Misunderstood Genius

It's rare that I write about a subject of current interest (those who only know me through my blog will contend that I hardly write at all), but the subject of Natalee Holloway's disappearance from a high-school junket to the island of Aruba struck a soft spot in me (I have a sister about her age).

For the record, I generally don't like to engage in gossip about a person I don't even know. But every time I see the news, there she is--a human mystery just crying out to be understood.

At the time of this writing, Natalee is being portrayed by the media as a poster-child for innocence and naivity--the victim of some as-yet undefinable foul-play in a foriegn paradise.

But I am left with the impression that she is probably one of the most intelligent and misunderstood people on the planet, and would have done almost anything to escape the obvious ignorance of the people surrounding her.

Consider the facts.

Item 1: GPA
Just judging from this woman's Grade-Point-Average she's clearly no idiot. Although, according to her mother (in a TV interview aired on Fox News) she's a "four-point-oh student, though she would say its higher"

Obviously Natalee is a near-genius, but we can't say so much about her mom.

I only had a 3.6 GPA, and even I know that you can't get any higher than a 4.0. Natalee clearly never implied such a ridiculous thing. Natalee's mom is clearly confabulating. I suspect she does this frequently to win arguments with her much brighter daughter.

Item 2: Church Connections
The pastor of Natalee's church had no problem sharing sensitive facts about Natalee with the press. Mind you, he didn't say anything specific. But he was clearly trying to imply that he knew things about her that no human except Natalee could know.

I sympathize with you Natalee. Obviously only God can know a person's inner thoughts. It really offends me when people use their incidental affiliation with a church to imply that they know other human's thoughts, especially someone as clearly intelligent as you.

Item 3: Pseudo-religious Hypocracy
Natalee's family is obviously not lacking in money. But where personal wealth and religious piety mix, there's bound to be big problems.

I'm not doubting that Natalee is a committed Christian. But I have serious doubts about the spiritual stability of the people around her.

Put bluntly, only the most faithful Christians can renouce bad theology without renouncing their Baptism. But when people try it, the congregation's big guns come out to prevent any kind of dissenting opinion from ever gaining ground.

I have a feeling Natalee may have experienced this herself.

It's almost impossible to be an "A" student and swallow every ridiculous scrap of theology an Evangelical church throws at you. In fact, though most Evangelicals would deny it, there's a mountain of anti-Christian concepts in Evangelical teaching that go largly unquestioned or are maintained only by fear-of-reprisal.

A really intelligent student if the Bible can't help but be aware of such hypocracy.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Natalee knows Scripture better than anyone in her family.

And that's probably a hidden point-of-contention within her family.

At this point, I'm still operating under the assumption that Natalee is perfectly fine, albeit incredibly embarrassed by the level of attention all of this has received.

I never tried to run away myself, but I felt like doing it on plenty of occassions. I think I even considered the Dutch Antilles once or twice, mostly because a person could survive there for years on very little money, and it has a nice tropical climate for growing plants.

Maybe Natalee had that in mind before she disappeared.

Author's Addendum: (6/18/05)
Having had the opportunity to review this article with some parental figures, I realize now that I was mistaken about the old absolute upper limit of 4.0 for a high-school GPA.

Through precarious manipulation of quantum flaws in the classic four-point (A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1) system, I am told that students CAN now attain GPAs above 4.0 (at least as far as colleges reckon it).

This oddity is a result of the new thinking that some "A"s are better than others (and according to the new system, I actually ended up with a 3.9 GPA, not a 3.6 as I previously mentioned.)

This is because Advaned Placement (A/P) classes are now scored higher than regular classes. So the truth is that Natalee could have gotten higher than a 4.0 GPA. The fact that she understood the distiction only confirms my suspicion that she is smarter-than-the average-bear, because only the best-of-the-best excell in A/P classes.

--Mattergy