The Doubting Preacher's Daughter

 My parents were devout, conservative Christians of the old school:  the school that proclaimed that the Bible was inerrant, that the miracles were real, that the whole point of Christianity was the horrifying but salvific sacrificial death of Jesus on the cross of Calvary, and that heaven and hell were real after-life destinations IF you didn't believe everything literally that the Bible and most Christian pastors preached.

Problem was, I had a hard time taking those literalities seriously.  They were/are beautiful (or horrifying) stories but they were also hard to prove factually.  And I needed verification, so in my college courses at Linfield I explored Christianity as best I could in a Baptist college, taking "Life of Jesus" and "Basic Christian Thought" courses, in an effort to find out what academics might reveal behind the scenes, with world views larger than that of conservative Christian pastors.  And maybe some more complete understanding of the science which did not support the miracle stories.

I was canny enough not to discuss my doubts with my parents, who I figured would not appreciate my questions.  But I needed to know!  

Playing along with the traditional beliefs of Baptist theology as I got more familiar with it, I found that I could assume that the stories of miracles and other magical acts had some literal truth to them but were stories told over the centuries to explain what couldn't be understood in any other way.  The stories were "true" but also mystical.

After college, I wanted to do something to live out my deep understanding of Christianity and chose to serve in two different job scenarios.  My first job was to work as a welfare caseworker in two counties in Washington state.  For about 18 months, I plied my trade in the back country of Klickitat and Skamania counties, serving Old Age recipients and Indigent Families.  I had never had such an opportunity to be with people who relied on State assistance to survive.  It was a new world to me.

But living at home with my parents was hard, as my changing theology and awareness of what people really needed, apart from salvation, which was to survive.  My family had never been well off--preachers' salaries were pretty scanty---but the folks I met had almost nothing and lots of medical bills and children.

A chance came along to become a program worker in a Baptist Christian Center in Denver and I jumped at it.  My job was to work with preschoolers, preteens, and older teens after school, but I also met their parents---and they were all different colors and cultures.  My eyes opened wider and wider and I let myself be more deeply immersed in the social justice challenges of racism and poverty.

In Denver I met the man who would become my husband.  He was a catalyst for my discovering that there were religious groups which did not require one to believe in certain miracles but, instead, to focus on the values by which we live our lives.  He introduced me to Unitarian Universalism in 1965, almost 60 years ago.

And we'll stop there for now.

"The Land that Made Me Me" (author unknown)

Borrowed this from FaceBook. If you know the author, let me know and I'll add that info.

Long ago and far away, in a land that time forgot,

Before the days of Dylan , or the dawn of Camelot.

There lived a race of innocents, and they were you and me.

For Ike was in the White House in that land where we were born,

Where navels were for oranges, and Peyton Place was porn.

We longed for love and romance, and waited for our Prince,

Eddie Fisher married Liz, and no one's seen him since.

We danced to 'Little Darlin,' and sang to 'Stagger Lee'

And cried for Buddy Holly in the Land That Made Me, Me.

Only girls wore earrings then, and 3 was one too many,

And only boys wore flat-top cuts, except for Jean McKinney.

And only in our wildest dreams did we expect to see

A boy named George with Lipstick, in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We fell for Frankie Avalon, Annette was oh, so nice,

And when they made a movie, they never made it twice..

We didn't have a Star Trek Five, or Psycho Two and Three,

Or Rocky-Rambo Twenty in the Land That Made Me, Me.

Miss Kitty had a heart of gold, and Chester had a limp,

And Reagan was a Democrat whose co-star was a chimp.

We had a Mr. Wizard, but not a Mr. T,

And Oprah couldn't talk yet, in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We had our share of heroes, we never thought they'd go,

At least not Bobby Darin, or Marilyn Monroe.

For youth was still eternal, and life was yet to be,

And Elvis was forever in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We'd never seen the rock band that was Grateful to be Dead,

And Airplanes weren't named Jefferson , and Zeppelins were not Led.

And Beatles lived in gardens then, and Monkees lived in trees,

Madonna was Mary in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We'd never heard of microwaves, or telephones in cars,

And babies might be bottle-fed, but they were not grown in jars.

And pumping iron got wrinkles out, and 'gay' meant fancy-free,

And dorms were never co-Ed in the Land That Made Me, Me.

We hadn't seen enough of jets to talk about the lag,

And microchips were what was left at the bottom of the bag.

And hardware was a box of nails, and bytes came from a flea,

And rocket ships were fiction in the Land That Made Me, Me.

T-Birds came with portholes, and side shows came with freaks,

And bathing suits came big enough to cover both your cheeks.

And Coke came just in bottles, and skirts below the knee,

And Castro came to power near the Land That Made Me, Me.

We had no Crest with Fluoride, we had no Hill Street Blues,

We had no patterned pantyhose or Lipton herbal tea

Or prime-time ads for those dysfunctions in the Land That Made Me, Me.

There were no golden arches, no Perrier to chill,

And fish were not called Wanda, and cats were not called Bill

And middle-aged was 35 and old was forty-three,

And ancient were our parents in the Land That Made Me, Me.

But all things have a season, or so we've heard them say,

And now instead of Maybelline we swear by Retin-A.

They send us invitations to join AARP,

We've come a long way, baby, from the Land That Made Me, Me.

So now we face a brave new world in slightly larger jeans,

And wonder why they're using smaller print in magazines.

And we tell our children's children of the way it used to be,

Long ago and far away in the Land That Made Me, Me.

If you didn't grow up in the fiftys,

You missed the greatest time in history,

Living through post-war American history and into the current chaos of trumpism, christian nationalism, and the far right.

As my 82nd birthday approached on June 8th, I became conscious of the US and World history that I have lived through and am living right now. I was born in 1942, during WWII, and grew up after the end of the war in 1945. I am a member of the so-called Silent Generation.

My childhood was safe and my parents, relieved that the deprivation of the war years was behind us, gave us kids love, not fear, protected and encouraged us, got us through high school and into college, and turned us over to our own consciences.

From age 10-18, I lived with my Baptist preacher family in the small town of Athena, Oregon, population about 750 on a good day. My dad was well liked in our town and, though we kids grew up with the strictures of no dancing, no playing cards, no movies---at least for the preacher's kids---we were not particularly resentful of those strictures, as the other preacher's family had the same rules, so we were accepted as normal, just with a little tighter set of rules than the other kids.

We Ketcham kids were good students and busy with extracurricular activities---sports, school newspaper and yearbook, choir and speech and drama, even in our tiny high school. School was fun and we had a good record in interscholastic sports.

Our parents were active in local groups and our dad had the distinction of being 6'6" and having a friendly, warm nature. He was on good terms with other city leaders and was willing to take on small and large tasks to help out here and there. I remember his helping neighbors with electrical repairs on occasion and I remember his kindness and understanding when he encountered transients and migrants looking for jobs in the summer harvests.

One thing that stands out in my mind was his driving the bus full of transients, migrants, and us high school kids out to the pea fields in summer, at 6 a.m. for a day of driving our heavily laden trucks back and forth between the swathers and loaders as we kids loaded our pea trucks for delivery to the pea viners, a 12 hour a day job for less than $1 an hour.

More Later.