhose wet for weeks but now the hole was so bad I could no longer hide it.
When I was a young adult I attended a Southern Baptist church. One of the things they did really well was giving to those in need. They had a fund set aside in case a member lost their job or fell on hard times in some other way. I was so surprised to see the way they gave to and supported one another. It was not at all like what I grew up with. My memory of Calvary Gospel is of a congregation devoid of compassion. Sure there were flickers now and then but as a whole if you were struggling you were on your own. They were surely not going to sell their possessions and take up their crosses.
Earlier I wrote about how those with money did not treat those without money very well. If you did not have money you might be perceived as not having your house in order and so people might not include you in social gatherings. You would probably only have friends who were of the same class as you. My mother sat in a section of the church where many socially disadvantaged families sat. As I’m writing this it has come to me how most of the poor families and people of color sat on one side and then those who had higher status tended to sit on the other side. Many of the unpopular would sit near the back and then many of the people of color sat towards the front but on the same side.
In order to be truly close to God you needed to have high hair, nice clothing, and drive a nice car. It helped if you were white and attractive. Giving large sums of money to the church was also important. Tithing was important but then there was giving to missionaries, building funds, and paying for your child to attend the church’s school. It seemed never ending, they were always asking for something. My parents just did not have the money to fit in. Even if everything else about us had been different it would not have mattered because of the money.
When I started making a little money from babysitting and my father was doing well enough to give me a little money I started to buy clothing. Having nice dresses was all that mattered to me. It made it so much easier for me to fit in and at least feel like I looked like everyone else. I could pretend for a little while that I was just like them and then I’d have to go home to my mother’s house and it did not take long before I was reminded of who I really was.
I attended an Accelerated Christian Education school or A.C.E. If I could change one thing about my childhood after taking SD out of the picture I would change my educational experience. It would have been better to stay at my public middle school and get beaten up every day rather than spend one day at Calvary Christian Academy. Going to school there has impacted my life in nothing but negative ways. A.C.E. was big on being in the world but not of the world and so they tended towards isolationism. We never socialized with people who were not in the UPC church, so I believe it made sense to them that they should have their own school to further ensure isolation. I was really excited to start school there. My mother’s friend Juanita went to work making my uniforms which was a relief because we did not have much money for school clothing. This was supposed to make things easier. In one way wearing a uniform made it less obvious that we did not have money, in another way it created an additional stressor each fall. We had to find someone to make me a uniform and over time more and more that responsibility fell on me. I hated those uniforms. They were ugly polyester and uncomfortable. The worst part is they made us stick out like a sore thumb. I’m sure we looked like a crazy cult whenever we went out in public for a field trip. They were supposed to equalize the students. Wearing the uniform was supposed to take away competition over clothing and put the focus onto learning. It did not really work that way. Kids know which families have money and which ones do not, a uniform is not going to change that.
I entered Calvary Christian Academy with so much hope and soon discovered that I was wrong. It was nothing like I was expecting. While in public school I excelled at pretty much everything and always received good grades. Teachers liked me and told my mother that I was very bright. I never had any behavioral issues and I enjoyed learning. When I left Calvary Christian Academy my spirit was crushed and I believed I was incapable and unintelligent. As a side note, these schools have a pretty bad track record for traumatizing kids. There are support groups and FB pages where you can go to get support if you attended one of these awful schools. I cannot overstate how bad this educational choice was for my mental health. Whatever was started when I went through my salvation experience combined with being molested by SD was finished by the school. It was a completely joyless experience.
If I had to use one word to describe my time at Calvary Christian Academy it would be loneliness. We were required to spend most of our day sitting in a tiny office with slats on either side. We had very little human contact, it was a bit like solitary confinement. My mind would drift to just about anything to take me away from my lonely situation. Oftentimes this meant my mind went to SD, my parents, and other problems. Alone I would contemplate my life and in these lonely hours, my depression became like a roaring lion, loud and hard to escape. Maybe had I been in public school someone might have caught my depression and offered a helping hand. This kind of thing did not happen at the church school. Within the church school there was only right and wrong, black and white. If a student was struggling they never asked why. You either completed your work or you did not. Punishment or avoiding punishment was the name of the game. In the early days I was so thin and rarely ate much at lunch. I would go sit in the church parking lot and wait for the others to come out for recess. No one ever asked why I didn’t eat or if we had enough food for lunch. Our emotional wellbeing never mattered, what mattered was were we following the rules and were we completing our goals for the day. I would argue that even our physical wellbeing wasn’t much of a concern. I would go to gym class and we often held that class outside. We would go to a neighborhood park. They would stick me somewhere in the outfield amongst the dandelions and grass. My eyes would be watering and I would be sneezing and no one really cared. I would wheeze when I ran and I think they just thought I wasn’t athletic. What was actually going on was that I had bad allergies and playing in a field was just not a good idea for me. The allergies led to asthma and that caused my shortness of breath. I know I keep beating this drum but I feel it is necessary. I cannot overstate how I felt like no one at school or church, speaking of the adults in charge, ever cared about my emotional, mental, or physical wellbeing. Instead they judged me and others and kept score of our shortcomings. I was at church more than I was at home, in some ways the church raised me, and yet to this day they refuse to take any responsibility for the ways in which they harmed and neglected myself and many others.
I am a kinesthetic learner. Reading all day to learn and never having any experiences or debates/discussions did not work well for me. I was bored stiff and now getting a double dose of indoctrination. Originally I thought this school was going to be perfect for me because I was always ahead in school and bored with the slow pace of things. Accelerated Christian Education is set up so that each student can work at their own speed. All this did for me is provide me with the opportunity to be way ahead in some subjects and terribly behind in others. I did pretty well across the board until I hit Algebra or the dreaded math pace 97. Algebra was pure misery for me. It caused me so much stress and the lack of empathy and real help from the staff lead me to feel stupid and incapable. We had no real teachers, you were expected to figure it out from reading a booklet (PACE) you were given and then work through the problems. Our monitors and supervisors, who passed for teaching staff, were not licensed educators. One of them had a nursing degree, one was the church secretary, many of them were youth leaders, young ministers, and their wives. It seems to me that working in the school was some kind of hazing for young ministers. Put your time in here and then you can do other stuff. Be a youth pastor and if you do a good job there we will give you other responsibilities. They may have passed algebra at some point but that was a long time ago and it did not mean they knew how to teach it. None of it made sense to me. I would call a monitor (adult staff who were supposed to help you) over to my office for help and nine times out of ten they had no idea what to do for me. They would suggest I ask my supervisor who at the time was also my principal, youth leader, and at times Sunday school teacher for help. John Seidl had so much power and influence over my life and empathy and compassion were not his forte. I would wait, sometimes for hours, for him to come over and help me. He would get frustrated that I could not figure things out and I would end up in tears erasing holes into my PACES. My experience was that the adults would get frustrated because they did not know how to teach and that would all roll down onto the students. I hold John Seidl very responsible for all of this. He was the principal for most of the time I was attending. He never once offered to give me any extra tutoring and he never tried to find any other way of helping me learn outside of just telling me to read the PACE. I spent so many nights crying over algebraic story problems. My mother would look on with sympathy but she had no idea how to help me. My mother had been a truly awful student. She got Ds all through school and I think it shocked her to see me struggling. School had always been so easy for me. She did not know what to do or where to go for help. We’d seen a warning this might be coming in the 5th grade when I really struggled with fractions. Luckily my babysitter was able to help me and then everything was fine. I just needed a little extra to get me through.
To pass a class you had to complete 12 PACES (these were little booklets with a test at the end) and take the final test. If you did not pass the final test you had to take the whole unit over, all 12 PACES. You must get 80% to pass. I would often clock in at 76% and be told to start over. I even once had a 78%. It should take you a year to complete algebra and I just kept working through the same PACES and taking the test over and over again. Soon it started to affect my science education. You could not pass through science without algebra so my science education just stopped at physical science. I would be sent home with whatever I could not finish in school, this did not help, no one in my home knew how to work these problems. I would return the next day with unfinished work and then be given demerits. These demerits meant you did something wrong. I would have to stay in my office while everyone else went out for recess. I would be punished for weeks at a time for not understanding what they could not teach. Some of this is my mother’s fault. She should have intervened and found me help or maybe decided this school wasn’t for me. Instead, she left me hanging. The school staff knew I was trying and only one of them ever took compassion on me. One day Kitty, the elementary school supervisor, came to my office, one time, and told me to just go out with the other kids. She also helped me with algebra. She wasn’t a great teacher but she showed me some empathy and for that I am grateful. Those long stretches without even recess to look forward to are really depressing to think about even now. Plus now I was struggling and falling behind in two subjects. On a brighter note, I went back to public school for my last year of high school. I took algebra and passed with a B+. My algebra teacher told me I just needed to be shown a different way to look at it. He was a good teacher and helped to restore some of my confidence. I feel like if I had been attending public school and struggling like this safety nets would have kicked in. My mother would have been pulled into the conversation more. I would have had tutors available and maybe a teacher who would meet with me during off-hours. None of that happened, they just let me twist in the wind.
Because I believed that my supervisor was frustrated with me and because they punished me instead of helping me I felt even more like an outsider. I had no refuge except for maybe the library. Home was awful and school was awful. Because the school was in the church basement and because I would soon be a Bible quizzer I was spending 7 days a week at the church. I was at church as much if not more than I was at home. God and the church had completely swallowed my life. Instead of bringing me joy unspeakable and full of glory all I experienced was being driven to death by my commitments and judgement.
Every part of the school day was highly regimented. There was no time for asking questions or free thinking. The Bible was our main literature book. Why do you need anything else when you have the Bible? We never read any of the classics or really anything except for the dreaded allegory Pilgrim’s Progress. One of my great joys was discovering books, especially classics. This leads us to one of the most subversive things I ever did, I went to the library. We lived just a couple of blocks from our local library and I loved to visit there. I consider myself lucky to have developed an early love for reading and an understanding of how libraries worked thanks to my early public school education. At that time you were not supposed to read things unless the church approved or it was written by a UPC author. Adults could read things by Christian authors who were not UPC if the topics were marriage and raising children. The adults knew how to discern when doctrinal lines were crossed in a way children and adolescents did not. Because my mother was not strict about standards and because no one was ever watching me I would often escape to the library. My heart would leap just approaching the building. Looking through the windows and seeing all of the books was my signal that I could breathe easy. Within these walls were adults who would help you find great reads and not judge you or give you the stink eye for asking. My neighborhood library had a great kids section and young adult area. Later I would bring my own kids there for story time. Once inside, after carefully checking the parking lot to make sure no one would see me, I would make a beeline for the teen area. I always read way above grade level and so even at 11 or 12 I would seek out books meant for a much older audience. Once I found a book I liked I would quickly find my favorite blue cushion to recline on. I always sought out a corner where I could shrink into my cushion and hide from the world. I did not bring the books home so sometimes I would be disappointed when the book I had been reading was checked out. Once I was sunk down into my soft spot I would bring the book to my nose and breathe in the smell. I loved the smell of books, I still do even if it drives my allergies crazy. My happiness could never be complete or free of worry. I worried someone from church would come in or see me coming in or leaving. Now I see how silly that is, they would never be in a library. I think I was always scared. I read lots of Judy Blume who I loved in late elementary school. This led to other things, even romances. I felt guilty but the pull of fresh reading material was too much to resist. I would tell myself later how dumb I had been to risk my salvation for a stupid book, I would promise to resist and make God happy, but I never kept that promise.
I have to stop for a minute here and praise librarians! They were friendly adults in a world where that was hard to come by. They recognized me when I came in and were always ready with fresh suggestions. They made me feel welcome and normal.
I hated Pilgrim’s Progress. It was boring but my hatred of it seemed deeper than just boredom. To this day I do not know why I hated it so much. I asked my principal if I could instead read C.S Lewis. I loved the Chronicles of Narnia and had read them in the 4th grade. That opened a whole unexpected can of worms! “C.S Lewis is not saved? He is not UPC and we do not agree with his theology.” I argued, “It’s an allegory and that is what I’m supposed to be learning about. Isn’t Aslan a picture of Jesus? Isn’t it very clear that Jadis is the bad guy?” But I could not budge him. That was the day that I learned my most beloved books were sinful. They had talking animals and witches in them. How had I not seen it? I thought since I saw them at Zondervan’s (the Christian book store) they would be ok. This was a crisis for me. I loved those books dearly, like an old treasured friend. I never got rid of them, in fact they are in my basement right now. They are super dogeared and well loved. I read them over and over in bed at night for probably three years. Mr. Tumnus was as real to me as anything I ever learned in the Bible. But even the joy of my favorite books was in part ruined by the guilt of knowing I was doing something sinful and rebellious. By the way, Pilgrim’s Progress was not written by someone within the UPC either, but it was a part of the approved curriculum. It seemed like the adults in my life were on a mission to rob me of any little thing that might bring me some comfort.
Zondervan’s Christian book store was another way I sinned or played too close to the danger zone. We had one in our local mall and every so often I would wander in there and look at their books with one eye on the door. I knew people from church bought music there but the books were a no-no. Too much strange theology, too many opposing viewpoints. You might learn about grace or God’s love. The United Pentecostal Church International claims that their mission is “The Whole Gospel To The Whole World.” I do not feel I received the whole gospel, especially not the parts about grace, compassion, and caring for others.
One day when I was at the library and just wandering around and I discovered something wonderful, magazines! My fingers glided through the glossy pages and my eyes drank in all of the brightly colored ads. The librarian saw me and came over to tell me about the teen magazines. She knew me well and would often offer her suggestions. What? You have teen magazines? I knew about these magazines because I would see them at the grocery store but I had never purchased one. This was a whole new world. Even in my extreme joy at my discovery there was a strange knot in my belly. This was wrong. These girls were made up like harlots and the topics within the magazines were sinful. The funny thing is that back in the early 80’s the girls in the teen magazines looked much younger and more innocent than young women in similar magazines today. It was all about fashion, music, boys, and makeup. These publications were like drugs to me, I couldn’t get enough. My mother even started buying them for me from time to time when we had the money. She saw them as harmless but I knew that they were bad news and I should feel bad for having them. I liked fashion and dreamt about makeup, I even liked the heart throbs on the covers but in the innocent way young girls like boys. This is where I learned the tip about clear nail polish. After getting into trouble because of the nail polish these magazines felt even more dangerous. At this point I started to feel like two people. The angel and the devil. I loved God and tried so hard to be good, to act right, to remember to repent everyday and to be of service. The devil side of me wanted all of this contraband, this was my flesh, the part of me that was impossibly sinful. I wondered if all of this was because of SD? Had my sinning with him opened some sort of Pandora’s box of evil within me? Would I ever be right? At this point I could not imagine a life not soaked in fear, guilt, and looking over my shoulder.
Fashion and the letter of the law but not the spirit. There were always certain adults who seemed to disapprove of me and give me the side eye. This is not uncommon in a church that is so legalistic where folks thrive on judging others. They compare themselves to others in order to gauge how close to God they are. I was always careful to follow the church’s holiness standards when it came to how I dressed but I was too young to really understand them. I wore skirts or dresses all the time. I did not public swim because wearing a swimsuit was a no no. My dresses always came to the bottom of my knees or lower and my sleeves were always three quarter length or longer. In gym class the girls had to wear pleated culottes so that is what I wore. Still even with keeping these standards I felt like it wasn’t good enough but I did not understand why. My mother was no help really. Her main concern was whether or not I was wearing a dress to church. She had always required that even before we joined the UPC. She always said you have to wear your best, whatever your best is.
I became an amazing bargain hunter and that super power still serves me today! I started to babysit and so I could make a little money here and there. One day I found the most beautiful fuschia shoes I had ever seen. They were on clearance and in my size! I tried them on in the store and I never felt more fancy than I did at that moment. I was about 12 or 13 at the time. These shoes were ridiculous and if any of my daughters had tried to wear shoes like that at that age I would have said no, wait till you’re about 21. They had a four inch heel and they were a shockingly bright color. They had a fake snake skin pattern on them. I would never attempt to walk in shoes like that now, but to my 13 year old self those shoes were the height of fashion. I wore them to church in the middle of winter. They were a strappy sandal and not good on the ice and certainly could not keep my feet warm. So here I am at church wobbling around on these stupidly high heels feeling like a million bucks! That is when people started staring and even asking questions. Some of the adults laughed when they were asking me about them the way you might laugh at a child who is being silly, but I did not understand at the time and I thought they were making fun of me. It hurt and it took all of the air out of my happy find. “Does your mother know you have those shoes?”, “Where did you find those?”, “Don’t you think those shoes are a little too high for you?” One of the girls close to my age later told me her mother said they looked like hooker shoes. As adult after adult questioned me and smirked I started to feel shame. I’m not even sure if I ever wore them again. What I know now is that shoes like that would have been considered too immodest. They would be seen as trying to draw attention to my legs and therefore cause a man to fall into sin. But at that age my mind did not automatically go to those places. If my legs were mostly covered what difference did it make? The part of this story that makes me laugh is when I went home. An adult couple gave me a ride home and I must’ve fallen four times between their car and my front door. At first I did not find it funny but after the fourth fall I had to join in with their laughter. I must have looked like a baby deer trying to walk up that sidewalk. I was wobbly in those shoes even on carpet so glare ice was near impossible to walk on. I think I left my boots at home because I wanted everyone to see my pretty shoes. I paid for it in bruises to my ego and legs.
In the 80’s textured tights were a big thing. I was very fond of these tights that had tiny hearts on them and I had them in many varieties. Red tights with white hearts, white tights with pink hearts, and more. Soon after that came tights with a seam up the back, tights with flowers snaking up the ankle and tights with polka dots. To me they were so pretty and fashionable but to the adults around me they looked too old for me to wear and drew way too much attention. The thing is this was the early 80’s and it was what young teens were wearing. I did not get it. To me they were pretty and feminine. My young mind could not understand the connection between my polka dotted tights and men’s lust. To me it was about fashion, my tights with the hearts on them matched my purse with tiny hearts on it. It was about looking my best. My mother never complained and so I assumed it was ok. When I think back to that time I was the only teen dressed like that and I am sure it is part of the reason why so many adults gave me the side eye and did not want their kids to have anything to do with me. Especially the boys. This is just an example of how an adult could have come alongside me and explained how it looked to many people. Instead of gossiping and judging they could have simply talked to me.
My happiness was found in a $72.00 Jessica McClintock Gunne Sax dress. Every Easter my parents would buy me a new Easter dress. Many times my dad would come through for me. He hated being around for the hard stuff but liked to show up and be the hero from time to time. He took me to the mall and we started combing through the racks. My heart leaped when I found my dream dress hanging there. It was a Jessica McClintock and it was on clearance! Even on clearance it was $72.00 and I knew it was nothing more than a dream. These dresses were very easy to spot at this time. They looked vintage and were outside the stream of pop culture fashion. They reminded me of the dresses I would draw for hours as a child. In grade school I became obsessed with the Gibson Girl style of dress and drew those dresses over and over complete with parasols and fancy boots. My father looked at the price and said sure I could have the dress! I stood there frozen in my disbelief, then I grabbed the dress before he could change his mind. It was a tiny bit big on me but who cared? It was perfect and I felt like the richest girl in town for a moment. When I brought the dress home my mother was livid. She was so angry that my father had spent that much money on my dress. I was confused but knew enough to just go to my room. Who could understand my parents’ issues with each other? He bought me a dress and now you don’t have to, was how I saw it. My mother had every right to be upset. He never paid child support and couldn’t be bothered when I was hungry. She saw through him and knew all he wanted was to look good to me. Easter morning was the next day and I put my dress on with some pretty tights with flowers on the ankle. I was a walking flower that morning. When you are poor, and you have body issues, it is a big deal to feel so pretty if even only for one day. This dress was magickal! It had a lace collar that went all the way to my neck and it fell almost to my ankles. The body of the dress was a very pale almost white lavender and it had light green vines with tiny flowers all over it. Covering my chest was a light lace bib, this thing was like something out of a Disney movie. The sleeves came all the way to my wrists and were kind of gausy and ever so slightly see through. A slim panel of lace went down both arms. I was covered and I mean covered from head to toe.
I glided into church that morning feeling like a queen. The church secretary thought it was very important to point out to me that you could see through my sleeves. I have olive tone skin and you could ever so slightly see through my sleeves but you had to be really looking. I went to my seat and started to feel self conscious. Could you see through my sleeves? Did I miscalculate? Was this dress sinful? Once again one of the church harpies had ruined my happiness, but not for long. My friends LOVED the dress and it became a big deal for many years. When we would go to camp we would often trade dresses for the evening service, this dress was always the top request and in heavy rotation. Somehow it never got ripped or too dirty. It was magical. I recognized as I got older that it was edgy because of the sleeves but I wore it anyway. Now those Jessica McClintock Gunne Sax dresses are considered vintage and still go for a ton of money. My early teenage dream was to someday glide down the aisle in a Gunne Sax wedding dress. My first wedding dress looked alot like what Lady Diana wore on her wedding day, not a Gunne Sax but still hyper feminine.
I’ve written all of this to explain not only how the church stole my joy at every turn but to also illustrate how I did not understand the standards. I was following the letter of the law but not the spirit. I think I thought I was following the spirit of the law but my young mind just could not anticipate what would be an issue. My mother did not follow their standards and thought I looked fine. The ladies at church would make snide remarks but no one ever thought to sit me down and explain things. It was more fun to talk about my mother behind her back. About her poor parenting and not following the holiness standards herself than to take pity on a kid who just needed someone to explain things. My friends would tell me how their parents did not approve of my clothing and that hurt. I did not understand. My 13 year old mind would not have expected that a man might get turned on by the sight of my arm or a calf with tiny hearts on it. My world and self esteem could have been so much better had someone just been compassionate and talked to me about the standards, not from a judging place but from a loving place. I was proud of every pretty thing I owned because I bought most of it. I hunted for sales and collected bits of, what I thought were acceptable fashion, and kept them as treasure. But even that pride at having found these beautiful items was sinful.
“Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18
Looking back I have to ask myself, “What is wrong with these men?” First of all, why would they be looking at pre-teen and teenage girls to start with? If they are lusting after children isn’t that their problem? Why does the church ask young girls to protect men from lusting? It seems to me that they may have understood that they had problematic men within the congregation and so instead of removing the men they laid a heavy burden on the girls. Better to keep sleepy men around who pay tithes than to take action to protect children.
Enjoying makeup made me feel like such a sinner. As much as I wanted to wear makeup I did a better job at resisting it then I did with music. I occasionally wore a little blush to school. This didn’t happen until I was about 14 years old. No one ever said a word and I think I know why. My face is naturally red. I tend to look rosy much of the time so the tiny bit of blush I was applying did not show up at all. I wore the blush to fit in. Some of my friends at the time, girls in the church, were experimenting with makeup. It was a huge act of rebellion to wear cover-up if you had acne or a lip gloss you might try to convince adults it was only Chapstick. Most of the time I did not wear the blush but carried it in my purse so the other girls would think I was cool. Now what I did wear pretty much all the time was Lip Smacker. I loved and still love the cherry-scented option I rarely put it on anymore but I always have some in case Lip Smacker fever hits me. I also wore the Dr.Pepper and Bubblegum scents. Lips were a big deal back then. I can remember so many sermons, Sunday school lessons, and discussions at school were about shiny lips. We as young girls were responsible not to lead men into sin dreaming about our shiny lips. Chapstick was ok as long as you did not put on too much, Carmex was an issue because it made your lips too oily looking. No one ever questioned my Lip Smacker tube probably because back then it looked just like Chapstick, but I knew in my heart that I was breaking the rules. 50% of the time I felt terrible and worried if my Lip Smacker addiction was leading me straight into Satan’s clutches and the other 50% of the time I felt like a rebel and I liked that feeling a lot. I did have one major misstep with regards to makeup, clear nail polish. Let that sink in, clear nail polish caused me more trouble than the blush or Lip Smacker. The sad thing about the clear nail polish is I wasn’t doing it to be rebellious. My nails have always been a source of frustration for me. They break and tear no matter how much time I put into caring for them and focusing on good nutrition. I tried to use clear nail polish to protect them and make them stronger because I had read about it in a teen magazine. The teen magazine was a sin too but I will discuss that more later. My reasoning was that it was not a color and so it would not tempt anyone into sinning. I was not doing it to draw attention to myself except that maybe I did not want my nails to look scraggly all the time. Little did I know that it would be such a huge issue.
Every year we had a church picnic. I attended more because it was expected and it got me out of the house than I liked being there. By this point, 14 or 15 years old I knew I did not fit in with these people but I did not know how to get out. I was having an ok day until Darlene Grant, the pastor’s wife, called me over. I immediately felt that awful feeling in the middle of my chest, I now know that feeling to be panic. She never talked to me unless it was something bad or had to do with the youth choir. I always saw her as standoffish and aloof, I was not one of the chosen children so she didn’t bother herself with me. On this day she had a message to deliver, her message was, “Either take off the clear nail polish or don’t come back to school in the fall.” Well, that went from zero to one hundred really fast! There was no discussion leading up to that moment, just a statement. I tried to explain myself and she told me that shiny nails were unacceptable. If I wanted stronger nails I should soak my nails in raw eggs. Part of the reason I had to remove the polish is because nail polish was not allowed no matter what kind it was, also it might lead to other things like pink nails. The most important reason to not have shiny nails is it might draw attention to your hands and cause your brother to stumble. I’m sure it was also seen as a mark of being proud and not shamefaced.
1 Timothy 2:9 “In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array.”
Now I have to wonder how she even knew I had clear nail polish on? You would have had to be really studying my hands and she never gave me the time of day. If I had to guess I would say that someone tattled to her. The message I received was that everything I did or did not do might cause a man to fall into sin right down to an extra shiny fingernail. What if I buffed my nails to make them shine would that be a sin as well, better to not do it just in case. Darlene Grant did not care that my fingernails were breaking off to the point of bleeding, she only cared that I stay in line and control my evil impulses. After all, I had led one man into sin already, everyone knew about that. She never said those words to me but that was the message I received. I know now that a childhood filled with hunger and bad nutrition is probably why my nails have never been in great shape, but whether or not I had food was not their concern. Controlling my overdeveloped and sinful body was their number one concern. Darlene Grant never said a kind word to me. She never asked how I was doing or offered comfort even though she was aware of how hard my home life was. She only ever approached me to deliver bad news, to reprimand, and to question me about another child. I never saw the love of God or grace coming from her. She was not friendly or kind to my mother. She could have offered me a lifeline and showed me God’s love but instead she looked down her nose at me and made it clear that she saw me as unworthy.
You might wonder if the church knew about our money issues and I can tell you without a doubt they did. My mother would go through times of attending church faithfully and then “backsliding” and then returning. She never felt welcome there so it was hard to keep coming back. She would cry at the altar or at her seat and it was always about money. No one offered help except for one time. Sister Ida Crowder helped my mother pay our electric bill so we would not lose power. My mother was embarrassed and proud but she took the money and she never forgot how Ida helped her. Shannon, Jeanette, and Ida were all kind to me when I was a child and I think it is important to point out that they were all women of color. Other than Barb and Juanita most of the white women at Calvary Gospel acted as if they were too good for my mother. I’m sure they judged her for her short hair and for the fact that she wore pants (it was required) on the job. I have to wonder if she would have fallen into line more if they had just offered her some kindness and included her. My mother was especially close to one of these women and we spent a lot of time with her especially before my mom married Jim. Just the other day it struck me how this woman knew my mother so intimately but did not offer her any real help. It makes me wonder what her motivations were. I have always seen this woman as kind and gentle but now I wonder. Was all of that niceness a front? She taught my mother two Bible studies and called her when she did not come to church. Maybe in the end she did not see my mom as a friend but as just another soul to be won. I believe they may have felt that it was better to let my mother and by extension, me suffer because they thought it would bring us to God.
Pastor Grant preached about tithing regularly. We had been members of several churches over the course of my childhood and my mother said none of them focused on tithing as much as Calvary Gospel. Tithing meant giving 10% of your income before taxes to the church. Often they would ask for even more money for missionaries and building funds. My mother did not tithe. She always put something into the offering plate but she felt whatever she could spare was enough. From my earliest memories she always gave me money to drop into the Sunday school box because she believed that giving to God was very important. She did not believe he required 10% before taxes. This gave the church something else to judge her for. They believed that if you tithed the proper amount that God would bless you abundantly and give you all you need. If you’re having money problems then it could be because you are withholding what is God’s right to possess. It all belongs to him and he is just letting you use it.
Malachi 3:8-10 “Will a man rob God? Yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, Wherein have we robbed thee? In tithes and offerings. Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation. Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.”
I tried to fix this issue for my household by tithing on all of my money. If my dad gave me a twenty for my birthday I would give the church 10%, babysitting money, really any money I got my hands on would be subject to this teaching. I always felt so grown up filling in my tithing envelope. It did not lead to full storehouses for my family and it was just another way in which we were wrong. I always had hope that my giving would eventually turn my life around. Granted I was young but I did have faith. Because of this I can understand how people fall prey to prosperity ministries.
My mother got the message that all of her problems were her fault very early on. When she went to the pastor for marriage counseling he asked her if she tried to be sexy for my dad so he would stay at home and not cheat. Our money problems were probably due to her not tithing properly and working an ungodly job. Yes, driving the bus for the city was ungodly. The main reason is that it required her to wear pants. When she found out about this requirement she talked it over with folks at the church. All but one told her that it would be a sin and she should trust God to bring her another opportunity. My mother was not college-educated and she had been trying to better our circumstances for a long time. She felt she had to grab this chance because otherwise, nothing would ever get better for us. One woman, Pat, who was also pretty impoverished told my mother not to listen to the other people and do what she had to do for her family. Pat also wore pants to work. This made my mother feel a little better but she still worried that taking this job could mean she would miss the rapture. Pat was a lot like my mother, on the outside of things and very poor. On the upside, our situation improved substantially after my mother took the job with the city. I had a free bus pass that I used until I was 21 and we had health insurance. Things were not amazing but we had money to keep the lights on and keep food in the refrigerator.
My mother was not well. Along with her depression she had developed pretty severe asthma. Many people within the church communicated to my mother that if she would just get her life right with God, meaning lay off the pants, tithe, and stop cutting her hair among other things, everything would be alright. Her illnesses were due to sin and demons. She needed to have more faith and believe that God would heal her. It makes me sad to recognize that she and I were living the same torture. Feeling like if we could just get things right with God somehow the pain would stop, hunger and poverty would cease, and we would finally be loved by God. I don’t think she was aware of my feelings. I took on the role of her caretaker before I was out of elementary school. I tried to make everything better, brighter, and I tried to keep her safe. This meant being a good kid and never getting into trouble, it meant not taking too many risks, and not really sharing my feelings with her. This of course led to more isolation. She would often tell people she did not worry about me too much because I always did the right thing, never got into trouble at school, and stayed involved at church. Sadly I think this made it easier for her to ignore me when other louder more pressing problems were going on. By the time I was 11 or 12 years old, I felt like my mother had moved on from mothering me. She met her second husband, started a new more demanding job, had my little brother, and I just faded into the background. I was on autopilot, dependable, and mostly grown.
While all of this was going on with SD I was going through many other transitions. We moved to a new rented house. My mother felt it was an upgrade but I did not. It was old and always dark due to our lack of lighting. My bedroom was on the second floor. There was a third bedroom on the same level as mine and also a full bathroom. The third bedroom served as a sort of catch-all junk room. This is when my mother started to acquire more dogs. Muffy had passed away after being lost in a snowstorm and then hit by a car. I was heartbroken. My mother brought home a puppy to try to cheer me up. His name was Billy and I loved him. She also added another male named Star and a female named Sheba. My mother had a big heart for animals, sort of. She would give them a home but then not take them to the vet regularly. We never had money so I don’t really understand why she thought adding more mouths to feed was a good idea. At times the dogs would go to the bathroom in the spare room. It smelled so bad and I would go in and clean it up because neither my mother nor Jim seemed inclined to do it. My room was always fairly clean because I had almost no possessions. The items I held dear were my cassette player, my tiny radio shaped like a grand piano, and my books.
At some point during the time that SD was abusing me, I started to receive Harlequin Romances every month. I never signed up or paid for them and so now I have to wonder if SD had them sent to me as part of the grooming process. My mother didn’t seem to care so I gobbled them up. I loved reading and could finish a book every day during the summer months. When I was bored I would stand on my bed and sing into my hairbrush pretending to be on stage. There was a big mirror on top of my dresser and so I would look into that and sing Amy Grant. Every night before bed I would write in my diary. It was a white Precious Moments diary with a little gold lock. The pages had gold edging on them and I thought it was so pretty. That diary was the only place I had to really express what I was going through. When my mother picked the lock and read it I was so betrayed. It makes me sad to think that she did not see the abuse that happened to me. She didn’t seem capable of showing compassion. She just saw that I was writing about sex and “dirty things”. I cataloged each experience with SD as they happened and how I felt about it. Sometimes I would write messages to God asking for help or forgiveness. Eventually, my mother caught me experimenting with my own body and she hit the roof. It makes me so angry when I look back at it all. It is normal for kids to experiment at that age and when they have been abused it is even more likely. She was angry and she ridiculed me and even brought Jim into the conversation. For weeks afterward, they would make jokes about me and because of this, it was finally driven home that I could not trust my mom and that she no longer cared for me. I was embarrassed and felt exposed just like I did when she showed my father my bloody underwear when I got my period. She did not value my privacy or the bonds between a mother and child. She did not seem to understand boundaries. My mom and Jim fought a lot and at times that spilled over to them ganging up on me.
When I needed to escape I would jump on my bike and ride all over the neighborhood. My bike always symbolized freedom and speed. When I was feeling angry I would ride as fast as I could just to get the rage energy out. One day I hit an uneven piece of sidewalk and flew face-first into a tree. My forehead, nose, and chin were very bloody. I don’t remember if anyone was home and I also don’t remember anyone helping me tend to it. I was really embarrassed about it when I went to church the next Sunday. People kept asking me what happened but they seemed more amused than concerned. It took forever for the scabs to be totally gone. When I wasn’t riding my bike I would walk through the green space behind our house and over to the shopping center. The shopping center had a library and a Pharmacy. Before I went to the library I would walk through the pharmacy and see what new candy and doodads they had. Then I would go over to the library and sink into my corner
During this time when I went on the road with SD he always left me in the car when he went in to see clients. All of his clients were churches and so I would hang out in the car, usually parked on the street, and wait for him. Sometimes I would be out there for a very long time. I always brought my library books with me so I had something to do while he was gone. Sometimes I would listen to my tape recorder if I had enough batteries. It didn’t bother me much because I was so accustomed to being alone. I was afraid sometimes when it would start to get dark and I was out in the car in a strange place by myself. Before long SD would breeze back in and we would be on the road again. When we arrived back in Madison SD would always park a block or so away from my house so he could kiss me and say his goodbyes. At times we would talk about my mom and my home situation. He would tell me that someday I would be grown and I would not have to live there anymore. He would tell me that it would only be another 7 years or so and then I could move out, proving he understood exactly how old I was. Other times he would speak to me about the condition of my clothing. One particular day he commented on how much dog hair was on my clothing. I told him that I did my best to look nice, he said he knew that but I could tell he was frustrated by my appearance. It was also during one of these goodbye talks that he told me that I would be perfect if I just lost some of my belly weight. I wasn’t even 100lbs at this point. I have never had a flat stomach even when I was a size 3. I have never forgotten that conversation. I can see us clearly in my mind’s eye. I know exactly where we were and I remember what I was wearing. That small comment marked me and made feel bad about my body. After saying his goodbyes he would pull into my mother’s driveway and let me out reminding me not to let on that there was anything going on between us. Often my cheeks were red from his stubble and my clothes were shifted around all weird. If my mother was awake we might chat a minute and say goodnight. She never asked me much but did comment once on how red my cheeks were. I was shocked! It never occurred to me that they were red and I told SD about it. I made up some excuse to my mother and hurried off to bed. She never asked about it again. Stepping out of his car and into my house was like moving from sunlight into the night in one moment. Yes, I was being abused, but at least he talked with me and we laughed. When I walked through my front door the house was usually dark and silent. I would grab my oil lamp and slowly and quietly make my way up the stairs to my bedroom. Once in my room, I would fall to my knees to pray. One night my mother knocked on my door and asked me through the door why I cried and prayed so much. I had just returned from a Sunday night service and I was feeling pretty heavy-hearted. I told her I had a lot on my mind and she seemed satisfied with that. I don’t think it ever occurred to her that she was my example. She taught me that through all those nights I waited for her by her bedroom door. I would pray for her and my father to come back to church, I would pray for SD, and I would pray for forgiveness. I worried about my mother’s salvation and I worried about all the fighting I heard between her and Jim. Even as she became meaner and made me the butt of her and Jim’s jokes I continued to hope that we could repair our closeness and I hoped maybe one day she would leave Jim like she left my father. She did eventually leave him but not in the way I wanted her too.
I started the 6th grade in public school and then partway through the year, I transitioned over to the Christian school. Sixth grade was difficult because we moved away from the kids I had known all the way through elementary school and so I started middle school not knowing anyone. I believe that I am very lucky to have had a good foundational public school education. I was ok with the move. I was ready for change. In elementary school, I had a few friends but I was also frequently bullied. I was picked on for being poor and for wearing worn clothing or generic cheap clothing. After my boobs came in I was picked on by the boys incessantly. There was a lot of bra snapping and one boy, in particular, was fond of calling me titties. I was more than ready for a fresh start. I liked middle school. I played the clarinet and I enjoyed all of the electives I was allowed to choose. I felt like a big kid and that was pretty cool. The downside was racism. All during my elementary school days people both children and adults would ask me, “What are you?” Meaning you don’t look totally white. Usually, they would start guessing and no one ever guessed right. They would often guess mulatto (their word not mine), mixed, Hawaiian was another popular guess, but never Mexican. It became a game for me. I would collect all of their guesses and then tell them, Mexican! I enjoyed seeing the looks of confusion and bewilderment on their faces. Madison did not have many Mexicans and so no one suspected that. I never endured racism during elementary school but I did watch my father deal with it. I remember one day we went into a men’s store to purchase a new suit. I stood with him fidgeting and trying to be patient. He knew what he wanted and was looking around trying to get someone’s attention. The store was fairly empty and yet no one came to help us. Finally, he was able to rope someone into talking with him. I watched as he pulled wads of cash out of his pocket and told the man how he had money and he was sick of people assuming he did not. The salesperson seemed nervous and unsure of how to deal with this angry customer. We slowly walked out, my dad mumbling the whole way, we had no suit in hand. My dad had a chip on his shoulder but who could blame him? He would often tell me how no one expected him to be capable of anything but he was going to show them all what he could do. He would recount how he came here alone from Mexico and how he taught himself to read and write English. At this point I’d listen and feel sad for him, by the time I was a teen and hearing these tales for the 1000th time my eyes would glaze over.
Sixth-grade girls can be incredibly cruel. My new school placed me in a bilingual class because my maiden name is Rodriquez. This is kind of funny because I spoke zero Spanish except for what I had learned on Sesame Street. Uno, dos, tres…My father wanted to forget his life in Mexico and so he only spoke English around me. I kept pleading my case to the teachers but they did not immediately believe me. After about two weeks they pulled me from that class and put me into an English speaking homeroom. The Mexican girls would taunt me and call me half-breed and they claimed that I thought I was better than them because I was placed with the white girls. The white girls also called me half-breed and just kind of shunned me. I was dealing with it ok until the Mexican girls turned violent. One day on the playground one of the girls told me she was going to beat me up. All-day at school my stomach churned and I would have done anything to not have to ride the bus home from school. About five girls got off the bus a stop earlier than they usually did so they could beat me up. They chased me from the bus into an empty lot. The bus driver yelled at them from his window but then just drove away leaving me to endure the blows and kicks. I curled up in a ball on the gravel and just waited for it to be over. My mother had views on fighting. She told me I should not get into fights and to be the bigger person and I was more afraid of her than I was of these girls. My father would have said to fight back because we are fighters. He was an ex-boxer and had taught me to swing my fists. In the hierarchy of my family, my mother ruled overall so I was more worried about her feelings on the matter. As a side note, my mother was a violent person. She and my father got physical and she was always the one to instigate. She also got into plenty of fights when she was a kid but she wanted me to be different. I managed to get up and start to flee the couple of houses distance to my home. They chased me and Jim just so happened to walk out of the house and see what was going on. He yelled at them and they ran away. I was humiliated and covered in dirt, gravel, and spit. I went inside and cleaned myself up. My mother was not home and waiting for her was partly scary and partly I just wanted my mom. When she arrived Jim told her what he saw and she called me down from my bedroom to talk. She wasn’t too angry with me and agreed to go to the school tomorrow to talk with the principal. She did not get too much satisfaction from that meeting. They explained that they could only help if it happened at school. My mother was frustrated but she understood and she came up with another solution. Her solution involved me taking the city bus every day. I hated this! It took me twice as long to get there and did not save me from the bullying behavior at school. Once it got around that there had been a fight and that I had not won things became much harder.
I told some kids and adults at church about what was happening. I asked them to pray for me that things would get better. They had an even better solution, they had their own school and I could go there. No one gets bullied there (a lie) and I would no longer have to be around worldly kids. That last part sounded appealing. One thing I was teased about was how little I knew about pop culture. Because I was trying to be godly I had stopped listening to the radio and watching tv for the most part. I had nothing to talk to these kids about. I floated the idea to my mother and at first, she was not too excited about it. It wasn’t cheap. But hey the church could solve that problem too, they had scholarships available! This seemed like exactly what I needed. My mother found someone to make me the uniforms and I was ready to go. I had NO idea what I was getting into and to this day I view this as one of the worst decisions I ever made. All of my church friends were super excited for me to be joining them at school. Calvary Christian Academy was one of the most boring places you could ever spend time, so the excitement of having a new student was extreme. I received so much positive feedback. The message I received was that I was finally taking my Christianity seriously, I was finally fully committing to the church, I was finally in!
I think they might have viewed this all differently had they known what was about to happen with SD. At the time the church would have said that they had the school to protect their children from the world. I believe the truth is that they had the school to exert complete control over their offspring. Cults in general do not like their members to have any outside influences and Calvary Gospel is no different. Thinking outside of the church’s beliefs was not allowed and you were expected to reside in lockstep with the pastor at all times. Opening the school made it even easier to train children to fall in line with the absolute control of the church and then one day they would be adult followers who would never even think of leaving. If you are born into a family within the Calvary Gospel, and then you attend the school, by the time you are an adult you have almost no contacts outside the church. It makes leaving really hard. The church is the entirety of your community.
This is the point in my life when my light was almost completely snuffed out. Long gone was the little girl making dandelion crowns and in her place was left an empty shell. My mother worked hard but there was never enough. You can only eat so much baloney. Jim could never keep a job and so he was not bringing any real income into the house. He did like toys and my mother did what she could to buy him what he wanted much like she had done with me when I was a child. There was always money for another dog or a new gun but not enough to pay the light bill. In the space of one year, my world had become unrecognizable. I was ten when I was baptized and by age eleven there was almost nothing left of who I was before. In a childhood punctuated by loneliness, being saved actually made things much worse. I stopped wearing pants and cutting my hair. This only served to make me stand out even more once I started middle school. I only had three outfits for public school that fit within the UPC standards and so I rotated them. My 6th-grade homeroom teacher started to keep track of how many days in a row I wore a dress. He was a little weird. He looked like grizzly Adams and all the girls really liked him. This was the most pious time of my life. I tried to not watch television and almost never listened to “worldly music.” That being said, pop culture would always be my weakness. At times when we had electricity and cable, I would sneak and watch television and even MTV. I have spoken so much about our poverty but there were times when we were able to keep our heads above water and even have little luxuries like cable. During these good times, I would struggle to keep myself holy and away from the evils of Madonna and HBO. The United Pentecostal Church has very strict holiness standards and I tried to follow them all. Those standards served to further alienate me from my peers and family. My mother never embraced the UPC standards and so she swung from telling me they were too strict to feeling enormous guilt and beating herself up. She cut her hair, wore pants, watched television, and listened to the radio because she was not brought up to feel those things were entirely wrong. I spent time alone in my room to avoid the tv. When we had electricity the tv was always on and I always had this inner fight about it. I wanted to be with my family but I was afraid that if Jesus returned while I was watching I would miss the rapture. Escaping the guillotine was a strong motivator. So I sat in my room alone. My non-church friends drifted away because I could no longer do most of the things young kids like to do. Some of them even told me that their parents said I was in a cult. One might think at least I had the church kids but that did not pan out the way I expected either. There was a hierarchy and I was near the bottom. It went something like this: pastor’s kids at the top, any minister’s child, elder’s children, and then whoever gave the most money, the poor, and last those of a race other than white. I was very poor and my parents did not give the church tons of money, I was also of mixed heritage and that was a problem. The only kids worse off than I were the kids who were black or even worse half-black. I was able to elevate myself with some of the adults because of all of the work I did for the church, bus ministry, nursing home ministry, campus ministry, and being the Bible quiz captain. As I got older and adults learned I could sing they would allow me to sing duets with other adults but never a solo. The kids didn’t care about any of that. They saw my race, my class, and that our parents did not associate with each other. Plus I also suspect that I was a little socially awkward. I had been alone so much and really only hung out with adults. I never knew how to connect with kids my own age.
Even with my extreme fear of hell, I would sneak contraband from time to time. I wish I had a better memory of exactly what was happening in our family financially. We had times where we went out to dinner every payday and even had cable and there were times when we had nothing. My mother worked at a laundry for much of my young childhood and occasionally Pizza Pit as a side gig. Eventually, she landed a job driving a city bus and things became better for a time. She wanted to be a police officer and almost made it but she was unable to pass the fitness test. My mother suffered from pretty severe asthma for most of my childhood and it kept her from making her dream a reality. That being said, a city job was a city job and she was happy to be hired to drive busses. This job came with good health insurance and a free bus pass for all family members. She had cable installed and then it became much harder for me to resist the television. In particular MTV and HBO. I loved music and I was drawn in early by music videos. Madonna was the biggest draw and I just couldn’t get enough of her. I tried to dress like her which is hard when you can’t wear jewelry, makeup, or pants. I wore lacey bows in my hair to be like her and I think as a small act of rebellion. Don’t let all of this make you think I was less afraid of hell, I wasn’t, but it was becoming harder and harder to resist normal popular culture. At church, they would bring in speakers to talk about the evils of rock music and they always scared the heck out of me. They played recordings of records played backward (backmasking) and told us what the hidden messages were. “Here’s to my sweet Satan” was the real message of Led Zeppelin’s Stairway To Heaven. “It’s fun to smoke marijuana” is what Freddy Mercury was really trying to tell me in Another One Bites The Dust. As ridiculous as it sounds, I was scared of many rock bands because I really believed that they worshipped Satan and they wanted to infiltrate my mind with their demonic messages. Even Falco was in league with the devil when he spoke about, “…no plastic money anymore…” because he was talking about the mark of the beast and glorifying the antichrist. Rock Me Amadeus wasn’t even evil backward; it was right there in plain English, well mostly German. The Beatles thought they were more popular than Jesus, Ozzy Osbourne was always biting the head off of some bird or bat, and I mean just look at Alice Cooper. The problem with all of their efforts to steer us away from the evils of this music is it was the 1980’s and that is not what we wanted to sneak and listen to. I wanted Madonna, Pat Benatar (They did eventually get to her after all she sang “Hell Is For Children”), and all the new wave English bands. All this scary rhetoric would cause young people to throw out all of their music and come crying to the altar to ask for forgiveness.
I think all this fear mongering is why I never heard or understood about grace. The goal always seemed to be to scare us down to that altar and then keep us in line by reminding us about hell and the rapture. God was not loving and he did not seem to want to help me, he was a scorekeeper and was waiting with glee to exact his revenge on anyone who did not fall in line.
So much of the approved music was so boring and repetitive. This is part of the reason I loved Bible camp so much. The music we were exposed to there was of a much higher quality than the music we heard in our home church. I always sang in the choir at church camp. The music would make me feel like I could float to the rooftop on the joy of it all. Then I would have to return home and it was back to the dull and uninspired. When Roy was our youth pastor it wasn’t so bad but when John took over he held much stricter views about music. He would say if the choice is to listen to “Christian Rock” or real rock and roll then he would prefer we listen to Christian rock. On the other hand, he held the opinion that if it is Christian then it is not rock. I remember standing in the vestibule one night after church watching John, our youth pastor rake a young man over the coals for listening to some kind of rock music. I felt bad for him because anyone walking by could see what was happening. My heart ached for what must have been an embarrassing experience for this kid. He was a friend of mine and I felt protective of him. Why not have this conversation somewhere private? My guess is straight up lack of compassion. No thought was given to how this may have made this kid feel? Pre-teens and teens are so easily embaressed by adults. Sometimes it seemed that those in charge of the teens were just lying in wait to catch us doing something wrong. Add to that the general negative attitudes towards us kids and lack of pats and the back and you can see it was a pretty toxic and unloving environment.
The same thing happened with makeup. I loved to think about makeup, and dream of makeup, and if you know me now you know none of that has changed. Makeup was a big big no no. You don’t want to be like the evil Jezebel or Delilah do you? Evil temptresses who lead men to hell with their eyelids and lips.
Proverbs 6: 24-26 “To keep thee from the evil woman, from the flattery of the tongue of a strange woman. Lust not after her beauty in thine heart; neither let her take you with her eyelids. For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life.
Proverbs 5:3-5 “For the lips of a strange woman drop as an honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: But her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword. Her feet go down to death; her steps take hold in hell.”
At Bible camp they would preach on the evil’s of makeup and all of the girls would bring their hidden stashes up to the altar. More tears, more repentance, and all for that cherry Lip Smacker that made your lips ever so slightly more red than what they naturally were.
While writing this my mind keeps returning to the idea of joy. When I was a young person the church really was a thief of joy. We were not supposed to take joy in clothing or things of the world, we were only supposed to take joy in Christ. After raising four children of my own I can see how unnatural this is. Young people take joy in so many things. I loved to see my children discover a new author or musician and then become totally enthralled with it. I watched them try on new styles and identities as they matured and it brought me happiness to see them embrace the freedom they did not know they had. I believe the idea that everything is a sin can stunt the growth of young people. It keeps them from experimenting in life and that can close so many doors. I mourn my childhood and all that could have been had I had the freedom to choose.
Over the last year, I have written about how much it saddens me that the congregation within Calvary Gospel Church seems to have completely lost their hearts and capacity for compassion. I have turned this over in my head repeatedly and this post comes from the conclusions I have reached.
I believe that CGC is a cult of personality. In the beginning, it was focused on John Grant and now by extension his family. The congregation was mean spirited when I was a child in the ’70s and ’80s and it seems that it has only gotten worse over time. I do not see any evidence that CGC is all that interested in following what most folks would consider to be Christian principles. Instead they follow what the Grant family says and in some ways John Grant has replaced God in their hearts and beliefs. At the very least their version of Christianity is harsh and devoid of lovingkindness. There is a coldness present that leaves no room for understanding. It seems like a perversion of the gospel to blame victims and hide criminals.
When churches are run with such a strong leader in control of almost everything they run the risk of becoming cults and that is how I feel about both CGC and the UPC as a whole. When those in the pews hang on the words of the pastor or organization leadership and can no longer see the words within the Bible or hear the voice of God then haven’t they shifted into cult territory? There is such a strong focus on tongues but not on love. There is a legalistic focus on standards but very little is ever said about grace and grace is rarely shown, unless you are a man who has committed sexual sin against a child. Has the church board ever said no to John or Roy Grant? Have the elders ever called them into question? My guess is no because the church is set up to “question not God’s anointed.” Once in that territory, I would argue that the pastor can do almost anything and use hearing the voice of God to justify it. This doesn’t seem like a safe or sane situation to me. Because of this I firmly believe that the Grants have surpassed God in the hearts and minds of the rank and file within CGC. When I was a child they taught me that something becomes a cult when it is no longer Christ-centered. It seems to me that they have more than strayed into this area. Many people talk around the word cult and seem scared to apply it to the UPC but I am not one of those people.
It is shocking how they as a congregation can shut their eyes and ears to the stories coming from those who have walked away. Many of us were children when we attended and we grew up under the influence of the church, and many of us have had very similar outcomes. Pretty much everyone who has read my story and commented to me has said they are so sorry and sad about what I suffered as a child. The exception to this has been CGC and their leadership. They have referred to us as bringing damnation down on our heads, as bitter women, and as demon influenced, but have they spoken to any of us? Have they weighed our experiences against the Bible? What does the Bible say regarding people who harm children? No, they shut their eyes and ears and applaud the man who covered it all up. They believe it is them against all of the survivors never once considering the body of Christ might be more than just them. They seem to agree that protecting the church from scrutiny and Grant’s leadership from being called into question is more important than the lives of so many people.
Judgment features heavily within this congregation. Are you sick? Hmm better get your heart right so you can be healed. You must not have enough faith, better work on that. Are you poor? It’s probably because you are not tithing enough. God would bless you if you would be more perfectly in line with what the church teaches. Were you preyed upon by a pedophile, well you must have lead him on in some way. Anything that is wrong in your life or a hardship can be tied to some sin you must be guilty of. This puts the congregation in the role of guessing what your sin might be or standing in judgment instead of offering aid. I think all of this comes from John Grant and not the Bible. As a pastor and now bishop he has shaped the congregation into his own image. He has shown no compassion for the children driven from his congregation and seems more worried about his legacy and reputation. So why would we expect anything different from the congregation? If he or Roy were teaching the folks in the pews to love us and show compassion and mercy my guess is things might be different. If they were saying that older men with young underage women will no longer be tolerated then that would reflect in the congregation as well.
I’m not writing this as a takedown piece on John Grant or his family. I’m writing it to illuminate how far CGC has strayed from “normal” Christianity. I’m writing it in hopes that it wakes up even one person, saves one child from the fate I suffered, or even just causes someone to examine things a little closer.
Today I want to tell you that you are worthy. If you were sexually abused as a child you are worthy. You did not draw that older man into sin. He made his choices and he was an adult. You were a child and children cannot consent. I am so sorry if the church did not protect you, love you, and help you to heal. You deserve love, support, and an apology. I am still stunned at Calvary Gospel’s silence. I am experiencing them as no more loving now than they were when I was a child.
You are worthy even if your family did not dress right, or if you are brown or black, and even if your family did not tithe enough. A child shouldn’t have to pay for their parent’s choices. None of us can control the color of our skin or the family we are born into. We certainly could not have controlled our parent’s actions.
You are worthy even if you made mistakes, snuck into the movies, or listened to top 40 radio when your parents were out. These things are not sins, they are a normal part of growing up. No one perfectly listens to the adults in their life. Normal human development dictates that teens challenge adults, it is how we grow and become independent.
You are worthy if you wore a slit in your skirt, asked too many questions, or got bored in church. If you kissed a boy behind the church camp auditorium when you were supposed to be inside, if you faked being sick to stay home from church, and even if you faked speaking in tongues because you were afraid to disappoint your parents.
I see you trying to pretend that you are ok, trying to heal, trying to deal with the coldness coming from the people who raised us. I see you dealing with trauma, being the family outcast, never being 100% sure if you made the right decision when you left the church. I see you wondering if you should have kept your mouth shut about it all.
I understand not being educated properly and how that stays with you all your life. I understand playing small, staying invisible, always waiting for something bad to happen. I understand feeling weird in the world like you can never quite fit in. I understand the world not understanding where we come from and how exhausting it can be to try to explain.
For the men out there I see you too. Struggling to come to terms with what has happened to the women you grew up with, ministered to, your sisters and friends. I see you having many of the same struggles as I have only different at the same time. I know that there are survivors among you and when you are ready to tell your story we will be there for you as you have been there for us.
Consider this my love letter to all the survivors out there no matter what your damage is. You are worthy. Please don’t let those who refuse to ask for forgiveness, who refuse to take responsibility, and who choose to stand in judgment rather than lend aid define you. I see you as strong, brave, and overcomers. We have overcome the lack of love, support, grace, and normal human kindness we should have received as kids. We have found each other and created a life raft for one another and any new survivors who choose to join us. You are good even if you are not perfect. You are worthy.
The UPC church is famous for their holiness standards. When I was young (70’s and 80’s) the standard was for women to only wear dresses or skirts, culottes for gym class. You had to have uncut hair and that meant no trims or going to the hair salon. We were not allowed to wear any makeup or nail polish. We were to be “shamefaced.” Jewelry was not allowed except for a wedding ring and a watch. There is more but I would be here all day if I really went into it.
Once I had my salvation experience I embraced this standard with gusto! It was expected, you could lose your salvation if you deviated from these standards. This made me very worried about my mother. She did not embrace their standards, although she would never wear pants to church. That was a leftover standard from her childhood. Because she had short hair most of the time she became the target of gossip within the church and the other ladies did not approve of her. This made my life harder, we were in but not all the way in. My mother felt their judgment and felt bad about it, I don’t know why she did not comply all the way. She had a stubborn streak so it may be as simple as that.
We were very poor. My mother often worked two jobs and my dad never paid child support. My step-dad was disabled so he wasn’t bringing much income in. It did not take long for these holiness standards to become a problem within my family. My mother landed an amazing job driving the city bus in our town. She did not have a college degree and so she struggled to find a good job. When she landed the job with the city that was a big deal! It meant union wages and insurance. There was one big issue with her taking that job. She had to wear pants as part of the uniform. Now she wore pants in her daily life, but for some reason when people found out she was taking this job it became a huge issue. People knew that you could not wear a skirt on that job and they were very critical of her. Some went so far as to tell her she would go to hell for taking the job. My mother took the job because we needed the money and benefits, and so the church never looked at her the same after that. I remember one kind woman, she was also working poor, who told my mother she wore pants to her job too. She told my mother she was doing the right thing by taking the job, that woman was the lone voice of support.
I started the 6th grade right after my salvation experience and I was devoted to wearing skirts or dresses to school every day. I did wear shorts in gym class because that was a required uniform and my mother would not make a fuss about it on my behalf. I had exactly three dresses/skirts I could wear. One was too nice for every day and was really meant to be a church dress. That meant I had two outfits to wear to school. Now I understand that lots of kids are poor and do not have tons of clothes but being UPC did make my situation harder. I could not just walk into Goodwill and buy whatever fit, it had to meet their standard. I was a size 2/3 at the time and so finding clothing was not easy. Plus I had to have pantyhose to wear to school every day. I tried to be very careful and make them last as long as I could, but I was 11 so snags happened. The standard was to have your legs covered, this meant pantyhose or tights.
Halfway through my sixth-grade year, I joined the UPC school. I was being picked on at school for being different and only having two outfits. I was also being picked on for being half Mexican. My family decided that putting me into the Christian school was the answer. My church ran an ACE school. I will post about that at another time, that school needs its own posts. The church school had a uniform and so I hoped that would make my life easier. It did not. My mother had two uniforms made and I had two shirts to wear. The uniform was a navy blue vest and skirt or a red set. She had one of each made. I learned after I started that no one wore the red set so I only had one uniform. This meant washing my uniform every night and then ironing. We were required to wear pantyhose or tights and dress shoes. Then for gym class, we had to wear culottes, I had one gym uniform and gym happened three days a week.
Again I know that being poor is common but I feel it is harder when holiness standards are in play. It is harder to find things to wear when you are living that standard and then layer on the stress of finding the right thing in a thrift store. The other part of this is about compassion. No one ever offered us used clothing or any financial help. I went to school on a scholarship, I never knew who provided it. The church had many people willing to help in that area but not willing to help with day-to-day needs. Then they would judge you for not being perfectly within the standard. To be honest I never remember my church doing anything to help the poor. Their attitude was that if you were poor you should look for sin and see if there is something you need to repent of. Maybe you did not have enough faith?
There was a class system at play. The more money you had the more likely you were to be an elder and given a position of power. The higher your hair the closer to god…lol. Then you can add the race layer onto that. I was half Mexican and so I was never seen as equal to the lily-white kids. I tried to compensate for these issues by being a very pious kid and by being super involved in ministry. I was able to rise a bit out of my class by doing those things. The UPC church I grew up in cared so much about their holiness standards but no so much about caring for the poor or sick. Charity and compassion was not something I learned there.
I’m not sure what I will be posting about next. Does anyone have any questions?
We started attending The United Pentecostal Church in Madison Wisconsin when I was 8. At first we only went on Sunday morning and we rode the Sunday school bus. Someone from the church came by our apartment one day looking for people who might be interested in attending Sunday school. Some Sundays my mother would not answer the door and other Sundays she would take me out to the bus. I think she liked the church but felt guilty about it because it did not line up with her Church of God beliefs. In the end, we went more and more until we were going all the time. We went Sunday morning and evening, plus Thursday night. At this point people were pretty nice to us, probably because they were trying to get their hooks in. Love bombing works.
If you’ve read any of my earlier posts you know that I grew up with a constant fear of hell and the rapture. The seeds of all that fear were planted long before I ever set foot in Calvary Gospel United Pentecostal Church. All that fear was only made worse by the fire and brimstone preaching that often happened on Sunday nights. The night I walked that long road to the altar is burned in my mind. I was 10 years old. We were seated in the second to the back row of the sanctuary. My mother was never a front row woman. Pastor John Grant was preaching about how your name is written on the gates of hell until Jesus takes it off. I was scared out of my mind. When the altar call was given I sat there and debated with myself about whether or not I should go forward. I was a shy child and the thought of walking down in front of all of those people was pretty awful. My fear of hell was worse than my fear of walking forward so forward I went. It felt like it took me forever to get down to the front and when I did I was immediately covered with women. They gathered around me and walked me through the sinner’s prayer of repentance. My only comfort was the presence of some of my Sunday School teachers, although I had never seen them this worked up. After I said my prayer then the rejoicing started. This meant loud wailing and speaking in tongues. Hands pushing me back and forth in a swaying motion. They wanted me to speak in tongues and eventually I did. When I started stammering the sounds of the women around me got even louder. Scary loud. I felt accepted and safe if only for an instant. As soon as this calmed down then they wanted me to get baptized. In the UPC church they get you in that water as fast as they can because if the rapture were to happen or you were to die unbaptized you would not be saved. I knew the drill and got baptized. They let me pick which minister I wanted to baptize me. I don’t know if they let everyone pick or if they let me because I was so young. I chose the minister that was the least threatening to me.
Our baptismal tank was behind the choir pews. Everyone would gather around and watch you get baptized and clap and sing and speak in tongues. After it was all over people came up and congratulated me. I felt high. I know that it was endorphins causing that feeling. I chalked it up to my new-found salvation. That feeling lasted about a week. In the church of my childhood you were never really saved, not for good. You could always lose your salvation through sinning. Over and over I cried out to god for forgiveness. I remember my pastor preaching about a dream he had. The rapture was happening in his dream and he could not rise any higher than the ceiling of his bedroom. Why? Because he was not godly enough. My child mind soaked up all such messages and they fueled my constant fear of what might keep me out of heaven. Our church encouraged us to repent for sins we might not be aware of just in case we forgot something. At ten years old I did not see god as a loving god, I saw him as a score keeper.
Are you seeing the overall theme? Fear. Whether it was the pastor’s sermons, the week-long revivals, or the yearly viewing of those awful movies, my church experience was soaked in fear. Did I forget to repent of some sin? How long had it been since I had spoken in tongues? Was I living godly enough. Tough questions for a 10-year-old. Once I knew the difference between right and wrong I was old enough to be accountable. Pile all of that fear on top of the poverty and my parents marriage issues and life was pretty hard. Being in the UPC church magnified my problems.
From that moment on my life changed. Not in a good way. I embraced the church’s holiness standards with gusto. I tried to live as close to the rules as possible. Next time I will post about that part of my journey.
If you are a UPC survivor I would love to hear from you. Does my childhood experience sound like yours?
Debbie McNulty 