Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Date: March 13, 2019 05:26AM
I will try to answer some of the following comments and questions by filling in some of the past with Marilyn and with observations of the “Girl's Turn It Off” tape. But I’m afraid it may cause a few disconnects as well as more questions.
First, there’s so many personally involved here that I might try to explain why I find the tape humorous while others may not. I’m essentially an outsider who though experience finds a lot tragedy and social misfortune humorous by its causation. I recall "An Essay on Comedy" by Merideth? . . .who explained in part that, "It will at any rate hardly be questioned that it is unwholesome for men and women to see themselves as they are if they are no better than they should be; and they will not, when they have improved in manners, care much to see themselves as they once were."
(Reep, I listened to the girls tape and, sorry, but I was laughing so hard I had to refresh it. When I have a little time I'll say more, but she had no idea how to explain what Mother Nature built in between men and women . . .)
(Kbyrne and Richard M,, that's quite a quote about men in the church. Between that and "I'm pretty anti-woman" from Girl's Turn It Off, it sounds like MH didn't like people much.)
(Onion: I can't wait to hear you say more Richard M!)
( changedagain: I never listened to the above audio, but I would probably listen to the following version...in part, because I am drawn to laughter:
"Girls, Turn it Off'
by Marilyn H.
Commentary by Richard M.)
Second, I should clarify that bringing back memories of my past and commenting on things new to me, for me, is like reading some novel that I’ve read before then being asked to critique the characters . . . . Of the bulk of the 17some years I knew Marilyn, 14 in marriage, things were more than fine. At least from all I knew. It’s now like writing about two different people, Marilyn old and new. The voice on the tape isn’t at all like Marilyn in my past. She was so careful and hesitant in choosing her words on tape so as not to offend whom she was obviously trying in the same breath to protect, that it was just gibberish. If it made any sense at all, there had to be someone in the room or meant for targeted others who had already been put on notice of some perceived recalcitrance. I had found it humorous because she had obviously been coached in how, what and what not to say, then still unsure of how it would play.
The Blix house? Sorry, but you mix a lot of unsure young people with others seeking guidance or not, and with a woman who convinced her mother to leave her father over absolutely nothing but a misquoted and misunderstood scripture, and who overtly used her own sexuality and looks in attempt to fill her own emptiness among men she in long discussions actually despised but overcame out of necessity. Then she attempts to transfer that unstated guilt to youngsters as if “flirting” and girlish wiles were unnatural and that men were just willing dolts. Silly. Does hypocrite fit? Absent effective coercion, blackmail, lying promises and the underlying need to garner the “flock’s purse strings,” normal men and women, young and old, predominantly work out their relationships quite well. Leave ‘em alone. Mistakes are the learning blocks to a better life.
I wrote the following two paragraphs some years ago. They might help explain my perceptions of Marilyn’s evolution to reality’s exclusion, who knows:
“Mother Nature infected the human race with the tools, emotions and mysteries of procreation but neglected to provide a book of rules for every possible situation and for the moral mind-set of those involved. So, laws and rules were instigated by the more civilized for personal protection and self-worth of all. Moreover, it has been more than sufficiently documented that women and men’s proclivities and propensities concerning what is wanted and what isn’t, respectively, in the sexual arena, can be far apart, the cues and nuances of romance appearing an advancing mystery until openly resolved by the involved parties. That is, mostly the personal cues of no, mean no, but sometimes yes, means no, too, commonsense about a possible future being an escaping human commodity . . . .
“Where did all this mistreatment of women (in the church) come from? Well, absent the disparity in size and strength . . . . . some people being hypocrites have forever supported loosening moral boundaries as their core premise of social freedom while decrying things like the Ten Commandments as being unfit for government or personal guidance of morality, i.e.,, unfettered abortion, gay marriage, homosexual conduct, etc. Yet, America was founded on Christian principles whether or not one subscribes to the religiousness of it. Although sanitized of religious script, these principles were nevertheless enshrined as the basis of our Constitution and Bill of Rights and form the core morality in our laws. Just follow the original “advice” . . . still, humans were saddled with the urge for procreation and yet were not fully fortified with an ounce of prevention . . . . . not an excuse, just an observation . . .”
In the end, for me, men and women were meant to supplant one another, that is, if you’re lucky enough to find your other half. Alone, they can’t be equal because they weren’t created the same in the first place. I suppose you could say they’re equal but in different ways.
The search for true love and self-fulfillment is Mother Nature's cruelest hoax on the creatures of an ever eroding and renewing world. But nevertheless, a hoax of sustainability for our evolutionary existence. And proof of the interconnectivity of all life, while in another way still a curse for those under its "spell" in the fleeting moments we can experience it and for the short duration that we can bare it.
Some of us frail humans never understand that when we love or strive to love one another, the secular kind, our love can transcend the mistakes and transgressions of the other, for those errors are the minutia that makes the whole person, and are therefore worthy of both love and forgiveness. Someone of far greater insight once said that opening the birdcage only assures that the bird will return once its flight is truly and fully flown and darkness once again descends on the scene. Or something like that.
In spite of all the rhetoric to the contrary, the opposite of love isn't hate. It's nothing, no feelings at all. Once that point is surpassed, little can be done about it except to start all over, either with the same person, another or something else always just out of reach . . . . . . .