For one, my social life there was very limited. A lot of the students had been raised in that school their whole lives, and were very naive for their age. This didn’t bother me very much, just as long as I didn’t have to talk to them. But I didn’t want to be rude, so if someone started talking to me, I would talk to them too. Talking to many of the students was hard, because they had been sheltered from a lot of the world, and only knew suffering in terms of how the bible described it. They really didn’t understand what it was like to suffer more than an inconvenience. Plus, I brought a lot of stories from the city most of the teachers didn’t approve of, so I kept those stories to myself.
I was labeled a rebel by some of the students and teachers, because I had a lot of questions. I was a Christian, but I had a lot of questions most of my teachers couldn’t answer, and I was also very scientifically and logically oriented. I wanted to know if and how the bible could fit with modern science and morality. No teacher could answer it without showing off their creationist views on the world, which is something I couldn’t buy into. Evolution seemed a lot more valid to me than a bible story that had basically no evidence to back it up. I expressed this concern, and it was quickly shot down by the teachers. Evolution, in their eyes, came from flawed humans, and Genesis came from a perfect God.
A lot of the students and teachers were very traditionalist when it came to how boys and girls ought to be like. Some of them completely chucked out books like Judges, Ruth, Romans, and Timothy, just so they could argue that it was a sin for a woman to dress masculine and a man to dress feminine. That made me physically cringe, especially since I came to school everyday in a camo hoodie, blue jeans, and cowboy boots, except on Wednesdays. However, my homeroom teacher wasn't like this. She grew up in the outdoors, and understood that in the eyes of God, men and women were equal in every way. Sure, if you take a man and a woman with the same physical exercise experience, then man will almost always be physically stronger than the woman, but that does not mean only guys ought to take on the rough, physical work. My homeroom teacher was very adamant about protecting and exercising her second amendment rights, and while I never found out for sure, she occasionally hinted that she had a revolver in her desk just in case the unthinkable happened.
And, when one of my friend's distant grandpa passed away, she went with her family to her grandpa's house (where she almost never visited), where they found boxes upon boxes of weapons, from firearms to machetes, stored in several bedrooms in the house. When she came home and announced she had at least 150 extra knives laying around and didn't know what to do with them, my homeroom teacher invited her to bring some in to give to the class. My homeroom teacher negotiated with the other teachers to make that happen.
The next day, my friend brought in about 30 knives, which during math class (the class my homeroom teacher taught that happened just before lunch), were distributed among the high schoolers who wanted them. That's where I got my favorite hunting knife, among about 7 other cool collector knives I've sworn to never use out in the field. I have to say, that's one hell of a perk that only comes with going to a private Christian school. They may be nuts, but sometimes that craziness is for the better.
Wednesday was church day, and girls had to wear skirts, while guys had to wear dress shirts and khakis. I managed to sort of get around this rule, by wearing just a very simple black skirt over a pair of leggings during the school day, and rushing to the bathroom at the end of the day to pull off the skirt and pull on a pair of jeans I carried in my backpack. I was still allowed to wear my hoodies and T shirts, especially since I was always cold, and my teachers felt bad for me. But, I hated wearing that skirt, and I definitely didn’t try to hide my perpetual scowl over it.
What made things worse was when my teachers announced every student was required to give a sermon at least once that year, and were also required to participate in their annual school play. I threw a fit over this, but not to my teachers. I bottled it up until I got into my mom’s car, and then I broke down. I told my mom through my tears about my severe anxiety, which she knew about, and she told me that she’d get me out of the play no matter what. I still had to do a sermon, since it would only take up 45 minutes of my life, but my mom didn’t want me to go through the torture of memorizing and performing a play in front of a bunch of parents, teachers, and church-goers.
I agreed to do my sermon in the late spring just to put it off for as long as possible, while my teachers scrambled to find all of the students needed to complete the play. It was already a middle/high school play, but since I was exempt from it, they had to go to the elementary classes to find some students to fill my spot. Turns out, pretty much everyone in the elementary school, including and especially my brother, wanted to participate. So, they had the school play writer, who was a middle school student’s mom, re-write the play so my part would be left out and replaced with a choir of elementary students.
Instead, I was given the best job I could ask for. I had to paint the backdrop for the play. The teachers thought this would be punishing for me, but they quickly learned otherwise when I could hardly contain my excitement. They told me that the play was based on the Chariots of Fire, and the backdrop needed to represent a few scenes from that, and then just let me think about some ideas for a few months before I was actually asked to do anything.
Meanwhile, I got more and more frustrated with the students and teachers when it came to dealing with God and science. Another Christian school in Littleton invited my class to a science symposium they were holding, where a creationist scientist and evolutionary biologist would have a debate. Both scientists were Christians, but I already knew who won the debate long before I saw it.
But before the debate, we had a few hours of classes to go through. There were 9, half-hour classes to pick from in total, and we were allowed to pick 6 of them. I got to choose whatever classes I wanted, so I chose the classes dealing with biology, such as evolution, wildlife, cells, and more. In those classes, the teachers also talked about theology, and I found out that evolutionary Christianity was a pretty popular idea. Those classes diminished my frustrations regarding science and God, and the best part was, it made a lot more sense to me than just evolution or just Genesis. Science and God were actually very united, and I realized that it was the church’s fault, not God’s, for making it seem as though science was an attack against God, rather than a study of His natural creation.
This idea was further validated throughout the live debate between the evolutionary biologist and creationist “scientist”. The creationist scientist’s personality was very likable compared to the much older biologist, but he really struggled to counter the old man’s undeniable evidence for evolution. I was having a lot of fun watching the creationist continuously stumble over the biologist’s claims, but when I glanced over at my other classmates from time to time, they seemed very uncomfortable and upset. A few of my peers even seemed angry, including the guy sitting next to me who was glaring and had his fists clenched, while the biologist was talking about how the church had it all wrong, and evolution did fit with God, because Genesis was much more metaphorical rather than literal. I couldn’t really blame my classmate. He did spend a lot of time trying to convince me that evolution was a load of BS, and was very passionate about the creationism. His anger was understandable, but I still struggled to stifle my laughter.
After that, I went home for the weekend and relaxed. I felt a lot better knowing that science and faith weren’t at odds, and I spent some time trying to understand a little bit more about how God and science were interconnected. I knew bible study at school would start off talking about the symposium, and I wanted to be able to defend my stance without being shot down. Of course, when I returned to school on Monday, those hopes immediately diminished when my arguments were quickly dismissed by the teachers and students. At least I tried, but I quickly gave up and just listened to the students and teachers attempt (and fail) to put down the biologist’s views.
Through all of this, I attempted to hide my Cystic Fibrosis from everyone. Everyone knew I had it, since I took pills with my meals and ate a lot of food, but no one ever saw how it actually affected me… Until they did. My PE teacher wasn’t great at coordinating indoor/outdoor activities with the weather. In his eyes, as long as no one was at risk of dying, we were going outside. The problem was, our school was located on a very exposed plateau, and I wasn’t prepared for Littleton’s unpredictable weather. Sure, it wasn’t much different than what I experienced on the plains, but I couldn’t see it coming because of how close we were to the mountains.
On one particularly gusty day, I inhaled a mouthful of dust the minute we went outside, and I found myself in an uncontrollable coughing fit. Nobody else was affected, but I could barely breathe. My gym teacher asked if I was ok. I told him I was, but that the dust in the air was really messing with me. He had me go inside, and I watched from the gym windows, coughing and wheezing, as everyone else carelessly played kickball outside.
This became a pretty regular pattern, especially as seasons changed. I also struggled to play outside in cold weather. While we had gym inside when there was snow on the ground, we still had it outside if it was warmer than 30 degrees and the blacktop was clear of snow. But, I struggled to stay warm in weather that was colder than 40 degrees, and I’d shiver so violently that I ended up staying inside, sitting with my back against the radiator, while everyone else easily dealt with the cold.
I had a lot of time to think about why I was inside while everyone else was outside. I knew why, as far as the facts. But mentally, I felt ostracised and weak. I didn’t see myself as being strong if gusty winds and cold weather could practically strangle me to death, while everyone else was just fine. I especially struggled if the two were mixed together, and I garnered a lot of unwanted pity from my peers when they came inside and I was still curled up by the radiator, coughing and wheezing.
Many of the students asked me why I had such a hard time, but I didn’t want to explain it to them. I didn’t really know how to put it into terms most of them would understand. I didn’t know how to tell them my heart condition, Pulmonary Atresia, was technically cured, but I still had circulation issues. Or how to explain why every speck of dust that got into my airways bothered me so much.
I thought about bringing a bandanna to school I could wear if it was windy, or wearing an extra down feather coat if it was cold, but it just felt wrong to me to do that at school. I knew it would be much more uncomfortable for me to basically advertise my CF to everyone else, rather than just sit inside by the warm radiator or walk around the perimeter of the gym, where I could have 45 minutes of alone time to recharge for the last 45 minutes of school. I’d also be lying if I said I didn’t eventually enjoy having 45 minutes to myself when the weather sucked.
Other than that, I avoided being sick for long periods of time. Since my school was so small and so widespread throughout the building, I didn’t need to worry so much about getting sick. That was actually tremendously helpful. It took away much of my daily anxiety which allowed me to actually keep up with everyone else. The only time I truly felt anxious was in chemistry, because I didn't learn the way my teacher taught it, so I really struggled to understand the concepts and felt a lot of pressure from my peers, who seemed to be understanding it just fine. I was still cautious about keeping myself away from people who seemed sick and making sure to wash my hands before lunch, but getting sick didn’t worry me. I was only sick for one week out of the year, which got me out of the mandatory science fair. It turns out my homeroom teacher was also out that whole week. She lived in Georgetown, which is a little Colorado mountain town. She got snowed in, and high winds also blew over large trees and semi-trucks, so she couldn’t leave her house until the damage and snow were cleared, which took all week. Since she was gone, I didn’t miss much at all.
While my health didn’t worry me, my social life did. I only made a couple of friends at the school, who were two girls in the grade above me that weren’t sheltered from the world like everyone else. We got along very well, and I’m glad to say we still talk sometimes. My friends were also worried about my social life, since I didn’t do much outside of the house. They didn’t tell me then, but later on they admitted they conspired with my mom to force me on a girls’ day out to the mall, complete with shopping and pedicures. However, I never liked either of those things. I don’t like pedicures, and the only shopping I look forward to is a day at Cabela’s, which is where I get all of my hunting gear and bison jerky.
My friends could also tell I had a lot of issues with the students around me, that I couldn’t voice since the school was so small. They watched me as I struggled to talk to most of the students, since they were far too sheltered and uneducated about the world for me to easily deal with. Even when I put complex issues, such as my CF, in overly-simplified explanations, many of the students didn’t get it. Plus, there were a lot of forbidden subjects my teachers warned me not to talk about, from the dark side of the city life, to the adventures I participated in outside of school, to my health issues in general. Those weren’t “Christian friendly” topics apparently.
One teacher in particular liked to harass me about being “rebellious” and “vulgar”. Truth is, I didn’t do anything that would typically put me in either of those categories. But, because we were at a private Christian school in a very conservative part of town, I very easily fell in those categories in that teacher’s eyes. He was otherwise a very friendly teacher, but he always had something to say about me.
I did my best to stay under the radar. I didn’t disrupt the class or argue with the teachers, but my very existence was rebellious because I was different. By then, I had come to terms with it, but I was lonely. There weren’t a lot of people to talk to who understood my experiences, and if I got caught talking to my friends over lunch about my more graphic experiences growing up, I was immediately told to shut up. Of course, I wanted to try and follow the rules the best I could, so I did. But, I felt even more alone.
What made things harder, was that most of my questions regarding Christianity were silenced by the teachers. Many of them blew them off as thoughts from the devil, which drove me nuts. I asked those tough questions out of genuine curiosity, not because I wanted to somehow disprove Christianity or was being influenced by Satan. Unfortunately, I had to wait for when I saw my grandpa Lyle to ask those questions.
Thankfully, my grandpa has always encouraged questions and discussions, especially regarding God and Christianity. So, when I went to his house for a few weekends after long and frustrating weeks at school, it was nice to sit down for a few hours and straighten out some of my questions. Some questions were left unanswered, either because my grandpa didn’t talk about it in terms I understood, or we went off-topic and both forgot the question completely. However, those hard questions always came back, and sometimes it took a few weeks, but my grandpa usually had an answer for me eventually. My grandpa saved me from completely losing my faith, and to this day, he still tells me not to judge Christianity (or any religion) by the people who practice it, because people are fallible but God is not. That was the only “God is perfect, people are not” argument I could ever get behind that I had heard of, because it was otherwise used against me to shoot down my questions.
I didn’t really tell anyone at school about my discussions I had with my grandpa, because I knew it would attract the censor police to me like moths to a flame. Plus, I really didn’t know how to dumb his answers down so some of the other students could understand it, or even how to clean up those discussions so they were “school appropriate”.
Whenever my grandpa and I discuss things like suffering, strife, human relationships, and other things like that, we don’t shy away from topics such as Hitler’s atrocities or the graphic details of war, abuse, and disease. My grandpa thinks it’s very important to understand things like that, so we could interpret the bible more accurately, and hopefully understand what God is really trying to teach us. My grandpa is always reading books about history, spirituality, and other heavy non-fiction topics, and he’s really the only guy in my life who can get me to read a book just to read it. More often than not though, I have to read the book before we can continue our discussions on certain topics, so there’s my motivation.
While these discussions are always interesting and productive, they are hardly ever cleaner than R-rated. This was especially true during 10th grade, when I was really struggling with the “good God, evil world” paradox. My grandpa had long since solved Epicurus’ God Paradox, but he struggled to get me to understand it. He never told me this, since he knew I would just get upset, but I needed to learn and grow more before I could understand what my grandpa was trying to teach me, and just reading a couple of books wasn’t gonna cut it. I needed life experience. We eventually got there, but it wasn’t until late last year that the solution to the problem of evil finally clicked in my mind.
Because of how complex and graphic my discussions with my grandpa often were, I kept them to myself at school. As much as I wanted to share my grandpa’s answers to difficult theological questions, I knew I’d be met with blank stares and an angry teacher. So, I just sat down and shut up, and turned to writing essays based on our conversations instead. At least then, I could get the gist and my understanding of the discussion out of my mind, and saved on an internet document.
When we came back from Christmas break, the school started to prepare for the Chariots of Fire school play, which was set to happen the night before Spring Break. I pretty much forgot about it until they brought it up shortly after Christmas break. My teacher asked if I had any idea what I wanted to paint the backdrop for the play, and I admitted I didn’t, but I’d quickly find some ideas. At school, we did watch the movie Chariots of Fire, and I planned on painting the university town Chariots of Fire was set in, because I knew I had at least 70 full hours to paint on four huge cardboard panels that were 6 feet tall and 4 feet wide. I had way more than enough time to paint a detailed picture of Cambridge University in the middle of the British countryside in the background, with a running track in the foreground, especially since the main character’s life was centered around those places in the movie.
But that idea was almost immediately shot down by the teacher I talked to. She thought it was way too ambitious, and argued 70 hours were barely enough to paint one panel like that. I tried to convince her that I was an artist and could do it in half that time, not that I needed to explain that though. She had a habit of slamming my notebooks on my knuckles if she caught me sketching mindlessly in class. She was having none of it. She told me she’d think about it (which I knew she didn’t actually mean), and then come back to me the next day to tell me what to do.
The next day came, which was the first day of painting, and she wanted me to paint trees. Not a landscape with trees on it, but just some branches across the panels. I was close to snapping at her for that. I refrained from turning our conversation into a shouting match, but as soon as she left me alone in the art room with my painting supplies, I shut the door and growled obscenities under my breath.
“Trees?” I growled to myself as I paced around the room with my fists clenched, “I have 70 goddamn hours to paint a few damn branches! She doesn’t even want them to have leaves on them! She just wants a few flower pedals here and there! There’s basically no room for me to be creative! What the actual hell?!”
I almost punched the wall, but it was brick, and I didn’t want to break my hand and have to explain to everyone why did such a dumb thing. Instead, I just sat down in an old wooden chair and rubbed my sweaty forehead with my cold hands, taking deep breaths and trying to think only positive thoughts.
In hindsight, I think my anger was a little over the top, but I understand why I was that mad. That teacher always ripped on me for drawing in class, which is something I still often do to keep my mind from wandering when I’m trying to concentrate, which made her class that much harder for me. I hated it when she slammed my notebook on my hands and barked, “Pay attention!” with a smug smile. I never actually reacted when she did that. I just stared at her blankly until she was back at the front of the class, reading from the bible. That’s where my anger was really coming from, and I still get angry whenever I think about her wide, toothy grin.
I decided to lay down the base color on the panels, which for some equally stupid reason was beige and not blue. I figured I had a chance to change my teacher’s mind if the base color was sky blue, but since it was a dusty red beige, I was stuck with branches. I eventually got over the anger and frustration of having to abandon my landscape and replace it with a few ragged branches. Well, kind of.
I was still pissed off and I hated those stupid trees from the very beginning, but I controlled my emotions and decided my school didn’t deserve my artistic skills anyway. If they wanted some stupid barren trees, they were gonna get some stupid barren trees! I could save my artistic skills for some place a lot more appreciative. I thought about half-assing the project, but then I realized I had 70 hours to kill, so I figured it was better that I used all 70 of those hours, and produced something that wasn’t an embarrassment. I knew my family was gonna be at the play to watch my brother perform, and they knew what I was capable of creating, so I decided to paint those stupid branches as detailed and beautifully as possible to make my family proud. My school still didn’t deserve them, but my family did.
I did enjoy painting those panels. Sometimes I painted them in the loft above the stage as my peers rehearsed their lines and discussed costumes, music, and other things like that, so I could make sure the panels were perfectly aligned. I had several huge tarps laid out under the panels, and I was actually surprised my teachers didn’t come to try and micromanage me. I was worried they would be paranoid about me getting paint on the carpets in the loft, but I think my teachers saw just how careful I was when I was working in the art room, especially since I didn’t paint with an apron or old clothes on. I wore my same jeans and hoodies every single day, and never got any paint on them.
One teacher, my French teacher, often visited me while I was painting. She was my favorite teacher there, especially since she had serious issues with how conservative the school was. She often ranted about it in French class, especially during the warmer months, when it got exceptionally warm in there. My French teacher had tattoos on her forearms, which was strongly against the school code. But, she didn't care. If it was warm in her classroom, she rolled up her sleeves to expose her tattoos to the class regardless of what the head teachers thought. She was only a part-time teacher, and home schooled her own kids. She only taught French at the Christian school, and after that class, she'd go home to take her daughter to piano lessons, and her son to whatever sports function he had. Thanks to her, I was actually able to speak pretty good French, and I could read a lot of it too. Only one kid, a witty 8th grader who was prone to getting big-headed, was better at French than me, but I always found a way to get that big-headedness out of him, mostly by joking back and forth with him until someone got stumped. Of course, as soon as I left the school, I forgot most of what I learned in French. I went to North Dakota where my family sometimes spoke in broken German, which is much different than broken French, but all of that’s besides the point.
My French teacher admired my rebellious spirit, and didn’t bother to censor me in her class (she encouraged it actually). She was especially impressed by how much time I was taking on those stupid tree branches. She loved the different shades of red, brown, and grey I used on them, and was impressed by just how artistically skilled I was. I thanked her, and I actually enjoyed her company sometimes, especially since the art room was secluded and lonely. Those stupid branches actually started growing on me by week two, partly because my French teacher couldn’t hide her admiration.
For the most part, I was extremely grateful to be alone with a paintbrush in my hand, rather than being forced to memorize my lines and dress up in a stupid costume that some kid’s mom custom made for everyone, except me of course. As much as I hated painting tree branches rather than a detailed landscape, I would’ve been much more resentful for the rest of my life if I was forced to participate in that play.
It only took me 40 hours to finish my project, painting an hour each school day. The branches were extremely detailed, right down to the individual scratch marks on the flakes of bark. I made sure to show that off to the teacher who said it couldn’t be done. She was blown away, but said I still had another 30 days to kill. Either I could kill those 30 hours doing chores around the church, or I could kill those 30 hours adding a few more flowers and details to the branches.
I picked up my paintbrush and paints, and continued working. I sketched things I wanted to draw in my sketchbooks while I waited for the paint to dry. My teachers assumed I was sketching rose bushes to use as references for the panels, when in reality, I was sketching scenes of wildlife and livestock for my personal paintings at home. They just never bothered to check, since I was easily startled when I was zoned into my project, and didn't want to accidentally ruin things for me.
In the end, one of my friends from class, the other artist who also got her notebook slammed on her hands regularly, got to help me out with final finishing touches the final week I was working on the panels. She only got to help me in the loft for a couple of hours though, before she was dragged back down into what she called the Pit of Hell, which was the stage a story below. I really appreciated her help, since she could look at my painting without knowing every single detail, and add in her own streaks of paint where it was needed. But, of course, she had to go back onto the stage to rehearse, kicking and screaming, while I helplessly watched from the loft above. I actually felt really bad for her, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.
