Dear Rolling Stones

Below is a letter I never sent (nor really ever intended to, I just wrote it to get it out of my brain) to The Rolling Stones magazine, in reference to a story in the January 2014 issue ...

Dear Rolling Stones. I read the article in the issue featuring LORDE on the cover, about the IHOP controversy. I was reminded of my freshman year of college in the midwest, when I was side-by-side with IHOP affiliates. As I was reading, memories were coming back to me which haven't surfaced since my post-college perspective. I would like to share them with you, for what it's worth.

Firstly, I am a devout Christian. But I currently prefer a cup of tea and an educated teaching on the Bible in a historic perspective. Having left home, however, with only a very sheltered background, I fell in with fervent evangelicals in a Christian Community House, where I lived for nearly three years. There was one woman there, who I'll call Amy, who was definitely the 'leader' for all intensive purposes. She was tall, and broad, and imposing both physically and in personality.

There were five women living in the upstairs, while three men lived downstairs. Amy would host a women's house bible study every morning at 5:30am. Neither Amy nor 'Susan' (a slightly less imposing housemate) understood when I dropped out a few weeks into these because I simply had to get sleep before class.

I was an excellent student. I never drank. Never smoked. Never caroused. Although suspicion was thrown at me in my weekly 45 minute drive home on the weekends, by a number of my relations. Nevertheless, I was in a city where I didn't know anyone, where everyone seemed like a hazard to my spiritual and physical well being, except the people who were agreeing with my beliefs. So I followed them.

I experienced things straight off the bat, that I hadn't seen before, such as intensive prayer, where people were crying their eyes out, figuratively, with snot coming out of their nose, literally. It was not long before I was the object of these intense prayers and I felt myself shaking with the atmosphere.

Amy would come home, absolutely pulsing with prophecy. She was so exuberant, I listened with wide eyes, and all the other young women seemed equally attentive if more verbal.

At school, I was making "heathanistic" friends, who didn't go to church and had a looser interpretation of religion. But I was born with an accepting heart, and grateful for whoever would be my friend, for I had no social skills to speak of. This, of course, had repercussions at the community house. Amy prayed for me one day in the kitchen after I had asked them to pray for the young people at the party I was going to who were going to be drinking. She instead prayed that I would see the light and stop hanging out with these sinful people. I didn't. But my friendships outside the home grew, eventually strengthening my ability to question.

Amy didn't stop, but pushed pamphlets in my face about openings down in Kansas City for musicians (I am a violinist).

Was it degree affiliated?

No. But if you drop out of college for a year, God will reward you for serving him.

I had a strong desire to get my degree, which I thought God had put there.

Just think about it.

Secretly, I just had.

I would go for 'prayer walks' with her and sometimes her and a group, mostly praying in my head, while she called on God in fast, ceaseless speech. A young woman passed us by heading the opposite way once, and upon hearing Amy's words, said 'Not again!' Something deep within me could feel her pain.

At one point Amy was talking so vehemently as we walked to church one morning that I could not keep my attention, for I wasn't given any room to talk. Having stopped at the crosswalk and upon getting the walk signal, her coat had caught my scarf. She pulled me along a small ways as I choked and gasped before she realized. 'Oh sorry,' she said, and then continued on. I thought I heard a voice inside me, very serenely point to this as a tangible example of what was happening spiritually.

Then there was the church. I had tried a few. But decided to join Amy once to one of the many places she talked of consistently. I was open-minded. That's how I got introduced. People welcomed me, would talk to me, and there was a strong emphasis on art, all of which attracted me.

I somehow felt an illegitimacy about it. They loved everyone immeidately. They thought everyone was awesome instantly. I would rather have someone get to know me before they open their arms and tell me how awesome I am to make it rooted in something.

And the art. It was supposed to have been prophetic. But there are some really depressing days ahead if that's the case. It showed blood, and spikes, and brown uckiness mixed with black uckiness. What's more they'd put these in the windows as though proud of the display 'look what we can do, we can prophesy, and you gunna die,' it seemed to say. And more and more pictures cluttered the windows. (Eventually, after a year or so, these were taken down because they caught on it didn't make them seem welcoming to the neighbors or passers-by).

Nevertheless, the church seemed to be sincere. They promised so much importance, and it seemed that if I didn't pay attention to what they had to say, I wouldn't be prepared for when God came back. The emphasis was on evangelizing. I sat in the back and drew. People would come up to me sometimes, concerned and want to pray for me. One young woman told me my drawings looked sad . . .

One early meeting designed to strengthen each other's trust and confidence in one another. Well, I forget the specific exercise, but it resulted in a six foot tall, strong man of athletic build falling on me twice. It was his fault. Then he laughed, without apology or acknowledging he had just crushed a slightly built freshman. He was a prominent member of the church.

I went into the bathroom. I did not like being here. All I wanted was relational acceptance, but something about this seems... not me. And not interesting.

I prayed. God, is it okay if I just walk away? If I just go home? Like, right now?

I closed my eyes very tightly.

Susan didn't think I had interpreted the response correctly. 'Next time you might just want to think about staying and honoring your commitment.' She was not as forceful as Amy, and said this tactfully.

Amy was coming home frequently talking about a new crush. She would obsess about a specific man and then move onto another. She just wanted to be married, having been divorced once after a seven-year marriage. Church was her dating center, as it was for many. (I have always stayed clear of church-boys. They always looked at me as though I'd make a suitable housewife). Her and another woman in the house, Kathleen, were screaming giddily about 'boys' or men, one night when I just had enough. It was the first time I had acknowledged to myself that I thought they were foolish. It was the first self-acknowledged independent thought I was comfortable with.

At one point Amy came back from a trip. A man had flirted with her, and of course like all weaney men, he recanted when the 'God-focused' trip was over. Before the recant, however, and after knowing him for three days, it was decided by God that Amy would marry him. That didn't happen, but the whole house heard her prophesying it. Another housemate, Laurel, was also divinely destined to marry a man she had met and taken a fancy too a few months earlier according to Amy and Susan.

There was a young man, Leonard, living in the house who was not a Christian, although he had grown up going to the same youth Bible Study as Susan and came from a Christian family. He was an atheist, completely disillusioned by those around him. He was also hilarious and adorable, both physically and personality wise. Slightly selfish, and a little weird at times, he was not unkind. But, he was not a Christian. And when Amy heard a sermon preached about satanic influences, she came home plotting to wait until Leonard had left for the day and sprinkle his room with holy water, praying their way safely through, as well as praying throughout the whole house to extract any hidden evil.

This set me off nerve slightly, but I didn't say anything. Maybe they were right! But one thing was definitely off... we weren't catholic. There, according to our denomination, wasn't such a thing as Holy Water. But for Amy's purposes there was. 

My most cultish experience happened in a Bible Study House. That's the best way to describe it. They'd get together every week and discuss how they were going to evangelize large groups of people, thereby saving the world. Eventually they dissolved and nothing ever happened. While they were still functioning as a sounding board for their importance, I visited it very occasionally. On a few occasions the drum circle held such a heavy atmosphere (the dimmed lights and low chanting) that I had a severe anxiety attack. Eventually, I decided drum circles were not for me.

And finally for a circumstance, which at the time I interpreted as the actions of a mean woman, I now realize the bizarreness of it. I had requested of the 'eccentric' landlady (she later proved herself to be an awkward bully), a house-trained bunny rabbit. 'They're small, no one in the house has allergies, they're cleaner than cats, and they're housetrained.' Amy was not on my side. I just have this day-dreamy picture of me carrying my bunny in my bike basket on picnics, I said very sincerely.

'Dreams are often deceiving and unrealistic,' ended the conversation.

Nevertheless, I held out for landlady's decision. My room happened to be near Amy's room and I heard her talking to the landlady on the phone about the bunny rabbit. Landlady considered Amy to be the leader of the house. What I heard broke my heart. Amy convinced Landlady that it would be a bad idea. Granted, landlady was already skeptical when I talked to her on the phone, but had she not have been she certainly would have changed her mind.

'No. No, I agree, absolutely,' Amy said near the end of their conversation. I was laying on my bed, tears running down my face. By that time, I was feeling that what was mine, wasn't really my own, and I needed something just for me. Thus the request.

Amy announced to me shortly thereafter, in very even and cold tones, that Landlady had decided it would not be in everyone's interests to allow a rabbit.

What was creepy was the lasting coldness that followed. It was like you could cut the tension with a blunt object whenever Amy stepped into the same room with me, she was that despising and that cold. It was clear she objected to me very much, and while no one else shunned me, no one in any way comforted me or objected to her treatment. What I had done, I now see, was challenge her divinely appointed, spiritual authority by wanting something for me that she objected to. And what was it? A small, cute, and furry bunny rabbit. I did not act resentful, maybe quietly hurt, but I was meek by nature and steadfast in my gentle treatment of others.

After that, I rejected the idea that God spoke through her like a speakerphone, or that she had any authority over me. She decided to end her lease not long after. I was greatly relieved. But she did so with a not-so-subtle skepticism, as though she were handing a gauntlet of responsibility to a group unworthy.

'We'll see if you (pl) can handle things around here,' she said, referring to her burden of caring for the sheep. Granted, she had made up intricate chore lists, which were simplified post-Amy. We did not suffer from any loss of spirituality after she left.

Oh, I should mention that about a year and a half later, my housemate asked eccentric Landlady if she could adopt a rowdy 75lb dog, despite three people being slightly allergic, and she was happy to grant that request. Landlady had two large dogs of her own. But apparently, she had a derision toward small fluffy animals.