“Because JESUS is Number One in my life,
You’ll always be my Number Two!”

Were you the one who some months ago cited a link to some sort of Irish “child saint” folk cult/folk hagiography dating from around that time? I remember going into a diabetic coma just from reading the first couple paragraphs.

These days, whenever I encounter the “19th century treacly “let’s make this edifying” impulse”, I counter it with a dose of Deadwood. Because Deadwood was also the 19th Century — coincidentally, not too far in time and place from all those Christian Prairie/Bonnet Romances you see on the shelves. Just like a young Stephen King wanted to see what a crossover between those Disney films and Asphalt Jungle-style B-movies in his hometown’s two theaters would have been like, I’d like to see what would ensue if you dropped all these Christian Bonnet Romance heroes & heroines into the REAL 19th Century frontier, AKA Al Swearingen’s Deadwood.

Have been away from reading imonk for a few weeks because of – you guessed it – regret. The impact of regret on my life has caused me to avoid anything to do with God, church, christanity. Would like to blame some or all of those for my regret though I know the issue lies with me.

Thanks for the post. It has helped immensely in dragging myself out of the despair pit. After being in the darkness of that pit it will take my eyes a while to adjust to the light.

Your writing continues to echo the voice of the divine (take that however you want to)

Regards

Adrian

But.

I struggle constantly with how being a part of Christianity seems to mean that I must continually live in a state of loneliness and lack of communication. Why does life have to be so empty? is it all just an element to drive me back to God?

I don’t want to be a monk, but there doesn’t seem to be any alternative. To be a Christian, and to think, means to be too uncomfortable a person for most people to want to spend time with.

One of my biggest regrets was being around so many advocates of courtship and quiverfull teaching over the last ten years. How I managed to do this in a coastal urban center in Washington state I still don’t fully understand.

My admittedly very cynical assessment of the men I have met who promoted courtship is to observe that two kinds of fathers found the teaching appealing:

1) the father who is not so secretly afraid his little girls may grow up to date the kind of fornicating rabble-rouser he was in his teens. For this dad courtship is a teaching that allows him to just say no pre-emptively to any of the boys (or, God forbid, girls) his little girl may be interested in dating. Maybe he can add a shotgun and think that provides more menace.

2) the father who has been inattentive to the lives of his daughters while building a legacy for himself through career or church, and sees courtship as a retroactive veto power on whomever his daughter has already been dating while he wasn’t paying attention. All he has to do, again, is just say no. It also absolves him of having not actually paid attention to his daughter’s life.

These are the kinds of dads who think it is primarily the dad’s responsibility and power. My skepticism about this is partly personal, being an older brother. When my younger sister finally brought home a boyfriend who was not a total loser I not only told her so, I told him so pretty soon after she brought him by for a visit. He’s been my brother-in-law for more than ten years. Evangelical dads who think they are the first and last line of defense for their daughters are generally overcompensating and their daughters and sons deserve better than that.

I wonder if Christian girls realize that really, REALLY, alienates guys. There are reasons why there aren’t many evangelical men these days. That kind of spiritual approach is one of them.