Ok, I suppose this is the start of an entry. Perhaps I should enter politics. At least then a smear campaign is just status quo, and anyone not actively giving you money can participate. No one ever has enough to worry about, without your girlfriend's ex-best friend playing the under-handed subversive misinformation game. Some of us simply have websites where we post anything, no matter how true, and everyone can simple look it up and know how they stand, or verify the information with others. Others prefer to slit throats in the dark, and manipulate people behind the scenes. Time, of course, is the great equalizer. Time and light. Bill, David, Matt, etc, I have no fear. Whatever you are told, ultimately what you have experienced of me to be true, and what you will know of me again in the future, will win out against lies and dark whisperings. God is my witness, and will conceal neither my wrongs nor my good deeds with time.
Take that! Gossip as you will, I have no secrets. Lie to me, and I will plainly describe this to all. Should I lie to you, I will ashamedly admit it, and hide it from no one. There is a difference, you see, between stumbling and living in darkness. This is the distinction the Bible makes between a Christian who sins, and someone who is a habitual evildoer of nature. Which of you has perpetuated slander?
For example, here's a particularly stupid lie and example of flawed manipulation. It really could have been so much better. A girl was told that I gave Jenni an ultimatum: leave Community Life Fellowship, or leave me. Perhaps the misinformant knew that would get around to Jenni, perhaps not; that's all part of the stupidity. To the misinformant's slight credit, I strongly suspect the misinformant was given said erroneous information first, and failed to verify the truth. Foolish in any case, and disloyal. This girl who was given the false account, being a friend of Jenni's, and, it turns out, one of the few true ones Jenni had (how many of you others verified the stories you heard with Jenni? Shame on you), went to Jenni and asked her about it, saying the account had upset her because it didn't sound like something I would do, and further didn't want such a thing to have been done to Jenni. Thank you Lisa. You are wise beyond my estimation, and I will never underestimate you again. God bless you for your faith and friendship. Jenni, of course, set the story straight, and Lisa admitted that there were a number of things she had heard which just didn't mesh right with what she knew to be true. Again, all was set right.
Interesting lie, that one. Anyone who had been at all involved in the situation would know that, in fact, I assured Jenni at great length that my care for her, and our dating relationship, did not depend on which church she attended, and that it was far more important to me that she act in accordance with her conscience and the guidance of the Holy Spirit than to follow me. I told her that this was a decision she must make on her own before God, and that I had no proper part in it. I took great steps to surround Jenni with unconditional support. She knew that I would care about her whatever she decided, as long as her conscience was clear, and that I would back her decision. If I am instead coercive, then Jenni is wrong to date me, and should leave at once for her own good. Talk to her about this, without me present. She need never speak of it to me.
However, Jenni has already spoken on the matter, and her answer reveals the lie. Jenni's independence of will from all but God is of grave importance. I no more wish to manipulate her than I wish to be manipulated myself. Jenni will attest to the truth of what I have written here.
You who are responsible for spreading such lies, to cast Jenni in a weak, shameful light, to turn our friends and acquaintances falsely against me--you are a poisonous serpent. How dare you take advantage of others' trust in you in order to be so foully disloyal and insidious? Guising your treachery under the mantle of Godly concern for a sister in Christ . . . you know which god you have served through your actions.
Laura, I once treasured you, despite the grief you had caused, for your overwhelming loyalty. I realize now what I had mistaken for loyalty was rather blindness and self-interest; the inability to see the world any differently than how you had determined it to be. An impressive trait nonetheless, but an impression opposite in direction of what it could have been. Perhaps you recall the words "Nothing you say can change my mind, I'll never change, I don't want to hear it?" It's not like I haven't been pigheadedly obstinate in the face of reason and compassion before, but the characteristic is just as ugly in you as it was in me. Come to think of it, at least I was always willing to hear opposing points of view. Now, your attitude is utterly alien to me.
Ok, relevant interjection related to refusing to hear reason. "How long, O naive ones, will you love simplicity? And scoffers delight themselves with scoffing, and fools hate knowledge?" CLF has said repeatedly that there is "danger in thinking too much," of analyzing Scripture overly much. How does that mesh with the Bible's commands to meditate on the word day and night, and the way in which Paul directly faced the center of pagan philosophy on Mars Hill and confronted them with boldness and intellect? Indeed, much of the New Testament is a call to the intellect, explaining God's wisdom in ways Man's reason can understand.
Ok, so it's been a while. Despite the date on the above entry, which is when I wrote it, I only posted it today. At the time I was writing it, Jenni was writing Laura a letter on the same subject, although phrased far more gently, and I didn't wish to undermine Jenni's attempt to effectively communicate her thoughts and feelings to Laura. As one may figure, posting the above where Laura could read it before getting Jenni's letter wouldn't have been calculated to put Laura in a sympathetic frame of mind to read it.
So. I'm afraid my comments aren't designed to win anyone over; merely to state things plainly as I see them. Ok, so you can't call it "plain" when I put so much emotion, vim, and vigor into it. But you know what I mean. Nicely unapologetic, direct, and above all, honest. It's all a fascinating personality case study. A social psychologist's playground. You have Laura, who needs to be accepted by her parents now that marriage is an imminent reality for her and therefore has had to rewrite her personality so as not to clash, with the results you are aware of; you have me, with my cumbersome emotional baggage from the past related to rejection and trust (the whole "walking away from people" issue will be dealt with where I am concerned, later); you have Jenni, who's had, for the most part, an extremely stable friend and church life for most of her "adult" years and is now undergoing the first and largest true shifts in her life since her parents divorced, as many years ago as that was (heck, she doesn't even remember it, so she just told me); and then you have the miscellaneous cast of extras, ranging from the exceptionally unassuming, fairminded, goodwilled, and unforceful David W. to Lisa, discussed above, to Bill, who has had his personal willpower nonsurgically amputated and replaced with Laura's whims.