I went to a religious Christian summer camp for 7 years and worked as a camp counselor for 5 years. This camp was integral to my faith. I started going when I was 8 and soon developed an almost crippling fear of hell. If you never developed such a fear or were ever a believer, you are lucky. I never thought of my religious upbringing as childhood indoctrination. However, the more I think back on my faith years, the more I see the damage done. I spent many nights scared to fall asleep and chanting the old prayer,
"Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep,
If I shall die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen."
I was so scared every time I sinned that if I happened to die I would be sent to hell. No child should contemplate their death and fear being tortured forever.
I've been thinking about camp recently simply because the friends I made there are on twitter and I follow them and vice versa. I see a lot of religious tweets. I also see the atheists that I follow challenging religious belief on a daily basis and it inspires me to do the same. However I'm in a bit of a dilemma. Do I just interact with strangers or with the people who I personally know and care about?
On top of this, I've already received some pushback, although subtle, for coming out as an atheist. I was best friends with a girl for so long and then I moved away when I was 7. We drifted in and out of each others' lives but we had a strong bond and our love for our camp kept us together. Sure we had different friends and lives but I always thought we would be in each others' lives. I was wrong.
She got engaged. I found out by twitter, and not in the "hey I'm engaged allison!" or even a general announcement. It was subtle but I immediately texted her some congratulations. I knew she'd been this guy for a long time and they really loved each other as well as shared similar religious beliefs. Time passed and then, she was married. I was a little bewildered. I sure wasn't expecting to be in the wedding party but maybe an invite? I mean, she had always meant a lot to me. Maybe I put more into our friendship than she did. Maybe this wasn't about me being an outspoken atheist. I mean, maybe she just wanted a small party of close friends (which I'd drifted out of).
I don't want to make this about me. I don't want to be selfish. But I'm kind of hurt. The cynical part of my brain (which in retrospect is pretty large) says its because I'm an atheist and good Christians don't associate with apostates.
So I'm wary. Do I alienate more of my past Christian friends by asking questions and disagreeing? I don't know. I'm nervous and just sad. Sad that that part of my life is over. Sad that we are worlds apart now. Sad that they will look at me with pity and maybe scorn. In many ways my heart still hurts over my past. I look at being a counselor and grieve for taking part in brainwashing children. I grieve for the fact that my life's trajectory was changed. I grieve for the what ifs and most of all I grieve for the little child that wept about hell.
Friday, January 3, 2014
Thursday, January 2, 2014
2014
So this is the post where I write down my resolutions and all that happy-clappy shit. It's cliche and people get annoyed but I like them and its my blog so suck it.
This past year and for the past several years I gradually stopped reading as much as I used to. In elementary school through high school I was always reading a book, in between classes, during class (my first C can be attributed to wanting to read Harry Potter more than learning math), basically any down time was usually spent reading. My punishments from my parents were to take my books away, not limit tv or computer time (though I soon found the hiding spot and would read at night). I always assumed I would be like this forever.
Depression is a bitch and a half and college is pretty time-demanding. It got to the point where I only read when it was for a class and this rarely included fiction. I've come to like non-fiction a lot more than I did before and tend to gravitate towards religious/historical/etc. I guess I just have a hard time transitioning away from young adult fiction that I have so entrenched in for so long. Adult fiction is really hit or miss for me.
Through the insistent prodding of my boyfriend I started reading The Name of the Wind and it is absolutely awesome. Lurking around on reddit has revealed to me the 52 week book challenge where you read a book a week for a year. Ambitious and it makes me nervous because I do not like to fail (I have so much anxiety about failing I almost dropped out of college). So my plan of attack on resolutions is to set an over-arching goal. I want to read more. Yes you're supposed to do things quantitatively but my chest freezes up just thinking about deadlines.
So, reading more. I'm halfway through my current book and while its taken me longer than usual to get through it (its 600 pgs), I'm making good progress. I have a stack of books to read in my room and plan on slowly whittling that down. Hell I'd be happy to read that stack this year (close to like 10 books?).
Another goal I want to achieve is to build my own pc. Completely ambitious and previously thought to be beyond my grasp I have determined that my dad's ancient (we're talking early thousands people) desktop just isn't cutting it for gaming. It's a struggle. My pragmatic side doesn't want to overspend on a computer that has bloat ware (yay new terminology!) so with the help of the internet we shall see how well this goes. Hell, maybe I'll even get into coding (unlikely).
So we have more reading and build a pc. Other general lifestyle changes are to move out of my dad's house and get a job that doesn't make me want to commit suicide (lawyers are dumb and don't know how to treat their secretaries/receptionists). I'd like to get back in doing yoga and when the weather warms back up to get back into running (which was derailed by me being a baby about cold weather). So yeah eat better exercise more blah blah blah. I think that when I move out on my own I'd like to learn more about cooking and definitely only eat ethical meat. I don't know if I would ever want to go vegetarian but I definitely do not want to support the current meat industry. Mostly I stick with venison as my dad is a hunter and I know the animal did not suffer and had a natural and normal life (ok I can't know that completely, not like I'm following deer around from birth to my dinner plate but it's a hell of a lot better than what Tyson does to their animals they slaughter).
I suppose I should also be more budget conscious. I suck at budgets. Christmas fucked me over two ways to Sunday. I'm also slightly addicted to buying makeup and online shopping. Bad Allison.
When I leave work today I plan on digging through all my stuff at my dad's and pitching/recycling/re-homing stuff. I've always been slightly obsessed with cleaning and organizing (seriously, what 5th grader do you know that alphabetized their books by genre/author/etc.?)
So, new year, yay and all that shit.
This past year and for the past several years I gradually stopped reading as much as I used to. In elementary school through high school I was always reading a book, in between classes, during class (my first C can be attributed to wanting to read Harry Potter more than learning math), basically any down time was usually spent reading. My punishments from my parents were to take my books away, not limit tv or computer time (though I soon found the hiding spot and would read at night). I always assumed I would be like this forever.
Depression is a bitch and a half and college is pretty time-demanding. It got to the point where I only read when it was for a class and this rarely included fiction. I've come to like non-fiction a lot more than I did before and tend to gravitate towards religious/historical/etc. I guess I just have a hard time transitioning away from young adult fiction that I have so entrenched in for so long. Adult fiction is really hit or miss for me.
Through the insistent prodding of my boyfriend I started reading The Name of the Wind and it is absolutely awesome. Lurking around on reddit has revealed to me the 52 week book challenge where you read a book a week for a year. Ambitious and it makes me nervous because I do not like to fail (I have so much anxiety about failing I almost dropped out of college). So my plan of attack on resolutions is to set an over-arching goal. I want to read more. Yes you're supposed to do things quantitatively but my chest freezes up just thinking about deadlines.
So, reading more. I'm halfway through my current book and while its taken me longer than usual to get through it (its 600 pgs), I'm making good progress. I have a stack of books to read in my room and plan on slowly whittling that down. Hell I'd be happy to read that stack this year (close to like 10 books?).
Another goal I want to achieve is to build my own pc. Completely ambitious and previously thought to be beyond my grasp I have determined that my dad's ancient (we're talking early thousands people) desktop just isn't cutting it for gaming. It's a struggle. My pragmatic side doesn't want to overspend on a computer that has bloat ware (yay new terminology!) so with the help of the internet we shall see how well this goes. Hell, maybe I'll even get into coding (unlikely).
So we have more reading and build a pc. Other general lifestyle changes are to move out of my dad's house and get a job that doesn't make me want to commit suicide (lawyers are dumb and don't know how to treat their secretaries/receptionists). I'd like to get back in doing yoga and when the weather warms back up to get back into running (which was derailed by me being a baby about cold weather). So yeah eat better exercise more blah blah blah. I think that when I move out on my own I'd like to learn more about cooking and definitely only eat ethical meat. I don't know if I would ever want to go vegetarian but I definitely do not want to support the current meat industry. Mostly I stick with venison as my dad is a hunter and I know the animal did not suffer and had a natural and normal life (ok I can't know that completely, not like I'm following deer around from birth to my dinner plate but it's a hell of a lot better than what Tyson does to their animals they slaughter).
I suppose I should also be more budget conscious. I suck at budgets. Christmas fucked me over two ways to Sunday. I'm also slightly addicted to buying makeup and online shopping. Bad Allison.
When I leave work today I plan on digging through all my stuff at my dad's and pitching/recycling/re-homing stuff. I've always been slightly obsessed with cleaning and organizing (seriously, what 5th grader do you know that alphabetized their books by genre/author/etc.?)
So, new year, yay and all that shit.
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