Storms rolling in

I'm reading a couple of interesting books on Kindle right now, actually, more than two. The Religion Virus is most impressive with its discussion of memes and memeplexes. I don't admire Jesus Lied as much, mainly because of the author's sarcasm and bad grammar, but another book by a religious scholar on the ways in which Jesus has been misquoted and misrepresented is a good one. Sadly, "religious" people won't ever read these books because they are too threatening to the false foundations upon which these people stand.

I'm still finding myself irritated with my family "down South." Fortunately for me, they have "unfriended" me. (I tried to unfriend them, but Facebook has changed how it's done, and I didn't spend any time with it, knowing that I would never communicate with them again.) I honestly do believe that my relationship with my LaSalle Parish relatives has ended. It isn't possible to cross that great divide. Even if I had never gone to college (and I am so grateful that I did!), I would be such a black sheep. I read books. I think. I don't just accept what I'm told by some illiterate hick who dares call himself (and it's almost always a man in the Southern Baptist tradition) a preacher. All it takes to be a preacher in that religion is to pronounce that one is a preacher. No education. No training. No leaving home whatsoever, not physically or mentally.

For DARING to think, for DARING to question, for DARING to be independent and to say what I think, I am called a "know-it-all" and "uppity." Yes, compared to people who still think the earth is flat (not technically, but metaphorically), I am an uppity know-it-all. I can see them now, sitting around and congratulating themselves for cutting the cancer out of the family.

I do feel some guilt for not remembering that they are not capable of analogy. If I say "X is to Y as A is to B," they hear, "X is B." No amount of explanation helps. I forget that I deal daily (fortunately!) with really bright people. Even the dumbest of my college freshmen still is more educated than most of my relatives. Sadly, it is simply impossible to "make" someone think, and when you don't see people face to face, it is really hard to explain something with any degree of success if that "something" is an abstraction.

I'm jealous of people who have educated, intelligent relatives. I know what a joy it is to be with my sons and daughter-in-law, and only with them (and with my husband, of course) do I have a sense of "family." (This is not counting the deep love and connection I feel with some of my friends and one or two family members.) Sometimes colleagues will talk about having had this wonderful, insightful, profound discussion with a sister or brother, and I think, "I have never had that opportunity." Nor will I ever. Even my brother "C" (who is probably the brightest of my siblings) has not availed himself of the opportunity to become educated. I fear that C's daughter will be lost to me, as well, if she does not find a way to continue her education. She is too young (age 30 IS young!) to realize that the beliefs and idiocies perpetuated by her environment will eat her brain until nothing is left but obedience and conformity. Maybe she thinks it is preferable to "go along to get along," rather than to endure the hate that I have to endure because I simply won't roll over and "be like them."

So, storms have rolled in. But these, too, shall pass. I will continue my study of atheism, logic, and humanism, and I will avoid LaSalle Parish. It won't be hard to do. I've gotten to the point where no one there really has any love for me, and what little respect I used to have for them is now dead. Love? If "love" means never being able to express a difference of opinion, then I guess I don't "love" my LaSalle Parish relatives. They don't respect what is the most important thing in the world to me--knowledge and education--and think anyone who is educated and knowledgeable is an uppity know-it-all. (Why is it so easy for people to admit that someone else is more handsome or beautiful, that someone else is more athletically talented, that someone else is a better cook or gardener, but so impossible to admit that someone else might be more intelligent? When did intelligence get such a bad reputation?)

I have to leave early for Big Rapids today because a literal snowstorm is coming our way. I am SO ready to retire. I love teaching, but I don't love living away from home.