Spilling Some Tea (it's old, but it's still hot)

This morning, I remembered something that unlocked a deep resentment I'd forgotten about, and it is just another thing I look back on and wish I'd done differently.

First, I have MANY regrets about how I treated people, and I know I owe a lot of people apologies. If you're one of those people, please feel free to reach out to me. I am not reaching out to some folks because I don't want to reopen wounds that might have healed. But believe me, I know a lot of the junk from my life is my doing.

THIS EXAMPLE is not, and I regret so much that I did not stand up for myself at the time.

I filed for divorce on March 14, 2011. At the time, I was going to Sherman (TX) Bible Church. They found out almost immediately and pulled me off of a project I'd been working on for the Easter service. I had written a script and was supposed to be in the film for the weekend. The church said that they were giving me "time off to concentrate on your marriage" (they pulled my ex-husband off of his weekend camera service, too) but it was really because I had been too visible to be allowed to continue while going down the path of leaving my husband.

I'm going to address what I wish I'd done here in a moment, but I have to tell you the part that REALLY bothers me:

The short film that the team produced was based on something that really happened to the pastor of the church at the time (Dennis Henderson, who is currently serving in a support ministry role to his son's church, which just happens to be a few miles from here) who had been a police officer in Dallas and had sort of "befriended" a woman he'd arrested multiple times for prostitution. He and his family had welcomed her into their home and really extended the love of Christ to her. She kept telling him that she was going to leave her pimp and live a "clean" life, but in the end, she was murdered before she could get out.

Obviously, the Easter story didn't include the part about her killing. He wanted it to show that Christians could win people over just by loving them, no matter who the person was. Not a bad message, and honestly we should just extend love to people regardless of whether they ever believe in a god or not. But our task was to create a 15-minute video that would be shown at the Easter services.

At the time, the church did quite a lot of video production and live "skits" during church. I had been on arts planning teams for about a decade at this time. The arts minister; a lady I thought was my friend until my life got too "messy" for her; and I came up with an outline to the story we wanted to produce, and I went home and wrote it.

Not including listening to Dennis's story and collaborating with the arts team, I spent probably 20 hours at home working on and polishing up the script, then editing it after feedback.

Fast-forward to the part where I get kicked out of the process. They started filming it on a night when I was out of town with my kid at a gymnastics meet, anyway. I was texting with a friend who was involved in the filming and it sounded typical of shoots: fun. But not for me.

In the end, the project was completed and shown on Easter weekend, and people loved it. They made CDs of it available and gave them to the people who had been involved. Someone who was truly a friend, Randy Sedlacek, made sure that I got my copy, and he even invited me to the party the church was hosting to distribute the copies of the video. I couldn't bring myself to go, even though he encouraged me to ("you earned it!") because he's a solid guy. I'll always remember him fondly.

Here's the kicker: I found out that when people would ask Dennis who wrote the script, his answer was, "It wrote itself... it was a true story."

Now, if you're my mom and you're reading this, maybe close it out. Because I'm about to use a very un-Christian phrase: That dude can go fuck himself because what did he mean "the script wrote itself"?? Even if he DICTATED IT to someone, it had to be typed up and formatted. But he didn't. He gave us an idea and a partial story-line, and we turned it into something. Using my words. I was the conduit that took his words and stories and translated them into a film-able format. That is an art and a skill, and the absolute lack of respect for it and for me is astounding.

I'm literally shaking right now, just thinking about it. This guy who told me to stay in a doomed marriage because "what if Jesus is going to save your marriage tomorrow and you gave up one day too soon" wanted so badly for me to disappear when I didn't submit to the benevolent and wise male leadership of that church that he actually made me invisible. I wasn't someone who contributed heavily to the aesthetic appeal of that church for years. No. The stuff just wrote itself.

WHAT I DID: Nothing. I mean, I complained to close friends who were in the know. But at that point, I'd already been made to sign a thing that I wouldn't blog about what was going on between me and the church vis-à-vis my divorce. And I wanted them to realize that I was still the exact same person I'd always been and approve of me and accept me SO MUCH that I tried my absolute most sincerely to comply. To kowtow. To crawl through every single hoop they put in front of me to prove my worthiness of continued participation in the church. UGH. I did basically NOTHING. And they were still very angry with me about it.

WHAT I WISH I'D DONE: Revoked my permission for them to use my script. At that point, they probably already had it. But I wish I'd written certified letters to every member of leadership demanding that they write another script and not use mine because if they didn't want me involved, that was the only honorable thing to do. That they would use my work that was invisible while making sure my face didn't show up anywhere is vile. 

I don't think it would have changed anything, but I wish I'd expressed my anger and wish to be absolutely removed from everything. And then when they used it anyway, I wish I'd written about THAT. I wish I'd written about EVERYTHING in REAL TIME. I wish I'd had the strength to say,"If you don't like what I'm making public, then maybe don't do it in private."

They were a bunch of bullies who genuinely thought they were shepherding me in God's will. This is one reason that I will never EVER spiritually submit myself to another human as long as I live. It's one thing to make stupid decisions for yourself and get hurt, but to think that you can try to persuade someone else to made bad choices because YOU feel like there's some edict from above that it's your calling to enforce? No. I'm sorry. Not this lady. Never again.