Introducing my Red Flag essay series
Some Thoughts on Purity, Patriarchy, and Reclaiming Goodness
I am excited to begin dropping a series inspired by Red Flags within the evangelical spaces I was a part of and how they informed my identity and mental health. This series was originally prompted by Corinne Shark’s To Tell You The TruthSubstack, in which she wrote about red flags for redeeming love. I hadn’t really allowed myself to be this kind of honest about the experience, but this opened a doorway.
Below is the poem it prompted. In this series, I will break each of these down into personal essays. Feel free to let me know if any of these are familiar to you, and please write your own if you feel called to.
the therapist who gave me bible verses to cure my depression/ the women who told me not to sit with legs uncrossed or I’d make the old men sin/the boy who stalked me with messages that god told him I would be his wife when I said no, no, no/the campus ministers who said just believe him, he’s a godly man/the pastor who said you are made for ministry, but not for preaching, that’s not a woman’s role/the boyfriend who said you make me stumble instead of you turn me on/the deacons who made house calls to meet their baptism quotas/the time my twelve-year-old sick body was called to the front of the church so men and women could lay bands on me without my consent/the message embedded in me that a woman couldn’t say no to a man of god/the times I sat in chapel and watched others use prayer requests as a way to gossip and say it was essential for community/the men that led worship that wanted us to worship them/those of us who needed someone to worship and so we did, I did/ those who turned that worship into an opportunity for abuse/the learning that my body was a sexual weapon/ the indoctrination that made me hate that body no matter how much I tried to hide it/those who called dissociation a possession/those who prayed over my splitting like something in me needed to be expelled, without ever simply asking, are you okay?/the boys that said I have to confess I masturbate to you, please forgive me/those same boys who keep returning and asking again and again and again/for the worship songs that felt pornographic and triggered the hell of me, songs like I hunger for you, I’m desperate for you, fill me up, taste and see that the lord is good/the leaders that said to women speak up, but not so much that you turn people away/the slow death of self because some man on a pulpit said that it is selfish not to deny yourself/the years of indoctrination that made it impossible to tell what I wanted as a result/the measurement of what made me good or bad based on what I do, a stain I’m still trying to wash out to this day./
Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate your open heart. Love, Megan
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I have been right there in those places friend. It's painful to look back on. Praying they will keep waking up to the damage they caused. But it begins here with voices like yours. Well done.
Wow this is so vulnerable, so raw. In a way I feel like I can see you for this first time. Thank you for showing us your insides.