Thu 27 Mar 2008
Feral (Missional) Living
Posted by tom cottar under ministry, student ministry, theology
Feral. Adj. Describing an animal that has left a domesticated state and returned to the wild. Alley cats and pigeons are examples feral animals.
A few years ago, we lived in a small central Texas town and had lots of problems with feral pigs. We lived close to the high school’s Ag barn where various animals were housed and raised before they were shown (for competition) and slaughtered. Many times, young domesticated pigs would escape and wander off in the spring…and return by fall (or the following spring), having become adapted to the wild. The problem is that they could not become redomesticated. They would live along the margin of civilization, stealing food from cattle and other farm animals, destroying fences and gardens, and even would become aggressive towards humans and livestock during the tough months of winter.
One salty, good ‘ol boy named Paul once told me, “Don’t try to keep them penned up, they’ll knock everything down trying to get out. You just have to shoot ‘em and move on.”
We have generations of hope-seeking students and adults who have left civilized church and religious life and wandered off in to the wild. Sometimes they may wander back along the margins of conventional religion, but they can never be redomesticated. They push over fences in search of hope, discovery, authentic intimacy, and significant God-experiences. They won’t fit back into the neat little boxes of ministry. (I’m not sure they ever did in the first place.)
IMO, more and more of us are wandering off and moving to the wilderness. We/they may wander close enough to feed off the traditional structures…but attempts to redomesticate them are pretty useless.
In search of the God-life, I turned feral a few years back. Funny, how I’m still on staff at a conventional, highly-organized (and marvelous!) local church. Although, as Dave Mustaine so aptly comiserated, ‘the system has failed’, God continues to change and shape me in and out of my ‘ferility’. I seem to be better suited for living in the wild than among the civilzed (though not as much as some), yet sometimes I feel like my job is to lead others to feral living. Not away from ‘church’, but away from a civilized religion…and towards a dangerous, radical, table-turning, whip-making, unpredictable, revolutionary and Feral Jesus.
A Feral Jesus that hasn’t turned his back on His Bride (the church), but calls her to a deeper experience of intimacy with Him. Pushing over civilized, religious fences. No longer living for the show (and the slaughter) to come.
Missional Living gone Feral.
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March 28th, 2008 at 9:06 am
It would be great to hear how you manage to be feral and manage to stay in a conventional church. I’m really struggling right now. I’m so bored and sometimes offended by what goes on in my church, but my daughter enjoys the ministries there and my wife has a lot of friends there.
The sermons drive me nuts!
March 28th, 2008 at 9:27 am
we are a VERY unique church… a 30+ year old, SBC ‘first baptist’. but a huge portion of our congregation comes from a non-baptist background. many come with a very mixed bag (lutheran, catholic, new age, unchurched, etc) texture to their faith and hermeneutic of God. Many have turned their back on The Church at one time or another, but not necessarily turned their back on God.
plus, our senior pastor is great about letting me/us question things/traditions and seek God.
in my student ministry and worship ministry duties, it’s pretty freeing.
I’m sure we have some in our congregation that may be resistant to anything outside the ‘baptist box’, but we pretty much agree that God is so much bigger than baptist. And austin is a pretty unconventional place as well.
perhaps I’m just at a place in my life where I want God to show up and do more than he’s already done. And I’m beginning to be more willing to give up my safety nets to see that happen. I’m sure I’m not as feral as some readers here (I’ll let them -hopefully- comment themselves), but the seed is definitely growing more each day.
Plus, to be honest, surviving in a feral student ministry is a little easier than surviving in a feral church-wide setting. (student ministers are supposed to be rebels anyway…):)
March 28th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
What does feral church look like? Is it actually what the early church looked like? Maybe we see the sanitized, antibacterial formula church and not the real church at all.
When I imagine church, I imagine dirty people, with dirty things in their lives in a dirty cave loving on each other and the God they love. It does seem to me that the places where Jesus is turning the world upside down right now is the dirty places in the world like South America, Africa, China and Southeast Asia.
Maybe we desperately long for the dirty life and the dirty church. We are not longing for the good ole days, because the good ole days on our continent were too puritanical to have dirty people with dirty lives.
I passionately long for a dirty church, which has died to itself and has allowed the God of heaven to live in it. Tom, you said, “perhaps I’m just at a place in my life where I want God to show up and do more than he’s already done.” That is what is going on in the dirty world. Where Jesus is changing the world, He made. The North American church is the church of the Pharisees and the Sadducees and not the church of the poor, the weak, the whores and drunks and adulterers.
We have made church the place where the sterilized gospel anesthetizes hardened, feeble hearts with false hopes of eternal salvation.
In Jurassic Park, there is a line that is one of my favorites, “Life will find a way.” That is what you are experiencing; Life is finding a way to break out of the sterilized church into the dirty church of God.
March 29th, 2008 at 7:57 am
It’s an interesting analogy. I don’t think I would strictly apply it at the individual level. If we take the domesticated state to be western Christendom, then we are all the cultural offspring of that species. But as with the dingo in Australia, and feral populations of pigs, horses, and camels, we have large populations which have returned to the perhaps wilder pagan realities. And some of us were raised and shaped more within the wild even if we did feed and curiously encroach from time to time from the “civilized” villages.
As with all analogies, this one breaks down of course. But it can still provide insight. However, we have by this point in time entire multi-generational populations of the culturally and religiously feral. I used to read Jack London books when I was growing up. And I remember how the dogs stranded in the wild nevertheless always retained a memory of human companionship however much they reverted to wolf. But could the same be said for their offspring who never knew that touch?
I never moved to the wilderness. I was raised in it. In a lot of ways, from a cultural and religious perspective, I think I’m still more wild mustang than faithful quarterhorse. I hang around the stable, but I become skittish when they try to close the door or when the other horses go to their stalls. I like the food I think. But I’m unsure about all that goes with it.
In the summer before 4th grade, we lived with a family who had two horses. I spent that summer riding Buck. Buck was old and could be ornery, but he had a lot of character and didn’t startle easily. But when he did startle, he would take the bit in his teeth and run as fast as could for his stall in the stable. It didn’t matter where we were. That’s where he was going. And nothing could stop him until he got there. Once he did, he was as calm and steady as ever. I think I see a lot of that sort of reaction as many Christians encounter the comparative strangeness of our broader culture. They startle and immediately race for the safety of their stall.
I wasn’t raised with a stall and get jittery and nervous when people try to put me in one. It doesn’t feel safe to me. It feels confining and threatening. I look like the other horses and sometimes I can even act like them. But I’m not and I don’t necessarily react to external stimuli in even vaguely similar ways.
That’s a meandering comment and I don’t know that it exposes any deep spiritual truths. I’ve spent almost 15 years at our church and in many ways I’m still wandering around the outside of the fence. I love the oats when I can get them. But there’s a different odor around the stable. And it’s often unpleasant to me.
March 29th, 2008 at 3:53 pm
Scott, The last two lines are vitally important to me for some reason. Can you expound on the thought and the smell that is unpleasant. Not wanting anything super spiritual, it just got my attention. I am not trying to be a jerk, I am really interested in what makes the stable smell unpleasant.
March 30th, 2008 at 8:33 am
That’s a tough one in some ways. I was writing from a more visceral sense as I lived within the metaphor. And I remembered how even a well-maintained stable has a distinct odor and how horses unfamiliar with it tend to shy. Buck’s stall was the safest place in the world to him. But to a feral horse, it wouldn’t have smelled or felt safe at all. And as I was writing with that image in my mind, the words in some way just flowed. That’s just where I fit within the metaphor. And that’s how I act, even when I might seem fully assimilated to the outside observer.
So I’ve been mulling your question and I think I do have a few thoughts. I think they are incomplete, but may provide some insight. You’ll have to be the judge.
I think I want to start with the oats, actually. The oats are this incredible story of Jesus of Nazareth. Curiously, those who grew up in the stable don’t seem to realize how wonderfully strange this story is. They’ll talk about a piece of it. Discuss preparation of the story. Turn it into the routine and commonplace. But man, these are oats! This is the story of a creator God who is also the God that comes near to his creation and who fills his creation. It’s the story of a God who makes himself least and suffers while forgiving and loving those who torture him. It’s the story of a God who becomes one of us so that we might be one with God. It’s a story which teaches us that we are only truly human when we love God and love others. And the odor of the oats is wafted by the love demonstrated by the horses in the stable to everyone they encounter everywhere they go.
That’s important because if not for the oats I would never come near the stable at all, much less enter it. Having dwelt on that, let’s move to the smell. That was really the focus of your question.
The first thing I do want to stress is that a stable simply smells different. Just as in the real world of our metaphor, there are better stables and there are worse stables. But they all smell different.
Of course, there is the stench that rises from unloving words and behavior. I’ve encountered that in a lot of different ways and even when it’s not directed at me, I want to bolt. And sometimes I do. Or, if I feel trapped with it, I may try to kick my way out. This is not particularly rare, either. I often cringe at the things I hear people say, sometimes in some sort of an ‘official’ setting. And there have been a few things which have moved me to rage even though I’ve always kept a tight lid on that aspect. You’re not aware of very much else when you’re trembling with control simply trying to escape.
But that’s not all I had in mind when I wrote the bit about which you asked. Rather, I was thinking about the overtones of odor, some acrid — some not, which hover around a stable.
Some of that odor is simply strangeness. The liturgy and life of a church is a culture of and into itself. I was going to say you eventually learn it when I realized that’s not true. I’ve been in our church for 15 years and I’ve probably asked Tom within the last month why someone said or did something they did or what a particular phrase meant. So there is that aspect of it.
The stable inhabitants can also dwell on things that don’t seem to have anything to do with the oats. And this can make me skittish. I could go into detail, but I don’t think I really need to do so. And they’ll say some really bizarre things as a result. For instance, they might tell you not to worry if you don’t really feel like eating the oats one day because it’s what you think about the oats that really matters not whether or not you feel like eating them. Huh? I don’t want to be crude and I have some sense of what the well-meaning stable horses intend — that we should not be ruled by our passions and emotions. But still sometimes I want to ask them where they put the crack pipe. If I didn’t desperately desire the oats, there’s no way I would be in this stable!
Disunity is another unpleasant odor. Not just internal disunity, but disunity among those who should form the one, whole body of our Lord. This is the Lord who tells us that the point of being a human being is to love to the point that we are one with Jesus as he is one with the Father and one with each other in the same way. Love and this unity are so deeply intertwined that you cannot have one without the other. This new family of mine has made such a complete and utter mess of things over the last millenium (and especially the last half of that millenium) that such love and unity appears hopeless. And yet, every time I hear something unloving and disparaging about another tradition, even in jest, I tend to shy. It doesn’t smell right.
Oneness is not easy for human beings. It never has been, even within the church. But when we ceased making that something for which we strived unceasingly, we added another very unpleasant odor to our stables. And this nonsense that there is some sort of universal or hidden church which we just can’t see today but which will one day magically be made known strikes me as deeply dishonest and a rationalization of sin. There is no justification for what we’ve done. We should all be prostrate praying, “Lord have mercy.”
And then, in our present context, there is something deeply different in the cultural formation within at least the evangelical culture. People will often speak about things and though I understand every word they are saying, they don’t make any sense to me at all. I don’t understand why they are saying or doing what they are. And I often don’t really understand what they hope to accomplish. Almost any discussion about sex and sexuality breaks ends up at this point of impasse. Discussions of truth end up here. Discussions of interpretation (or at least what seems to be interpretation to me) end up here. Tom has received a lot of my questions here. They had built up for years, but until he came along I never had anyone I could ask. Sometimes he can shed some light. Sometimes I end up just as confused as always.
And here I don’t think the stable horses have realized how much the wild has changed and how different the environment now is for the feral horses. I’m sure the difference is no more pronounced than it was when this story about Jesus of Nazareth as the true human being and Lord of all began winding its way through a pagan world. In fact, it’s probably less pronounced. The difference is that church knew just how different their story was. I don’t think the present one does. They don’t consciously and deliberately teach this new reality. They talk a lot about stuff. But there isn’t the sort of embrace that cachumenates once had.
Well, that meandered a lot. And I’m certain I didn’t really capture everything that inspired those words I wrote. But this might give you some insight.
March 30th, 2008 at 2:43 pm
Scott, I am left in utter excitement ready what you have written. WOW! I could not agree with you any more than if I had said the same things myself. I am so glad you shared those thoughts with me. I was a barn kept horse for 40 years. Recently I went native, feral so to speak. I think a lot of it has to do with reading your questions to Tom and my deepest desire to learn about people who are not like me. I want to become more like them, and still even feral as I hope to become, I am scared of those other feral horses as well.
I think that is our human condition. We have come to not trust that which is different. We have come to be dispassionate about others, when the Gospel is life, we have made it into nothing mroe than rules to follow instead of being freed from the rules.
I can imagine a barn where the oats are thrown out for all to eat. The oats cast our and all who eat and all who do not are welcomed to come by and stay. I can imagine a barn where even feral horses and other livestock are welcomed and accepted and encouraged to take oats to their other feral friends and family and they do so because they love. I can imagine community where people are free to come and go and be welcomed every time they come back to eat the oats.
Scott, thank you so much for teaching me.
March 30th, 2008 at 5:20 pm
Thanks Jimmie. I have to admit it’s nice to hear someone thank me for my thoughts. I sense that much of the time I just make people uncomfortable. They don’t understand me or understand why I ask some of the things I ask. Or say some of the things I say. Or do some of the things I do. And so I’ve learned to be somewhat cautious when I speak. I don’t particularly enjoy making people uncomfortable. But I often only learn that something makes those in my stable uncomfortable when I’ve said or done it at least once or when I’ve seen others say or do it.
Before I entered the stable again fifteen years ago, I used to enjoy making other uncomfortable. And with partially blue or red or purple hair, dangly earrings, eyeliner, painted fingernails, much jewelry, high heel boots, and brightly colored clothes I found a perverse pleasure in the reactions of those I encountered. And I would challenge what almost anyone believed for the sake of challenging it. I regret that I often challenged the tame faith of those raised in the stable. Those were not my brightest moments.
Oh, I still enjoy looking at jewelry and I like to imagine wearing it. I enjoy bright and unusual adornments. I’m sure if I had lived and had money in 18th century France, I would have been happy to be a fop. But aside from the fact that it would look fairly pitiful on a forty-something year old man in these days and times, I know it would make my wife, my children, and those I know around me uncomfortable. And I no longer take any pleasure in forcing myself on others in that way.
I’m not sure if those raised in the stable realize just how much a gamble the feral horses are taking that this story, this way of being human, is the true story. Most of the time I passionately hold to the story of Jesus of Nazareth. I seek the mystery of union with this strangest of Gods. I strive to enter this life of love. I try to become a human being according to the way of Jesus.
But there are times when I still wonder. I wonder if the Hindu story is the true story. What if the Celtic neo-pagans or Wiccans are on the right path? Perhaps the Buddha had it right, after all? Maybe it was better when I was constructing my story of what it means to be a human being from bits and pieces of all of these? Sometimes I’m skittish just because I’ve been wild. And if the story of Jesus is not true, if these oats are not real food, then I’m throwing my life away trying to live in the stable.
I’m gradually learning to order and shape my life in ways the church of western Christendom seems to have largely forgotten. I’ve pieced together a rule of prayer, since prayer is the most directly accessible mystical connection to our God. It’s a simple rule actually. I’m a little embarrassed at how rudimentary it is.
For the last couple of years, each morning and night I pray the Shema as Jesus modified and extended it.
As I prepare to make my way into the new day or reflect on how my life has been shaped or not been shaped according to this prayer in the day just past, I tend to offer the Jesus Prayer at least once. This is it in its longest form.
Sometimes, I will also pray the prayer Jesus taught his followers when they asked him to give them a prayer.
Right now, that’s pretty much it. I do try to bring the Jesus Prayer and other breath prayers (especially one of my favorites, God is love) into my daily existence, but I’m not particularly good at that. I also try to intercede for people immediately as they enter my conscious thoughts. (I often won’t do it at all if I wait.)
It’s not much of a rule. And I don’t even keep it very well or very consistently. But it’s a rule I can at least try to follow. And it’s a rule that constantly reminds me why I follow this path, why I’ve committed my life to this story. I need that reminder. And I most desperately need the reminder to love others. I have such poverty of love that I need mercy all the time, which makes the Jesus Prayer so appropriate.
(It was about two years ago when I discovered that the Jesus Prayer was actually called that and that it was one of the oldest prayer traditions of the Church. I had been using it for years already at that point. There is truly little new under the sun.)
I’ve meandered again, rather randomly all over the map. Ah well. Maybe that’s why I thought of and identified more with wild horses than with feral pigs.
May the Lord bless you and keep you: May the Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious unto you: May the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen.
March 30th, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Scott, being baptist is not always a great thing. I would love to know all of the old prayers and blessings that the more traditional of churches use. But, that in itself would drive off the feral among us. Maybe deep-end Christianity is best spoken in the prayer closet and lived out in public.
The barn raised horses have forgotten what love truly is for the feral. We have failed to love, we have only grown fat loving ourselves and the others in the barn and to hell with everyone else.
BTW, I used to own a restaurant and only hired people with colorful hair. My favorite color was brillian blue. I love that color. I enjoy the PUNK look, but could not carry it off with my fat body.
March 30th, 2008 at 11:21 pm
I’m a little confused. The only label within Christianity to which I can lay any claim is “Baptist”. I may not be a particularly good Baptist and I may not always want to be or be known as a Baptist, but I’ve never actually been anything else as a Christian. It has been my experience, limited in Baptist exposure as it is, that our tradition is not particularly good (or I’ve been a poor student) at teaching us how to restructure the rhythms of our days and lives around Jesus and his commands. Sometimes there seems to be a fear around such communal disciplines that I’ve never been able to fathom.
I’ve spent much time with the different prayer books and traditions of the church. But I’ve not incorporated any of those into my own rule of prayer. It’s not because I don’t appreciate them. Rather, in our tradition I don’t have anyone who will teach me how to use them. And I’m deeply aware that a discipline misapplied can wreak havoc rather than good.
And so I keep my prayer rule simple and based wholly on scripture, to which our tradition does lay claim. We can be certain that Jesus prayed the Shema at least morning and night and from the whole of the gospels and what his followers later wrote, it seems clear he prayed it (and taught others to pray it) in his revised and extended form. The Jesus Prayer is drawn from the prayer of the publican. And the Lord’s Prayer also comes straight from the gospels.
I hadn’t intended to write any more, so I closed with a blessing from Deuteronomy. It’s actually a blessing I learned from a Jewish friend before I would have called myself a Christian. But I loved it then and love it still. I do now conclude it with the deeply Trinitarian closing. For, of course, the dance of the Trinity lies at the core of our faith. I also have a sense we fail to bless each other enough. We do not seem to hesitate to curse another. And that seems to make blessing as a deliberate act all the more important.
I do believe that prayer is a central and shared communal act of the Church united, even when we pray in private. As such, I don’t think I believe that prayer is a private or secret matter. As our Lord teaches, we should never pray for the purpose of public recognition or approval or we already have all we will ever get from it. But as he also teaches, prayer is something we do together.
Or did I misunderstand your concern? I apologize if I did. I often misunderstand things that seem clear and obvious to my fellow Baptists. I keep trying to learn, but it’s truly much harder than it perhaps looks.
I don’t understand the implication that teaching people how to pray, live, and order their lives as Christians would scare off the feral. The post-Christendom wild is full or spiritualities, any of which must be learned and practiced. I have learned that things like this tend to make the Baptist-bred nervous, but I’ve never figured out why.
Love is hard for all of us, but oh so central. Love, practical and direct love, is what brought me here, after all. But I think we all struggle to love rather than be ruled by our selfish passions.
And blue is my favorite color.
March 31st, 2008 at 9:59 am
Scott, I was raised Southern Baptist, Went to Southern Baptist colleges and to a Southern Baptist seminary. I even was a minister in Southern Baptist churches for 20 years. I do not just look through SBC glasses, but even (joke) pray toward Nashville 5 times a day.
I encouraged all of the guys to wear bright blue hair at least once every six months because it was my favorite. The real bright yeallow was not one I enjoyed, but Clown Red was pretty cool. I had one employee who influenced me greatly and he would change hair color almost once a month. He had both eyebrows pierced and had dumbells in them. He had a huge phoenix tatooed on his back as well. He taught be a lot about being feral, but I did not take any of it to heart as lifechanging until I did his funeral. Now I think back on different conversations I had with Jason, much like these on here, and I just think how he wanted a Christian community to belong to, but not with a bunch of “posers.” He hated christian “posers” and enjoyed ridiculing them. He was right about every one of them though, he could spot the real deal a mile off and a poser from 10 miles off. He was great at that.
I cannot say thank you enough and I am so glad I get the chance to stand around the barn with men like you!
March 31st, 2008 at 11:35 am
I have a mild phobia of knives, needles, and other sharp, pokey things. The idea of sitting still while someone jabs me repeatedly with a needle sends heebie-jeebies up and down my spine. And a single pierced ear, little more than a shot actually, was as far as I was willing to go. So I’ll never be multiply pierced or tattoo’ed.
I did share a picture with Tom of my older son with his blue mohawk, though. I suppose he comes by that aspect of his personality honestly.
Hmmm. And Nashville is to the east of you I believe. And early Christians did tend to pray facing east…
March 31st, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I almost coughed myself off of my computer chair when I read about praying to the east. I am still having trouble focusing from laughing and coughing so much.
The Some ont he Main building at Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth is a golden color. We always said that we were at Mecca when we were in class. Especially in the theology school. YUCK! I was in the education school at seminary and we thought that preachers were a dime a dozen by the way they were paid once they graduated compared to us ed/youth guys.
I currently wear an Army Drill Instructor hair cut. It is salt and pepper and my oldest is now thinking long hair is cool. I like the look personally, but I have a bald spot now and I cannot pull off long hair any more. Growing up sure does make you feel old sometimes.
April 1st, 2008 at 12:47 am
holy crap this is like the best thing i have read in along time. tom, i think i love ya.
April 1st, 2008 at 8:45 am
Howie, we’ve got room for you in Austin!
April 1st, 2008 at 8:45 am
you, too, mcminn!
April 1st, 2008 at 8:50 am
One of my questions is how do you battle the fences?
I’m not really speaking about traditionalism here. More along the lines of personal fences. How do you keep from slipping back towards civilization and all it’s trappings and creature comforts? At times, it’s not attractive at all (e.g. stef and I have been looking for a ‘christian’ magazine subscription to give as a prize one week in April…but everything I’ve found is pretty lame) But other times the safety nets of civilized living are attractive–even if we’re turned off by their taste and smell.
April 1st, 2008 at 2:58 pm
Why are some of us feral? I met with a young man today who is attending a Southern Baptist Seminary. We have corresponded via our blogs, but never met in person. I found myself a bit fearful about meeting him. What if he doesn’t like me because of something he finds out about me?
We had a good conversation in which we found a few areas of disagreement. I still like the guy. Still look forward to seeing what God has in store for him, but I can’t help but wonder if he’s now less impressed because he found areas of disagreement.
I guess that’s why I’m feral. Just tired of getting rejected by my own. Strange how a Christian community can be so tight and small.
April 1st, 2008 at 3:27 pm
howie,
when i was in college I wanted to be feral.
when i was in seminary (Southwestern, Ft. Worth), i thought I was afraid of feral christians. they smelled like trouble.
Once I left seminary (prematurely, but just in time) i realized it was me that smelled like trouble. He may initially be ‘less impressed’…I’ve been guilty of that in years past. Now i get really intimidated by those with a better ’sense’ of Jesus (if that makes any sense at all???) I run across people..and the spirit identifies with them that they really KNOW God…walk with him…in an almost mystical kind of way. Those are the ones I’m a little fearful of now. not because of their demeanor or piety. quite the opposite–because they reflect my own laziness and lack of discipline/priority.
Some days I just want to be brother lawrence and wash dishes and pray and listen to God. Not too exciting on the outside, but feral nonetheless…
Brother Lawrence. Luther. St Teresa of Avila. Barth. and others. all cornerstones of much of our theology because they were feral back in their day.
and, jimmie….that’s not brother lawrence duhon I’m talking about.
April 1st, 2008 at 4:18 pm
Ok, I have laughed and coughed more reading this post than I have in a year or two. Lawrence Duhon, not that doe snot remind me of feral at all. Maybe it should.
April 1st, 2008 at 8:12 pm
Fences? How do you battle a fence? I have this fight club image of you squaring off against some fencing. One week maybe it’s just a picket fence. But on macho weeks you meet up with barbed wire or even concertina wire.
I guess I’m a little different. I’m feral because I was raised feral. That’s my “natural” state and I tend to fall back in that direction and those patterns. It’s almost always a conscious effort for me to participate in the stable. So far, at least, it’s never because it feels comfortable or easy.
I have no fondness for fences, but I’m not sure I battle them. If someone tries to place fences around me, I suppose I do tend to go around, over, under, through, or otherwise circumvent them. But a fence doesn’t really fight you. It just sits there.
April 2nd, 2008 at 8:59 am
you battle fencees by trying to knock them down. Leaning against them and exerting pressure to remove them as a boundary.
The fence fights you by resisting the move. Resisting it’s coming destruction. I’ve had numerous battles with fences in SBC life. They absolutely fight back.
And thanks for the Fight Club image. Welcome to the Dark Side, my brother. Battling fences does indeed ‘remind me of my first fight with Tyler’, because all fences, IMO, are self imposed ones. We always have the choice of going feral, however uneasy it may be.