Are you there God? It's me Margaret.

[absyntheNsugar]

for some reason this book is stuck in my head.

I had to read it in elementary school (this was, of course, before going to fundie school)

[rustydog]

1. "Margaret, this is God. I'm too busy to help you right now,

you see, George Bush has me in all these wars and I'm a bit rushed. leave a message, I'll get back to you."

[populistmom]

2. This book is the 10 year old girls classic

I remember reading it and I was so excited when I could give my daughter a copy. It's still out there and still a favorite with the pre-adolescent set. Of course I REALLY wanted her to love the Wrinkle in Time series because that was my true childhood literary love, but she wasn't into that. :(

[southerngirlwriter]

4. I love those books.

Kything is a beautiful experience. My brother and I can do it easily, just like Meg and Charles Wallace.

[Ladyhawk]

6. I got turned off by C. S. Lewis and Madeleine L'Engel

Or however you spell her name.

Neither one of them seem like crazy fundies, but I prefer to stick to strictly secular authors because I had my fill of the other kind. I was SO PISSED when I recently learned Orson Scott Card is a Mormon with Repug leanings. I don't even know if I can finish the Ender Series, now. :mad:

[southerngirlwriter]

8. Wow.

Do you realize what you're saying? THEIR behavior is stopping you from a hobby you enjoy -- reading good books.

The fundies own you, don't they?

They live in your head.

Do they pay rent, at least?

They controlled what books I read when I was a kid. Not anymore.

You might consider the freedom of moving past such levels of anger one day.

I'm sorry that you're hurting so badly.

[Interrobang]

11. No, I understand what Ladyhawk is saying!

When I was in grad school, I had to teach _The Chronicles of Narnia_, of which I had read the first two as a kid and vaguely enjoyed, and when I revisited them as an adult, I was practically sickened. They're sexist, racist pieces of religious bigotry, and that bugs me. It's hardly letting fundies rent space in your head if you feel you prefer to avoid their writings and such. FWIW, I'm rather off Zenna Henderson for precisely this reason -- I made the mistake of reading an anthology of "People" stories straight through, and the preachy saccharineness of them just about killed me. I don't think I'll be reading much Zenna Henderson from now on...

I figure read what you like, but by the same token, tastes change. If your politics are strong enough that something you used to enjoy just doesn't do it for you anymore, just let it go.

[Ladyhawk]

28. Thanks

I also don't care for Lewis's blatant allegory. It's like he couldn't think of his own story so he had to borrow heavily from the New Testament. Truth is, I just don't care for thinly-disguised theology anymore. At least Madeleine L'Engel wrote original stuff, but her writings are still quite steeped in theology.

Theology = stuff I really don't want to bother with anymore. The truth is I'm not letting them rent space in my head anymore. There's better stuff out there, anyway.

[Ladyhawk]

32. One more thing...

I'm constantly surrounded by fundies and I'm trying very, very hard to outgrow the anger phase. Unfortunately, I was recently burned again and am a bit more upset than usual. Since December I've actually done pretty well keeping a cork in it, but, dude...fundies happen! It takes time to forgive, especially when the offenders don't ask for your forgiveness and continue to do the same hurtful things.

[absyntheNsugar]

12. Worse than that Larry Niven is a Freeper Fundie

Totally buys into this "Gods Army" shit

[murielm99]

14. Holy Cow!

Thanks for the warning on Niven.

[murielm99]

13. They are both Christians, but not crazy fundies at all.

You should read some of their stuff before you say that. L'Engle is more of a thoughtful Christian, and she has written sympathetically about accepting gays. I believe she is Episcopalean.

While Lewis believes that a Christian family should be formal, polite, and probably much like what the family values crowd says, he values women, and writes that a Christian society would be socialist.

Both of them represent the gentle side of Christianity, not the militancy we see from fundies today.

Anyway, you do not have to agree with everything they say to enjoy them.

Card is another matter, though. He is a homophobe, and I no longer read his stuff.

Christianity gets a bad rap here. We are not all like that!

[DemBones DemBones]

18. It's also important to remember when and where C.S. Lewis lived

because he was certainly influenced by his time and place, as most people are. Watch Anthony Hopkins playing Lewis in "Shadowlands" for an enjoyable window into his life.

I like Lewis's sci-fi trilogy best, "Perelandra" and all that. Very dated but very powerful, too.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

25. Madeleine L'Engle is no fundamentalist

She was librarian at the Episcopal cathedral of St. John the Divine for years and years. I've heard her speak twice, about twenty years apart, and she is more into mysticism and personal centering than into sending people to hell.

[Ladyhawk]

33. No, she's not a fundy.

I don't have anything against her and actually enjoyed her writings as a teenager. It's just I see no reason to read anything steeped in theology. I'm burned out on religious writings of any kind. You would be, too, if you'd attended religious schools for sixteen years.

My interests lie elsewhere.

C.S. Lewis wasn't a fundy, either, but I still have no desire to read his writings (for the millionth time)...or those of Bishop Spong, or any religionist for that matter.

I get along fine with liberal Christians. I even have a few fundy friends. It's just I'd rather not discuss or read about religion, especially Christianity. Complete burn-out.

[Bill McBlueState]

27. Madeleine L'Engel's writing is religious?

I totally missed that when I read her stuff as a kid, although it's not too surprising that I wouldn't have caught on.

How so?

on edit: never mind, I read posts 13 and 25.

[Ladyhawk]

3. I think I've read this one, too.

Many years ago. Isn't it about a bright little girl and her interesting take on theology. I believe she dies in the end, correct?

You're really thinking about fundamentalism a lot these days, aren't you? Do you know why?

For me, it's hard not to because I'm surrounded by fundies. I'm trying the whole "forgive and forget" thing again now that my mother and I have kissed and made up. It doesn't change the fact she's a fundy. It doesn't change the fact she has almost fascist beliefs.

I think that during the process of coming out of fundamentalism there is a necessary angry phase. But it shouldn't go on for years and years and years. My angry phase has. I think one of the reasons it has is that I am in constant contact with fundies--against my will. If I had my druthers I'd move to the coast with all the other godless heathens who are going to drop off into the ocean. ;)

Maybe we could help each other out on this. "Forgive and forget" isn't working too well for me. Neither did constant anger. Have any ideas?

[populistmom]

5. Not even close

The whole thing was primarily about menstruation.

Sorry about all the fundies in your life. It's difficult when we care for people who are so vastly different from us and what we believe and value. :hug:

[Ladyhawk]

7. Hmmmm, now I wonder what the title of the other book is?

Not that I really care. :)

Oh, and thanks for your condolensces. I really want to figure out how to properly handle the constant fundy presence in my life. Of course, it would be easier if there wasn't a constant fundy presence...

[southerngirlwriter]

9. Have any ideas?

A few.

I was raised by fundies. I went through a long period of unbelief. I eventually found my way to TRUE Christianity -- i.e., the emulation of Jesus as a life goal.

Start with this: you have to care enough about yourself to want to be free from them.

Anger is a handcuff. Whom you will not forgive, you have chained yourself to.

Think about that for awhile.

I won't pray for you unless you want me to, but I will think of you with great hope that one day you'll be free. :hug:

[absyntheNsugar]

15. Of course there's always the adage

Don't get mad
Don't get even
Get ahead....

[gator_in_Ontario]

17. "Anger is a handcuff.

Whom you will not forgive, you have chained yourself to."
That is so true. The worst part is, you are the only one aware of the handcuff. The person you are 'chained to' often has no clue you are even there, or if they do, they could care less.

[Susang]

10. Damn, I'm old!

I read it when it came out. It was very controversial and many of my friends were not allowed to read it.

[last_texas_dem]

16. I've read that one

When I was six years old I discovered reading and got obsessed for a couple years and digested anything I could get my hands on. My ten year old sister had a copy so I read it. I didn't understand half the stuff that was going on, but it was funny reading it and another Judy Blume "coming of age" goodie Then Again, Maybe I Won't (that's the one where the guy has wet dreams and spies on the hottie next door with binoculars through her bedroom windown!) a few years later and realizing just how much had been totally over my head reading it as a first grader!

[VolcanoJen]

19. "My Darling, My Hamburger."

That's the only thing that pops into my head.

Must be a literature-association thing?

[NicoleM]

20. Such a good book!

My only problem with was that by the time I read it, feminine hygenie products were totally different, so it wasn't terribly instructive on that level. Otherwise, I loved it. And every other book Judy Blume ever wrote.

[slinkerwink]

21. that was one of my favorite books that I read when I was 10

and afraid of getting periods, after hearing what the nuns had told us in sex ed.

"You'll be a woman when you get your period," said Sr.Laura who then aimed her pointer at an antomical drawing of an uterus. I cringed in worry because I didn't want to be a woman yet. I'd already known friends who had gotten their periods at 9 and at 10. However, it took me three more years of worrying about becoming a woman. (heh)

It seemed that being a woman had too many problems to deal with. There was the danger of pregnancy, and having to deal with menstruating once every month from age 13 to age 45-50. That seemed like an eternity of bleeding once a month to me.

I wanted to be a boy instead because they didn't have to worry about getting pregnant or having periods. I envied their passage into puberty which seemed to be a lot easier than my friends' passage into puberty.

Thank god I don't have to go through puberty again. :evilgrin:

[absyntheNsugar]

24. Speaking of nuns and periods

One of my exes was raised in Catholic schools and they were actually more progressive than your average Catholic school. For example, they did teach sex ed and show contraception as an option, abeit with the stickler that it was not approved of by the church...

But when she was in elementary school one of her teachers was a nun who was a bit goofy. She tended to describe women's first menstration as "when girls flower and bloom" and that one shouldnt be ashamed of ones period as it's when "God adds color to you." Bizarre...but seems a bit more healthy than other catholic horror stories I've heard.

[GreenPartyVoter]

22. Loved that book when I was 10 or 11! :)

[LWolf]

23. One great book

of many. As an ex-school librarian and now elementary school teacher, I could list another 1000 or so great ones for ya!

:hi:

Of course, it's not really safe to talk about puberty in school, outside of the carefully scripted "family life" curriculum. I'm glad Judy Blume doesn't care. ;-)

[Scottie72]

26. I loved a lot of the Blume books as a kid.

Are you there God it's me Margret I never did read. Though I did read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing, Superfudge, and Then agian maybe I won't.

From what I have heard "Are you there God it's me Margret is about a young gilr going through puberty. "Then Again Maybe I won't" is the young boys going through puberty.

[dpbrown]

29. Margaret, I'm busy poisoning John Ashcroft's pancreas. Call me tomorrow.

You'll be alright until then, and the world will be better off if you don't bother me right now.

[flamingyouth]

30. Um, they made guys read this book?

That's kind of funny. Personally, I'm a huge Judy Blume fan. My favorite by her is "Starring Sally J. Freedman As Herself." Now I think they should have made you all read THAT one instead! ;-)

[absyntheNsugar]

31. This was the 70's

The idea was for each sex to be more comfortable with each other.

I think it worked...tho i have a horrible recurring nightmare that I wake up in bloody sheets...