Belonging

Pentecostals believe that speaking in tongues is the initial sign of being filled by the Holy Spirit. I grew up in such a church, full of hand-waving and tongue-speaking and swaying bodies and incoherent laughter and weeping. Although my mother wasn't as strict as her mother (in their household, no playing cards, no chapstick, no secular music, no shopping or working on Sundays), we weren't allowed to do things other kids did. For instance, "rock music" wasn't allowed, so when we watched "The Donny and Marie Show," when Donny began to sing "I'm a little bit rock and roll," we had to turn the channel. We went to church three times a week: Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night. We did not swear, not even "geez," or "gosh."

But religious upbringing aside, I felt like an outsider at school. I was the tallest girl in my class. The teacher's pet. I wasn't familiar with contemporary music. I didn't take ballet class. Small things.

Then my parents divorced at a time when divorce was a rarity. From one year to the next, my world stopped spinning and then reversed directions. Everyone else was going west to east--eye make-up, boys, parties, dances--and I was going east to west, hibernating in my room, tending to my wounds, reading books, dreaming. The girls I had played with on the playground were now riding in cars with boys while I was trying to figure out my place in my reconstructed family.

When high school ended, I couldn't move far enough away. I figured no one would ever marry me, so off I went to Bible College. After graduation, I fully intended to suffer for Jesus in some far-flung land. My theology was a bit wacky in those days and I thought that's how God worked.

Even there, though, I didn't quite belong. I couldn't quite fluff my hair up like the Southern belles. I didn't want to take a class for "Pastor's Wives"--I wanted to learn homiletics (preaching). I wasn't religious enough. I balked at using the spiritual slang expected of me. I grew cynical and suspicious and even a little hostile.

I wasn't there to get my "MRS" degree--I was trying to find God's plan for my life. I graduated feeling like I didn't quite fit in the denomination. I couldn't swallow what they were spoon-feeding. I didn't want to play, didn't want to network my way through the church hierarchy. I'd sit in (daily required) chapel and make lists of Christian curse words to amuse myself.

Years later, after abandoning the denomination of my youth, I'm the Pastor's Wife. I shrug off that title and go so far as to "forget" to mention my husband's profession when I meet new people. I've heard maybe a dozen sermons in my almost 18 years of marriage. I'm the cobbler's children without any shoes. I'm a Christian, a devoted follower of Christ, but I don't sit in the pew and I'm not quite one of them. I don't really belong. And I can't really identify with the pastor's wives, either. They all seem so together, so holy, so obedient.

Our family lives in an affluent town where people buy property just to tear down houses so they can rebuilt extravagant homes with a view. People own second homes to vacation in. They drive new cars and own boats. I don't fit in. I don't have a career. My hair will simply not behave.

The past few days, I've heard pundits and politicians and analysts speak and I've thought, they don't speak for me. I read articles about mothers and I rarely see myself in the descriptions. When I hear about modern families, I wonder who these people are, because they aren't us. They aren't me. On television, I never find a representative of me. I don't find myself in novels, either. I'm certainly not in the movies. I'm not even on the religious channel.

I feel isolated in so many ways. Where do I fit? Isn't it pathetic to wonder this at the age of forty? And yet my wondering these days is not fueled by angst, but by a gradual dawning. I suspect everyone feels like an outcast on some level. We're either the wrong color or the wrong height or too fat or too skinny or we live on the wrong side of town or we never did memorize our multiplcation tables or we don't "get" the hype over American Idol. We just don't fit in.

What I love about growing up is that you get to create your own little world. You can populate your world with people who recognize you, who understand you, who make you feel not quite so alone.

And along the way, you discover that it's all right to be the tallest girl in class, the one who is a Republican (even though it's so not cool), the one who likes Barry Manilow and bypassed the whole college-drinking thing.

I don't really belong anywhere. And rather than feeling alone, I feel liberated, the way you feel in a strange city where no one knows you. Throw caution to the wind, because you'll never be back here again.

[*UPDATE and CORRECTION* "Seafoam" asked this: I'm curious as to why you've only heard your husband preach about a dozen times in eighteen years. Have you always worked in the nursery during the church service?

I wondered that myself, so I started thinking back. First of all, my husband's only been pastoring for 15 years, though we've been married for 18. In our first church, I was in charge of the children's church, so I taught children during the sermon. In our second church, I taught two-year olds during the sermon. Then we adopted twins, so I really had my hands full. In our third church, there was no nursery or class for my then-almost-2-year old twins. I sat with them in a makeshift nursery. Eventually, I started teaching the preschool class. Then I had a baby, so I was back in the cry-room with him.

When we moved to our current church, my baby boy was less than a year old and hated to be left, so I stayed with him in the nursery. When he was two or two and a half, I began to leave him in the nursery and I remembered tonight, as I pondered this question, that I actually did sit in church for some months. I did not teach Sunday School. I did not have nursery duty. I sang in the choir and I listened to the sermon. So, I have to retract my previous "12 sermons in 18 years" statement. I must have heard fifty sermons (a year's worth) before I gave birth again to a clingy, noisy baby who still won't stay alone in the nursery without having a nervous breakdown. She's two and a half and the day will arrive soon when I will be able to leave her.

And then I've been recruited to teach a brand-new preschool class starting next fall.

Thanks, Seafoam. I stand corrected and hope that answers your question.]