Categories: uncategorized
Date: 29 January 2006 10:56:12
Having been put on the path described in the last entry I was unprepared when I found out that the road might not be as smooth as first thought.
In the late 1980's I was in 6th form and quickly realising that I wasn't about to get the required grades. Now to this "non-gendered" person it was a shock because apparent failiure, in my mind, meant I would by default switch to the "female" path of job, rather than career and family. (I know in retrospect this sounds crazy, but it was honestly what this particular teenager believed). So it was I dropped out of 6th form, got a job and got engaged.
In the mist of this there was a lone voice saying that I could always go back to study later if I wanted, and marriage wasn't the only option (everybody else was just being v. pc and saying it was my choice and they would just support me through whatever I chose, and so through their silence ignoring what might be going on in my head). However, the lone voice was coming from the one individual, at that time, I was least likely to listen to.
Add into the mixture the fact I was a teenager who had grown up in two cultures. The home which was v. secular, and rational and the church which was v. conservative evangelical. The home side gave the voice of reason and modern thought; the church side had indoctrinated me with its teaching on marriage, sex and guilt (dressed up as grace). It was a recipie for disaster.
I was in the situation where I knew that in the contempory culture I didn't have to get married at all if I didn't want, and again the lone voice made sure I knew this. Yet at the same time I was living in the religious culture which, whilst it may have contained individuals who recognised I was about to make a huge mistake, had filled my head with ideas about "right behaviour" in relationships and institutionally, I knew, could not condone co-habitation.
So in light of the above; the fact that the education system does not prepare you for "failiure", the fact the church does not / cannot condone one set of behaviour, yet at the same time does not recognise the implications of this upon / discuss the consequences of this with those struggling with the reality of this clash of cultures, and the fact parents are the people teenagers are least likely to listen to / acknowledge are right, I got married.
Knowing others who have struggled,some in the same way, some in different ways, with this clash of cultures (of the modern secular world and "Christian" teaching) my hope is that we will find a way to, without compromising core teaching, express to our young people that whilst there is an ideal we also have a compassionate God who does not want us to make serious and (at the time) often wrong decisions as a result of uncritically taking on board those teachings. I don't know if it is possible, the two seem almost incompatible, but we need to atleast recognise the problem and try to address it.