Hindsight

[lydy]

So, imagine that you had a Bohemian, libidinous past. In your early twenties, you meet a wonderful man, marry, have three kids, and return to the religion in which you were raised. Possibly, this change to a conservative lifestyle is at least partly a response to finding your previous rebellious lifestyle unsatisfactory. Many years later, an old flame calls. To complicate matters, she's a, well, she, and so is twice a sin, once as a pre-marital affair, and twice as a same-sex relationship. Even if, or perhaps especially if, you have feelings about her, it is an uncomfortable situation. Another ten or so years go by, your life has become infinitely more complicated, and the affection you felt for her is even older and more faded, the church more conservative, and the taboo against same-sex relationships strongly reinforced -- and she tries to make contact, again. Frankly, this isn't the sort of conversation you really want to have, at the moment. Or ever. The absolute best it can be is painful, and the worst is, well, pretty unimaginably horrible.

No, I don't think I'll write a letter, or send email, or anything else. I hadn't thought of things from her side. I most emphatically hadn't thought of myself as an old regret. I forgot that that was the way it works. I mean, sure, now I'm a sin, I can dig that. But I'd forgotten that the whole repentance thing would reach backwards. I'd been thinking of conversion as, like, a new beginning. It's not, though, and I should have remembered that. I'm probably as welcome as a bull in a China shop. You know, it's embarrassing to not have thought of all of this, before. Even without some of the more tragic underpinnings, I should have been more careful. Boy, ain't hindsight something?

Comments

[von-krag.livejournal.com]

I know what many fundi Christians call "Sin" but most of that just seams to my eyes as social control, misogyny or building a priest as moral arbiter.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

And your point is?

I was contemplating issues of communication, not making judgments about people's faiths. If you have a friend who is, say, a gun nut who passionately defends the Second Amendment any time the conversation veers within a light year of the topic of guns, then you take that into account when you talk to them. There are topics you don't bring up unless you want the full-blown, song and dance, in four part harmony, anti-gun control massacre and the right to bare arms. You have to keep this in mind if you want to have a conversation that doesn't revolve around the Second Amendment, and a body might actually want to do that, you know?

Failing to take into consideration someone's religious beliefs when trying to communicate with them is just plain old stupid. It doesn't matter how wrong-headed the beliefs are, unless you want to fight about religion, which is often fun bu rarely productive. I didn't want to argue religion, I just wanted to talk to an old lover. I wish I'd taken a little better cared of how I approached it, is all.

[von-krag.livejournal.com]

Your 100% right, I'm sorry I didn't do a better job of communicating with you. What I'm trying to say is her fear of past "Sin" and falling back into that type of "Sin" might be the problem. For some reason I miss; fear, uncertainty and doubt come into play a lot when trying to talk with past people of importance to you when very significant moral and ethical changes happen.