Conformity

As a kid, I didn’t fit in well at school. I was awkward. I was gender messy, even as early as the third grade. So, as you might expect, I was bullied mercilessly.

I tried to be authentic, but think back with me to the third grade. Being authentic was always the wrong answer. My classmates wanted conformity, and I knew what I needed to do. If I conformed to the cool girls, I could get by — yet, even at the age when peer pressure reigned supreme, I couldn’t do it.

I was different in so many wild and wonderful ways. For one, I liked church. And I didn’t have as much money as my classmates, so I didn’t have cool clothes.

There was a poster in the nurse’s office that showed a bunch of roosters and one of them had a real hair comb. It read: Dare to be Different. I looked at that poster every time I went to the nurse, and thought, Eff that; I don’t like being different. I wasn’t willing to pay the price to be cool, so I conformed. But I never fit in. Neither the girls nor guys in my class knew what to make of me.

I came by my small-town sensibility honestly. I was born in Holland, Michigan, a little Dutch Sim-City founded in the mid-1800s by Calvinist immigrants from the Netherlands. They rebuilt their new home in true Dutch tradition, bringing their church and their traditions with them. A Dutch Reformed Church sits in the middle of town, a Dutch windmill near a tributary, and many streets are lined with tulips.

I have childhood memories of the town, and also of leaving it. When the big truck pulled up to our house, “United Van Lines” written across the side, I naturally assumed it was a Dutch name and couldn’t understand why the driver didn’t answer when I called him Mr. Van Lines. You can imagine how Rochester, New York was going to be a culture shock to a seven-year-old.

By age ten, I was pretty sure I was going to be a baseball player, but at the same time, I really loved church. As a pastor’s daughter, I tagged along when my dad preached at various congregations. There is a tradition in our denomination called “pulpit supply,” which means you were available to take a spot on a pulpit when needed. (This also allowed pastors to occasionally take a vacation!)

Churches loved my father, not just for what he preached but because he was a fresh voice. I loved going with him. I was an extroverted kid and I felt special traveling on pulpit supply trips. Plus, the arrival of a child with the guest preacher was a novelty, and I loved the attention. We visited a wide variety of churches and, since the seminary where my dad worked was ecumenical, I was continually exposed to different faith traditions. I also had a rating system for the quantity and quality of the after-church cookies and drinks, and soon had my own list of favorite spots.

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During the Sundays of Lent, we will be running excerpts from Ann Kansfield’s Be the Brave One.

Reprinted with permission from Be the Brave One: Living Your Spiritual Values Out Loud and Other Life Lessons by Ann Kansfield copyright © 2021 Broadleaf Books.