A Time to Laugh

Disclaimer: It’s not about you. Or me. I wrote this and published it in advance a week ago. So any resonance you might see is simply providential, and I’m leaving it as it stands.

This is a representative anecdote demonstrating the larger problem I’m still dancing around.

I’ve got Asperger’s Syndrome. There. I said it.

And before you proceed to pat me on the head and tell me how wrong and deluded and silly I am, just stop. I’ve heard it all even if it’s not directed at me exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I seem too “normal” to you. You know people who really have it, and they are really, really weird (like that makes me feel better!). No Aspie goes into the Humanities anyway; they are all in the hard sciences. Mm-kay. As long as you’ve got it all figured out.

The fact is that you’re not in my head. The fact is that it looks different for women than men, different for adults than children. The fact is that a lot of women don’t figure this out until their forties. The fact is that we all learn to cope in time.

What is it anyway? Well, it’s a kind of high-functioning Autism. Yeah, I know. The big-A is rather scary. But while Auties have a lot of language difficulties, Aspies do pretty well with verbal communication. It’s nonverbal communication — social cues — that Aspies completely miss. With early intervention and good teachers, an Autistic child will “grow” to be classified as Asperger’s in adulthood. Some define Aspergers as an extreme male brain, so when a woman has it, it seems like she’s just more masculine in her read on social conventions.

It’s a spectrum, you see. Part of the neurological diversity that has always existed in the human condition. You might even be “on the spectrum.” Most creative people are.

Glenn Gould was an Aspie. Some think Thomas Jefferson was. Frasier Crane. Bill Gates. Dan Akyroyd. Nearly every character on The Big Bang Theory has some variation on Aspergers. Some even call it the “Mr. Spock” syndrome. Some think that all cats have Aspergers.

What does it all mean?

It means that if I’m having a conversation with you, I can look at you intently while you’re talking but once the conversation ball is in my court, I can’t make eye contact if my life depended on it. I really can’t think when I’m looking at you — too much data.

It means that at a party, I’ll probably be playing with some stim toy while everyone’s talking. I used to have a set of stim toys on my desk to play with during long conversations.

It means that if I have to host a party and you ask me what you can bring, I will blink and stare and really have no idea what to tell you.

It means I bite my lip a lot when I’m tense.

It means that while you’re talking, I will stare at your sweater (especially a Fair Isle or an Aran) and think about those stitches. I’m listening. Really. But knitting is so fascinating. It’s like something has to occupy that part of my brain while my ears are working too.

It means that while we’re talking on the phone, I’m playing cyber-solitaire.

It means I really, really hate the phone. Hate it. I’ll answer it if I have to, but I’d rather talk face-to-face or write you a note. And the poor back-and-forth-response-time of the cell phone drives me insane because I have trouble with the nonverbal cues anyway that tell me when it’s my turn to talk. Mess with that and I practically have to take a nap after a cell phone call.

It means I’m not good with apologies. Not that I don’t want to apologize. I just don’t pick up on the cues that I’m supposed to apologize. So I either over-apologize or never apologize.

It means that I feel what you’re feeling very deeply — to an almost uncomfortable and cloying level. Conventional wisdom says that Aspies don’t feel empathy. That’s actually being proven untrue. It’s that we feel such intense empathy that we get sensory overload and we shut down.

It means that if you ask me where the pot holders are in my kitchen, it would be easier for me to show you than tell you. It’s like the task skips the verbal part of brain. It goes right from my fingers to my brain and never hits my mouth. So it’s not that I don’t want to tell you. It’s not that I’m being proprietary or selfish. I just have a really hard time spitting it out.

It means I have a hard time asking for help.

It means that if I have to buy toothpaste for Grant, I’ll never buy the right brand even though he just told me the exact description 30 minutes earlier. I don’t get verbal instructions well at all.

It means that I don’t really do well with handling the finances. I have poor executive function.

It means that I think certain colors have a smell. To the point that I plan what soap I use based on what color I’m wearing.

It means I learned to swim from a book.

It means that I really don’t like fiction. I don’t know why either. But . . . I just don’t.

It means that I am intensely interested in a few things. Really. Obsessed even. Deeply. And I’ll voraciously read everything on that topic. Nothing can stop that interest until it just dies down. It will dissipate eventually. But if you happen to ask me a question about that interest, I’ll only tentatively begin to answer because . . . well, I scare people with the obsession. I sound more like Cliff Clavin than I want to admit.

It means that I learned to read at age two.

It means that my “playing” in childhood looked more like sorting.

It means I have an inordinate attachment to things. My Barbies. My Fisher Price toys.

It means I intellectualize everything.

It means that I’m regularly exhausted from intellectualizing every interaction. That’s a lot of study! And it wears me out.

It means that I could easily live in-between my own ears.

It means I over-react or under-react. I talk too loudly or too quietly. I gesture too little or too much. I don’t read the appropriate quantity and quality of nonverbals well.

It means that I’m sensitive. Over-sensitive even. But I have a hard time expressing it, so I work very, very hard at it until I can spit it out.

It means I have really awful handwriting. My signature has degenerated into a mess. My last name looks like “Iwug.”

It means that this is exactly why I chose “public speaking” to study because learning the social cues on an intellectual level might help me cope on a personal level. That’s actually pretty typical since Aspies over-intellectualize everything. That’s also that part of the living-between-my-own-ears problem.

It means that I am bent toward solitude.

It means I like you. A lot. But sometimes you might think my nonverbals are communicating the opposite.

It means that God has neurologically wired me to be a whistle-blower. Yes, it’s true. The great-Aspie-guru Tony Attwood has surmised that all whistle-blowers are on the spectrum. We aspire to adhere to a set of values, and when those values are missed, we are genuinely disturbed. Most “neuro-typicals” are more concerned with social ties than values, and so they will ignore value-infraction in order to “be with” others. Aspies don’t. The values are more important. So we speak out. And uh . . . well, you know the rest of the story.

It means I write paragraphs like that one above to over-explain everything. I talk about myself like a textbook. That’s weird! It’s a coping mechanism. I might talk about you like that, too, and get you really annoyed.

It means I can be pretty clueless. It means that Grant has to say, “Honey! No!!” Or “Hey — stop flailing.” or “Yo! I don’t want to hear any more about that.” Oh! Okay. Didn’t realize that.

Steve Brown challenges us to ask God to show us ourselves — kiss that demon on the lips! When I picked up Tony Attwood’s “bible” on Asperger’s syndrome this summer, I was reading about that “demon.” It was all written right there. In clinical language.

And writing this all out here like this is kissing that “demon.”

I’m not alone at least. My grandmother was probably an Aspie. Others in the family too. To the point that watching an extended family dinner is kind of . . . well, comical. We Aspies sit there while the neuro-typicals carry the conversation. There’s a lot of quiet staring and stimming. Until an interest is mentioned — religion, politics, knitting, dog breeds, or (heaven forbid you unwittingly mention this) rhetoric — and BOOM! We talk! With all the passion and intensity you’d see in the House of Commons. We argue. We gesture. We speak too loudly. We scare the typicals. And then we relax. It’s like touch football for us. Aaaaaahhhhh . . . so nice. What fun.

It means also that I’ve already jabbered on too long, and I’ve bored you to tears. Aspies don’t read the social cues to quit either. So I’ll save my larger point for another post.

But for now, I’ll say this — it all means that I need you. I do. Even though solitude is natural to me, even though I may seem to be saying “I want to be alone!” I still need you.

But it also means that you need me. Even if you don’t like me very much. I’m like the heel spur on the right heel (wing) of the Body. I’m there. I’m bone of your bone. And I’m the reminder that you have been neglecting your shoes, that you need to buy a custom orthotic, and you need to put your feet up at the end of the day. And surgery to remove me will only hurt your entire foot worse. . . . No, you have to learn to live with me because ignoring me makes your cortisol level rise to uncomfortable levels. Change your habits ’cause they are killing you — stop the power walking and take up swimming.

Aren’t you glad?

The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

I Corinthians 12: 21-26

Our Evangelical foremothers in New York state were so moved by the Second Great Awakening but so tied to their family obligations that they translated the push for global missions into home missions. In 1833, Abigail Goodrich Whittelsey started Mother’s Magazine to encourage mothers in that calling — to win their children to Christ. The magazine warned about the dangers of corsets and birthday parties. Even sugary snacks were interpreted to be a religious choice.

By the Civil War, however, men had “professionalized” the magazine’s focus entirely, and the topics were more . . . well, bland. The copy was little more than sappy poetry and heavy-handed stories. The magazine changed its name after the turn of the 20th-century — to Family Circle.

From the winning the lost to the teaching the kids to rhyming the couplets to . . . well, “toning up your trouble spots.”

When I was young, I was taught that really committed Christians were all missionaries. You know the bargains thrown out from the pulpit, “If you really loved Jesus, you wouldn’t be afraid to go to Africa! You would tell God that you’d go anywhere for Him. After all He did for you!”

I heard the missionary stories. You know, about Amy Carmichael and her providentially brown eyes. Ti-Fam, Witch Doctor’s Daughter. Hudson Taylor. Ringu. The missionary stories were always the best ones — tailored to elementary school attention-spans. Brief, action-packed, with cliff-hangers at the end of every telling. The missionaries were bigger-than-life heroes. Wow! So exciting.

And we kids loved it when missionaries came to speak. Slides! We all liked slides! It was TV for church.

And then I met them. The missionaries. I studied them. They were so . . . vanilla. They were so unlike all those stories I’d heard. Granted, they were probably exhausted from deputation, irritated by the American materialism, and just plain peeved at having another annoying kid messing with their display. But I didn’t know if I could be one. Did I really love Jesus enough to leave everything and go to the bowels of the rain forest and eat bugs? Could I be as passive as they were?

I was actually a “summer missionary” for two summers. It was hard, fulfilling work. But was it my “calling”? I didn’t feel like I fit.

Then they changed it on me. No longer were we told to go on the mission field. Around high school and college, the plea changed from “missions” to “full-time Christian work.” “If you really loved Jesus, you’d devote your life to His service. You’d be a minister, a pastor’s wife, or a Christian school teacher.”

Huh. Now this seemed do-able. I could stay here. No bugs on the menu here.  I could devote my life to service here. I loved my Christian school teachers. I could do that. At college, I thought, “I could do this college teaching thing. I can see that. That would fit.”

And so I did. I devoted my life to that particular second blessing — to becoming a local “religious professional.”

Did you notice what happened with that change in appeal though? From global missions to national work. From taking the Gospel out there to helping us here within our own segregated Christian world. From the Universe to the Province. From the Great Commission to . . . well, a lesser commission.

You don’t hear the “full-time Christian service” message anymore — and it’s not just because I am no longer in “full-time Christian service.” I felt the change before we left. I don’t know when it got dropped precisely. But it sounds kind of quaint when I remember it here. Now the appeal for the really-committed is narrower-still. Instead of going out to the world or going out to the church-school, we don’t go out at all. We stay home. Well, women stay home. Men, you can do what you want; it doesn’t really matter as long as the Little Woman is where she belongs.

So we’ve individuated the second blessing even further. From the world to the city to the home.

Is that really what we want? It might seem like we’ve so diversified the “call” (i.e. the “pitch”) to include everyone — not just the “vanilla” missionaries or the talkative teacher-sorts — but every household and every family. But at what cost? Do we realized how we’re being absorbed into the Hegemon where our message of Christ becomes well . . . just about “toning up”?

I know it took me forever to complete. I’m trying not to hyperfocus on that. Trying, but often failing. So I’ll tell the whole story again to distract me.

When our daughter Elise was born (still) in 2001, I was so out-of-my-mind overwhelmed that I didn’t bring any clothes for her to the hospital. The gentle and firm OB nurses found a little dress in their “drawer” — a dress that some lady in Greenville county had smocked for her. I was so thankful and touched.

To celebrate her birthday every year, I decided to “pay-it-forward” by smocking another dress for another little girl whose first day of birth was in Heaven.

On Elise’s fifth birthday, I was ready to do something a little different. I wanted to make a party dress for a little 5-year-old girl. But Gavin was brand new, and I was overwhelmed. I didn’t finish it.

And then the whole BJU thing happened, and I was out-of-my-skull overwhelmed again (I’m sensing another theme here!).

But I just finished it. Last night! So I now just need to find a little size-6 girl who wouldn’t otherwise have a happy little dress!

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Elise! Your brothers, your daddy, and I are going to have red velvet cupcakes to celebrate you!

Entering into this fullness is not something you figure out or achieve. It’s not a matter of being circumcised or keeping a long list of laws. No, you’re already in—insiders—not through some secretive initiation rite but rather through what Christ has already gone through for you, destroying the power of sin. If it’s an initiation ritual you’re after, you’ve already been through it by submitting to baptism. Going under the water was a burial of your old life; coming up out of it was a resurrection, God raising you from the dead as he did Christ. When you were stuck in your old sin-dead life, you were incapable of responding to God. God brought you alive—right along with Christ! Think of it! All sins forgiven, the slate wiped clean, that old arrest warrant canceled and nailed to Christ’s cross.

Colossians 2:11-15

Today our precious boys were baptized into God’s Family. While I would probably say that Isaac’s baptism was a credo-baptism (he tells me often that the Holy Spirit is prompting him to do the right thing), it’s no matter. It is God Who baptizes us into His Family.

After it was all over, Gavin said, “That fun, Daddy!!”

I’ve been keeping a running tally over the last several months because it’s usually the case that Grant and I sit agape during church. Our collective jaws drop, we nudge each other, point and nod and giggle, and then I scribble and he iPhone-taps it all down so that we can remember.

This Message outside of fundamentalism is so different. So very different.

The first time I started recording these epiphanies was last December before Communion. Our pastor said:

You sin. You go to God. You ask forgiveness. He forgives you. You leave.

You sin again. You go to God. You ask forgiveness. He forgives you. You leave.

You sin again. You go to God. You ask forgiveness. He forgives you. You leave.

You sin again. . . .

I literally held my breath and stiffened my back. I was braced. I knew what was next, right? You do too. Said in a loud, scolding, harsh voice (summoning the spirit of the great revivalists): “When are you going to get your act together and stop sinning!? How can you even call yourself a Christian when you keep sinning like that??!”

But that’s not what he said. Instead:

The problem comes when you stop going back to God — either because of your moralism or secularism.

Huh? . . . Wait a second. Say what?

It went by so fast. Grant and I were blinking at the pastor and then whispering to each other. We were sure we misunderstood something. What did he say?

He was right, of course. It’s not about me being perfect because Christ did that. If it were about me doing all the right things, then I wouldn’t have a very clear sense of my full-of-sin status. It’s not about me getting all my ducks in a row before I go to God. The church is a hospital, not a pageant.

How wrong I heard it for all those years.

But this? This really is Sola Gratia.

If you’ve spent any time talking with me over the last 5 years, you know that I am a big Jeff VanVonderen fan. And I’ve never even seen his TV show! It was VanVonderen that began to clear out the legalistic cobwebs in my own head. But I’ve said that before.

I know now why VanVonderen’s books were so offensive in my previous life — why my having that big stack of his books on my desk and giving them away as gifts was such a problem. He’s an integrationist. ::gasp:: You know, that tainted sort of person who would dare mix psychology with theology.

As if psychology were some sort of devil chord that would taint our singing praises to a supreme Being. Whatever.

Anyway, he’s got a new book out — Soul Repair — and I “just happened” to be reading it while I was working through these last few posts. And I landed on this chapter, “Anorexic Spirituality.”

I stopped dead in my tracks. This is it. This is what I got. Not in my undergraduate years at BJU, mind you, but following that. This is the most lucid description of the problem, and I can’t help but wonder if some of my other (physical) “habits” were compensating for this (spiritual) dysfunction.

I can’t even “digest” it all now. But I had to share.

On this Holy Saturday, when we all remember the Pharisees’ unbelieving conspiring to keep Christ’s body in the tomb (because those sneaky disciples might steal It), I thought it would help me to see one way we stand-off from God’s love. We think they are right. That Christ won’t come back. That He’s not the Victor. That their power overwhelms the real Power. That our needs are too cumbersome or too weak or too silly. That we don’t need nurturing. That we would be better off if we just disappeared.

But they are wrong. Their god is not-God.

I love gardening. Well, I love it in the Spring. And the Fall. I just about hate it in the South Carolina heat.

We did our spring planting last week — just in time for this week’s frost. Doh! We lost a few tulips, but we didn’t lose the tomatoes I foolishly planted too soon. And I grew these babies from seed. Brandywines!

But every time I go out in the backyard the same thing hits me.

We bought four creeping figs last year for our new wall. We had talked to a green-thumb-friend about it. We consulted our gardening books. We went to the best nursery in the city. We asked the people there for advice. We planted them carefully and watered them regularly. We did everything right.

They died. Well, all but one. And my first knee-jerk response is “It’s my fault. I didn’t work hard enough.”

I walk past the Space Bags at Target. I have about a dozen of these already at home. None of them work. Not one. And I think, “It’s my fault that they don’t work. I didn’t try hard enough.” And I have to stop myself out loud (“Keep moving, Camille!”) to walk away and not buy more. Capitalism thrives on this kind of egocentric self-loathing.

I find a bag of moldy pumpernickel in the pantry. Pangs of guilt shoot through my body. “Why did I let this happen? I’m not careful enough.”

Fundamentalism taught me this. “No doubt the trouble is with you,” right? Well, living in an abusive ideology taught me this. And it’s not just my previous life. There are countless examples. The hyper-focus on sin and an obsession with humility is a tactic for control, not a command from Christ. It’s too egocentric to be from Christ.

As I read these early contemporary conservative evangelical books, I realize that this ideology — whatever I should call it — reduces the entire person to the will. There is no body or even gut or heart — no “dreams and bones.” Just a will. You either choose to do right or you choose to do wrong. That’s all there is to it. An on-off switch. Simple compliance. And every problem can be explained away as such. If you can’t do the right thing, you have too weak of a will. If you can’t stop doing the wrong thing, your will is too strong. Back and forth — same old Keswick crazy-maker.

You see, ’cause no doubt the trouble may not be me. The world doesn’t rise and fall on my making simple choices. Take the creeping figs. Maybe the sun is too hot in that spot. Maybe the soil is bad. Maybe the plants are diseased. Maybe the bugs got ‘em. Maybe they were just cursed. Whatever it is, it’s not all about me.

And gardening forces this very product-oriented INFJ to throw caution to the wind a little bit. It forces me to stop the habits-for-the-sake-of-habits and think about what works. “Well, the petunias didn’t work here, so let’s try them over there. Or forget them altogether. Let’s get azaleas. Carrots taste bad in this red clay, so I’m not planting them again!” Habits are not a virtue. And when I reduce myself or when I’m reduced to mere habits — mere will — I’m no longer acting, but simply just moving.

Besides, I can plant and I can water. But come on now, God gives the growth. Inch by inch. It’s not all about me.

For the last several years, my main motivator for those deep-down personal things that would probably go unnoticed to the world at large has been self-loathing. Egocentric self-loathing. I would (can I use the past tense for this?) actually shame myself into sticking with a particular habit, telling myself that I don’t deserve any different.

Stupid. I admit that it’s stupid. But I have to get it out in the open to work past it. It’s not the way I was raised. And it’s taken this long to realize that what I endured 10-15 years ago is the same thing I’m reading about in my project and that pushed us out the door of fundamentalism. It’s a pair of book ends around a multi-volume set.

Sigh. . . .

I found some brown romaine in the vegetable crisper drawer today. And slimy cilantro. So into the new composter it goes. It’s really invigorating to do that, you know? Turning slime into black gold. Composting is like grace for garbage. Turning my failures into the best fertilizer for the flowers.

Now if I could just find a composter for these Space Bags.

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But even in my re-telling this wanting-to-be-forgotten story, it’s revealing to find the persistent theme: God gave me good roots. Grant was my ally. He reassured and loved on me. My brother, too, was a reliable friend — honest but gentle. My dad was also a rock — ever the cheerleader.

But who was there reading, listening, comforting, reminding, dragging, and even nagging me all the way through? Who remembered the deep-down-all-of-me before the seeds of that abusive ideology took root?

My dear mother.

We were talking the other day. Mom had read my church’s newsletter from this month and had noticed their support for CEF. My church and my parents’ new church, too, sponsor Good News Clubs at nearby public elementary schools. They even send kids to C.Y.I.A — CEF’s training for summer missionaries.

I was in C.Y.I.A. back in the day with no small amount of skepticism and criticism from the fundamentalists around us. My parents ignored it and so I did too. It had been a terrific experience for me. Instead of taking it all in, I was giving back. And it was when I was 16-year-old C.Y.I.A. summer missionary while teaching a little disabled child in my 5-Day Club that Jesus loved her that I really, truly realized (again) that Jesus loved me too.

Mom has said more than once in this mutual transition which moved us out of fundamentalism: “After all this time, I finally don’t feel at constant odds with my church’s philosophy. What took us so long?”

I guess we really never were fundamentalists, were we?

What a day that was, punkin. The day you were born.

Just this week you are starting to correctly say “milk” (instead of “rilk”), but “firetruck” is still something I’d rather we didn’t talk about in polite company.  You demand a kiss, a squeeze hug, and a ‘nuggle at every parting. You told me this morning that eating bugs was “gistuskin’” [disgusting]. You still closely identify with Yoshi and Caillou. And you can answer your first catechism question very clearly.

Your favorite joke is:

Knock-knock.

Who’s there?

Goats. [Ghost]

Goats who?

Goats to show my name you know. [Goes to show you that you don't know my name.]

You’re a magpie. You swipe little, little tiny things and the more the better. Dice, pennies, a tiny playmobil cell phone. . . . Your dad and I wonder what God will do with this curiosity in the future.

Right this minute, you’re in my lap, snuggling my “chets” [chest] and forcing us to rock back and forth. “You’re my Mommy.” you say, as you cut your eyes.

We love you, Gavin. Happy Birthday. Stolat! May you have a 100 more!

I’m such a dork. No, really. I am. If you haven’t figured that out already. It’s okay because my parents — as lovely and as lovable as they are — are dorks too. So I come by it honestly. And they love me.

Maybe everybody’s a dork and only a few of us admit it and embrace it. . . . Yeah, that’s the one I’m going with.

I found some more proof of my dorkitude today although, to be honest, it was Junior High and everybody’s a dork in Junior High.

I found the signatures on the inside fly-leaf of my Bible.

Now, in 1980, this was the thing to do if you were a fundamentalist child (a.k.a. dork). A famous preacher/speaker came to your church (probably also a dork) and you race up afterward (very dorkily) to get his signature in your Bible.

I loved this little Bible. It was my 12th birthday present from my parents. It was red and had a snap cover. Cambridge. KJV, of course. I didn’t have a Scofield (new or old), but my parents did. Frankly, my parents had every translation known to the English and French and Polish world, but that’s why I love them too!

So look.

Stop laughing at my dorky stickers. Stickers were soooooooo I.T. in 1980. They had whole sticker stores in the mall. And that pizza one was scratch-n-sniff!

And the second page:

First, isn’t my mother’s handwriting lovely? Dad’s is too. Steve and I must be a throw-back to some primitive inscrutable scrawl.

Notice all the women I got too! Yeah for me. My silent-but-rebel mom probably encouraged that. Or my loud-and-rebel dad. Or both. My parents are gems.

But look at the first signature I got up there at the top — Beneth Peters Jones. I remember when I got that signature. She was promoting her (then) new book Beauty and the Best at a neighboring church, and, of course, I bought a copy! I remember the sweater I was wearing. I loved that sweater. It was pink fair isle that I got at American Eagle which was really cool back then (read: dorky) and not slutty like it is now (read: cool). Also let me say that while that particular sweater is long-gone, I now know exactly how they are knitted (in the round from the top down) and where you can find the math to make your own (Elizabeth Zimmerman) and that kids in British Isles learn to knit such things as they are walking around (because they have this belt that they can shove one needle in). But I’ve never actually knitted one (DORK!).

I was elated that I got her autograph that day! Really elated. She said something very polite — and she is an extremely gracious and hospitable lady — about it being new and how she liked the snap covers and all that. Bless her. Bless her for being so much a gentlewoman to a dorky 12-year-old.

Weird. All that she and I would share in the years to come but could never predict at that precise moment of my fawning dorkitude and her polite conversation. That my husband and I would travel with her husband and her to Mexico for 10 days (we were the singing side-kicks). That she would barely pass my grad project because she was uncomfortable with the topic (feminism!). That I, like her, would have a first born who was born still. And the rest, of course. . . . All the rest.

Look at those names. If those were the celebrities in my Junior High life, is it any wonder I became who I was? Several names are my pastors. Most of the others are evangelists or just guest speakers.

I got out my High School Bible too. We wear out our Bibles quickly in fundamentalism! It was smaller and not as fine but still KJV (my college Bible was so small that I had to hold it up right next to my nose to read it and it was NASV). It does have my Wordless Book bookmarks still in it because I was a CEF missionary for two summers, and I was prepared (kinda dorky). It has no signatures. I s’pose I had figured out it was a dorky thing to do.

Except for one thing is exactly the same and in the exactly same place — across from Genesis 1. From my Junior High Bible:

and in my High School Bible:

I remember why I wrote it the first time. I was told to! And I can probably take you right back there on 11-mile and Schoenherr and show you exactly where I was sitting in the front row (DORK!). Why did I think it was so important that I transferred that alone from one Bible to the next? I really don’t remember.

I’m glad that my High School self caught my Junior High mistake of “conversation” instead of “conservation” in that First Law. Whew!

Now, I know why these where there in that place — because I was a reared a Creationist through and through. Heck — I still have my Handy Dandy Evolution Refuter upstairs, the text that is most often referenced for its fallacies. I remember Science class in 7th grade. Most of our time was spent being told how wrong Carl Sagan got it on Nova the night before. It was our assignment to watch him and to deconstruct him the next day. None of us in that class will ever forget when Andrea Cloud unwittingly said the exact. wrong. thing. in response to Miss Westray’s question: “Miss Cloud. Do you agree with Mr. Sagan when he said that the Earth is billions and billions of years old?” To which Andrea shrugged, “Well, yeah. He’s on TV. So he must be right.” Oooooooh! We all felt her pain.

But I got this in Sunday School, not in Christian Day School. And uh . . . it’s curious.

The first law of thermodynamics is actually:

Energy can be transformed (changed from one form to another), but it can neither be created nor destroyed.

Seriously, why did my teacher leave out the first part? She got it from her pastor/husband, I’m sure. Why drop that?

And the second law of thermodynamics has to do with entropy and is best summarized as:

It is impossible for there to exist any process whose only effect is to transfer energy from a system at a low temperature to one at a higher temperature. In other words, heat flows downhill.

Creationists reason from that that everything tends toward disorder and randomness, and, thus, evolution defies that law. I’ll let the believing scientists deconstruct the fallacies in that Creationist criticism. I don’t really much care about the Science per se.

I care more about how that idea of the inevitability of disorder affects and infects the conservative Evangelical ideology. Everything and anything — if left alone — will deconstruct into chaos. At least that’s what I was taught. Work hard — very hard — and you can resist the inevitable decay. Effort can trump entropy. And if it doesn’t, if you fail, it’s because you didn’t work hard enough or right enough.

And if we get it wrong in our hoist-them-on-their-own-petard mudball we lob at Science, how could it possibly be correct in our misunderstood application of this 2nd law to the Christian life? We are so infected with this same effort-can-trump-entropy trope. We actually believe past generations’ goofs are a result of their not working hard enough or smart enough or biblical enough.

We think we’re better. But we’re just as big a dorks as we always were. Just with more and more appeals to misunderstood laws, more and more effort, more and more rigidity, more and more illusions that our way is “biblical.” So the Law of Thermodorknamics could be:

The amount of effort is directly proportional to the dorky destructiveness of that effort.