Some Family

The world is cruel.

It is doubly so if you are living your faith. The entire world seems out to tell you what you should believe, or think, or do. Everything would just get better if you would just be anyone else except who you are.

Then you stand up for yourself. You draw a line in the sand. After all, something has got to give, right? If you don't stand up for what you believe in, who will? If you don't, what kind of example would that set for your children?

My sister Lynn thinks that humans can't be witches. I discovered this after I corrected her when she used the label of my faith for a female unsub in Criminal Minds. She said it in a scoffing tone, as if it was so obvious that everyone knew it, as if the sheer ignorance of the statement did not occur to her at all.

Further correction revealed that she thought that passing down my faith was "forcing it upon the girls". All because I pray with them; because I include them in what I do; because I have discussed life and death with them. I live my faith. It is an every day thing for me. How can I not include my children?

What's more is she thinks that I was overreacting by correcting her. I was overreacting by being offended that my own sister was dehumanizing my children and myself; that she was saying that my daughters were on the same level as a child murderer.

And what does my mother say to it? We're both entitled to our opinions. Like it was a discussion about favorite colors instead of a discussion about the verbal abuse that Lynn had just performed upon my daughters.

Some family.