My family gets together with our 2nd cousins twice a year- once in summer, once at Christmas. My 2nd cousin, Kelle*y is 1 year younger than me, so we were inseparable at family functions when we were younger. In high school (probably 13 years ago), Kell and her friends joined an Evangelical youth group and started attending all these church functions and did the whole "I promise to keep my virginity" ceremony. As I've written here before- my high school best friend, Jesus, was involved in the same kind of group- although I don't believe she attended a virginity ceremony, she may as well have bc she did keep it until her wedding night. Therefore, when word got around that Kelley became involved in such a group, it wasn't a foreign concept to me.
This side of my family is intensely Catholic, so you'd think they would delight at her becoming a good little born again girl but instead they were totally suspicious and freaked out. My mom's cousin, Chris (female), asked me if I thought Kelley had joined a cult. I remember sitting there saying that I didn't believe it was a cult, but something wasn't right about it.
In private, Kelley told me that the head of this church program was a cool guy and a chick that used to be a model for Seventeen magazine, and she idolized her. And all her friends joined this youth group, blah blah blah. And she wrote all about God on her online journal and blah blah blah.
Why was her conversion so reprehensible? Was it just because it was a change? Even Kell's own mother was freaked out by her virginity ceremony.
Ultimately, it came out that the cool dude and hot model lady at Kelley's church were having an affair, and it is my understanding that many kids became disenchanted with this born again hoo-ha. Today, Kelley lives with her boyfriend in sin and I'm 100% certain that they bang. So much for the virginity ceremony.
I now know that her particular religious group was all about trying not to sin and "hating the sin, but not the sinner," which involved voting against gay marriage and being against gay marriage in general and holding yourself accountable regarding your sins to your also religious friends. This is probably true for many born again groups.
Sometimes I think that this type of religious sect is bad bc the focus is so outwardly on trying to achieve perfection (while stating loudly that you are a sinner)- but I think that many people get the sense that these "religious" people are actually thinking "Even though I say I am a sinner, my sins are not as bad as those NON-born again people's sins. I am Christ-like and they are NOT. I am good. They are bad. Especially those GAYS." Something in my gut tells me that Jesus wasn't that much of an asshole.
But can you really fault them for trying? Don't they get at least some non-asshole points for that? Eh.
A STORY I TOLD BEFORE BUT OCCASIONALLY I STILL THINK ABOUT EVEN THOUGH IT HAS BEEN 26 YEARS:
My friend TheBlind and I were reminiscing on the biggest jerks from our junior high the other day. We remembered this girl Courtney who we both hated. Courtney had been my friend earlier that year but we had a falling out over something. I had zits on my face in jr high (I still do, but I'm over it) and I wore foundation to try to cover them up because not that many people had them yet. Ironically, this girl Courtney had a terrible complexion. Anyway, at lunch you could buy a carnation for someone at Valentine's Day for like a dollar. I got a carnation, opened up the card and it said something like, 'Nice yellow make up.' The foundation I was wearing at that time (Revlon, I think) had a yellow tint to it. In retrospect, I still think it was the closest foundation to my VERY pale skin tone that was available. Anyway, I knew exactly who this was from: Courtney. I burst into tears bc I was generally devastated that my skin was so shitty and it was humiliating to be called out on something I knew to be true.
In retrospect, this emotional upheaval feels very silly. But I have to remember how prison-like junior high felt.
This incident resulted in my friend, Jesus, walking up to Courtney and literally punching her in the face so hard that her head slammed against the locker she was standing in front of and started a brawl in which my friends literally beat the shit out of Courtney and her 2 friends (because she had said similar things to every other girl in the grade - she only had 2 friends) & ultimately caused Courtney to transfer schools. We won, right? Then why do I still dislike her? I was a huge asshole sometimes too when I was younger. Doesn't she win if I harbor this kind of stupid hate? I googled her the other day and learned that she is a nurse practitioner. I would never let her take care of my mother or grandmother, but isn't that dumb? She was 14 when all this went down. She was beat up and had to transfer schools because she had no friends left. Isn't that punishment in and of itself? Is it possible that she wishes she wasn't such a jerk when she was younger?
Don't you ever wonder how nice it would be if you just let crap like this go? Am I the only one who occasionally harbors disdain for people for things that happened over 15 years ago?
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