Nise and I just got off from a very long conversation.
It was more or less a continuation of our emails, and blogs. About people twisting the bible and my not speaking clearly. Kel wrote: “Perhaps my beef really isn't with what the bible says, but more over how some are allowing it to be interpreted. Perhaps, I just didn't state it correctly before. I guess to say what pisses me off is when men think that they are superior to women and use the bible as a justification.”
Dee responded: “Amen to that, sister! I hear ya, and you're preaching to the choir on that one. I feel the exact same way, and am constantly fighting against it in one form or another.
However, as you pointed out, it's not the Bible, but PEOPLE, that is the the problem. People can take any idea and try to find a verse to distort that will 'support' that idea. It's infuriating.
Don't worry. I really am with you on this one.
And no, I doubt that preacher apologized. And no, nobody walked out. See, that's a Southern thing though. Walking out and raising a fuss would have been rude, and that would have been just as bad as his comments. It's a whole different world down here, and it's taken me a LOT of time to get used to it. The South is the perfect example of the 'flies with honey' analogy.”
Dee and I had quite the chit chat yesterday over this topic. First, funny that I should be one to get a bible discussion started. I didn’t mean to sound like I was against the bible. I am not, but quite simply had to restate what my position was on it, and what I don’t like, which my girl got. Because she knows me, she gets me. That’s why we are cool.
On her post, I read in her post about parenting her teenager, Gret, whom I absolutely love. I have known Gret since before she was 2. I still remember making her ‘little bear’ birthday cake for her second birthday. Gret holds a special, special place in my heart and always will as does Dee. Her 2nd almost teenager, well there was a whole osmosis thing going on there and that is why he has that gorgeous blonde hair and blue eyes. I like being able to tell him that I helped bring him into the world and having the privilege of calling him Mikey. A testament to parenting in an not so overprotective light are my parents. My parents were strict, but not overly strict. I think that I grew up with a pretty good head on my shoulders. I went to public school and my mom forced me to go to Sunday school. I have to admit that I hated it, but as I got older, I started to go to Mass with one of my girlfriends. That I enjoyed, and it was my choice to go, which made it all the better, but I wasn’t Catholic.
I like to say that I understand why Dee home schools her kiddos. Kudos to her, because I couldn’t do it. But I also understand why Gret may want to go to public school. Now as a mother myself, I understand the need to protect our kids from everything and I remember myself growing up. I left my house when I was 17. I had already been sexually active. But, on the other hand, I was 17 when I lost my virginity. I lost my virginity to my high school sweetheart whom I had been dating for about 5 years. He was 19 and we were both virgins. I don’t regret losing my virginity to him at all. It was a decision that I had made to wait until I was almost finished with school, so that if something had happened, I would at least have my high school diploma. I was technically not suppose to date until I was 16, but when my parents met Brett, they liked him and we did lots of things together. Then I joined the Navy and left. Okay, culture shock. I was not ready for what I encountered in boot camp, Florida, or Puerto Rico.
I hated Puerto Rico at first and then I started going out. I did drink down there. I mean I had just turned 18 and what do you know the drinking age was 18. I had good times and bad times there. Puerto Rico was all uphill when I met Dee. I had so much fun down there and I fell in love with Gret. Granted, I did marry an asshole. And he treated me so badly, but I was blind. Okay, bad choice, but great experience. Great experience, kinda of funny word to choose to describe a marriage gone south. I learned so much from that experience and I look back on the choices that I have made in my life and I really don’t regret any of them. I smoked pot for the first time in PR, in the Navy of all things. But I didn’t become a pot head. I wouldn’t ever do anything else. Pot was enough and now I don’t think that you could pay to just sit and smoke some. It’s just not in my plans nor is it in my lifestyles.
I don’t know where my ramblings are taking me other than I guess is what I am trying to say is that, I was raised by parents who did there best and I grew up in a small town. I have made both good and bad choices in my life, but the most important thing is that I learned from them and I there isn’t one thing that I would change about my llife or where it has led me. I wish that for my children and my adopted Clancy crew. I guess that as parents we have to believe that however we guide them, we have to believe that they are going to learn to weigh the consequences and make the right choices. There needs to be a point that when they are still under our guidance that we let them go and live a bit. I think that the best place to make a mistake is when you are at home with your parents there to fall back on.
All I know is that, I have lived a life with much experience and plenty of mistakes or bad choices and I had consequences that I had to face and I think Dee would understand exactly what I am talking about because, she has pretty much been there. I look to Dee as a model of a good mother, because she is phenomenal. I love her children dearly and I hope that my kids live the happy life that her kids do and I know that my kids are happy and I know that we do some things totally opposite. I don’t even know where I was going with this post but it went somewhere. I don’t know if I even make sense. I guess that the jist of the post is that I look up to Dee. She’s right, we are like closer than sisters. I look up to her for a lot of things, probably some that she doesn’t even know about. I adore her kids as though they were my own. I would do anything for them or her as I know she would for me. But essentially, if I hadn’t made that one bad choice ~ i. e. fall for Billy (my 1st hubby) ~ then Dee and I may not have become as close as we are today. I would probably stayed hanging out with the jarheads. Who knows?
Layla is sorry too
