I’m watching Leah Remini: Scientology and the Aftermath, on Netflix.
Good for you, Ms. Remini. It just stirs up so many feelings I have about religion.
MARRIAGE
The only reason I got married was because that's what I thought I was supposed to do. I had been proposed to for the second time by a man I was dating. Initially I said yes. But then I said no. We broke up. And then I accepted and married the third proposal. Out of almost ten years I'd like to think at least one was good.
I thought after witnessing my dad's first marriage as a kid I had gotten wise. Nope.
Anytime a woman says, "I had no idea my husband was cheating on me," is a lie. You knew. I knew. C'mon. We all knew.
A man changes his routine the moment he gets a mistress. My dad spent even less time at home. He started receiving "work calls" every night after 9pm. He had business trips every weekend. Everyone knew he had a mistress. His attitude, his personality, his routine, changed like (that!) overnight. Whatever ambitions dad had for his children, my brothers and I, suddenly disappeared by the time I was 13 or 14 as if they never existed. Dad wasn’t going to find me a husband. My brothers weren’t going to be doctors and lawyers. Quitting us was very easy for him. Probably a relief even. But we didn’t mind. We got our freedom. The only person who didn’t appreciate the freedom was his wife. She was completely lost without her husband. Utterly pathetic. The woman sewed all her own clothes so she didn’t have to go out in public and shop with other women her own age. She never had a friend. Not one. Not ever. She went to the same fabric store she had gone to since she was a child. She made my brother drive her everywhere because she refused to learn how to drive. There was one bus that went into the twin cities from our house. It came once an hour. You had to walk a mile to get to the bus stop. And as you can imagine, the bus didn’t run during the winter most days.
As I've said before, I don't blame my dad for seeking happiness elsewhere. His current wife was a sad dependent nightmare. My brothers and I were left on our own. Free. Not necessarily a good thing for teenagers to be on their own 24/7. On occasion dad would come home, try keeping the remains of our family together but it was obvious he couldn’t care less.
Dad's first wife lacked all social skills. She was a good obedient Lutheran girl who did as her upbringing instructed. She went from childhood home to husband. She never lived on her own. She never had friends. She never traveled. She never developed hobbies to enjoy. To this day she is a miserable lonely old woman who just sits in her house, boarded up, locked up, chain smoking cigarettes, waiting to die. Entirely her choice. She chooses to live that way. Be that, she knew way back then her husband found another woman. She knew. And did nothing. In her mind, it was his job to keep her. She refused all personal responsibility.
I watched my dad's first wife wallow into herself. She didn't eat. She didn't talk. She didn't bathe or give a goddamn about her appearance, ever. She simply shrank away (somewhere) and drank cheap box wine. When I was 17 years old, my dad threw her, his first wife, out of the house. I wasn’t home at the time. Dad made sure of that. It was quite a scene, I heard. As ugly as you can imagine it. All the neighbors told me about it. He legit threw her out into the driveway. Threw her suitcases out into the driveway. Called the town cops on her. Big ugly AF scene. Not entirely their faults though. Each parent simply did in the beginning as their religious hard wiring instructed - albeit against the grain of human nature. She got pregnant. Neither one believed in birth control. So they got married. And look how well that turned out.
My dad ended up divorcing his first wife and marrying his mistress. They stayed together (some) thirty years until he died of throat cancer.
I’m glad he found happiness.
Before he died he got super religious again. Catholic, this time. That’s what his widow is, Catholic. Never no mind they were both married when they started seeing each other.
Thou shalt not…
Meh. Whatever.
My dad had the book, Dianetics, in the house when I was a kid. He read it. His wife attempted to read it. I wanted to read it but my dad threw the book out before I could.
Some history:
My dad was from Utah, raised Mormon.
His wife was from Minnesota, raised Lutheran.
I chose to practice teachings from the Bible, and then from the Dhammapada.
My brothers were Atheists. Agnostics at best.
My dad converted to catholicism later in life.
I’m now just a simple countrywoman
My brothers are still atheists.
I got tattoos. Leah Remini joined Scientology. We’re both cutters. We both did things that will stay with us forever.
The Church of Scientology erected a church in St. Paul, Minnesota, circa 2011. It’s not going well. No surprise there. For those of you not in the know, Minnesota is a very deeply rooted religious state. Religious like Utah. That said, this is not a blog about Scientology. This is not a blog discouraging people from becoming Scientologists. This is a blog explaining why Scientology will never be a thing in Minnesota. Unless, of course, it was never meant to be.
If you follow my blogs, you already know my belief system is richly ingrained with Buddhism, Quakers, and Mennonites, not for their enlightenment and religions per se, but rather for their way of life intrinsically. I bear no illusions or pretenses. I worship no false idols. In other words, you, holy man, self proclaimed prophets, have nothing I want. My friendships are purely organic. If you are unable to be a down-to-earth decent human being, there is no hope of us ever being anything, not for a lifetime, not for five minutes.
If you follow PST (this blog) then you already know I’m from Minnesota - and I am old. As a kid, transport during the winters came by way of snowmobiles, sleds, cross country skis, and snowshoes. Yes, I’m that old. Your giant monster truck won’t help you when four and a half feet of snow has covered everything in sight and you’re blinded by winter white-out. Just ask the idiot who drove his 4X4 into Mr. Olsen’s living room, twice! I’m looking at you, Pete!
Minnesota became a state because the wheels literally fell off (the wagons). Early textbooks had us believe English pilgrims first settled in the state never no mind the indigenous people who already lived there and already named the land Minnesota. Truth is, the first white people to settle in Minnesota were French Quakers, then German Mennonites seeking a peaceful place to live their lives. Y’all can battle amongst yourselves who were the first white people to land in Minnesota, the English, French, or Germans. FYI, when I was a kid, English was mostly used as a second language. Both French and German were taught in high school.
Quakers eventually migrated presumably north into Canada. If you were to gather 100 French speaking born and bred Canadians today along the Minnesota/Canadian border, I’m willing to bet a great many of them had Quakers, AKA pilgrims, in their family trees, maybe even still do currently. But you won’t read about them in your textbooks. They’ll continue to be ignored, you know, like indigenous people. Quakers don’t give a shit what we think of them. By now I’m sure the indigenous people don’t either.
German Mennonites are to French Quakers, what English puritans are to Roman Catholics.
It’s one giant theological math problem.
Roman Catholic
Church of England
Protestants of the Catholic church
Separatists
Colonists
Brownists
Puritans
Pilgrims
And that’s just between England and Rome. I mean! FFS
Be that…
Quakers migrated into Minnesota. Over time a sizable community of German Mennonites would also migrate into Minnesota. Quakers live strictly by the Bible, and Mennonites, while they also live by the Bible, are less strict. Quakers not wanting Mennonite influence in their community fixed their wagon wheels and took off. Leaving German Mennonites in Minnesota where many remain today. It’s also why most kids in my neighborhood speak/understand a form of German. I grew up in a heavily populated German community. Mennonites were a big influence on my childhood. *Their down to earth way of living had a big impact on the way I was raised and schooled. My friends and I were by all accounts children of the prairie, heavy handed in Mennonite and Quaker influence.
*The saying “down to earth” has actual meaning which I’m sure you can figure out for yourself. The diet of Quakers and Mennonites are strictly food from the land and animals they farmed. They literally lived off the land. They are the ones who taught the midwest how to farm. Learning from indigenous people before colonies started murdering them.
Hollywood movies fashioned the word “pilgrim” as being all North American settlers. But that’s not entirely correct. Not all settlers were in fact “pilgrims”. It’s a religious term. If you’re an atheist you were not technically a pilgrim. You were a pioneer. Withal, Minnesota has its own Plymouth, Minnesota. Ha! Take that Massachusetts!
And right there boys and girls, look at all the historic drama among people who didn’t even have indoor plumbing!
Religion was a big deal in Minnesota when I was a kid. A big (big!) ol’ deal. Most, even to this day, call themselves Lutherans. I have no idea what that means to be honest. I have Lutherans in my family. I have no idea what’s going on there. I tried the Lutheran church and found it to be utterly complicated. Additionally, no two Lutherans outside of family can agree what it means to be Lutheran. But they do all seem to agree on swift punishment for sins.
But again, ask two (pick any Christians) the definition of sin and you will get conflicting answers.
I have a theory that people into S&M were once very devout in some form of Christianity. Some men love to be punished. Bless their hearts. It paid my rent on occasion.
“All sin can be forgiven” but the method in which forgiveness is granted, let's shall we say, differs.
EXAMPLE: If you’re a junkie, if you’re a prostitute, indeed you have sinned, you risk going to Hell and eternal damnation, but you can be saved by human hands. A human hand touched you with filth, ergo a human hand can also cleanse you. You’re salvageable. But worshiping false idols, worshiping money, worshiping waste, praising someone who has more than what they need, is considered a disease that human hands cannot cleanse. In other words, in the eyes of many, you’re better off being a junkie hooker than wealthy. One is a disease of the body. The other is a disease of the mind. One can be saved. The other cannot.
Money means absolutely nothing when the rest of your tribesmen think you’re evil. Money is evil. The root of all evil, in fact. If you want forgiveness you might have to die. Back then, most who were banished, or religiously exercised, did. Your wealth was then fractioned.
It’s not that Minnesotans are so nice. We’re not actually. We’re Little House On The Prairie fundamentalists. We’re live-off-the-land simpletons. Your luxury cars and designer clothes mean nothing when it’s (minus) -40 degrees out with three feet of snow on the ground.
So when I hear that Scientologists bought multi million dollar buildings and left them all to rot instead of doing good deeds with them, my community would have questioned the mental stability of those in charge. What healthy minded person would waste millions of dollars like that? What healthy minded person would give their money for such waste? If you purchase real estate solely for the purpose of wealth, well then, you’re the devil. Where I grew up, people who surrendered their hard earned money to false prophets would be (at the very best) considered village idiots. Mentally ill. Or even worse, possessed by the devil. And trust me, you did not want to be deemed possessed by the devil. Y’all saw the Exorcism of Emily Rose. Great film. Be that, spoiler alert, it did not end well for Emily Rose.
My friends and I grew up believing our maker intended us to live off the land. After all, pioneers didn’t have Amazon and they lived just fine, you know, for at least 18-30 years.
History aside, if you asked me then, if you ask me now to describe myself in one word, I would still say “countryman (woman)”. The only things that separate us from other animals are opposable thumbs and greed.
I respect Quakers and Mennonites for many reasons. For one, there are no donation plates. No fees. No charges for your faith. Bank accounts are not held hostage. You will not go financially broke. All they ask is that you choose to live a good clean down-to-earth healthy life. Live off the land. Additionally by doing so you’re also preserving wildlife. You’re not wasting. If you’re knowledgeable (particularly in farming) and if you’re physically healthy, you possess more wealth than all of scientology’s money. Even to this day, luxury cars mean nothing to me. Mansions mean nothing. Not in the grand scheme of things. Private yachts, what a waste. I’m not saying that to be insulting. It’s just a fact. The end of the world is the end of the world, my friends. Every human being will meet an end. You truly cannot take it with you. King Tut’s treasures are still sitting in a museum in Cairo. He was supposed to take it with him. He didn’t, boys and girls. Because you can’t.
I’m a Gen X’er. I was a latch-key kid. Many Gen X’ers were. My parents were selfish. My friend's parents were selfish. All of our parents grew up in strict households and fled home by way of the military at a young age. Once their service was up my brothers and I still hardly ever saw our parents. My friends hardly ever saw their parents. Where did the parents go? Who knows? Children of the corn! Lord of the flies! Our parents put roofs over our heads, clothes on our backs, and food in the fridge. According to them, they did their job. We’re still alive. I became wholly aware of my survival instincts at a very young age. I grew up in the middle of nowhere, small town, USA. One gas station. One high school. One motel. (Film) Napoleon Dynamite. If I couldn’t grow a vegetable garden there was a chance I could die! Oh my god, panic! Panic! PANIC! Holy shit, panic! I’m from Minnesota so of course I internalized the panic. It’s a decent thing to do.
My girlfriends and I were raised by our community in the old traditional pilgrim-biblical way, sound religious training, with or without the Bible. Women must be clean and obedient. Not clean as in bathe every day, clean as in remaining a virgin until married. Women who lived in the twin cities or any city away from home were deemed “whores”. The only possible conceivable reason a girl leaves home before marriage, or ventures into the city, is to wear too much makeup and be a whore. Reflecting now, were they entirely wrong?
When I moved to San Francisco at the age of twenty my dad didn’t speak to me for several years. My dad, who wore a giant peace symbol around his neck when he was a teenager. Many years later when dad and I reconciled I asked him why he didn’t speak to me for so long and his response was, “You’re always doing things you shouldn’t be doing.”
Meaning…
Good girls don’t move away from home.
Good girls don’t lose their virginity to anyone but their husbands.
Good girls get married. Young.
Only whores move to the city.
When I was eleven or twelve years old, just before or just after getting a menstrual cycle, my dad, then still Mormon not practicing, would dress me up in these poofy little girl dresses, all of them with tiny flower patterns. White tights. Black shiny mary-jane shoes. White satin ribbons in my long hair. He would have me stand in front of the flower garden, or vegetable garden. Face forward towards the camera. Then stand sideways. Then stand with my back to the camera, straight and tall, perfect posture. I didn’t know at the time these photos were being used to find me a husband in a Mormon community. My pictures were being passed around from man to man to find me a husband. Thankfully only lilly white girls were wanted. I grew up in the whitest town ever. To this day I have not seen an interracial Mormon or Morman couple, Quaker, or Mennonite couple. Not one. Which thrilled me. I reaped the benefits of learning how to farm without having to marry anyone for it. I won! And isn’t that really what makes men mad, girls learning how to do things, getting something for free?
My dad was always very critical of my looks. Girls should be pretty, skinny, proper, submissive, long hair, glossy pink lips, long eyelashes, rosey cheeks, wear flower pattern dresses, smile when a man enters the room, and even though dad was no longer a practicing Mormon, there are just some things when repeated enough times in your presence gets hard-wired in you. I think I’m open minded until I hear there is barbed wire running along the walls of Scientology camps. I’m a little house on the prairie girl, only criminals get locked up behind barbed wire. Barbed wire? I wouldn’t dare treat a cow that way.
I’ve written about this next subject before, and that's education in heavily religious towns. Even though I did not attend a yearly Catholic school, or any type of bible based school, the money for our town’s public education came from heavy religious groups. Books were donated to our school libraries on how to milk a cow, construct a chicken coop, how to slaughter a pig, how to get rid of garden weasels, what jobs women were allowed to get, what jobs men were expected to do, I even once checked out a book on how to churn your own butter. And if you think towns like (film) Footloose don’t exist, I assure you they do. Sex education in 7th grade was my health class, all twelve students, watching slides of what aborted fetuses look like. Slide after slide, aborted fetus after aborted fetus. How girls get pregnant was never taught. Just know that if you get pregnant your only option is to give birth. Because (this) is what a ripped up, torn apart baby looks like if you get an abortion. Class dismissed! I would guess at least 10%-15% of the female student body didn’t graduate high school. They were too busy raising babies.
Is being a prairie-kid a religion or culture? I owned a bible. Still do. Haven’t read it in years. When I first arrived in Los Angeles, I used to pass the Scientologists at the tables on the sidewalks who tried getting you to come inside to take a personality test. “Don’t ever go inside their buildings! You’ll never come out!” Friends warned me. Luckily I’m not white enough to be a Scientologist. Just like I wasn’t white enough to be the wife of a Mormon or Mennonite. However, I can still read your books and learn a thing or two about your beliefs and people. Again, I won!
Is building mansions for the return of L. Ron Hubbard reincarnated any less crazy than the reincarnation of His Holiness The Dalai Lama? Is making your followers pay ridiculous sums of money to be parishioners any less crazy than paying a faculty for a bunch of kids to read the bible?
I grew up in a time before computers and cell phones. I got my first cell phone in my 20’s. I really am just a simpleton. A simple fundamentalist country(wo)man. Just like when I was a kid. Do I understand wealth? Nope. Don’t want to either. If I ever won 22 million dollars in Superlotto, 21 million would be given away to whomever and however I best saw fit. ZERO dollars would be given to a religious cause or to anything being pandered by the hollywood elite. Elon Musk can go fuck himself. The only people who think there isn’t a population problem are those with something to sell. They need breeders to create more wallet holders to buy their shit.
I’m pro-capitalism, absolutely. I’m just not pro-greed. Make your money. Buy some luxuries. You earned it. But if you’re tearing down walls to make room for your 230th pair of Louis Vuitton shoes, you bitch, can go fuck yourself. “Say Amen if you received the message today!”
Money is the root of all evil. It’s about the one thing every religion everywhere on earth agrees on…. Except Scientology.
Watch LEAH REMINI: SCIENTOLOGY AND THE AFTERMATH on Netflix.
And because I just happened to see these as I was finishing up this blog:
Cue the youtubes!
No comments:
Post a Comment