Transformation Station

I come from a long line of visionaries and dreamers: after his own horse had been shot out from under him, my great-great-great grandfather made it across the Rhine River by grabbing hold of the tail of someone else’s horse; later, in Germany, fearing his two sons were going to be conscripted into the military, this man sent his only children on a ship to America, one hidden in a trunk.

Later yet, my grandmother, a graying, middle-aged woman, asked my father, in his soldier’s uniform, if he’d come home from church to eat Sunday dinner with her. He didn’t want to, but, in my father’s words, “she persisted and persisted and wouldn’t give up.” Finally he agreed to go with her, and after a long ride on a streetcar to Hyattsville, Maryland, he went in the house to see the young woman who would someday be my mom coming down the stairs. He spent the next several hours having the “most enthralling conversation he’d ever had,” and the next day he told a friend that he’d met the girl he wanted to marry.

 In reflection, I’m noticing that all these moments involve elements of risk; a reaching for hope, a lifeline, that resulted in real-time, real life magic. My own path has held moments like these, moments that were life-changing and that required bold action or persistence on my part.

One of the first: I was raised from birth as an evangelical, and the only people I knew were others like me. From seventh grade on, in small town Idaho, I attended a private Christian school, and went to college at Northwest Nazarene University, where my father was a professor.

At church, I was taught that people “of the world” were evil, sinners to be afraid of. The Nazarene church didn’t allow dancing, going to movies, using alcohol, drugs, or tobacco. Women were to be silent in church (unless they were teaching Sunday School or in the nursery taking care of the babies.) They weren’t supposed to “paint their lips” or wear jewelry. My mom’s wedding ring was a very slender gold band; my father wore no ring. We also weren’t allowed to play games that involved dice—gambling and poker were out, as well as being a member of “secret societies;” mixed bathing (swimming with the opposite gender) was frowned upon as well. Back then, no one much spoke of the LGBTQ population; there seemed to be some attempt to erase these people from consciousness, and even now, they are routinely fired from jobs in this church. Women, of course, were directed to be submissive; and under the “Umbrella of Protection,” men received direction from God and told their wives and children what to do.

I knew nothing else; this all seemed normal to me, so perhaps it is understandable that I married at age twenty to a young man I met in college even though I had some big doubts about our relationship and the way he treated me. When I broke up with him briefly before our wedding, he won me back, or rather, I had been taught that the goal for women was to get married and have children, and I couldn’t imagine any other way to go forward.

People ask why some conservative women participate in their own subjugation, and one answer is that when a person is conditioned to think certain things and secluded from other types of thought, it’s almost impossible to escape that worldview.

So I put aside my fears. We married on a pretty June day, had three little girls, and when after ten years of marriage I became ill, no one could figure out what was wrong with me. After months of tests for the stomach issues, headaches, weight loss, and weird feeling of dizziness I couldn’t seem to shake (one doctor thought I had a brain tumor), another doctor finally spoke the truth: “I think you have an emotional problem,” he said. Although many women have experienced having their symptoms wrongfully brushed aside in this way, for me it was accurate.

I was advised to see a therapist, and eventually she helped me admit into my mind what I hadn’t been able to before: my husband was abusive and I wanted out. Divorce was so wrong in my mind, I hadn’t conceived of it as a possibility.

My body had tried to tell me I was unhappy, but I hadn’t been able to contemplate doing the thing that I had been programmed from birth not to: to think for myself, or to disobey the rules of the church, even if they interfered with my own well-being and sense of worth. A religion that preaches that every person is born as a sinner, is essentially “bad” from birth, is not really interested in helping people feel innately worthy.

And divorce was a sin; everyone knew that. When I took off my wedding ring, and it became clear to my church that my husband and I had separated, several people showed up at my house.

“Get that ring back on your finger before something worse happens,” the wife of the music minister advised me.

“You’re making a terrible mistake,” another woman said. “I felt I had to come over and tell you this.” She seemed angry, her face reddening as she spoke, as if my actions had personally offended her.

I was still feeling ill and trying to do the hardest thing I’d ever done, and my community responded with judgment. But I grabbed a lifeline—a window had opened inside me, and I made a choice. Something bigger than myself must have enabled me to do that, the same energy that enabled my great-great-great grandfather to hold on to the slick tail of a horse in the 1800s to get across the Rhine River, or inspired him to send his children to America in a trunk, or gave the insight to my grandmother that she shouldn’t give up when a young soldier first turned down her invitation to Sunday dinner. If there’s divinity at work in our world and in the universe beyond, and I believe there is, it has nothing to do with judgment or fear; it’s about love.

There’s much more to this story, and I intend to write about it on this Substack once a week (at least that’s the goal). I hope to also hold up the voices of others who have resisted the status quo, who have glimpsed visions of the future or a light a bit farther down the road and have enacted transformations in their lives. Stepping outside the box to do what is right for you seems to be part of the necessary work of change.

I have an image that comes into my mind when I’m walking or sometimes jogging early mornings, out for exercise, telling myself not to quit. And the image is this: I’m not alone, walking along the sidewalk. There’s a crew surrounding me. My grandparents on my father’s side, Ethel and Clarence. My great-aunt Ada, who died in a tornado. My mother’s mother, Leila, who told charming stories to her grandchildren or typed them in blurry black ink, plastered the folded papers with stickers of little girls and lambs, put them in an envelope and mailed them to me. They’re all there, the ones I know, and the ones I don’t know, but who have supported me throughout my life in ways I wasn’t aware of. And of course my parents, my mom and dad, who although no longer physically present, are so close they’re practically holding my hands.

Somehow, we are all here together in this, those who came before and now us, taking our turn. I like the idea that Substack is a place where many different people can have a voice, and we can be here for each other, helping each other along. I think that’s pretty spectacular, and I’m here for it.

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