The Double Letter South

I was born in 1980, which means I landed at the age of twenty in the glorious year of our Lord, 2000. What a time to be alive! (For most people.) In my family, the turn of the century meant the End of Time. Growing up in the 80s and 90s with a dad who had bought hook, line, and sinker into the Moral Majority/Religious Right--we're talking Falwell, Graham, Decision Magazine, Rush Limbaugh--my childhood was filled with irrational fears of the Coming Apocalypse. We were living in the End of Days; nothing could have convinced my father otherwise. It's the kind of stuff that still wakes me up in a cold sweat at night. While other kids were heading to soccer games on a Tuesday evening or watching MTV with their older siblings, my brother and I were reading the chunks of the Bible where God ordered the burning and destruction of some nations and people, while, despite zero difference in outer behaviors, allowing others to rule and survive. Of course, we also learned about this Jesus c...

I was just a little girl yesterday, it seems. Long, dark-blonde hair. Terrible bangs. Navy eyes. A gangly little thing. Every summer, from the time I was a baby until I was a junior in college, I spent a couple of weeks at my grandmother and grandfather’s house. My grandparents lived in the Mississippi Delta, and it was truly what one would call a homeland, considering tons of aunts and uncles, “aunts and uncles” (what we called our older cousins–there were quite a few), and younger cousins lived there. My older brother and I spent many mornings watching the old cartoons on Cartoon Network. We’d eat my grandmother’s homemade biscuits or a bag of powdered donuts from the Wonder Bread Factory. Then, we’d get dressed and head outside to play. My grandmother’s backyard was like an enchanted wonderland. A master gardener, she’d spend what little money they had caring for the many plants and flowers that grew alongside the fence. There was a small plum tree on the side of the yard. She jarre...

Around 2015, I began waking up to an awareness that there were systems of power in this world that I hadn't created but that were holding me back just the same.  I was a wife, mama and Deep South Christian woman who had always been a bit inquisitive, but who still wanted to work the systems to create successful and positive change at home, at work, at church, and within.  Starting a private blog, I began to work out my thoughts online. But after a couple of years, I grew frustrated because I felt directionless.  Have you ever wondered if you’re living the wrong life? For twenty years, I hopped on and off the education train. I would take a teaching job, work anywhere from 1-4 years, quit, try to be a stay-at-home mom, get bored, attempt other careers, fail miserably, then return to education. Sound familiar? The problem wasn’t that I hated teaching or that I didn’t like children. It was that I despised the various agendas behind educating children in America–a conversatio...

 I ’ve been reparenting myself over the last couple of years, but I couldn’t possibly go back to my past without returning to my beloved summers watching ABC soaps. I guess I’m on a roll where my childhood is concerned. True, what they say is correct: You can’t go back, and it’s important to understand what it is we truly miss about childhood. But if you encountered trauma in your childhood, or you endured a somewhat rocky relationship with your parents, it’s important to reparent yourself in order to heal. What does it mean to “reparent” yourself? According to happierhuman.com: Reparenting yourself is when you reflect on your life, identify the areas of your life where you have failed as a result of being poorly parented as a child, and decide how you will address those shortcomings as an adult. It is about teaching yourself, experimentation, and searching for guidance that you didn’t get as a child. How to Reparent Yourself: A 7-step Guide I’ve been on a journey to reparent mysel...

In Harry Potter, the lovable Hagrid says, “What’s coming will come, and we’ll meet it when it does.” It’s always struck me how simple yet profound that statement really is…and how little my prayers reflect what I truly believe about the character of God. So much has happened to all of us since 2020, and change changes us. We can’t help it. Every time we experience change, good or bad, stress hits. We become different people. I am no exception. Change also brings fear, and I find myself praying “please don’t” prayers because the medieval me still believes in a God that has pagan qualities that are appeased by my works or wrathful of my lack thereof. I can’t help it. Weren’t we all taught this version of God in some way, shape or form, even if unintentionally? Three years ago today, I drove away from a place I worked for four years, ending a teaching career I'd had in one form or another off and on since 1999. Education is fickle, subjective and often futile. Trends change, what’s tr...

 There is a strange “new” trend happening in some Christian circles. It’s this idea that having feelings and emotions is wrong–sinful, even. I could argue that men have always been pretty uncomfortable with women’s feelings. Maybe it’s biology or maybe it’s societal expectations. Who knows? Many (not all) men seem to have quite the hang up with emotions, especially, for some odd reason, a lot of men who claim Christ as King. Read the following quotes from salon.com. These are quotes from our earliest Church leaders, many whom, unbeknownst to the lay Christian, we get our belief-systems from (such as Augustine): Church Doctors and Fathers [For women] the very consciousness of their own nature must evoke feelings of shame. —Saint Clement of Alexandria, Christian theologian (c150-215)  Pedagogues II, 33, 2 In pain shall you bring forth children, woman, and you shall turn to your husband and he shall rule over you. And do you not know that you are Eve? God’s sentence hangs still o...

Today marks the fourteenth anniversary of my grandmother’s funeral. It feels as if it happened yesterday and a lifetime ago, all at the same time. Speaking of lifetimes, I’ve been thinking real hard lately about how fast they pass by. I wonder if we think a lifetime moves faster now. I blinked and was no longer the two-year-old, skipping to the screened door and was met with a warm hug given by a woman I thought was so old, but in reality, was not much older than I am now. I blinked and was no longer the fifteen-year-old teenager, packing my car to spend the summer at Grandma’s. She would greet me at the door with a hug, and I'd step inside and find all my favorite goodies, such as homemade fries or oatmeal cookies. I blinked and was no longer the twenty-one-year-old, coming to town to show off my new husband and baby, one to whom I’ve now been married two-and-a-half decades and the other, now grown, with a treasure chest of memories from summers spent at his grandma's house. I...