The Rapture Can’t Come Soon Enough

I don’t really want the Christians to go away.
I just want to be allowed to live in peace.

How does one negotiate a win-win with a bully?

This piece reflects the opinion and experience of the author. I do not pretend, or want, to speak on anyone else’s behalf.

Some of these opinions are political.  Not all Pagans will agree with me.  Some might get angry about some of the things I say. But, the political and cultural commentary herein is deeply related to my religious beliefs and my values and my ethics. 

Some of you might have seen me wearing a shirt bearing the same words as the title of this article. Possibly you saw me among an estimated 3-5 million folk, country-wide, at the April 5 Hands-Off Protests (see photo). Since I appear1 to be associated strongly with AAP and its doings, I want to chat about it.

Aside: You can buy a shirt like that, too!  And, I gotta say that Wednesday is a character after my own heart, whatever color it might be on any given day.

The shirt reflects an opinion I have held for decades.  More on that below, but, in short, it was the only way I could imagine that no harm would need to come to anyone, including those who I feel have harmed me, and that I would be allowed to enjoy my existence here. I will say more on the latter as well.

Rapture, The

There are many ways to be a Christian, so they won’t all agree with what I’m about to say about The Rapture. This is the variant that I was taught in the Christian churches and schools that I attended until middle school. 

A brief recap:

On the day of The Rapture, all the Saved individuals, both living and dead, will be taken immediately into Heaven. The living do not need to die. They just go immediately to their eternal bliss. No one gets hurt. The Christians get what they have worked and yearned for, with no pain. 

And I get to relax a little.

That is, I am doing the equivalent of recommending the school bully for a full-ride scholarship to an elite institution on the other side of the country. I don’t want to hurt the bully. Harm, generally, begets more harm.

But I need some relief.

Since I am wishing on them the thing they ultimately desire, I don’t have to feel bad about those among them who aren’t making my life difficult.  I wish them well, and will be pleased to hear from them from time-to-time, if the roaming charges aren’t too much.

I came to this idea circa 1996. At the time, some people had bumper-stickers with sayings like “In case of Rapture, this car will be unmanned”. My friend who first told me about them had the response “Can I have your car?”  My first thought was “Please pull over first so you don’t cause an accident.” That this bumper sticker existed, and seems unconcerned with the fates of anyone else who might be nearby, is a tiny glimpse into the mindset from which I need relief.

I had also come to like the notion of causing no harm whenever possible2. So, I wanted a solution without harm (win-win) even though I was also in a terrible mental state (it resembled depression but was not that), and the things described herein were not helping me feel better. The bully was actively beating me, and I was trying to figure out a way to stop it without having to hurt the bully.

The bumper sticker gave me the idea. I was tickled when I saw recently that I could buy it on a shirt.

I should say this:  I don’t really want all the Christians to go away. I just want to be allowed to live in peace.

Timing Is Everything

Unless you are a pretty close associate of mine, you might not have known these things about me. I can speak up now for these reasons:

  • I am in menopause so there is little chance that I will need to hide and protect a child.
    • Age at the time of the picture: 57.
  • My parents are both dead. They were Christian, and, like many Christians, generally easy going and pleasant to be around. I loved them both and did not want to hurt their feelings.3

The things I say herein are the primary reasons that I do not have children.

DEAR FOLK WHO WANT MORE BABIES BORN: PLEASE READ.

Childless, No Cats

When I was very young, but old enough to have situational awareness – between, say, 8-9 years old, and 15 or 16 – I was happy to be born into such an enlightened time.  Birth control was readily available, abortion was legal, sexual norms were relaxing (OMGs! men can have long hair???!!!), and attitudes toward drug use were becoming sane. I thought life might be decent, maybe even fun.

But, then, Reagan. This is not a Democrat-Republican thing. At the time, I mostly ignored politics. But, while the economic results were mostly agreeable, people started becoming far less pleasant. Within a few years, I began hearing reports of bombings of gay nightclubs and abortion clinics, and the murder of doctors who performed abortions. Women trying to get abortions were besieged by people who appeared to have violent intent. Note: crying and declaring that you love someone does keep your actions from saying otherwise.

In short, there was terrorism, right here, on American soil. But, it was not called terrorism. 

This is important.

Making the world more uptight and restrictive and violent will not inspire more women to want to have children.

I doubt that many women will agree fully with everything I say here. But, given the total fertility rate in the US, let’s talk.  I am pretty certain of this: making the world more uptight and restrictive and violent will not inspire more women to want to have children. If the women in a society are not having children, then you need to look at your society. Hint: threatening them and their doctors with prison/death is not a way to make them feel more comfortable and safe.

Before going further, I wish to acknowledge that the culture is not identical to the Christians. But as they will happily tell you, they are responsible for many of our culture’s characteristics, especially those that are codified into law. Since they are happy to crow about how much influence they have on society, they should also own the results.

Uptight And Restrictive And Violent

I wanted to have kids. I even used my OK Cupid account to try to find a baby-daddy.  I did that because I did not achieve the self-sufficiency needed to protect a child on my own. One person came close.

Here is a partial list of aspects of my society that I would need to protect children from:

Unhealthy and Abusive Fixation on Sex

Unless you know me well, or have a similar mindset, I am probably not talking about the type of fixation that came first into your mind.  If folks merely wanted to have a lot of sex, or often thought about sex, that would be fine. 

The main fixation is this:  A concern, in any way, about the type of genitals another person has, or what they might do with them unless you want to have sex with the person. 

It’s ok if you happen to have a medical, scientific, artistic, anthropological (etc.) interest. 

Otherwise, if you find it worthwhile to use brain cycles worrying about genitals, I consider you to be the victim of deep, life-long abuse that began when you were very young. 

Think how you would view a person who obsesses, with harmful intent, on whether or not any given person has an appendix. That’s how I feel about the people who worry about genitals.

I do not want my children abused in that way.

Examples of behaviors that are likely the result of abuse:  

  • Issues with LGBTQ+ folks
    • Particularly the mean and violent type of issues that aim to purge them from organizations and/or declare that they do not exist.  
    • I suppose I should say this: I am generally hetero. For a relationship, I want a male. So, I’m not saying this because it impacts me much personally.  But… 
    • What if my child is trans or bi or gay or asexual? You want to do what? And, you want women to feel comfortable having kids?
  • Concern over the number of sexual partners a person has
    • I mean… seriously. Really? 
    • I am not your breeding stock. Again, not a way to convince me that my child will be safe.
    • See also comments below about sex being required for full health.

Because these themes are so deeply rooted in our culture, it would take a tremendous effort to protect my child from internalizing them. Let’s be honest: the mere fact that I would teach my child such a dissenting viewpoint would certainly result in endless harassment from DFACS, teachers, neighbors, etc.

That is, I had no intention of breaking any laws. But, I did intend to let my child know my opinions of the laws. And, that would be sufficient to expect harassment if not worse.

Adoration of Hierarchy and Hegemony

This is not entirely separable from the issues in the last category. Sex is often weaponized for the purpose of maintaining power structures. I am speaking here of the power structures themselves.

Our society is obsessed with hierarchies. 

I’m not saying that they are always bad. Ranked lists can be useful, and I have zero issues with, say, the Olympics.  But there is a notion that placing things, especially people, into ranked bins is inherently and always useful and valuable. I disagree.

As an example, I wish to gripe about letters of recommendation for students. The institution invariably hands me a form asking me to rank the student in absurd ways. When the forms still arrived on paper, I would cross out the questions and categories and replace them with my own.  Now, I refrain from answering or, if forced to answer, I just give top marks on everything.

The following question is absurd to me: 

Please rank the mathematical ability of the applicant among all other students you have known: 

  • Top 10%
  • Top 80%
  • …etc

I do not spend my life putting everyone I meet or know or teach or work with into little bins. I can’t imagine why I would want to do that. I cannot imagine why anyone else thinks I should.

Here is a question I can answer:

Does this student have the mathematics and physics background to enter an introductory quantum mechanics course at the graduate level?  (Yes or No)

I want my children to be free from a need to put themselves, and everyone else, into hierarchies.

I also want them to not internalize the notion that hegemony is inherently worthy.

To have a person or group telling others what to do is often convenient and expedient. But, that should not be taken to mean that those who are issuing the orders are somehow better than the others. 

My children should not need to feel that a person’s power makes that person inherently better than others. There is more on this below.

Unhealthy and Abusive Fixation on Irrelevant Things

Even as a young child, my culture frequently astounded me with its insistence that everyone must care about things that are entirely irrelevant.

I mentioned the length of men’s hair earlier. If you want evidence of the insanity that existed around this topic, I refer you to the fact that it was a central theme of a hit show on Broadway.  There are vanishingly few situations where the length of a person’s hair is a concern. 

Language is another. Fuck fuck fuck fuck absofukkenlutely an irrelevant thing. My child’s choice of language will not be constrained. In fact, I hope the child learns many languages.

I get tired just thinking about the hours I would have spent in parent-teacher conferences.

Also religion. I will say more on this below.

Here is a short, stream-of-consciousness list of things that are irrelevant in most situations: clothing, lack of clothing, language, hair, religion, reading material, music preference.

Some Random Other Things

I, and any husband/baby-daddy I might have been able to find, would have had lots of work in addition to the things above. 

In this category, I am talking about things that are not likely to result in visits from DFACS, but they also matter. Here are a few:

  • Notions about being “bad at” something. Math is a common one. If you are reading this, and even if you are not, you are almost certainly not bad at math, regardless what your current opinion might be.
  • Notions about who should do what: e.g, girls play with dolls, boys play with toy cars
  • Lack of personal agency.  #NotMe4: For whatever reason, I was never taught that I could not speak up for myself or tell someone no or complain about bad treatment. So, while it is certainly true that people have occasionally made unwanted advances – of all kinds, sexual or otherwise – I never felt attacked, or dirtied, and I certainly never felt like a victim. Well, except with some laws, where I still do not have agency. I want my child to have agency, not just with regard to sex, but with regard to everything. 

Some Religious Notes

If you claim that your religion is the reason you are making my life unpleasant, then I will reluctantly care.

These are some things about my religious beliefs that might help folks from other backgrounds understand me better.

Religious Tolerance

Very few Pagans proselytize. I am very happy that I do not need, generally, to concern myself with anyone else’s religion. Of course, if you claim that your religion is the reason you are making my life unpleasant, then I will reluctantly care. 

We also generally tolerate other beliefs. Our group, Athens Area Pagans, serves many different varieties of Pagan.

Any person, regardless of religious predilection, who is willing to let me live my life in peace, is great.

Afterlife

I believe in reincarnation. I remember having the notion as far back as I remember having the ability to conceive such a thing. I remember when I learned that there was a word for it. 

All reincarnation beliefs are not the same. My variety has these features:

  • I am not afraid of death. I don’t want death to be painful. But, the dying part is ok.
  • I generally come back in a similar form, but… it’s complicated.
  • Suicide is mostly pointless. If things are that bad, it’s better to stick around and try to fix them.
  • Suicide is not a crime or morally wrong. If things are really bad and there is very little hope of being able to fix them, there is no reason to torture yourself. Go, and I hope to see you happier in another incarnation.
  • Unlike most folks who have issues with abortion, this is something that can actually happen to me. And, I think it is morally correct for the person carrying the child to have full decision-making ability.
    • There might be a few exceptions. For example, if someone is a surrogate, either for pay or otherwise, then there might be contractual obligations, etc., with reasonable exceptions, etc.
    • Otherwise, no restrictions. If the mother thinks that it is not a good time to bring a child into the world, then it is not a good time.
    • Life begins at first breath, but deciding as early as possible is desirable. I was ok with the RvW boundaries that had been in place.

Concerns in the style of Maslow5

Sometimes hierarchies make sense.

I don’t really have religious opinions about sex. I also don’t have religious opinions about food or breathing or finding shelter. These, to me, are all things that humans need in order to be healthy. 

Ethically, I think it is as much a crime to keep someone from having sex (broadly defined) as it is to force someone to have sex. This is part of the meaning behind the poster I was carrying.

Unbidden Trivia

I think the adultery commandment would have been much better if it were instead “thou shalt not abuse power.” But, that’s not my race and not my dogs.  Except when the race and the dogs are forced onto me.

Please stop abusing power.

  1. Someone stole a box of checks from a sibling organization. For no obvious reason, they used my name when they signed the checks.  Since I am apparently a likely target, I am no longer allowed to have any banking privileges. I can’t even check the balance. But, obviously, and unsurprisingly, folks know my relationship to AAP. ↩︎
  2. Think of the Wiccan Rede: An ye harm none, do as ye will. (usually said with the retro language) ↩︎
  3. For reasons not relevant here, my parents were not able to raise me in the way that our culture taught them was proper. I know they regretted that because they told me so. But I think it was the best thing in the world. The conditions that kept them from doing what they wanted were unpleasant, and that is a shame. This accident of fate allowed me to escape the standard trauma. ↩︎
  4. I think the existence of the Me-Too movement is a glaring symptom of the parts of our society that I would need to protect my child from. It is sad, and telling, that it took an entire movement to tell women that they are allowed to stand up for themselves. I suspect that many still haven’t internalized that despite being given permission. And, now it is even harder to talk about sex at all. What was the fertility rate again? ↩︎
  5. Maslow sorted human needs into a hierarchy. At the time (1940’s), regardless of what he thought, he would not have been allowed to include sex in the hierarchy. I think sex goes there, and an interpretation at that link agrees. ↩︎

lachele