Nailing down her religion...

I'll start by telling a story Mom liked to tell. There are two churches in Dain, one Baptist and one Methodist. She was at the Baptist church when both were having a revival. She went outside to find a place to nurse her baby and while she was out there, sitting between the two churches in a nice little green area, back hidden a bit by the trees there, both congregations started singing.

The Baptist church was singing, "Will there be any stars in my crown" and the Methodist church was singing: "No, not one."

As humorous as the story might be, the sermons going on inside the two churches would have been no less opposed to each other. What one believed, the other thought was sin. And each could find Bible to support them in this.

My oldest sister, Ginny believes in "once saved, always saved". That's a neat package -- diametrically opposed to the other Christian belief which allows for people to be lost often and found again later.

People believe what they believe and there's no telling why one goes one way and one another. When I was in church, I never did get that particular doctrine down to an art form. I also didn't see the significance of needing to believe one or the other unless you were planning on doing a lot of sinning and needed a safety net -- in which case, the way Sis believes it would be the better choice. Except, well.... once you'd sinned, you could always get saved again, if you were of the other persuasion. And be brand new. Again and again and again. (Sort of like spiritual re-incarnation). But as I say, we all believe what we believe -- and I'm not sure we're totally in charge of that. Some of it is written in.

I never try to get my sis to believe differently than she does. She can believe in purple cows if she wants to. I don't care. As long as it makes her happy. She deserves a little happiness. She had two abusive husbands (one a drunk and one a religious zealot) and lost two sons, both violently. She should be allowed all the happiness she can garner and then some.

Gin tries, every time we talk, to get a word in edgewise for Jesus. I allow her to talk, cause it doesn't bother me any and it seems to help her. But one bug in her craw is that I was a Christian for twenty-some years before I moved on. At first, she chalked my new path up to backsliding and that sufficed her for a bit. She was militant when she first talked to me, challenging. I'd side-step, cause I didn't want to talk about my spiritual path with a non-believer (put the shoe on the other foot). It's difficult to explain things to someone who thinks like a wall. She didn't want to know, anyway.

Eventually, I tried to answer a few of her challenges as if they were questions. No, we don't hurt animals. That's Hollywood and the preacher who needs to keep you scared. All we sacrifice is our bad habits. No, we don't worship any devils. The devil is the other Christian god, we don't have one in our religion. We don't cast the shadow outside ourselves. We accept our own responsibility for things we do and learn from our mistakes and move on toward the higher way. We don't need a devil to blame for our bad calls. No, we don't try to win anyone else to our religion. We couldn't if we tried. People are who they are and everyone has their own ways and their own path. Enjoy yours. Leave mine alone.

I change the subject to Mom, recipes, herbs, and old times. And she lets it go.

But then the next call, she's back again to the subject. The one thing that really bothers her is the "once-saved, always-saved" bit of doctrine she has to believe or else her religion falls apart.

So, yesterday, we're talking family history and she mentions the book, The Mountain Peeks by some Henderson in North Carolina. The Peeks and Henderson married back and forth all the time. I don't mean kinfolks married kinfolks. I mean a Henderson boy would marry a Peek girl and the Peek girl's brother would marry the Henderson boy's sister. Maybe each family was too contrary to look beyond the "good family names" they knew to take on other wives. Though there were some of those days who fell from the family's good graces to follow other ways, too -- even marrying outside the Hendersons.

I told her about a woman in the book, a Henderson who married a Peek. She was a huge woman and she couldn't get up out of her chair. It took six strong fellows to carry her down into the water in her chair to baptize her.

My sis said, maybe it was our Grandpa Peek's mom. Because she had arthritis all her life and when she got older, couldn't get out of bed. And she was old when she accepted the Lord. And as soon as she did, she was cured of arthritis. (Never mind the holes in the story -- like if she was cured, then she could have gotten up and walked to her baptism).

Course, I did wonder why that kind of thing only happens long ago and far away where it can't be verified.

"But she was really saved," she said, "Hers was a heart conversion, not a head conversion. She meant it when she accepted the Lord. It wasn't a fake conversion." She said this in a challenging way.

Just for the record, if there were degrees of being Christian, my degree would have been higher than hers. I read my Bible, tithed, prayed without ceasing, backed up my faith with good works and trusted, living on faith that my prayers were heard and answered -- just not always in the affirmative. All she ever did was go to church if she felt like it, and listen to a preacher -- any preacher -- expound his views on what might be in the Bible (or might not). Ah... "are you different, why do you gloat, since it was God who made you and not you, yourself". It's like being humble... if you know you are, then you aren't.

I'm just saying, if I wasn't, then no one is. And doesn't this whole thing reek of classism? But there is always a Bible verse to cover every eventuality, and to Gin's new contortion of facts, I was never among them, and so, of course, could go out from them. Her religion is once more secured. Nailed down. And apt to stay that way.

Ambrose Bierce defines a Christian as: "One who believes that the New Testament is a divinely inspired book admirably suited to the spiritual needs of his neighbor."

I'm sure that's not always true. I read the book for what I could learn about me, not about my neighbor. I wanted to know the rules of the road. I wanted a guide book. I still look for answers, and find them. I found them, also, when i read the Bible. I'm sure others do, too.

A religion is only good if it goes inward. Into the inner landscape. If it goes outward to judge how much of something someone else is, then it's worthless. It's like food, what makes you feel healthy might poison your neighbor. We're all set up differently.