Cherry Flavored Messy Middle: Tootsie Roll Pops and Sunday School
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Recently, someone gave my husband a bag of Tootsie Roll Pops. I ate one today and suddenly, I was back in Sunday School.
Funny how our minds and nervous systems work. I don't remember why Tootsie Roll Pops and Sunday School are connected, but my body does.
With one taste of that candy and my memory escorted me back to Mrs. Harris* and her less than 5-foot-tall frame, legs swinging as she sat atop some large piece of furniture in the classroom. She died when I was about 10 and it's the first time I remember feeling grief.
I also recalled being in that same Sunday School room and learning for the first time that people of color use different hair products than white people because Theodore's head resting on the wall had left a circle mark. They were the only black family in our church at the time.
Sunday School was also the time I said something quite innocently to a fellow classmate, Sarah, about her new haircut and she became very upset requiring our mothers to get involved. But it ended with her mother being so understanding and kind, me in tears saying I didn't mean to hurt her feelings, and I didn't know what I said could have been seen as mean. (Sarah and myself are still in friendly contact today - more than 30 years later.)
I still remember Tommy, a boy bused in for church, who stole money from the women's purses while they sang in the choir. A police officer attended our church and handled the scene, while a few of us kids watched in the hallway.
Sunday School had competitions for attendance, bringing your Bible, memory verse recitation and bringing a guest. Sunday School was also the only time someone other than my parents were my teachers, at least until Jr. High. Sunday School was where I got to socialize and be with kids my own age.
Sunday School did more than teach me lessons from the Bible, I clearly had some life lessons too.
And here is where it gets complicated. Sunday School is also where I was groomed to allow authority to get away with anything, where the Bible was twisted to control and manipulate my female gender, where I was taught God hated people's sexuality, where I learned listening to music with drums in it could call demons. Sunday School is part of my spiritual abuse and religious trauma story too.
As we navigate healing from the wounds and entanglements of coercive, rigid, toxic religion, we often find ourselves in this middle space of, "this helped me, I have good memories," and "this hurt or greatly harmed me, I have painful memories."
It's ok to sit in that messy middle. It's ok to see both good and evil in our past experiences. It's ok to see how religion can hurt or help. It's ok to acknowledge the complexity of this space.
As I finished off my cherry flavored Tootsie Roll Pop this afternoon, I didn't feel so much angst. I could remember without torment. I could smile as the faces of people I used to love and respect filed through my mind. I could feel compassion and care for the little Rebekah that grew up in the fundamentalist Christian world. I felt grateful for the perseverance and fight for my life I've gone through to get myself out of that world. I felt great love for those in my past who honestly were trying...they just had been caught up in an unhealthy system.
Embrace that cherry flavored messy middle, my friends. And don't stop seeking truth, healing and life.
*Names in this post have been changed.
This article was originally a Facebook post.