Saving Pious Jenny

Superstitious gobbledygook can be found in most, if not all of Christendom; the line bewtween sacred and secular, a thin one.  When I sat down to study the bible, I searched for how to lead a God honoring life, and scripture was my plumbline.  As a child the rules were simple: don't use the Lord's name in vain, honor your parents, don't steal, and (OMG...) DON'T HAVE SEX.  Pretty basic, as you can see, the perfect recipe for Godly living.  Enter puberty... The bar for christian boys is pretty low:  don't lust, don't fiddle with your twig and berries, and (OMG...) DON'T HAVE SEX, oh... almost forgot... be a leader.  Girls, well you are pretty much responsible for causing boys to lust, so: COVER YOUR BOOBIES, make sure your undergarments hide your nippies, nothing says "erotic" more than erect nippies; be soft spoken, long hair is a sign of godliness, dress modestly, don't fiddle with your... never mind... good christian girls don't masturb...

My old church hosted a Family Festival recently, or as I preffered to call it, a "Conversion Carnival".  I'm sure you've seen signs for similar events in your own community: Family Easter Egg Hunt, Vacation Bible School, Trunk-or-Treat, Harvest Festival, etc... Regardless of the theme, the goal is to lure unsuspecting victims...oh, excuse me, uh...I mean friends and neighbors from the community into the church, expose them to christian culture, and proselytize them. I remember participating in similar events...  Pious Jenny went about with syrupy sweetness dripping from her lips, always a kind word, a vapid smile anchored to her face.  Her ears attuned for the perfect segue, infusing her conversations with godly wisdom, *TING*!  According to scripture, she was responsible for being a witness to the lost. If she missed an opportunity to lead someone to Jesus, and they were never presented with the gospel again, their blood would be on Jenny's hands. ...

I was now officially filled with the Holy Spirit... ...or so I thought.  It seemed that I could never truly earn that designation without first speaking in tongues.  I mean, c'mon, everyone knows THAT'S the surest sign of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit!  But it wouldn't take.  Each time there was a service where the preacher invited people to come forward to receive the baptism, I was there.  My mind and heart were open, I prayed in earnest, those gathered around me would whoop up a storm of tongues and yet no matter how long I stood there, hands raised I got nuthin', zero, zilch, nada.  "No tongues for you!" For the longest time I thought there was something wrong with me.  Was there some "hidden sin" in my life?  And really, if I was sinning, wouldn't I know it?  Worst case scenario, maybe I was never really chosen to be a child of God!  I don't remember whether I expressed my doubt and apprehension to anyon...

I'm going to let you in on a little secret, I am not a native born Mainer, I'm "from away".  Shameful, I know...  I moved with my family from a suburb of NY to southern Maine when I was nine.  Both my parents were born and bred here, my father in southern Maine, and my mother from way up north in The County, very different cultures.  We spent most of my summers in Maine with both sides of the family, but it was my mother's family that had the greatest influence on me.  Life in The County was and still is unhurried, a place of solace surrounded by vast forests and majestic mountains.  Wildlife is abundant and if you are wise, you drive with your eyes wide open at night, because the moose and the deer are not exactly in simpatico with the Maine DOT. My mother's family was home away from home.  Her sister C the Elder is my mother's younger sister by less than two years,  are very close, so much so the...

I did not grow up in a fundamentalist family.  My religious background was a hodgepodge of experiences: Catholic, Episcopal, Charismatic, Assemblies of God, Church of God, and last but certainly not least, Baptist.  My religious training consisted of regular church attendance, intermittent bible studies with my mother and two younger sisters, attending classes for First Communion and eventually attending a Catholic school in the third grade.  There wasn't any pressure to memorize scripture, the Catholic church seemed to focus more on its traditions and rituals than actually knowing what the bible says.  To this day I can still recite most of the prayers and responses I learned at such a young age, it just goes to show the power of indoctrination.  My mother didn't become "born again" until I was eight, which was about the same time I got "saved" during vacation bible school at the local Baptist church.  After our conversion, we began a...