August 02, 2002 : past lives
I once had a dream in which I was in the audience at my high school graduation. Apparently you rarely see yourself in your dreams, and in this one I remember watching myself walk down the isle to my seat with other graduates. In fact, the younger me even smiled slightly at the older me. Something along the lines of a look of recognition. Friendly.
If you hang out with me for long, whether it be here in Belgium or back in the states, the conversation will inevitably drum up my past life. My past life as a Christian wannabe martyr. My life as a 18 year old zealot servant of the lord. How I attended a Christian university before going for the cheaper (paid for) state university. How I went into college with every intention of graduating and going missionary and how I left it as a lesbian graphic designer with a Christian chip on my shoulder.
There are many other very interesting stories, of course, one of which was brought up today. Last night, while looking through Jessica's vacation pictures (no, not the tittie variety I stumbled upon) there was a picture of Jessica that resembled a high school teacher I had my senior year. It just so happened that the way the picture was taken it was a spitting image of her. I told Jessica this, and over breakfast Jessica brought it back up. "You didn't happen to mean a lady that was a member of my parent's church, did you?" she questioned. And over the course of the afternoon, I retold her the story of Jamie Brown.
The story of Jamie Brown goes something like this. She was the assistant volleyball and basketball coach, as well as the Spanish teacher at Fair Grove my last year of school. She was overtly Christian and over the course of the year, she became one of my best friends as well as spiritual mentors. She lived in a household of such mentors, and throughout the summer following my senior year, their house became my second home.
Well, post my first Indigo Girls concert and the first few weeks of college, it became obvious to me that I was a lesbian. Weeks past, and my relationship to Jamie became quite rocky, but since friendships are strong, I never imagined it would end the way it did. In January, just 5 months after my eye-opening experience began, I made the trip to Springfield to have dinner with her. I remember it being a good evening. It was a return to "old times." As the evening drew to a close, I found myself sitting in the living-room of their new house, Jamie answering the phone and returning with her Bible. Not unusual, of course, but as she walked in she asked me, "Andrea, you believe we are in the end times, right?" And, drumming up beliefs I was already starting to shed, I answered, "yes." And then read:
II Timothy 3:1-5 But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God--having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.
She then went on to say that she didn't want me to call her, write her, stop by, or hear from me at all. I left completely crushed.
I could go on and on about this, but I'm not. For a long time I figured she had her own beliefs and I would defend them, but the older I get the more I realize what an impact that had on my faith. Not that there was a huge amount of faith anymore at this time. Certainly I still believed in any number of things but the fire was gone out. Christianly speaking, I thought I was going through a huge drought and even for the next 3 and a half years of college I would, at intervals of every 3 months or so, have a huge period of questioning. I even went so far as to mix and mingle with the Ozark Christian College folk that hung out at the coffee shop at Books A Million where I worked in College. But nothing stuck. Christianly speaking, once again, I guess one could say that I was calloused. That my heart was hardened. But I cannot look around me and say that my heart is hard, it is hard to the concept of a God that created the world in 6 days, or that women shouldn't become pastors, or that Jesus would like the church as it exists today...but hard? No.
So I promised I wouldn't talk about it further. Obviously there are things to work out, as I have joked with Eva and her brother Joris, that in a year's time I will have worked out the secular equivalent of faith and prayer. What a project for a year! (wish me luck!)
So Jamie Brown left my high school, got married, had two kids, and taught at Warsaw High School and attended Jessica's father's church. Her father, in fact, was Jamie and her husband's spiritual mentor. Small world. Jessica and I spent much of the afternoon trying to figure out Jamie's married name, and then, once we found out, we spent another hour trying to find her email address. No such luck. I'm usually quite a whiz-bang at internet searching, but I still came up empty handed. I told Jessica that it might stem from the fact that Jamie might think the Internet a bit too end-timeish, that I remember her not liking the concept of a Check Card (the debit card, the equivalent to the BancContact card here in Belgium, and even the Proton card.)
shrug.
So all of this stemmed from the fact that a picture of Jessica vaguely resembled Jamie, and that I mentioned it at all. Little does Jamie know that her pastor's daughter was my roommate in college and is still a close friend. There is something like a poetic justice in that.
As for an accomplishment, Jessica and I made Falafel for dinner. If you grew up in a small little Midwestern town like I did, it just might be that you've never had it. I had my first falafel in Palo Alto, California and now I'm hooked. A Jewish (Middle Eastern) concoction of mashed chick-peas and spices, they are rolled into balls and fried, stuck into a pita, and enjoyed with or without garnish and humus.
Few times do you make something out of a mix that ends up being so perfect. It was, as I often state, one of the best dinners I've ever made. Fresh falafel (though the package had been sitting in our cupboard for at least 6 months and was past-date) made in our own home. Yet another thing to add to my list of food-making abilities. And now we don't have to go down the street to the falafel place with the grumpy non-Orthodox Jewish ladies.
IN THE NEWS:
Scientists have discovered a gene that appears to help explain why some boys who are abused or mistreated are more likely than others to grow up to be aggressive, antisocial or violent.
