Nancy Campbell Really Doesn't Have a Clue How Normal Society Functions

In the October 2013 issue of "Above Rubies," Nancy Campbell's magazine to "...encourage women in their high calling as wives, mothers, and homemakers," Nancy reveals that she really doesn't know how normal society - read: the rest of us - interact with each other.

It's quite obvious that she thinks we're all selfish nincompoops, disregarding family, hating children, and sitting around in front of television screens, watching pornography. If this describes you, then Campbell is correct. But I'll gander a guess that, while partaking in any one of the above activities I listed doesn't make you a naughty person at all, you don't live your life by every one of the above definitions all the time.

Nancy introduces this month's issue by talking about her gardening and how big her farm is. She lets the readers know that there are always children on her property. She's a grandmother, after all, with a lot of grandkids. But, as you read, you begin to get the innate sense that Nancy Campbell is talking down to the rest of humanity:

It is amazing that you can have so many young people come together without sending out invitations... We constantly enjoy celebrations and gatherings at our home. No need for organization. Just call the families and we have a huge crowd with loads of fun, antics, and fellowship.

While, to the untrained eye, one not well-versed in the language of a fundamentalist us vs. them superiority complex, this may look like normal conversation, a woman glowing about how great her life is - like a Facebook status. But it isn't. With fundamentalists, it never is.

See, Nancy thinks we don't know families with kids. She thinks that in order for us to have a house full of people, we need to send out invitations months ahead of time, order the inflatable jumping houses, buy oodles of pre-prepared foods from the deli, notify the city of the need for additional parking permits for the non-parking zone, and square off an area of the property for the kids, to rid us adults of their snot-nosed peskishness.

Also, we don't talk. We must just sit around on our phones, ignoring one another, with nothing better to do than write stupid and pointless blog posts like this one.

So, to all my friends that come to my house, to all my neighbors that eat all of my food, drink all of my beer, use all of my diapers, flush all of my toilets, use up all of my lawnmower gas, and make sure your methamphetamine customers don't walk on my lawn. To all of my enemies that still come around. To all of my kids that have birthday parties with adults and sometimes just kids - disorganized for adults, yet a blast for the kids. Yes, to all of you.

I'm sorry for being such a prudish bore.

Answer to My Critics: My Childhood Opened My Eyes

UPDATE: 7/27/2015:9:01:34

The last few paragraphs end as a sort of sermon. I was a devout Christian when I wrote this piece. I am no longer religious and have no interest in ever being so, again, yet still have a deep appreciation for religious discussion. Bear in mind that this does not take away from the importance of the message of this post.

Recently, I was accused of only speaking out against Billy Boy G. and his patriarchal ilk because I have a vendetta against my life as a child.  While I do not disagree that half of my childhood was pure torture, I vehemently disagree with that accusation.

Here's a summing up of my childhood:

When I was seven years old, my parents divorced.  At the time, my mother convinced me, through the most holy word of the god man Billy Boy G., that divorce was pure evil - the cardinal sin of mankind.  The only sin (other than being a woman, women wearing pants, men having long hair, women cropping their hair, women working outside of the home, children being curious, not hitting your child whenever you pleased, not obeying all authorities without question the very first time, not taking the word of your pastor as if it were the word of God, even though the only word of God was supposed to be found in the Bible, questioning the inerrant nature of the Bible, questioning the holiness of the "inspired" canon, being suspicious of the counsel at Trent and other men gatherings, being a feminist, women speaking out in church, farting out loud, listening to rock music, using more than three sheets of toilet paper per bowel movement, answering a phone call without permission, not sharing the gospel to at least five people a day at school, playing sports in school, going to college, women not being homemakers, believing that a doctor was a good thing, immunizing, treating chiropractors with disdain, not accepting all weird eastern alternative "medicinal" therapies without question, while ignoring the obvious contradictions in religious philosophies, reading the words of Ghandi, studying evolution, saying anything bad about Ken Ham, not having a verifiable "biblical" world view, not swearing on a stack of Bibles that you would carry out your given "role" in life, drinking city water that had evil teeth rotting and population controlling fluoride in it, sex outside of government sanctioned marriage, sex for pleasure, masturbation, any sex that deviates from the missionary position, using birth control, desiring money, etc., etc.....sheesh!....seems to me patriarchy has some notion of paranoia) that disqualifies you from serving in a position of authority in the church - provided you're a man.  A woman is always S.O.L.


The divorce didn't affect me then.  I hardly knew my dad, something I blame my mother for completely.  She made a point to keep him away from my siblings and I at all times.  Even before she fell in love with Big G. (she told us many times that she wanted to marry the guy, Bill Gothard, once my father died and she was free to marry again) she had a notion that her way was the only righteous way and my father was always wrong.


She disciplined him on a regular basis.  The details, for privacy sake, I will not go into.  She also beat us from the age of...well...we actually had no age when she started,  She started in on my oldest sibling when she was just a small baby.


When the divorce happened, my father tirelessly went to court to gain custody of us.  My mother and our church pastor fought tooth and nail against him.  The state sided with her and my father had to go away empty handed.


She discovered Big G. very soon afterward and soon had us all converted to the "us vs. them" philosophy that kills all freedom and love in a life.


She had always beaten us.  One day, she found a pink pamphlet that taught her how to hit us the "proper" way.  Yes, there must be a proper way to hit a child.  Hitting, alone, isn't okay at all.  You have to hit, then pray a lot, then hug a bunch, then...well...I can't think of any more extra-biblical ideas, but these morons and the Swine Beads and Ezz-skimos that came after have built an empire out of beating children by dreaming up this bald faced lie.


She sat us all down that day and read us the entire skinny, four-page piece of trash and then told us all that she had to practice to get it just right.  So, she lined us all up on some soft black couch cushions that were lying on the dining room floor in front of the full-wall bookshelf and lit in to each of us.


Spank!  Hug, hug.  Spank!  Hug, hug.  Span....


Once all seven of us had been fully practiced on, that was the last time she ever hugged us after a beating.  After that, everything was fair game.  With a hardwood, boar-bristle brush, beating us on the head, back, shoulders, legs, bare bottom, six times, then eighteen, then thirty six, then it doesn't matter anymore because you lost count and it just hurt like hell.  She made my sister eat dish soap and toilet paper on a regular basis because she was a poor eater.  She kicked, slapped, bit, made us lay on our face on the floor for hours, forced us to stand in a corner for hours, even days.  Sleep deprivation was the norm.  Forced Bible readings for hours, sometimes days. Rubbing and massaging her legs and feet was my own personal punishment.


All of this in the name of love and obedience to god-given authority.  Yes, small 'g'.


Now, you know why I speak out? 


Don't even try and come at me and tell me that my mother was the exception to the rule.  I won't even give you the time of day.  That doesn't even matter.  Her way of doing things was simply her way of exemplifying the doctrines that propped up her way of doing things.  The exact doctrines that prop up everything in the false lifestyle of patriarchy. 


I learned from my childhood.  It was harsh and I ignored it for years.  Tried to push it away with humor.  But I can't do it anymore.  Not because I care about me, as a victim.  I don't give a rat's rear end about myself.  I care about my wife and kids, the kids and young adults (even old ones) that are forcefully involved in this controlled and evil lifestyle, and those who are in it and yet have questions of what the hell they are supposed to believe in.


And now the kicker.  I don't care at all for those that are inflicting the pain, the spiritual, physical, and emotional abuse on the least of these.  Sure, I want them to change, but I've met them.  I've hung with them.   Patriarchy breeds the most prideful, arrogant, pompous, self-righteous, pharisaical, holes of arses I have ever met.  God can deal with them.  Others who care more can deal with them.  But I will not.


I will follow Christ's words to do what is right to the least of these.   I am at peace and yet yearn for the freedom of controlled souls who have not tasted true freedom in Christ.  Or even, freedom at all.  Freedom without Christ is better than the prison these hurting souls find themselves in.


Maybe not sufficient, but I don't care.  Don't cheapen my message, if that is what this is.