Birth of a Christian

MAY 2000





A friend listened to the retelling of events in my life and commented on the amount of drama I had experienced. "You have lived," he said.

Rather than read the latest, why not take time to read this true story about a woman who, over time, discovers her birthright as a Christian?

My friend wisely made the comment that this story should be entitled "the birth of a Christian."

My mother recently read someone saying that they had gradually become more and more of a Christian, belonging more part and parcel to God, that it didn't happen overnight, and that with most people it does not.

Let us end the fallacy or belief that one becomes a Christian and becomes His, becoming like Him at the moment of realizing the truth of the gospel, or at the moment of giving their lives to Jesus.

Let me tell you, it certainly didn't happen that way for me, and I guess it doesn't really happen that way with many, or let's face it - for any.

This may be one of the most agonizing births in this world of a true Christian - one who walks in truth with the God of the bible and understands the meaning of Jesus' life, death and resurrection.

This dramatic story is, to the best of my ability, the true story of the true birth of a Christian - a birth that took, well, my whole life so far.

This is my story, a story about a long and painful journey towards the light.

Perhaps you too will stop punishing yourself for the changes that haven't taken place, and for the perplexing difficulty you have experienced becoming a Christian.

I want to be honest with you in a way that will free you, and not in a way that will promote any of the weaknesses or sins that I have struggled with.

One of my biggest struggles has been in the area of sexuality. So how do I tell you my story and help you to comprehend the destruction of one self, hidden within contemporary mores regarding sex, rather than entice you?

It wasn't until very recently that I discovered how we all have been plowing through a thick and deep darkness, a subtle and covert undermining that is so indistinguishable we all have wondered what was wrong. So many things have seemed OK on the surface.

As I have come towards that "indomitable" and indistinguishable light, God has given me eyes to see darkness where I did not see it before.

For several years I had been haunted by the dark and terrifying shadows that were surrounding me in my childhood. At last able to see them, I had not been able to erase those shadows whenever I tried to look back at my childhood.

At the same time I was also been able to see the happiness that one looks back on and can't believe that one was so happy.

At last I was able to transcend and not be haunted anymore.


There are deep, hidden, wonderful memories of happiness, when life fit together so well, because of those incredible, ecstatic moments of joy.



When you feel unloved you feel ugly, even if you look great. This is an amazing but true paradox, especially when you are as pretty as I know I was.

I know better when I see a pretty face than to be taken by it, knowing the truth about it.

I didn't see the unseen friend who was with me throughout those years nor comprehend the love that He had for me in the least.

Beware, oh young woman, if you have beauty! It can be your prison. More on this later.




in the beginning....

My story begins with the earliest memory I can recall. It begins with two little legs belonging to a three year old showing from under a huge, white, chiffon wedding dress, with all the guests laughing, especially mother.

Yes, I can recall this earliest memory vividly. The reason for getting under the dress was that at 3, I was already extremely curious as to what a big girl, a grown woman wears for her undergarments.

I guess I was a precocious learner about life-"what will life be like as a woman?" but already curious about sex as well.

The scene was comedic, which is fitting. My first memory is of a wedding party where I made others laugh. My life is ultimately funny, though tragic and full of agony.

In spite of everything that has happened and has not been right, God has kept the laughter alive.


ALONE

I remember that I started out life with the same heaviness that I carried with me through the years, even feel sometimes today.

The only difference then was that I was a child with a child's indomitable spirit.

Yes, "indomitable spirit." Weren't those the words that one of my high school teachers gave to describe me in my yearbook?

My spirit was all but destroyed in the years that followed High School.

My conscious life began at around 1960, at five years of age. America was as many always desired it would be at that time.

Some of the harsh role-play was melting away, women were getting freer, but they were still not radical and bitter and lost. Some of this is reflected in movies like "That Darn Cat".

Life in my small town in northern Minnesota was in many ways idyllic. I grew up on a square block that was right near downtown.

Along the family's back yard was an alley and across from it, a dry cleaner and pro laundry.

Every free day, usually summer, the Eden kids (me and brothers and sisters) and our friends would go over and watch workers putting sheets and shirts into large irons, and did so with glee.

Along the north side of the family property, was the main street of our town. Right across the street from the church was City Hall, looming large over us.

City Hall was identical to Independence Hall, a fact that became clear later, as an adult, when I visited Philadelphia on my own, and lived there for a year and a half.

The Eden family visited Philly in their childhood years, but I never consciously recognized that City Hall was truly Independence Hall. Dad says today that the hall was purposely built to look identical.

This is so symbolic for an American girl who above all, believes in freedom. Independence Hall symbolizes independence from the tyranny of a bad system.

Freedom is my life banner, and freedom fighting my life cause. My spirit is so
free, I am one of the freest spirits you will ever know. The window to freedom is God, working through Christ.

I'm glad God chose to have me grow up next to "Independence Hall."

GOING TO SCHOOL

As a little girl, starting with Kindergarten, I walked every day from the family home about a mile away, through the small town and past
homes to get to school.

On the first day of Kindergarten I met my best friend of the next seven years - Maggie. It was instant bonding and deep affection. But getting to school was not something we always did together.

The only memory is of the gnawing loneliness that prevailed, already, as I walked each day to school. Nature provided a certain consolation, with chestnuts below the chestnut trees to stop and ponder and squirrels to watch and try to feed, and cats that would come and rub and dogs that would lick.

But also, as time went by and with a child's faith in God, I learned to relish moments of being alone. I learned to discover a heightened level of appreciation of all things while being alone.

On that first day of Kindergarten, the new found friend Maggie and I, walked home
together and found the same little secret places and looked at the same leaves, and things that I would be looking at many days in the future alone.

I found a window well in someone's back yard, climbed in and got wet and dirty, jeopardizing encounters with moms back home. The town was so safe that WE could crawl all over the place, sneak into people's yards and never have to face one evil thing.



Maggie was my best friend for years after that, but people don't always see things the same way. Maggie was a socialite, and loved lots of people and lots of attention.

I liked to just be with one dear friend, and wanted only Maggie as my close friend. Others I knew didn't offer the same quality of friendship, or share our secret world. Apparently Maggie didn't see it that way.

Maggie dominated and took the attention of others at school. I just kind of disappeared.

When she had a crush on Roger in 5th grade, he liked Maggie instead. I still remember the day when I realized it, and how I cowered and went home, tears burning my eyes as I struggled to leave the school on my bike with the tears undetected. I was totally deflated, and it was the birth of my caution towards people and the desire to be more alone. Perhaps there was a lack of forgiveness too.

Maggie was blonde and I brunette. I felt diminished by Maggie's absolutely outgoing personality.

Maggie's father was a minister as well, but in a large, posh church. The family
was very well liked and prestigious, and well off. My family was lower middle class.

Maggie loaned me things like nicer shoes than I had, and one day there was an issue about the shoes and she wanted them back.

Yet Maggie was still a totally real person. I loved her dearly.

In spite of being pretty, in retrospect prettier than the girls in my entire class (no arrogance intended) I felt insecure and never believed it.

I constantly looked at myself in the mirror, and liked what I saw, but never was satisfied that I looked good enough.

Secretly I loved to look at my face, but in the face of others, I felt unattractive. I recall much time spent in front of the mirror, even having a relationship with my own reflection.

I felt unloved by Dad. He created a disgusting feeling - the kind you get when you just plain feel like someone doesn't like you. The personalities were too different. He just didn't understand me, or what made my world go around. It was a total personality clash.

Maggie was fully cherished by me, yet at the end of 7 years, she suddenly announced to me one day as we were out skiing in the winter, "I want to end this friendship." Just like that!

At this moment in my life, something harsh and cold - something evil- closed in on me. That seed of rejection became the foundation for more rejection and abuse later on. Could it have stemmed from my own lack of forgiveness, as I have learned more recently?

What is the final answer(?) - the eternal friend, and the everlasting arms. Those arms are the foundation on which all my mental and emotional health are now based, are being built.


One of the sweetest memories, and another of the earliest, is lying next to my
bedroom window of our old house. It was directly across from the large stained glass window of my dad's church.

On Wednesday night the choir would practice at the church, and every Wednesday night as I fell asleep I could hear the voices of the choir singing some of the great older hymns, such as, "Spirit of God descend upon my heart" and "The Church's One Foundation is Jesus Christ her Lord."

This was one of the first seeds planted that gave a hint of the peace
offered by my true, eternal friend, yet I had no idea how important it would
become.

My parents would choose to punish me for things that I didn't do, and this created distrust and perhaps there was a lack of forgiveness because of that too.

I forgive them now, but much later.

My family would accuse me of doing things I didn't do, and there was one incident where they ganged up on me all at once - the whole family, and insisted that I confess to something I didn't do.

I lost Maggie and a serious paranoia set in.

I was pursued by some bad boys in the school and ridiculed in front of my classmates for having smoked a cigarette, as if I'd turned to a bad life. I didn't even smoke, in fact, yet felt terrified for what did happen. That's how strait-laced I was.

This was a serious threat coming from the home I was in, because there was so much fear surrounding the possibility of being "lost."

My mom was always creating an atmosphere of fear because she always suggested in numerous ways that I was a bad girl and couldn't be good enough, and look what happens to bad people - they go to hell.

The boys came to the house - Billy and Mac. They were our token bad boys.

They wanted to get into the church that we lived right next to as the parsonage, and once inside, they took out cigarettes to smoke in the sanctuary.

Natural rebels as a result of their own issues, smoking in the church sanctuary was a perfect rebellious act. They then suggested I smoke, and held the cigarette up to my mouth and I just froze.

Then Billy suggested I get into a small closet with him so he could kiss me. It all scared me!

I didn't see the enemy, the true enemy. I didn't know how his twisted, diabolical plan was unfolding back then.

The shaming from my parents, the shaming from my family, the boys at school making me look like a bad girl to my classmates, my best friend leaving me, all happened at once.

The shaming, the subtle betrayal went on in the foreground, but in the background there was the unseen demonic. There was a tension in the air; there was a pressure that I now understand the source of.

There were tensions in the air; there were invisible forces that added to the intensity of incidents such as this one.

The things that happened, and my reaction of bitterness led to mental illness.

But how could you recall childhood and not reflect on the many sweet memories that come back? I vividly remember Sundays - oh, Sundays. They were so peaceful in a world where Sunday was a day off for everyone and for every business.

We're talking the late 50's and the early sixties in a sweet Minnesota town. It was a sweet time that would be difficult to describe against the backdrop of today.

And small towns were actually thriving small communities far different from today, where due to lack of income and other factors, small towns seem to be bastions of isolation.

Sunday was sweetly peaceful and the indelible memory causes one to comprehend God's peace. In childhood then, here was another seed of knowing God and His peace.

The house was a big brick home built around 1910. It had lots of oak woodwork, wood floors, and a fireplace. It had a sunroom with windows all around and French doors leading to it from the dining room.

It had a long staircase that led to ample space on the second floor and several ample sized bedrooms. In spite of the sound of it, it was not so opulent. It was adequate - provided by the church for the pastor.

But I loved that house. That house was HOME! I have never had a home that was home like that home.

And the longer I live the more I realize that home is not on earth, therefore I question whether or not any building will ever feel like home again.

The house had an attic that the children played in often- a full attic covering the entire square footage of the house.

It had lots of basement space, which became a shared bedroom later on during our lives there, and there was an entry through the basement to the church, so the children played all over the church as well as the basement.

Room was made for six children and two parents, so my bedroom later was moved to the basement along with my younger sister.

In spite of this we weren't close. We lived like strangers. Something in the home atmosphere did not foster health in this relationship. Some tension prevented us from reaching a healthier plane.

Friday nights were family night - a night devoted to having family fun. TV did not dominate our lives as much as today, yet it was only too true that our lives were being shaped by television anyway.

But the folks tried to use Friday nights for playing games and just doing fun things together, perhaps a craft project.

This was wonderfully healthy thing about them. We'd make popcorn and sometimes watch old family movies. Dad also owned copies of the old "Felix the Cat" and "Aesop's Fables" movies along with "Spanky and Our Gang".

Towards the middle to end of the sixties, the show "The man from U.N.C.L.E" became one of our Friday night events. Our parents didn't approve, but me and brother Mike would coax them into letting the M & M pair watch by buttering them up, and they'd have to give in.

Mike and I still recall one Friday night when our parents were out for some event, and we knew they wouldn't want we kids to watch the very worldly "Man from U.N.C.L.E."

So, the two of us diligently cleaned the kitchen til it sparkled so that Mom couldn't resist letting us watch the show. We recall that now with chuckles.

The influence of TV however, is overwhelmingly profound. There was "Laugh -IN" and "Sunny and Cher". TV laid the groundwork for a lifetime of regarding the body as an object of desire - something one had to keep perfect and beautiful in order to have worth.

The Eden family watched TV perfection on show after show, where women had perfect slender figures and immense beauty. If I hadn't been a beautiful child, I would not have even been able to try to attain to those standards myself.

But I did apply those standards for a long time, and to my own immense hurt, and hid behind beauty, and suffered for every imperfection that came along, especially gaining weight. I also felt I had to be beautiful to men in order to gain approval and love.

Being desirable sexually also became equal to being lovable.

In later years I realized that my parents had the same stringent standards in their minds, cleverly hidden from themselves and not obvious to others, and that they regarded the body too much the way the world did, but I didn't see that earlier on.

I didn't realize that they were deceived too, and became far too hard on them and all of their weaknesses.

The secret sins of the "religious" are devastating, because they determine to hide everything from their own view and choose to hide behind a front of their religious life.

Because they do not allow things to come to the surface, these things continue to exist covertly, and often times more potently.

The fear of facing oneself can be overwhelming for many, because of fear.

I recall so many wonderful things about my mother and father as well. My mother would make meals in a cycle.

On Sunday nights we had popovers. At noon meals, when I would come home for lunch, Mom would make a variety of meals on a regular basis in rotation, and these were delicious meals that I still relish the memory of, along with other siblings.

Mom would make chipped beef and peas on toast.

The peas and beef were in a cream sauce.

Yum.

She also would make open-faced broiled cheese sandwiches topped with bacon and ketchup.

She makes it now with tomato under the cheese, ketchup and bacon on top.

Yum.

She made a fantastic macaroni and cheese topped with a creamy chicken sauce.

She also made Golden Rod Eggs. Fantastic!

You boil the eggs hard, truly hard, strip them, take out the egg yolks and break them up, make a cream sauce, put the egg whites into it, and put the mix on toast. Sprinkle the yolks on the top.

She made a delicious salmon loaf also with a cream sauce.

She also made Corn Bread Soufflé; just like corn bread only you whip the whites and add them to create a soufflé. After you have Corn Bread Soufflé, you will never want regular corn bread again!!!!!

I remember vividly the first time I learned how to scrambled eggs in that very typical 1950's kitchen.

I recall helping to make popovers, which is very easy. Popovers are a Midwestern food, apparently, because Dayton's (later Marshall Fields, the largest local department store in Minnesota) top floor restaurant serves them as part of every meal.

She would rotate these and there was order and peacefulness in their routine. These were special meals we'd look forward to.

Sunday dinners were often meat and potato varieties, but very special; the one large dinner we would have each week. You look forward to the rotations and the favorite foods.

We loved the "Kiddies' Day Parade." It was a parade for young children that would march right past our house because the family was precariously located right on Main Street where it passed through.

The backyard ran parallel to Main Street, and you could also just go out to the edge of the yard that sloped down to the sidewalk and watch the parade.

There were three boys and three girls in our family, and each girl had one boy close to her age to grow up with.

So in the parade one year, my brother Mike played Andy and I Ann, and my younger sister and brother joined the parade as nurse and doctor, among other entries.

We were members of 4-H.

The memories of 4-H are indelible and sweet.

It is merely dotted with memories of social discomfort and relationships that didn't go as one hoped, and hurts that ran far deeper than one would have imagined.

Many memories are great. We knew lots of farmers and their families.

The 4-Hers had progressive dinners where the members went from one family farm to another. As a member of 4-H you got to take part in skits put on for 4-H meetings, and work on projects for the state fair.

At Halloween time they had a fantastic hay ride followed by delicious hot chocolate and bobbing for apples.

It was Americana at its best, untainted by evil, suspicion, tragedy, or terror - a slice of down home America better than Mom's apple pie.

Oh, by the way, my mom actually still makes an incredible apple pie "to die for".

Toward the end of the Eden family's thirteen years there (I was thirteen at that point) my oldest sister Lois, brothers Lowell and Mike worked for cucumber farmers one harvest.

We got filthy dirty hanging off the backside of an open pickup truck, hands out ready to grab cucumbers. It was so fun and we will never forget it.

I remember warm summer and beautiful fall days and time spent on farms enjoying the smells and sounds.

Mom would take the kids every fall to 'inspiration Peak" a beautiful place to visit in the fall. One recalls milk weed pods - the silky white silk that would float out of them, and blowing those strands into the wind.

The place was in fact an inspiration - it was a place to view many trees in the change of fall colors, a place to look out over a wooded area.

There were beautiful moments in nature in all seasons, but particularly summer and fall.


I remember loving to wear dresses so much that I wore a dress to a county fair and went on rides, sat on a merry-go-round horse, and did all sorts of things with a big, flouncy skirt.

And never did I find being a girl unpleasant or degrading or anything but delightful.

In the atmosphere I grew up in I knew that I could do anything I wanted as a girl as much as if I were a boy. No one ever said, "You can't do that because you are a girl." Never!

Nevertheless, I did suffer from low self-esteem, and perhaps in ways that girls do.

I began to build my self-esteem on appearance. I didn't go in much for achievement - it didn't give much pleasure.

In Kindergarten the teacher put on my report card that I wanted to watch others do what they were doing too much and thus didn't get my own projects done.

I recall feeling shamed by that then,(shame, shame, shame) and in retrospect realize that it points to a fine quality in a person, and the reason I enjoy having "heroes" and seeing others do what I cannot do, rather than envy them. How fun to just be in awe of greatness.

What an opportunity for disappointment as well!

I have had talent in all areas of the arts. You name it; I have been able to do it. Drawing, painting, sculpting, photography, writing, music, singing, acting, composing music, playing instruments, dancing well and many more areas.

But I had no passion to complete any of these tasks. The responsibility for them was too great, and distraction by one area while trying to pursue another. Ultimately, my greatest passion is for film.

Ah yes, that small Minnesota town had one of the old style movie theaters located right in central downtown, and living only a couple blocks from downtown, all through our 13 years we kids were able to just run to the theater unsupervised by adults and watch lots of excellent, clean movies.

Remember fondly and vividly "To Sir with love" "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter",

My only passion has been to find love, and I am finding that love ONLY comes from HIM.

It was in my lonely childhood, in this small Midwestern town setting that I discovered very early that movies could impact your life profoundly in a positive way.

How many times I had been discouraged and gone to see a movie that inspired me and sent me on my way soaring and embracing life.

It wasn't until later on I learned that so much of the "life affirming" work in Hollywood could be attributed largely to the Jewish element in the film world.

It is Judeo-Christian values that have given life to the screen. Films have portrayed many people believing in unbelievable odds and winning based on their faith.

It is because of this that my true passion is film.

I don't think we should sit and see life on the screen as opposed to living it, or sit alone and experience relationships vicariously. If film becomes a substitute for life it becomes a disease. But it has served an extremely important role in our culture where we need healthy escapes and healthy roles.

Since I mentioned that my father didn't love me in childhood, I do want to mention the good memories that I have of him.

He is still with us today, but there are memories over the years, memories I will always cherish of my father.

It was already stated that he brought us all over the country in a station wagon and I remember watching his hands on the wheel and it was very comforting because his navigational skills were so excellent. He never got lost.

How can one forget when I was a teenager and he bought me these shoes with heels but they were moccasin style, and I just wanted them - it wasn't a need, just a wish and I remember him going with me to get them and waiting for me in the mall while I got them.

One of my fond memories of him giving will always be the many times he waited for his wife or daughters in malls and stores.

One of a man's greatest duties in life is waiting for the women in his life: at malls, in stores, by the ladies' room, and can you think of any others?

I also will cherish always when I came back from Philadelphia at about 30 and lived with them for a while and had my cat Tuxedo who rode in the car all the way from Philly.

He went out and got run over in a lane of traffic on the highway near the folks' house and it was tragic.

Mom, having her own issues, told me that I loved the cat too much, and offered no sympathy. Dad finally, at one point, just put his arms around me so I could weep, and then I was able to get over Tuxedo's death after that. I remember that his compassion towards me in that moment was mostly all it took.

The coolest memory exists mainly because there have been times on a manic episode that I felt closer to people and things were in a more beautiful and sweet light than ever before.

I drove from my job cleaning the house of two cool Jewish people. I just took off in a car and went west, thinking I'd go to Seattle and there President Bush Senior (1991) would meet me and so would John Cusack, one of my favorite actors at the time.

I was delusional, yes, but my car mysteriously developed a strange problem that caused me to land in the town of Hutchinson.

Dad came all the way out there at the behest of the police who had picked me up because of not paying a restaurant bill. He put me into a motel and drove all the way home again, only to return the next day.

We had breakfast together that morning, and sweeter feelings of being loved or taken care of by dad I have never known, because there is this amazing quality that took place during an "episode" that produced deeper feelings of closeness to people like him.

He was so sweet and patient, the qualities that come from a man when he is being a father, and when nothing else takes precedence over that.

"I HAVE ALWAYS DEPENDED ON THE KINDNESS OF STRANGERS." Blanche Dubois in A Streetcar Named Desire." Once I depended on the kindness of strangers for short-term friendship, or on lovers who came into my life, and today, I have been able to depend on other Christians coming into my life just when I need them and offering prayer, counsel and love. Without them I could never have survived.

I know this ended up being ramblings about the memories of childhood, but my story will flesh out more in future writing...