Shiny Stainless Steel

Three things have been working in my brain lately: christian mysticism, resentment and distrust.

Last night, I had to chew my son out about an issue. He called his dad because he was upset about it and his dad came rushing over to try to fix it. He has always done this because his dad has trust issues and never had any faith in my abilities to handle situations. His distrust stems from two previously failed marriages. His other wives were manipulative, conniving and hurtful. Although I was never like them, he always treated me like them. He has called me stupid, a whore, a bitch, and a drug addict. Since I was the devoted wife and realized he was actually living out his previous traumas, I stuck it out for 17 years, trying desperately to prove him wrong by loving him, comforting him and supporting him. Many years of the abuse began to take a toll on me. I was getting angry, overly distrustful and resentful. The turning point was the birth of my daughter, I would didnt want my daughter to grow up thinking that abuse was normal in a relationship. I was being a good wife for all of the wrong reasons.

One of my prized possessions is a porcelain angel (hence part of my magickal name). The angel was given to me by my father, my hero, on the day I was born. He was a practical man and we were poor so a gift of a trinket was not normal for his personality. I treasure her because its a symbol of my father's self-sacrifice and his hope. She has blonde hair and fair skin with a sweet face and wings. At a very young age, I realized that there was something wrong with the idea that angels, here in the US, are always portrayed as blonde and fair. I started to question the whole idea about the way Christianity is portrayed. Am I less of an individual because I am dark-skinned. Does this mean I cannot get into heaven? What made things worse for me is that my ethnicity openly treats their darker-skinned children as lesser beings than as the lighter skinned children. Many family eye-brows were raised when I, as a typically-compliant good little girl of 8 openly refused to go to church for these reasons.

One of my other prized possesions that sits on my desk at work is a molybdenum aircraft turbine hex-nut. I love the way its feels in my hand, the weight, the coolness and the balance. I love the way the threads are so meticulously machined. It's a token of one of the beliefs that I have. I alluded to it in a previous posts on christian evangelism.

Shiny stainless steel is not always the best material for the design but sometimes it is appropriate.

The other issue I have been working on is the strong atitudes against christian mysticism within my circle of friends. I am not anti-christian, I am anti-christian establishment.

Its not about the blonde/blue-eyed angels or a shiney stainless steel bolts, its a token of what they represent. If we attach our issues of distrust on other's beliefs, arent we just distracting ourselves from the true meaning in the token? Arent we bending ourselves a litle out of shape distrusting other designs, such as stainless steel versus molbydenum, just because one design is more common than the other? Are we going out of our way to prove them wrong, instead of trying to find what is right? Have we become so resentful of our abusers that we are now treating THEM with discrimination and stereotypes? Are we ignoring the message from the angel, just because we are not blonde and blue-eyed?

I know it has happened to me! How about you?