Lessons from Kindergarten

How much do you remember of what you learned in kindergarten?  I remember a good deal, and working on this post has made me recall even more.  Some of the things I remember aren't even formative events.  Like the time we made art by blowing through a straw at a splotch of black ink.  It stank.  And the time my teacher made stone soup for Thanksgiving.  It was yucky.

I was held back a year for starting kindergarten.  My September birthday landed one week after the little christian school would accept late enrollments.  I didn't mind.  It gave me the good fortune of playing at home everyday for another year.  Plus, when I did start school, I got to do so with best friend Sammy.

I enjoyed kindergarten as long as Sammy was there.  We sat together, ate lunch together, played together at break.  Of course there were other children, but I didn't care to try to make friends with them.  Sammy made other friends, however, and I remember one day a jealous girl hit me in the throat because she didn't want me around.  But I clung to Sammy and she stood up for me.

One time, Sammy went home early because of a bellyache.  I was faced with the prospect of going through a day at school without her.  Anxiety clenched my stomach and pretty soon I told the teacher that my belly hurt too.  Mom came and brought me home.  Relief calmed me instantly, and I was back to normal, happy to be comfortable at home.  Dad was mad at me, though, when he got home from work.  He said I pretended to be sick to get out of school and gave me a spanking for lying.  He made it clear that I would be in worse trouble if I ever pretended to be sick again.

Instead of learning to recognize and deal with social anxiety, I learned that there were kinds of feeling sick that "weren't real" and kinds that were.  Not knowing the difference, I developed a fear of saying that I felt sick.  Only if I felt like tossing cookies or if I was running a fever did I feel safe to approach my parents.

Another time, I got a urinary tract infection (UTI).  I had to go to the doctor and get medicine to make it go away.  The medicine was awful thick chalky stuff with grape flavoring that somehow made it worse.  I had to drink a full glass of water afterwards too.

Dad was mad at me for getting the UTI.  A round of questioning after the doctor visit revealed that I got the infection by wiping wrong after using the bathroom and not changing underwear everyday.  He and Mom lectured me that I should have known better, but I hadn't.  I felt embarrassed and upset for being blamed about getting sick.  Was it my fault if being left handed naturally made me wipe wrong unless taught otherwise?  And who had actually Told me to change everyday?

Dad wanted to punish me by not letting me spend the night over at Sammy's, but Sammy's mom talked him into letting me come anyway.  She didn't blame me and was nice to me when it came time to take my medicine.  This event taught me that unfortunate things that happened to me could somehow possibly be my fault.

There were things I enjoyed learning at kindergarten.  For instance, I learned to read in kindergarten.  The road was paved with phonics, and when it came down to actually reading a book, I took to it instantly.  See Spot Run.  It was like I had been reading for ever.  I started out in the lowest reading level and was shortly moved to the top.

I also learned how to spell.  'THE' became my favorite word, my secret weapon.  T-H-E...ta-huh-e, that's what the letters said by themselves, but together they said th-a.  Armed with this code, I felt confident during a spelling contest when the teacher said, "Spell THE."  The other child finished writing on the chalkboard faster than me, but he spelled it wrong and I spelled it right.

I learned slow is better than fast if you get the answer right.

I also learned how to count by 2's, by 5's and by 10's.  And I learned to write a list of numbers in a straight column.  For some reason that skill was very important, and much of our worktime in class was spent perfecting it.

Other things I learned were strange, like: then-President, George Bush, supported corporal punishment.  He would even come to our little school himself, if he needed to, to punish a student that would not behave. And like: making the sign of the devil was bad.  This lecture was given in every classroom throughout the school one day when a student got in trouble for flashing the sign at a teacher.  "Don't stick your pinkie and your pointing finger up while making a fist." they said.  I wanted to make sure I never made the sign of the devil by accident, so I tried doing what they said NOT do to so I would know what it looks like.  I got my hand slapped for my troubles.

One time, clowns came to the school and put on a show.  One talked about seeing a rainbow on the way there and pretty soon he was pulling rainbow colored streamers out of his mouth!  The clowns taught us a new song, too.  "The Lord liveth - huh - and blessed be my rock - huh, huh - and let the God of my salvation be exalted..."  Dad didn't like the song when we sang it at home.  He said it was too charismatic and that the school must be getting to be too charismatic.

I learned that just because something was called christian didn't make it good.

We rode the bus to school, but the bus didn't come to our house -- we had to go meet it.  Mom and Sammy's mom took turns getting us to the bus stop.  Everyday was a race to see who could get in the car and buckle up the fastest.  Sometimes I won, but there was one time I lost because I was too busy trying to say "Pizza, pizza" like the Little Caesar's pizza man on tv.

To keep warm while we waited for the bus with the other kids, Sammy and I took turns running up to a pole and then letting our body momentum swing us around as we caught hold of it.  One time a teenage girl saw me and squealed that I was so Cute with my turned up piggy nose.  I couldn't imagine how having a pig's nose made me cute, so I learned to dislike my own appearance.

My brother Boss attended the same school.  While I lived in a little world where barely anyone existed besides Sammy and me, he had some trouble with a teenage boy bullying him.  He even came home one day with a black eye.  I was scared of the older boy, but one time during recess, he played on the see-saw with me and was really nice.  I felt special somehow.  For a long time after that -- even into adulthood -- if someone had a reputation for being mean, I expected to be the exception to the rule because I believed them to be merely misunderstood and tried to treat them nicely.

My last story for this post is about something that has puzzled me for a long time.  During recess one afternoon, it started snowing out really hard.  In snow that thick the air becomes very still and sound travels poorly.  Maybe that's why I didn't hear the bell for the end of recess.  I just looked up and, all at once, everyone else -- even Sammy-- was gone.  Except for an older boy I didn't know.  But we were having fun pretending a roofless playhouse was our fort, so I didn't worry about it.  Suddenly he acted like he had forgotten something and then he disappeared too.  It came to me that recess probably should have ended already, so I hurried into the school building, expecting to be in trouble. Instead, an assistant met me with: "There you are.  The boys are having naptime and the girls are having ice cream.  Come on!"

Did I say anything about where I had been?  No!  I didn't want to get in trouble with Mom and Dad, so I kept my mouth shut.  And I learned this: adults didn't always know when I had done something wrong.  If I said nothing, they wouldn't be the wiser.  Of course, this didn't always work, but that's a story for another post ;)

Once Saved, Always Saved

My partner (my Angel) and I were talking about baptism a while back.  She was raised Presbyterian, so she was sprinkled as a baby.  She was shocked that I hadn't been sprinkled as a baby too.  "What about if a baby dies?" she asked because Presbyterians believe that baby baptism is necessary for the baby to be able to go to heaven if it dies tragically before confirmation. 

In answer to her question, I tried to explain that Baptists (and I speak from the perspective of the circles in which I was raised) believe that people should only be baptized if they have been saved.  And they believe that, in order for a person to be saved, she has to first understand her desperate situation as a sinner so she will call on Christ to save her.

What about the babies, then?  Well, Baptists believe that the baby is safe in innocence.  As long as he cannot understand that he has a sin nature, then Jesus will certainly take him to heaven if he dies.  There comes a time, however, when a child reaches the age of accountability, that he becomes able to understand his need of a savior.  After that time, if the child has not gotten saved, then he will go to hell (where all the unsaved will spend eternity separated from God).

The problem is that nobody agrees on when exactly a child reaches the age of accountability.  An especially bright child might see himself as a sinner at the age of four.  Others might not "get it" all the way up to the age of twelve.  And the rare mentally handicapped child could be thought of as protected in innocence through her entire life.

So the parents of average children are left with a quandary.  They don't want any child of theirs to slip through the cracks and die a sinner.  The sooner a child makes a profession of salvation, the better -- but it HAS to be genuine, or it won't count.  Young children are so impressionable, they will often make a profession to make someone they love happy.  Great care has to be taken to ensure that a child expressing interest in getting saved *really* understands before leading him through the sinner's prayer.  One wouldn't want to give him a false sense of security if he didn't really mean it.

Because Baptists believe that once you get saved, you are saved for all of time.  It doesn't matter what you do after that point, you will always be saved and are guaranteed to go to heaven when you die. 
Some Baptists use this teaching to justify "easy believism".  They can speed walk a stranger through the plan of salvation in 30 seconds flat.  If the person prays, she is saved!  Chalk one up for the army of Jesus.  It doesn't matter to them if the woman's life ever changes; she's saved now and that is one more soul for Jesus.

Other Baptists are more careful.  They want to see "fruits worthy of salvation".  They slowly and methodically prepare a prospect to understand every aspect of salvation.  That way, if the person chooses to get saved, it is more likely to "stick" and he will want to devote his life to God (ie, get baptized, go to church, tithe, etc).

Papa Preacher is the easy believism type of Baptist.  One, two, three, bow the knee.  My Dad became the careful type, but that's another story for another time much farther down the road.

When I was a young child, Mom and Dad did their best to help me understand my need for salvation.  Whenever I did something wrong, they told me it was a sin.  From the youngest age (even before a profession of salvation), they taught me to pray for forgiveness for my sins every night.  "Dear God, thank you for this day.  I'm sorry for fighting with Boss today.  Please forgive me.  In Jesus' name, amen."

I had a little picture Bible back then.  I loved looking at the pictures since I had not learned how to read yet.  There was Samson pulling the house down on the Philistines; there was Jonah getting eaten by the whale; there was Daniel in the lions' den; there was Jesus with the little children; and many others.  My favorite picture, though, was the one of Jesus on the cross.  I would squat down against the wall after church with my picture bible on my knees, and I would study and study that picture.
Jesus loves me this I know, for the bible tells me so.  Jesus died for my sins; I knew that, and I loved this suffering Jesus so much. 

One Sunday morning, Dad gave the invitation after the junior church lesson that, if anyone wanted to get saved, they should come forward.  I went forward, so Dad took me to a little side room with shag green carpet and little black child-size metal folding chairs.  He showed me the wordless book, which only had pages of different colors and no words.  Black was the color of my heart because I was a sinner.  Red was the color of Jesus' blood when he died on the cross for me.  White was the color that Jesus would make my heart if I asked Him to save me.  And oh! how I wanted my heart to be white.  Then green was for growing by reading my bible and praying, and gold was for heaven, where I could go when I died.

I said I wanted to be saved, so Dad led me through the sinner's prayer.  And I was saved!  I was so excited, I wanted to get baptized right away.  But Papa Preacher said I was too young.  Even he was skeptical that I might not be able to understand everything yet.  But I was FIVE years old and I knew what I wanted.  I pestered Papa Preacher for a whole year and then he finally let me get baptized.  I was so proud that night looking out over the congregation.  Even my kindergarten teacher came to see me get baptized.

Ah, the faith of little children as praised by Jesus in the gospels.  I remember my faith at that age, the purity and certainty of it.  Where is it now when I need it?

When Church Took Over

When I look back at my family history, I remember a time when my family was "normal" and "happy".  Before things got bad.  And I can even pinpoint the event that started it all.  Change often occurs slowly, the scales tilting imperceptibly, balancing until that pivotal Moment which tips the scale to the other side.

For us, the Moment came one Sunday after the morning service.  Us kids didn't know it was different than any other Sunday when we piled into the family car.  We were quite young: Indie would have still been a baby and I would be four years old.

Something was clearly wrong with Mom and Dad, however.  They were arguing about something and Mom was getting very upset. We pulled out of the church parking lot as the argument escalated.  Us kids sat in uncomfortable silence in the back seat. This may have been the first time I heard Mom and Dad argue, but definitely not the last.  Suddenly the car slowed down and Mom got out and marched away down the road. Us kids were distraught, not understanding, when Dad pulled away and drove us home.

I don't remember what happened after that, but my parents often retold the story.  That morning, Papa Preacher had approached Mom and Dad about teaching in junior church (a children's service which took place during the weekly adult worship service).  The key thing in all this is that neither Mom nor Dad wanted to do it, but Dad took Papa Preacher's request like an injunction from God and felt like there wasn't much choice in the matter.

Mom let her feelings be known.  She didn't want the preacher telling us what we had to do.  In the end, she repented of her rebellion (her words).  The rest, as they say, is history.  Their first Sunday running junior church went horribly.  It happened to be during a revival, and the guest speaker preached a loooong time.  Apparently, they sang "Jesus Loves Me" a Lot.

After that, Mom and Dad went to conferences to learn how to run junior church better.  They learned about puppets, ventriloquism, balloon animals, and christian magic tricks.  They learned lots of new songs and review games.  Never again would they be caught unprepared.

Dad quickly came to prefer ventriloquism over puppetry.  He wrote lots of his own skits and invented nearly a dozen different characters.  He only bought one dummy in the very beginning.  After that, he and Mom fabricated them, either from scratch or from over-sized stuffed animals.

Mom filled poster pads with songs to sing, and created their most popular match game on index cards, drawing all the artwork herself.

They worked well as a team.  Pretty soon, Dad's ventriloquism got to be so popular that other churches asked him to come and do skits.  Papa Preacher was so pleased with their creativity and hard work that he made Dad the Director of Children's Ministries.

This is what got my parents involved with Saturday morning visitation.  They started running the church van route, so Saturday mornings were spent visiting the roster of kids to see whether they would be riding the next morning.  Us kids had to come along, of course.  It was boring, but we got to have donuts.

That was the beginning of church taking over.  During all of this, Mom and Dad changed.  At the time, we lived near two of Mom's sisters, and, as I said before, they used to be pretty close.  It was common for a bottle of champagne to be shared at family gatherings.  No more at Mom and Dad's house.

They tell the story that, when they were uncertain how to tell the family about their new abstinence from alcoholic beverages, the bottle of champagne exploded all over the living room.  Cleaning up the mess seemed fortuitous to them, though.  God had asserted his opinion about alcohol, and now they weren't afraid to say so.

Another time, my aunt gave Boss an action figure for his birthday.  Unfortunately for him, it looked demonic to Mom and Dad, so they decided it had to be burned.  I remember watching the scowling little face melt in the flames of our fireplace.

These things, plus the duty my parents now felt to witness to our "unsaved" relatives, drove the once close sisters apart.  It wasn't long before they wouldn't have anything to do with us. 

 

The Good Years

If you watch HGTV, you are familiar with the following scenario: a couple goes on vacation, they fall in love with the destination, and sooner or later decide to move there. This was true of my parents shortly after their conversion experience (described in the previous post). After visiting relatives who lived in the beautiful northwest, they fell in love with the mountains, and quickly decided to relocate.

They left as carefree young adults and first-time parents and returned nearly 25 years later as embittered, disillusioned middle-aged adults with a family whose fabric hung in tatters. Dad voiced the question on all of our minds then - if we had never left, how different would things be? Would he have ever become a minister? Would our family still be happy and loving as it once had been? Would my sister and I still believe?

What if -- useless words to ponder, I know, but irresistible just the same. I think I can speak for all of us by saying that we (at least secretly) think our lives could have been better if mom and dad had stayed in the midwest.

But if that were the case, I wouldn't have nearly as interesting a tale to tell.

Life in the northwest started out idyllic, though even the early days held portent of the coming change. Dad found employment at an auto-body shop, and he settled the family temporarily in a small apartment.

I surprised mom and dad by arriving 18 months after my brother (I'll call him Boss). I was born with fuzzy red hair, like Boss had been. According to an agreement my parents had, the red hair meant dad got to name me; however, mom begged and pleaded, so I ended up with her pick for a name. Later, my hair fell out and grew back blond, so she says I was meant to have that name. For this blog, I will refer to my earlier self as Song.

An important part of settling into their new home in the northwest was finding a "good" church to attend. By good I mean one that taught the correct biblical doctrines as my parents understood them. The first baptist church they tried did not measure up because it was not evangelical enough (it did not emphasize door-to-door witnessing).

Before long, mom and dad found an ifb church that was just starting up. The preacher fit their ideal, so they moved their membership to his church. Papa Preacher's style of leadership had two approaches. He could be gregarious, persuading compliance through personal charisma. If that didn't work, then he laid down the law. The person could take it or leave. And they did leave sometimes. As a young child, of course, I only saw Papa Preacher's friendly side. He and his wife were like grandparents to us kids, and we loved them fiercely.

In this time period, dad experienced trouble at work. This was in the days before safety procedures became mandated in the workplace. Imagine working in an auto-body repair shop where wearing even rudimentary masks met with derision, where proper ventilation and air conditioning did not exist, and where workers would only be dismissed if the outside temperature reached 100 degrees. Many employees came down with mysterious illnesses, my dad included.

He became plagued by severe headaches, mental confusion, body aches and weakness. One day he lost time, driving for two hours and arriving at home with no idea how he had gotten there and no memory of where he had been. These symptoms drove him to quit his auto-body career and find other employment. Gradually, the symptoms disappeared and his health seemed to return to normal.

A few years passed, during which, our family moved from the apartment into a little house with rough wood siding. Mom's mother made the move to the northwest and married again. Then my sister, the last of us kids, was born. I'll call her Indie (short for Independent) since she's always had her own way of doing things and she never bought into what we were raised to believe (the way I did).

Sadly for her, she doesn't remember when our family was beautiful and happy and the smiles on family portraits were genuine. Back then, we went to the park and fed the ducks. Boss and I got to go swimming in the public pool. We often rode bikes to the nearest playground and spun on the tire swing. And we stopped at the salt licks to see the mountain goats every time we went to visit Grandma and her new husband.

Something else she doesn't remember is an older sister that was wild and crazy, who loved to run and laugh and play tricks on people. Who used to get scolded for belly sliding down the stairs at Grandma's house and scaring everyone with the thump she made at the bottom. Who got in trouble for being too rowdy in the house with best friend "Sammy". And who was a daring tomboy who liked to climb trees and hang upside down on the monkey bars.