Maxwell 44: Must We Permit Mephistopheles and Beelzebub to Perform Financial and Performance Audits

[fundiefan]

54 minutes ago, Can'tBelieveMyEyes said:

Sarah's new book makes the totally normal suggestion that forgiving a family member for accidentally killing your little sister is easier than possibly losing your dog because you didn't ask the landlady first:

I lost a little brother to a missed diagnosis of septic shock when I was a child.     That was a huge, painful event in my life and the lives of my family.  It was such a huge, agonizing thing that I can't imagine blythely writing a sentence that includes the word "sparkle" when thinking about David's death - and that was 34 years ago.   

I can't imagine that forgiving someone who literally caused the death of your sibling is less stressful than potentially having to rehome a dog.

But on the other hand, my family is very good at making sure we can have and keep an animal before we get one.   Maybe if I had a really great dog I was worried about losing, I'd be much more nonchalant about my brother's death..........

Wait.  Nope.

I am sorry about our brother. It's a pain I can't imagine. 

As for possibly losing a dog because of the landlady....why are they renting, thus having a landlady, and not living in a home dad bought debt free? 

[fundiewatch]

Maybe Sarah is trying to normalize renting, for  the benefit of Jesse and Anna?

[PennySycamore]

8 minutes ago, fundiewatch said:

Maybe Sarah is trying to normalize renting, for  the benefit of Jesse and Anna?

Or maybe Sarah is pointing out one of the pitfalls of renting.  Of course, the same kind of thing might happen with a home owners' association.  Probably not over one well-behaved dog, but a barky dog or a whole bunch of dogs or chickens or a swing set visible from the street.  The last actually happened to a friend of mine;  they lived on a corner lot and there was no way to have their swing set not visible from the street.  

[fundiewatch]

7 minutes ago, PennySycamore said:

Or maybe Sarah is pointing out one of the pitfalls of renting.  Of course, the same kind of thing might happen with a home owners' association.  Probably not over one well-behaved dog, but a barky dog or a whole bunch of dogs or chickens or a swing set visible from the street.  The last actually happened to a friend of mine;  they lived on a corner lot and there was no way to have their swing set not visible from the street.  

@PennySycamore, thanks for keeping me honest. ? You are almost certainly correct. Sarah has no spark of rebellion against Steve and his Debt-Free-House-Buying-Is-Godly book.  
 

I’m bored and forced into homeschooling in a new state with no family or friends, so took some time with Terri’s mom articles the other day. Such a huge part of their very recent testimony has been all about the debt-free house, and how 5/5 boys had done it. It’s a big thing, what Jesse did, and then Joe moving. In some ways I’m surprised that they haven’t gone back and edited some of their most crowing articles, just soften the tone a bit. They wiped the blog clean of Elizabeth Munck so fast. 

[Hane]

I’m pretty p!$$ed off about the concept of conflating forgiveness with Christianity. Non-Christians are perfectly capable of forgiving. And suddenly feeling all sparkly because Jesus gave you and your aunt a get-out-of-jail-free card over the tragic death of a child? I could puke. This is a damn ponderous weight to lay on a ten-year-old—or anybody, for that matter. It comes down to that abhorrent “all sin is equal in God’s eyes” crap that so many of our fundies espouse.

One of my family’s tragedies happened back in 1935, and I will always feel heartsick over it, even though it happened years before I was born: My dad’s three-year-old brother had eaten some ant paste (a sweetened poison put into traps to kill ants), and, even though he seemed fine, the family doctor had him taken to the hospital for observation. The family was told that he died in his sleep there, but a neighbor who worked there as a cleaning lady said he’d woken in the night crying for his mother, climbed over the rail of his crib, and fell to the floor, breaking his neck and dying. The hospital assumed that working-class Italian immigrant parents with seven other kids wouldn’t have the means to investigate, and they were right. I can still see the look on my dad’s face when he spoke about being fourteen years old and waving goodbye to his baby brother in the driveway, never to see him again. I think of how horrendous it would have been if the albatross of “forgiveness” had been hung around the neck of my teenaged dad, the sweetest guy who ever lived. I think of that poor baby’s death often, and put flowers on his grave every Good Friday.

Child death, as heartrending as it is, can be handled appropriately in children’s literature: two cases I can think of are in the first Betsy-Tacy book (in which a character’s baby sister succumbs to an illness) and in “A Bridge to Terabithia” (in which the main character’s best friend dies in an accident). Katherine Paterson, the author of “Terabithia” and many other brilliant kids’ novels, told us at a local book talk that it’s important for children to read about sensitive issues *before* they happen in their real lives, because it helps give grieving children have context for discussing their feelings.

 

[Alisamer]

2 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

@Can'tBelieveMyEyes,  I am so sorry about the loss of your brother.  The loss of a sibling never goes away.  I know we've made progress in helping bereaved parents, but I'm not sure we've done much for bereaved kids.

My third oldest daughter who was three at the time thought that her baby sister had gone back to the NICU instead of having died.  She eventually understood that heaven was not the same as the NICU.  Personally, I wish now that we'd left heaven out of it. 

Apparently yesterday was Children's Grief Awareness day. (Link is to a page about it, associated with a charity that is one of my clients, for the record.) There is a national alliance for grieving children in the US as well. 

I think there are resources out there to help bereaved children, but they're probably not as well-known as they should be. I wouldn't know about that specific charity if I didn't do work for them. Right now I'm doing some print work for both them and a separate charity that focuses on health care (with an emphasis on mental health care) for teens. I think now more than ever that sort of help is needed for kids.

[louannems]

20 hours ago, sparkles said:

Confession: I’ve never read The Great Gatsby (or seen the movie) or read any of Fitzgerald’s other works either. I have no idea why except maybe growing up on Long Island I just got sick to death of hearing “You know, blah blah blah East Egg…” Also, at one point I read Zelda’s biography and they were both so off putting I never picked up his books. I should probably give Gatsby a try. Maybe.

For some reason, I love classic books with tragic heroines, which I why I like Thomas Hardy so much. I’m also a huge fan of traditional English folk music where tragic heroines who are horribly mistreated abound so Hardy fits right in. Tess of the D’urbervilles is also one of the few books that I think translated well to the screen, as did Jude the Obscure. I like Theodore Dreiser as well, although while I think Hardy is an eloquent writer, Dreiser is not. A great storyteller but a terrible writer. And neither Sister Carrie nor An American Tragedy (the original or A Place in the Sun) translated well to the screen. Same with Rebecca, which is one of my favorite books of all time. Don’t even talk to me about the latest Netflix version (although kudos for using Pentangle’s Let No Man Steal Your Thyme in the soundtrack—there’s that traditional English folk again.)

Still sort of laughing at Of Mice and Men being recommended as a good beach read. ?

I absolutely adored Tess of the D'urbervilles!  I never read it in high school, but discovered it later on my own.  I read other Thomas Hardy.  I also really liked the Tess movie and made my daughter rewatch it with me.  She hated it.

[sparkles]

3 minutes ago, louannems said:

I absolutely adored Tess of the D'urbervilles!  I never read it in high school, but discovered it later on my own.  I read other Thomas Hardy.  I also really liked the Tess movie and made my daughter rewatch it with me.  She hated it.

The BBC did a really good miniseries a few years ago with Gemma Arterton as Tess and Eddie Redmayne as Angel Clare. Worth a look! I think Amazon Prime has it.

[NancyDrewFan1989]

10 hours ago, PennySycamore said:

Or maybe Sarah is pointing out one of the pitfalls of renting.  Of course, the same kind of thing might happen with a home owners' association.  Probably not over one well-behaved dog, but a barky dog or a whole bunch of dogs or chickens or a swing set visible from the street.  The last actually happened to a friend of mine;  they lived on a corner lot and there was no way to have their swing set not visible from the street.  

Plus, Sarah has probably never heard of a homeowners association or renters agreement. Wouldn't the family check with the landlady to make sure that it is okay to have a dog before signing off on anything? Sarah trying to point out the pitfalls in renting by using the possible sale of Taffy, to me, probably just reminds people to READ THE CONTRACT before getting locked in and signing off. 

[allyisyourpally5]

14 hours ago, Hane said:

I’m pretty p!$$ed off about the concept of conflating forgiveness with Christianity. Non-Christians are perfectly capable of forgiving. And suddenly feeling all sparkly because Jesus gave you and your aunt a get-out-of-jail-free card over the tragic death of a child? I could puke. This is a damn ponderous weight to lay on a ten-year-old—or anybody, for that matter. It comes down to that abhorrent “all sin is equal in God’s eyes” crap that so many of our fundies espouse.

Obviously not the same level but one of my friends (who to be honest isn’t a friend anymore) from school was a very devout evangelical Christian (our school was a church school so had a higher than average range of strong Christian students but the majority of us were normal high school kids) and she was basically raised in the happy evangelical Christian bubble where God is the answer to everything and so forth.  Did a couple of gap  years doing missionary work (converting all Heathens and not-quite-right Christians and very much saying if they had God in their nation this wouldn’t happen, also asking for prayers to help them take over the charity work from other faiths being carried out alongside them) then went to university. 
She started university late due to the missionary work so was a year or two older than most students. In one lecture, she passed out. She was surrounded by a group who stayed with her, got her up, checked she was ok, walked her back to her room, stayed with her, made sure she had a friend. Obviously the next lecture she was back to herself and approached / was approached by the group who helped her. She said to them she hadn’t seen them at the Christian Union groups or at her church, and wouldn’t which ones they were part of? Well, none of them went to Christian union or church and basically said oh know we’re not really anything.....just a mix of atheist/agnostic/Christian but not practising (as many are) used to go to church as a kid......friend was beyond shocked.

This came in the phone call I got that night. She was telling me she couldn’t believe it, and wasn’t it shocking that non-Christians had helped her and were so lovely and kind to her and had kept tabs on her. She couldn’t believe they weren’t Christian - why would they do it if they weren’t Christian? I remember saying that actually those values are not unique to Christians and actually they are just human morals plan and simple and believe it or not, many Christians demonstrate the opposite of what you just experienced if it’s not one of them. She was totally lost for words and still stumped saying “they must have Christian parents” and more. Turned out one of them was Jewish. That was another phone call in shock.

This is how I see the Maxwells and others. They think the apparent kindness and love they show is solely Jesus and unique to them and they have been raised to think that and sheltered from meeting anyone who would contradict that. Non Christians can’t forgive, can’t be happy, can’t be kind, can’t have that special spark. 
Funnily enough I don’t see any sparkle in the Maxwells or anything they do.

[Bethy]

On 11/18/2020 at 9:17 AM, SPHASH said:

I'm surprised Mary drew that many women in pants.

I was surprised to see pants in the illustrations on the post as well, whoever drew them. Mostly because I remember in one of the Moody books (has to be among the first four, because those are all I've read) one of the drawings showed a little old lady who I think was their neighbor in a wheelchair in a nursing home, wearing a long, full, flowing skirt. In a wheelchair. In a nursing home. My grandma had recently been in a nursing home and I can tell you one thing I never saw any woman there wearing - long, full, flowing skirts. They all wore velour track suits - comfortable, stretchy, warm, easy for toileting/diaper changes and washable if an accident happened, and above all, SAFE for use in wheelchairs/walkers.

[Jana814]

2 hours ago, allyisyourpally5 said:

 

This is how I see the Maxwells and others. They think the apparent kindness and love they show is solely Jesus and unique to them and they have been raised to think that and sheltered from meeting anyone who would contradict that. Non Christians can’t forgive, can’t be happy, can’t be kind, can’t have that special spark. 
Funnily enough I don’t see any sparkle in the Maxwells or anything they do.

I agree with this when it comes to the Maxwell’s. They are amazed that people can be nice & helpful & not be Christians. 

[HoneyBunny]

3 hours ago, allyisyourpally5 said:

.This is how I see the Maxwells and others. They think the apparent kindness and love they show is solely Jesus and unique to them and they have been raised to think that and sheltered from meeting anyone who would contradict that. Non Christians can’t forgive, can’t be happy, can’t be kind, can’t have that special spark. 
Funnily enough I don’t see any sparkle in the Maxwells or anything they do.

Transactional Christianity.  That’s also what I believe LazyLori Alexander practices, and it doesn’t seem to have brought her much joy either. It goes back to that Good Person Test. Some Christians believe that passing that is all it takes to get into heaven. I believe that to do good- think good, be good- in the absence of faith is really the higher standard. 

[Coconut Flan]

42 minutes ago, HoneyBunny said:

Transactional Christianity.  That’s also what I believe LazyLori Alexander practices, and it doesn’t seem to have brought her much joy either. It goes back to that Good Person Test. Some Christians believe that passing that is all it takes to get into heaven. I believe that to do good- think good, be good- in the absence of faith is really the higher standard. 

They ignore the book of James at their own peril.

Faith without works is dead.  

 

[Tatar-tot]

22 hours ago, fundiefan said:

I am sorry about our brother. It's a pain I can't imagine. 

As for possibly losing a dog because of the landlady....why are they renting, thus having a landlady, and not living in a home dad bought debt free? 

I thought renting was a sin in the world according to Preacher Steve Maxwell.

[ClareDeLune]

20 minutes ago, Tatar-tot said:

I thought renting was a sin in the world according to Preacher Steve Maxwell.

I think Landlady is the name of another dog?

 

Edit sorry no, it is a woman. How strange for Landlady to be a proper name, rather than calling her "the landlady" 

Edited November 21, 2020 by ClareDeLune
i was wrong about something

[allyisyourpally5]

Blonde hair equals cute. Yep, she’ll be based on Abigail I imagine.

Im guessing Landlady’s problems will disappear once she is converted in the book? Or her daughter will be?

 

[Joe Pukepail]

On 11/16/2020 at 2:50 PM, NoseyNellie said:

Add me to the list that Teri cannot cook on the fly..that she needs a recipe for even a basic soup.. and cannot figure out the spices and seasonings by her own taste.  

Baking.. yeah.. that takes more science with leavening and correct moisture levels on many items.  

 

But I WILL give credit where it is due.. although the topic was pretty dull.. it was one of the more info filled posts in a long time!  

She can't figure out how to season a pot of soup to her own taste because she's literally never been allowed to HAVE her own taste preferences. She wouldn't be able to articulate them if she tried.

It's actually really sad, except Teri sucks and passed on her own trauma to the next generation.

[Black Aliss]

23 hours ago, Joe Pukepail said:

She can't figure out how to season a pot of soup to her own taste because she's literally never been allowed to HAVE her own taste preferences. She wouldn't be able to articulate them if she tried.

It's actually really sad, except Teri sucks and passed on her own trauma to the next generation.

How do we know Teri didn't have agency before Steve? She wasn't raised fundie; her parents veered that way after she and Steve were married, and Gigi is still more "of the world" than Teri. Teri went to college, presumably she made plenty of choices on her own.  Her trauma comes from marrying a controlling, emotionally abusive man, and the chronic depression that resulted.Or maybe the depression came first, and led her to choose someone who would make all decisions for her. 

[Bluebirdbluebell]

1 hour ago, Black Aliss said:

How do we know Teri didn't have agency before Steve? She wasn't raised fundie; her parents veered that way after she and Steve were married, and Gigi is still more "of the world" than Teri. Teri went to college, presumably she made plenty of choices on her own.  Her trauma comes from marrying a controlling, emotionally abusive man, and the chronic depression that resulted.Or maybe the depression came first, and led her to choose someone who would make all decisions for her. 

She married Steve on her 19th birthday according to fundiewiki. People can be very different in those late teen years, but a lot of young people haven't found their voice and opinions and are still used to looking to their parents for guidance or trying to please their parents and live up to their expectations.

[Jana814]

I wonder if Teri thought that Steve would be different. He went from a somewhat regular person to a religious nutcase. 

[Black Aliss]

1 hour ago, Bluebirdbluebell said:

She married Steve on her 19th birthday according to fundiewiki. People can be very different in those late teen years, but a lot of young people haven't found their voice and opinions and are still used to looking to their parents for guidance or trying to please their parents and live up to their expectations.

I didn't realize she was that young! Assuming she was dating Steve for a year or more before they married, and assuming he was always the control freak that he is now, yeah, she never really had a chance to figure out who she was, what she liked.

[Melissa1977]

On 11/20/2020 at 6:55 PM, fundiefan said:

than

 

5 hours ago, Black Aliss said:

How do we know Teri didn't have agency before Steve? She wasn't raised fundie; her parents veered that way after she and Steve were married, and Gigi is still more "of the world" than Teri. Teri went to college, presumably she made plenty of choices on her own.  Her trauma comes from marrying a controlling, emotionally abusive man, and the chronic depression that resulted.Or maybe the depression came first, and led her to choose someone who would make all decisions for her. 

Teri was very conservative. And probably depressed before even marrying. Definitely not a fun-loving modern college student. She hated motherhood since the first kid, but she was committed to be a SAHM since the beginning (despite not being fundie then). I think she, like Lori, prefered the isolation of home than to face the responsibilities of a job, workmates, etc.

She's not a victim of Steve. Both feed the other obsessions. I think Teri has made a lot of (bad) decisions herself. 

[mango_fandango]

The Clarke family aren’t the same as the Moodys. For one thing, there are only TWO kids, and Emma didn’t have faith at the start of Finding Change. Her mother only became a Christian after little Jessica died two years ago. Emma is of course homeschooled anyway. I bet Sarah couldn’t ever imagine having one of her characters in public school, seeing as she has no idea what actually happens in them, only the bullshit Steve and Teri have fed her over the years.

Also, Mary only did the front cover illustration. The rest were done by Abigail Koilpillai. I’m guessing she has similar modesty standards to the Maxwells, but decided to draw many of the women in pants because that’s how many women dress these days, and it’d be unrealistic if they were all in maxi skirts and had on double-layer t-shirts. 

Edited November 23, 2020 by mango_fandango

[ClareDeLune]

They have done a blog about highlighter pens and it has cheered me right up for the day ? https://blog.titus2.com/2020/11/23/our-best-resources-to-underline-and-highlight-bible-passages/

Quote

Some prefer to highlight, some underline, and some both. Highlighting was all we knew for years until recently some have come to love underlining. It takes more time to underline, but it looks “cleaner.” 

I love a new set of Sharpies like the next girl, but I am really tickled by the product placement in pages of the bible. ?