Why is it that we humans start to separate into groups and cliches? We seem to like to be part of a group that is somehow separated from the rest of mankind. We start with a common interest and then, sometimes subtly and sometimes not so subtly, a fight for the leadership emerges. I’ve generally found that amongst men, that fight is overt. With women, it is much more subtle.
Once the hierarchy is established, then the exclusionary guidelines emerge. With men, the starting point seems to be a common interest with some qualifiers. If you want to join a group that bikes 50 miles a day, then you need to have a bike and be physically fit enough and have time enough to do the physical labor.
With women, the qualifiers are less obvious and can be based on socio/economic factors. Do you live in the right place? Do you wear the right clothes? Are you thin enough? Are you too smart, too dumb? Who are you exactly and why would we want to spend any time with you. This rather than expressing an interest and/or a talent in the what seems to be the subject at hand.
People laughingly talk about mean girls in high school but it starts much earlier than that. I recall my younger daughter crying when she was only eight years old because all of her friends had decided to “dump” her that week. By the next week, they had split into factions and some of the friends were back having “dumped” the others. By the next week, the groups were re-forming.
I went to the school and told them what was happening and insisted that they separate the girls from each other until this phase had passed. Which it did – at least for that time being. I also had a long talk with my daughter about finding new friends who were not being hurtful and mean. I’d love to tell you it all worked out but this daughter still has a hard time understanding why some people don’t like her.
I was a popular girl when young but then voluntarily withdrew from being friends with others when it was pointed out to me how different I was. I wanted to simply disappear and not be pointed out as odd. I’d rather be alone than be too different from the others. While I was able to keep to myself for most of the time I was in school, school eventually ended and I needed to join the real world to make a living.
As part of that plan, I also made an effort to fit in with other women. I sat at lunch and listened to their interests and tried to find one or more that I thought I could be interested in as well. I remember buying a needlepoint kit and trying to work with it. I admit that I pretty well hated it and was horrible at it but I still tried. Then I overheard some of the women laughing about what I was doing and mocking me for even thinking someone like me could afford such an elegant hobby.
So, that was the end of that for me. What did come out of it was that in the same area of the store where these kits were kept was another form of needlework called cross stitch. I had seen Dutch cross stitch when my then mother-in-law, showed a wonderful antique sampler that was in her husband’s family. So, when I found a booklet about Precious Moments by Designs by Gloria and Pat, I picked it up and used the instructions in the book to learn how to stitch.
By then, I had had my first baby and wanted to stitch the “Jesus Loves Me” design for his birth sampler and then later on, one for my older daughter. When I discovered I could customize the words and the colors to match what I wanted, I knew that I had found my hobby. It’s something I still enjoy today and oddly enough, I’m back stitching the same two designs for my grandson and granddaughter!
At the same time, I thought I would like to learn to quilt. I picked up a pattern, bought the fabric and then had the epiphany that I could use fusible interfacing to hold the applique pieces together when I satin stitched around the edges. When I went to show the quilt shop what I had done, they laughed out loud and told me that I had done it all wrong and would have to start all over again.
Well, I didn’t and while I put the baby blanket together, I never learned how to physically quilt the pieces together and then have never tried to do another quilt to this day (though I have bought a lot of fabric thinking that someday I would.) What is funny to me now, is that many quilters use the same process that I used to back in 1980. I guess I was just, literally, decades ahead of my time.
Even in my cross stitch hobby, groups of women (and some men) put in arbitrary rules that will determine just how acceptable you and your work will be. Since I don’t follow most of those rules, I’m pretty much on the outside. Which I’ve learned not to mind.
I stitch in hand not on a hoop, I use the “sewing” method rather than the more elegant “stab” method. I carry threads over the back of the work (though not too far). I don’t always remove my errors and instead work around them. I don’t always use the recommended threads/fabric most of the time and I’m generally willing to change things up in the design to suit me rather than what the designer did to begin with. Most of this “breaks” the rules.
At another point in life, I tried once again to “fit in”. This time, I compromised my integrity by going along to get along – within a group of Christian women. My elder daughter took me to task about it. She was upset and remains upset with me to this day over what I allowed to be said and done to me. She was right and I was wrong and I’ve learned much from the experience. I had taught her to defend herself and then let someone else walk all over me in order to remain part of the group. After this experience, I withdrew once again and have kept pretty much to myself since then.
After my illness last fall, I realized, once again, the fact that I had so little interaction with other women. I’ve found, in life, that I got along better with men and made my friends amongst them. So, when I decided to look for female friends, I went back to my hobbies. I found that communities of people with common interests are finding each other on the internet. Whether using Instagram or YouTube, they either text each other or record videos to keep their friends updated. I thought this was something I could do.
Then I watched some more. I was looking at videos that were originally recorded a year ago and worked my way to current day. What I found was that, while the individuals had started out helpful and good-intentioned, they had morphed into celebrity status (at least in their own minds) by their most recent videos.
It was enough to turn me off and to realize that what I was doing, yet again, was setting myself up for a slap-down by the mean girls. I decided to save myself the grief and simply not try to be involved with them at all.
I’m still struggling with that decision. I know, that as a Christian, I am supposed to go out and let the love of Christ be shown through my life. That I want to avoid hurtful moments is not something that I am supposed to do. It is a form of fear and we are told that we are not to live in fear. So, I’m working on it.
In the meantime, I have joined an online small home group study (called life group in our church) and have met two women that I am really enjoying getting to know. That we all follow Christ makes a big difference though I’ve seen the same exclusionary tactics done in church as well as outside. Sadly, sometimes it is done more so in the body of Christ than it is in the rest of the world. So, I will continue to work with this area of fear and exclusion that I have struggled with so long. I’m sure that God has something in mind for me or I would not feel the draw that I do.
I’m really glad that God doesn’t have a set of rules that we must adhere to to be in his company. While Israel was given a set of rules, the purpose was really to show mankind that we didn’t have a hope of being good enough to approach God on our own. The Israelites had to do ritual sacrifices to be clean enough to allow God to dwell among them. When Jesus came and sacrificed himself for us, his was the perfect and final sacrifice. No more were ever needed.
While mankind may divide one from another, God is bringing mankind to him as though we were of one mind and one body. We have a single purpose, which is to tell others about Jesus and his great love for them. Since we are still sinners, we fail miserably but we keep trying. We are given a view of what our future holds and that is a time when we, who love the Lord and have accepted Christ as our savior, live together in peace and harmony and spent our time praising God endlessly for how much he loved us and sacrificed for us.
Revelation 7:9-12
After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice:
“Salvation belongs to our God,
who sits on the throne,
and to the Lamb.”
All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying:
“Amen!
Praise and glory
and wisdom and thanks and honor
and power and strength
be to our God for ever and ever.
Amen!”