In the Shadow of Fundamentalism

Intermission

Intermission

I have to apologize to my readers for a moment. It has been weeks since I even allowed myself to sit and consider these things and write carefully about the days of HCA and those events that first inspired me to make this record. Though my life has become more busy since I first began to set my thoughts into order, I have to admit there are very selfish reasons why I have withheld for so long.


To be honest, the period of time I was beginning to reach in my story is perhaps the very darkest time in my life. Walking back into that environment, if only in thought or word, is a frightening ordeal. Perhaps this seems a bit melodramatic to those of you reading this, but allow me to submit a simple explanation.


Whenever I go through a period of extreme stress, confusion, or conflict (even now, a decade since I wore that uniform and walked the halls of HCA) when I sleep I have the same recurring dream: that I have been sent back to HCA to finish some missed class. Without fail, the best way my subconscious can express its extreme displeasure with some part of my present life is to remind me of those years at Hope Christian Academy.


Fortunately for me the worst experience I can boast is eight years of fundamentalist Christian schooling. And yet, my psychological response to that experience is very similar to flashbacks and depression experienced by veterans of bloody wars and victims of abuse. Thought should be given to the present plight of those who graduated from these schools, what happens when the bars of the cage are opened and we walk free in the world?


When our identities were determined by the terms of such a rigid and strict environment, with almost no bearing on real world social strata or interactions, we must invent ourselves again or face the concept of failed integration into society and inability to cope with the real world.


A wise friend of mine gave me this little bit of advice: if I’m truly healed, nothing from that part of my life can hurt me. And so, with this in mind, I plunge back into the darkness.

posted by NY Monk @ 8:09 AM