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News Release

For Immediate Release…

Contact: Donna Lee Schillinger

donna@onmyownnow.com

First Big Mistake Young Adults Make Has Far-Reaching, if not Eternal, Consequences

This spring young adults all over the United States will be graduating from high school with clean slates and high hopes, until they undermine their own happiness with… cynicism. The first mistake many young adults make, says Donna Lee Schillinger, author of the new book On My Own Now: Straight Talk from the Proverbs for Young Christian Women who Want to Remain Pure, Debt-free and Regret-free, is to abandon their family’s values.

A 2006 report from the Barna Group revealed that, despite strong levels of spiritual activity during the teen years, 61 percent of young adults disengage from active participation in the Christian faith during their young adult years. “A lot of very educated people have come to the conclusion that God is a figment of the human imagination, and they can make us feel simple and ashamed for accepting the faith of our families,” says Schillinger.

Yet what young people under this extreme peer pressure need to recall is how that faith has served them, their parents and grandparents. This should weigh more heavily when pitted against agnostic or atheistic peers and professors, whose own lives may be in shambles, Schillinger says. What we should garner from academia is research method. Schillinger explains: “We would not attempt to figure out from scratch how to find the area of a circle – we learn the formula that has already been discovered through someone else’s work. Likewise, if we wanted to learn higher math, we wouldn’t consult an English teacher. We should apply the same common sense used in academic study to trying to figure out our faith. Don’t seek spiritual advice from a Ph.D. in chemistry!”

Instead, she recommends, young people should take advantage of the conclusions that the experts in philosophy and religion have drawn. “Consult the great minds who have been influencing people for generations and the one text book that has been in continual use for almost 2,000 – the Bible. And don’t neglect to consult the people who have made the biggest positive impact in your life to date. It’s very likely these individuals are in your family and you already know what they believe,” Schillinger urges.

Schillinger founded On My Own Now Ministries in 2008 to reach young adults ages 17 to 23 with biblical multimedia to bolster their faith, encourage nonconformity with the larger society and stress wise choices in health, relationships and finances. The ministry’s debut publication released on April Fool’s Day 2009, On My Own Now, speaks to women in their late teens/early twenties, using gender-reversed Proverbs with real-life applications. Schillinger draws on her eclectic past as a rebellious youth, Peace Corps volunteer, social worker and more to wave the red flag of caution for young women on the path she errantly took. She also draws heavily on her years of professional experience as the executive director of a home for single young mothers.

“When the rubber hit the road and my Christian morals were put to the test, all my tires went flat, and it happens to a lot of young people,” says Schillinger. “Before I got my second spiritual wind, I had a child out of wedlock and a broken and battered heart to show for my ride. On My Own Now is about strengthening young adults’ faith to, in turn, preventing the screw-ups that can brand us for life.” For more information visit www.onmyownnow.com.

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A Brief Bio

A born and bred Texan, Donna Lee Schillinger has a bachelor’s degree in behavioral science from Drew University and a master’s in cultural anthropology from Texas Tech University. She served in the Peace Corps in Quito, Ecuador, and continued to work in social services for 10 years with special populations including adults with developmental disabilities, children with autism, abused and neglected children and the elderly. She served several years as executive director of a homeless shelter for single, young mothers.

In 2000, Schillinger “retired” from social work to take care of her elderly grandparents and homeschool her daughter. She soon began freelance writing and editing, doing business as The Quilldriver. Today, TheQuilldriver produces several periodical publications for non-profit organizations, including Hearing Health magazine. In 2006, Schillinger added publishing inspirational nonfiction books to The Quilldriver’s services.

An award-winning editor and publisher, Schillinger makes her writing debut in April 2009 with On My Own Now: Straight Talk from the Proverbs for Young Christian Women who Want to Remain Pure, Debt-free and Regret-free. She launched a non-profit organization of the same name, with the mission to provide encouragement for young adults to maintain their Christian faith when they get out on their own. Visit her Web site at www.OnMyOwnNow.com.

Schillinger enjoys reading, gardening, cooking and travel. She lives in rural Arkansas with her husband John, daughter Gwen and son Chaise, and has two children in the custody of angels.

Donna Lee Schillinger

Book Review for On My Own Now: Straight Talk from the Proverbs for Young Christian Women who Want to Remain Pure, Debt-free and Regret-free

At her worst, Donna Lee Schillinger had a child out of wedlock, was $25,000 in debt and had the mouth and morals of a sailor. Does this sound like a good role model for your young adult daughter? So, what makes Schillinger, the unlikely author of On My Own Now: Straight Talk from the Proverbs for Young Christian Women who Want to Remain Pure, Debt-free and Regret-free, think mothers will line up to purchase her manual on independent living for their daughters who will soon be leaving home? Even if it is based in the Proverbs!

Schillinger explains, “Imagine we’re driving down the road and a red sports car passes us and speeds on ahead out of sight. Five minutes later, the car comes back toward us. The driver slows down and waves at us to stop. He hollers from his window, ‘The road is blocked up ahead. You won’t be able to get through that way.’” As the story unfolds, Schillinger reveals that she’s that guy. With a humorous and ironical voice of experience, Schillinger waves the red flag of caution for young women, warning against the pitfalls of a post-modern, sexually casual, consumer-is-king society that is indelibly scarring youth with cynicism, sexually transmitted diseases and bad credit.

The simple practice of reversing the gender in the scriptures from which she springboards her commentary proves the Proverbs to be rich in content throughout (not just in the last chapter) for today’s young Christian woman. Then there are the anecdotes: Schillinger tells of the time she slept with her hands wrapped around her neck and her fingers in the shape of a cross to stave off a vampire attack to point out how fear can cripple women on their own; a hitch-hiking trip gone wrong illustrates the results of abandoning wisdom for adventure; and progressive pizza puke leaves no doubt what is meant by “wine is a mocker” (Proverbs 20:1), if not leaving the reader wondering, “Did she really have to go there?” Indeed, Schillinger is effective at scaring a girl straight, though not without the encouragement she’ll need to commit to a deeper walk with God.

Sample Book Review

On My Own Now is organized into twelve chapters on various central themes from the Proverbs and from real, young adult life. Within each chapter are several sections, each based on one or more Proverbs. Below are two samples sections.

It’s a Biological Thang

For these commands are a lamp, this teaching is a light, and the corrections of discipline are the way to life, keeping you from the immoral man, from the smooth tongue of the wayward man. Do not lust in your heart after his good looks or let him captivate you with his eyes, for the gigolo reduces you to a loaf of bread, and the adulterer preys upon your very life. Can a person scoop fire into her lap and not get burned? Can a person walk on hot coals without her feet being scorched?

Proverbs 6:23-28

Women love dangerous men. Though not quite a fact of life, it’s at least a general tendency. I believe there are women who have made only wise dating and marriage choices, but I think most young women at some point have been attracted to Mr. G. Q. Wrong. Sure, he’s so fly and looks so fresh in his Abercrombie, but he’s a player! And while we should be repulsed by the fact that he has a different woman as the seasons change, we secretly wish we could be one of them.

If we have a healthy self-respect, we may not fall into the player’s trap. Our desire to live according to God’s law and have a healthy relationship may enable us to understand that what we’re looking for cannot be had with Mr. Wrong. However, if our souls are needy or our self-esteem weak, such a conquest may seem to be just what we need to feel better about ourselves. Being his girl will earn us respect. Being his girl will elevate us to a higher social level. And we may have a little bit of the co-dependent tendency to believe that we are the ones that can make the Mr. Wrongs of life change their gigolo ways and settle down.

I pray that we will listen to the words of this proverb and understand what so many women have found out through years of chasing the wrong type of men and the resulting heartache. Mr. G. Q. Wrong will reduce us to a piece of meat, or, as Solomon says, a loaf of bread. He will come along with a sweet, sultry song, lure us in, consume us and make a light snack of our self-esteem. Even if no one else ever finds out what happened between the two of us, the memory of how that man used us will torture us.

Maybe we think, “Two can play that game. I’ll use him before he uses me.” Okay. So now we’re no better than he is.

Maybe we think, “That won’t happen to me. I’ll just date him long enough to add the trophy to my shelf and I won’t let myself get attached to him.” Are we the first women to have thought we could play with fire and not get burned? Our proverb says, “Can a person walk on hot coals without her feet being scorched?” Those words are over 3,000 years old! This is not a game we can win.

A woman’s seemingly self-destructive attraction to the most cocky and best-looking man actually has a socio-biologically adaptive basis. Our physical bodies are unconsciously looking for the man who will produce the best offspring, though on a conscious level, we just think he looks hot. Recognizing that our strong attraction has a biological function may help us understand and overcome the tendency to be attracted to Mr. G. Q. Wrong. Just as with other biological tendencies we must overcome, such as that of natural defensiveness against people who look different than we do, we can rise above our sin nature by using the magnificent mind that God gave us and calling on His spirit to fill our conscious thought.

For our own good – for our heart’s sake – we must make decisions about who to date based on a more sensible criterion than the “hot scale.” Though we may think we have no control over who we find attractive, if we determine to do so, we will find we can cultivate an attraction to Mr. Right. The first step is to stop attending to Mr. G. Q. Wrong and look around for Mr. Right. He doesn’t call attention to himself like G. Q. does. He’s going about his business. He’s studying; he’s working; he may be on the same sports team as G. Q., but he is a team player and doesn’t strut when he scores – which is probably why we never noticed him before. His name is not in the rumor mill because, well, he may never have been with a girl before.

With Mr. Right awaits the love that our heart desires. And as the days, weeks, months and years go by, his face, which at first we may have thought ordinary, will become preciously handsome to us. Then we will have it all – a man with good looks and a great personality. Isn’t that what we’re really looking for?

Hold this thought: I won’t make my dating decisions based on looks.

You Have Quite a Reputation

A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold.

Proverbs 22:1

In the late teen years, we become acutely aware of and probably begin to resent stereotypes. We see how unfair it is for the person who loves to dress in black to be labeled “Goth” when we know this person to actually be a fun-loving “goof,” and for the sporty girl with short hair to be labeled “dyke” when we know she’s had a crush on the same guy since third grade. Stereotypes are bunk! We can resist them all we want, vow never to hold any ourselves, but we can’t make them go away.

Humans are hard-wired to quickly categorize others; it’s a survival mechanism that was needed much more in the first 95 percent of human history than it is today. Today, we largely need to overcome our propensity to classify people in order to not just survive but thrive in this world. Good for you if you make the concerted effort on a daily basis to resist seeing people first as rednecks, New Yorkers, jocks, cheerleaders, punks, emos, lowriders, sluts, posers, Nazis, Asians, anorexics, dorks and all the other labels we can put on people based on their appearance or brief observations of their behavior.

However, just because we reject stereotypes, doesn’t mean they reject us. They cling to us all and that’s an unjust matter of fact. Not caring what others think of us won’t keep them from thinking about us. Likewise, although we may not care what they think, they do, and how they treat us, in part, is going to be based on the categories they have put us in with the little information we provide them on first meeting, at church on Sunday morning, as we cut them off in traffic, pass them in the hall, etc.

We’re not immune from stereotypes even when we get to know people better. Last Sunday at 11:59 a.m., just as the pastor was making his closing appeal, my cell phone rang and … I didn’t have my ringer off. I hadn’t been as embarrassed as I was in those 10 swollen seconds since … the last time my phone rang in church. Yep, that makes two times for me in a matter of a couple of months. When I got up to leave, a young lady came up to me and said, “You’re getting a reputation.”

Wow. Just two cell phone goofs in two months creates a reputation? It’s not like I’m intentionally being rude – I just forget to turn the phone off. That doesn’t seem that unusual to me, but in this particular congregation it is. In fact, I don’t remember anyone else’s phone ever ringing in church. So now I’ve got a rep of either being a rude cell phone user or Alzheimic. That’s probably not going to ruin my run for presidency but do you see how easy it is to get a reputation? It literally only takes doing something twice to earn one.

I’ve been going to the same church for over three years. The young lady who told me I’m getting a rep knows me well and knows I’m neither a rude cell phone user nor Alzheimic. No matter – my behavior, however uncharacteristic, provided her with information she needed to sort and store me in a neat category. So I’m filed in her mind under “Donna/cell phone habits/rude” or “Donna/memory/poor.”

I don’t deserve that note in her files, but there is something in her files that I do deserve: “Donna/congenitally, chronically tardy.”

Yes, I have a bad habit of being late and it seems to be a genetic thing. In general, I arrive either right on time or a few minutes late. Either way, it drives my husband nuts because he’s the type who thinks being on time is being 10 minutes early.

One Sunday when my church was honoring recent graduates from high school and college, my husband was to be among them because he was graduating with a teaching degree. In our typical fashion, we arrived a few minutes late and because of it, my husband missed the presentation to the graduates with which they had opened the service. Being late never bothers me too much, but that day it did very much. I felt very small for causing him to miss a well-deserved moment of recognition.

On the way home that morning, my husband said in all sincerity, “They should have known better than to put something involving the Schillingers first in the order of service.” Ouch.

Sometimes the things we do to warrant a bad rep come back to bite us in an obvious way. More often, we probably miss opportunities we didn’t even know existed because of our bad reps. For instance, I doubt anyone would ever ask me to lead the worship service because of my reputation of being chronically tardy. Maybe I have been considered for such a responsibility before and dismissed as not being suitable because of my “condition.” Maybe someone who knows about my condition has before been in the position to recommend me for a job but has taken that little piece of information they know about me and applied it to my work ethic and responsibility in general and deemed me “unreliable.” That may be unfair and inaccurate, but it’s not unfounded. Their erroneous generalizations are based in fact – my irresponsible chronic tardiness.

I can honestly say, “I don’t care what people think of me coming in one or two minutes late to a meeting or a service.” But I cannot say, “I don’t care if my chronic tardiness results in lost jobs and other opportunities,” because I do care. As much as I think they should be able to, people can’t isolate that one behavior of mine and not let it impact any of their other thoughts or impressions about me.

My tardiness and indeed all my and your actions are like pebbles thrown in the pond, causing a ripple and reverberating far beyond our ability to keep track of them. The same is true of our positive actions. If we care about friends, happiness, success or love, we have to care what people think of us – how we dress, the words we use, how we act, how we drive and what we do when we get mad. It’s all fodder for the reputation that is developing around us whether we give a rip or not.

Hold this thought: If I have to have a rep, I want a good one.

Book Excerpt