What someone might think

[notdrinkingthekoolaid]

Hey PW...see if your daughter's school has an adult class. I bet they do and you might enjoy it. I wasn't allowed to take ballet either, though my dad took me to see the major Chicago dance company performance of the Nutcracker one year.

I think I have mostly gotten over the "what other people" think issues from fundyland...at least as it relates to drinking and movie attendance. It does a lot to tear down that wall when one of the pastors of your church joins your group for a margarita. I'm still self conscious about body movement though--mainly in worship--lifting hands, etc. I love that I have freedom to lift my hands, I just feel self conscious doing it. The perfect solution to that is sitting in the waaaay back with the tech team (which Mr. NDTK works on regularly.)

[JordanMaria]

(12-28-2011 11:41 PM)Ricardo Wrote:  Dancing.

I wish my body would let loose. I need a lot more practice.

I take a gym dance/aerobics class and I have such a hard time relaxing and just losing myself. I focus so much on being perfect and getting the moves just right, I don't even hear the music.

(12-29-2011 12:12 AM)pastors wife Wrote:  I was always taught it was wrong, including ballet.

Me too. As a child I always so jealous of other girls who took ballet. I thought the way they moved was so beautiful and I wanted to be like them.

[senda wales]

(12-29-2011 12:12 AM)pastors wife Wrote:  I want to dance so much! I was always taught it was wrong, including ballet. I take my preschooler to ballet class now and watch the girls of different ages coming in to their classes and wish I could've done that.

I second NDTK's suggestion of looking for a studio that has adult classes. They are not as common, but they're out there. I always wanted to perform in a production of The Nutcracker and I finally did last year, so it is possible.

Ballet is a good way to exercise and learn about the art form. If you can learn ballet, you can pick up pretty much any dance form. That helps with some of the self-consciousness.

I've danced with women who are twice as old as I am and just starting ballet for the first time. If you have the funds.... Don't be embarrassed to live out a childhood dream now.

(12-30-2011 04:06 PM)JordanMaria Wrote:  I take a gym dance/aerobics class and I have such a hard time relaxing and just losing myself. I focus so much on being perfect and getting the moves just right, I don't even hear the music.

I always had this issue too and that's why I'll never be a good dancer. (Besides lacking talent.) However, as I have gotten older and lived a little and gotten away from fundamentalism and become less self-conscious about the whole "what someone might think," it becomes easier to really listen to the music and convey emotion while dancing. JM, if you are really interested, I would also say that looking into ballet studios that holds classes for adults is a good idea. It can be a fun hobby/exercise to have.

[JordanMaria]

(12-30-2011 05:03 PM)senda wales Wrote:  JM, if you are really interested, I would also say that looking into ballet studios that holds classes for adults is a good idea. It can be a fun hobby/exercise to have.

There is a place around here that has adult ballet. It's one of the reasons I'm going to the gym. I want to be in shape first before I start anything.

[HazelEyed]

(12-28-2011 08:23 PM)notreallyfundy Wrote:  I'm sure most of you had the fundy experience of constantly worrying what someone might think of everything you say, do or think. I've heard it said many times by others "You should not do _______ because someone might think _______"
The appearance of evil reason was used a lot, out of context.

Going to the movies is wrong because someone might think you're there to see porn (are those movies even screened in regular theaters?). Listening to CCM is wrong because someone might hear it and think you're listening to secular music (cuz you know it's all of the devil). Ordering frilly virgin umbrella drinks is wrong because someone might think you're drinking alcohol.

It seems that in fundy circles there is such a major emphasis placed on what "someone might think" rather than what God knows about us. And if I am in line at the ticket counter at the movie theater and the busybody from church drives by on his way to the all you can eat buffet in the same shopping center, if he believes I'm there to see porn, shouldn't he ask me about it out of concern rather than make an assumption? It seems that there is a huge burden placed on fundies to make sure we are not making other people think badly of us. So much energy goes into making sure others don't think badly of us that it seems to leave little time for God. Our focus isn't on God anymore, but rather making sure other fundies are pleased with us. And the truth is, you will never please everyone. To me, the evil being done is in the heart of the busybody who automatically assumes the worst in others and looks for their faults. Just wondering if anyone else has made this observation. I can see how this kind of thinking could be harmful to someone who is naturally a people pleaser or perfectionist and could possibly lead to OCD issues.

YES. THIS. I actually used to say this all the time, all of it. When I was fundy these rationalizations about not going to movies, etc drove me nuts. I thought, aren't we supposed to believe the best about those we love? Isn't this making us all sound like a bunch of gossiping, accusing busy bodies if half our motivations are based on what our friends and fellow Christians might be accusing us of doing in their heads when they see us somewhere?

[HazelEyed]

ALSO the whole argument doesn't hold water. If we weren't supposed to go to movies because somebody might then we're seeing something bad, then by that logic we shouldn't rent videos at blockbuster (or netflix or redbox now, although we didn't have those at the time I was making these arguments), or have internet in our home, cable TV, or anything like that. Heck, we shouldn't even have radios. Who KNOWS what we're listening to on them?? And a library card... well, we could be checking out liberal-leaning books at the library! Or non-inspirational romance novels! Or stuff with cussing in it! There's no end to this kind of logic.

Maybe some fundies actually do avoid all those things, but I've never met any who did all. It was always some combination, with varying reasons why. My parents got movies at blockbuster, had cable TV and internet, and ate at restaurants that served alcohol as long as they didn't have a bar-like atmosphere (I mean, if they got a long island ice tea at Chili's, who would know?). But they refused to go to movies because "someone might think they were seeing one of the bad ones." I knew a bunch of other people who employed the same logic but all had varying degrees of willingness to check out movies from blockbuster, etc. And might I remind you--at the time, all of the cases of the blockbuster movies handily looked the same?! You could be checking out anything. Of course I knew some people who wouldn't check out movies at blockbuster, either--but they had cable TV and watched it all the time, which i wasn't allowed to do at the time.

Basically, this led to me concluding at 12 that the reason given must not be the real reason we didn't go to movies, since it didn't make any sense.

[notreallyfundy]

[quote='HazelEyed' pid='58557' dateline='1325400256']
ALSO the whole argument doesn't hold water. If we weren't supposed to go to movies because somebody might then we're seeing something bad, then by that logic we shouldn't rent videos at blockbuster

I asked a church member about this one time,why she and her husband went along with the unspoken no movie theater rule but rented PG13 and R rated movies from Blockbuster without much conviction regarding content or language. Her response was "Well people won't really see you renting the movies like they could see you at the theater", to which I replied "But God knows, and if you don't believe it's a sin to rent the movies, why is it a sin to go see them in the theater?" She didn't have an answer for that.

[pastor's wife]

(01-01-2012 01:33 AM)HazelEyed Wrote:  When I was fundy these rationalizations about not going to movies, etc drove me nuts. I thought, aren't we supposed to believe the best about those we love? Isn't this making us all sound like a bunch of gossiping, accusing busy bodies if half our motivations are based on what our friends and fellow Christians might be accusing us of doing in their heads when they see us somewhere?

Exactly! Living our life based on the fear of man is so opposite the teaching of the Bible!

Of course, fundies would say that you're avoiding going in because some new believer might be tempted into sin, but that didn't apply to me because our church was so small we didn't really HAVE a lot of new believers to be shocked and horrified! When push came to shove, it did seem to come down to this - "Someone might see you."
But even if someone DID see me, why shouldn't they believe the best of me? Why wouldn't they assume I was taking my kids in to see the family feature?

Once video stores became common when I was a teenager, the whole movie argument fell apart. I actually thought it was MORE likely that you could be picking up something evil from the video store than watching something bad at the movies. After all, the movies had a limited number of options on their marquee, but the video store had thousands of titles, including, in some stores, a little back room where they rented porn. Older Christians who happily rented videos but condemned people going to movies came across as raging hypocrites. My fiance took me to my first movie in a theater at the age of 23 and we've been going ever since, although we didn't talk about it.

[Ricardo]

Someone. PLEASE. Define what "Life in Abundance" is supposed to mean.

Because if we start applying all those rules to the One who consorted with publicans and whores, and sinners of all stripes... His disciples were a bunch of unsavory fishermen. I don't know about Galilee, but here in Portland, If I go to the docks and collect a dozen fishermen and try to bring then into a church, they will slam the doors before we get there.

They were serving wine at that wedding, weren't they?

Somehow being in church every time the doors are open doesn't seem to qualify as Life in Abundance.

[aisforazebra]

We weren't allowed to go to movies when I was a kid, but we rented movies. I was told various reasons for not going to the theater, from "they show previews for bad movies, even at the good movies," to "it's just not a good environment for a Christian," to "people talk and move around and are so annoying that you can't even pay attention; you don't really want to go," to "it's too expensive."

By the time I was 10 I had figured out that my parents were full of crap and had no real legitimate reason for not allowing us to go.