Fear and Trembling, Part XXXV

I love Kierkegaard. Especially on night's like this. If I'm not mistaken (don't quote me on this), he believed that we are all existentially responsible for ourselves. That we will made accountable for our choices, and that this creates a fundamental anxiety about freedom. We all fail, we all have guilt, we all fear death. And God. 

Lately, I've been thinking about the nature of my social anxiety, the sense of fundamental anxiety I possess in relationship to others, the debts I owe them, the death I fear from their anger or displeasure.

If I am not loved, I literally feel like I'm going to die. 

And this all began with a comment about emotional constipation a few weeks ago. R's pain. And, the cold water to the face realization that I have not shouldered my load, have expected the world, other people to help, pull me along. It is hard to face myself, to peer into mirrors. I hate my choices. I always have hated my pain, even while not understanding it. I hate "freedom" and would rather hand my decisions over to others.

The other night, in class, I had a panic attack. And, though I realized it's getting worse in me, it's also getting better. For the first time in a while, I entertained the possibility that the pain has some redemptive purpose. Maybe, just maybe, it is making me a better person. Slowly. So very slowly...Maybe it's burning away parts of my personality that need to disappear. Maybe pain is the only way to become holy. 

There is a light at the end of the tunnel, some whisper of hope that has not been there before.

Oh, sweet hope. 

The other night after class, and for the first time in ages, Romans 8:28-32? spoke to me.

Nothing. Not death. Fear. Abandonment. Shipwreck. Self-hatred. Sin. can separate me from the love that is in God in Christ Jesus. It struck me. I am more than a conquerer, not weak or insecure because God is behind the scenes making it all right. There is a larger hand guiding me. And it is glorious.

I never thought I would thank God for pain.

But if it's what He knows I need, I accept it gladly.

Hallelujah. 

So...

Things have been so crazy lately, the past month full of sadness. I broke up with R. I remain here, agnostic of my sexuality. All I know is the last spasms of pain before the end. 

There is pain here now as well and regret, that I put her through this. She deserves better than half-hearted commitment. She deserves someone who is not double minded and conflicted. 

After this break up, I do not think I'll ever marry. Little girls dream of perfect, flawless love studded with romance and part of me always has. Slowly, painfully, I realize it is not enough for happiness. 

I got a tattoo of a white flag which seems to encapsulate my intent.

It's late, I'm tired. I will write more tomorrow. 

Morning Song

Psalm 34:1-14 (NRSV)

I will bless the LORD at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the LORD; let the humble hear and be glad. O magnify the LORD with me, and let us exalt his name together. I sought the LORD, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears. Look to him, and be radiant; so your faces shall never be ashamed. This poor soul cried, and was heard by the LORD, and was saved from every trouble. The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. O taste and see that the LORD is good; happy are those who take refuge in him. O fear the LORD, you his holy ones, for those who fear him have no want. The young lions suffer want and hunger, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing. Come, O children, listen to me; I will teach you the fear of the LORD. Which of you desires life, and covets many days to enjoy good? Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit. Depart from evil, and do good; seek peace, and pursue it.

Light of Some Kind...

I'm in Williamsburg with les parents visiting with distant relatives from NY. They are frickin cool and remind me of my brother: lively, talkative, and entirely winsome. Luke went to visit a few weeks ago and had the time of his life with them and Nicole. I know why. They're fun as hell.

Tonight, I use the Holiday Inn's computer to tap this out. I just came in from outside from an interesting conversation over cigarette with a young man named Ryan He comes from a military family, is in the army himself. And, I am humbled. He told me about his experience in the forces and the sacrifices he's made. While he had a hardened look in his eye, used language like "exact revenge" and other hawkish phrases of it's ilk, it was not difficult to see him as a person. He's angry seeming, bitter seeming, but it was incredibly, well, humbling to hear about his struggles, how he lost his friend in combat, how he had to endure fire and sleeplessness and pain for his country.

I have never known what it's like to be that close to bullet fire.

Don't get me wrong. This post will probably not devolve into a patriotic salute or saccharine declaration of loyalty to my nation. It is not my nation which requires my loyalty, but my greater human family. I hate war. I hate the fact that people have to die over ideology. On 9-11, Americans died of the hatred in the world. Now, we go to Afghanistan and Iraq to die to pay back our enemies. Attitudes like his only seem to perpetuate the evil done against us. Fire with fire. Hate with hate. I can't help but this will make everything escalate.

But, tonight, I realized something. He's a person. And, too often, in rhetoric about how members of conservative persuasions tend to pit "us against them", tend to see the world in black and white and our adversaries as the "bad guys", I have forgotten that behind the conservative opinion, there is a person. He's not just a conservative, a hawk, or any assortment of other labels. He's Ryan. And he has the sovereignty of his experience and has his reasons. Like we all do. My "us" and "them" is no more noble than any other false dichotomies. Even now, I'm bristling at his language but a part of me prays for the to see him, and others like him, my father, with compassion, respect, and empathy. Love is such a hard road, suspending judgment so much more difficult than empathy.

In other news, my ex Wade e-mailed me asking for my forgiveness. We did not part on the best terms. I broke his heart, and, in retaliation, he broke mine with perhaps well deserved, and hateful words. This over a year ago. Since then, I have hated him, hated myself, hated the pain we caused each other. The pain I caused. It was a beautiful thing to find this e-mail, seemed like a very redemptive thing. Perhaps the letter I returned will help us both heal. It seems too much to ask, really, that he forgive. This, too, is humbling. A "follower" all these years and it is still difficult to accept responsibility for mistakes, to love in the face of rejection. To realize that I need to love my "enemies", especially when they are not truly enemies but people I have hurt. There is joy in this, to think some repair can be made, some restoration.

In still other news, I stumbled across the book UnChristian. Basically, it's a research driven investigation into Christianity's image problem, or, more specifically, how we act UnChristian. It tackles gaps in generation, how mosaics and busters (people from 16-29) see the world differently from the older generations. It briefly tackled the differences in post modern and modern perspectives. It's a great book. Though, my pomo age is showing because the author kept using the term moral relativism and my hair bristled and I was like: "relativism? compared to what?..."

It frustrated me even while imparting hope. I look at Jesus and see truth, beauty, freedom, and love. How He made the greatest sacrifice and showed the greatest love, and how He offered us the opportunity to reconcile to Him, ourselves, and each other. Then, I look at the church and see judgment and emotional violence and unnecessary combativeness and how people hate Jesus because of it.

Not to say chapters pointed a finger at me. One in particular knocked me back and made me do some hard thinking. But, this was also redemptive. Change is possible. For me. For the church. And, for the world at large.

We can make a difference.

I'm so thankful for God telling me to pray. I know the hope I've had lately is because of this...

A No Brainer!

It's no surprise that I have been "working out my salvation with fear and trembling." It might seem from the outside it's too much work to keep going. Though, it's not unlike being starving and denying oneself food. If you eat, you get energy. Life is easier when you're stomach isn't growling.  

Lately, I've been dying of hunger spiritually speaking. And, the energy required to reconcile life and faith has been exhausting. Something did not compute, not with the God who promised rest and an easy yoke. "EASY!?! Ha!" I scoffed, "This is hard as Hell!" 

Then, one day, I cracked. Got on a message board and reached out to fellow pilgrims. I talked about being both in the Christian and LGBT communities. That act alone, the reaching out, plus the prayers they sent up which I have felt, have been making all the difference. The act of surrendering and being somewhat transparent with others. 

It's all come together. The other night I was told by Mark and Willis I needed to "make a decision." Then, Cindy came over and kept telling me to "decide to trust God." Later that day, stuff about "trust" came up. Like Kierkegaard's "leap of faith", one has to just do it. 

Jesus' directive to "follow Me" has seemed like terrible work. Then, I prayed for the first time in months. Really prayed. And before that, it had been years. Fear of rejection is no excuse for not spending time with God. And for years, it has been my reason. What if He didn't talk back? What if I would be left alone? What if He isn't real. Or, worse, what if He is and wants to play a game? 

So, I'm praying thinking about what it meant to "follow." Move to Africa as a missionary? Follow all 612 OT laws? Get exorcised for being bi? 

Then, I heard a voice. Ok, not a literal voice, but a thought which resonated clearly and loudly in my spirit. "You will pray to me everyday!" 

Right now, this is His will for me. Duh. I mean, you have to talk to those you love. But still. It was nice to have a specific, not amorphous, directive. Pray. Sit with Me. Trust Me enough to have a conversation. 

Because, I realized, if I do this, He will be there. Eternal life, Jesus said, was knowing God and Jesus, the One He has sent.

Heaven is possible everyday. 

In other news, I need to find somewhere to volunteer. I'm thinking Samaritan's House, to help women and families which have dealt with abuse. 

Jaqui will drive! Yay!

On another note, has anyone heard this song? When R and I went out the other day, the chorus got hella stuck in my head. The lyrics describe this post perfectly. And my life. 

"If your friend tells you he loves you, DO NOT PUNCH!"

Life

I'm confused.

I'm a conservative with a liberal worldview. Simultaneously, I believe what I always have, and yet, I have adjusted to the complexities of life. Right now, I feel I must follow my thoughts to their logical conclusions...

A lot of new stuff has happened since I last blogged. There has been job searching and networking with the Department of Rehabilitative Services. A sweet girl named Jaqui is now working as my aide, basically a chauffeur and this has been fun.

Independence is neat. 

Today, my brother got yelled at for not wanting to marry his pregnant fiance until he has a job. On one hand, marriage seems like a good idea. Ironically, the reason he doesn't want to "make her an honest woman" is because he feels like without a job, without being an adequate "provider", he cannot marry her. It's a weird catch-22 and as much as my parents hate the fact that he doesn't want to make the official, legal commitment, I don't think they understand the fact he won't get married yet stems from the same motivation which compels him to seek marriage. 

I will file this under "patriarchy hurts men too" section.

Anyway, it's making me ponder the nature of marriage, of commitment. For all intents and purposes, he is married. He never leaves her side, they make decisions together, they have a child on the way. Their lives are so enmeshed and bundled up together, and everyone knows this, that I can't help but wonder if, in the truest sense of the world, they are already committed in a way that needs no piece of paper.

Not that "making it legal" wouldn't have its advantages. Benefits, benefits, benefits...

In the Bible, whenever anyone ever had sex, it was seen as a promise made with the body, that if the couple were caught, the man would have to pay the father of the woman the "bride price". As archaic and sexist, it begs the question if, in the eyes of God, if sex=marriage. 

Wow. The implications of this. 

This Night Has Opened My Eyes...

"I'd like to argue that we don't have faith in God at all. We have faith in our own faith rather than the God who transcends it, faith in a faith that will somehow save us." --David Dark, RELEVANT Magazine.

Dan Savage has turned me, of late, into an agnostic. He's "culturally Catholic" and sexually progressive. And, his emphasis on honesty and integrity has shaken me. 

You see, people can be full of such bullshit. 

And, because I'm in the in-group, I can say this, Christians claim a lot of bullshit. That evolution does not exist on the word of an ancient creation poem. That all things are blue printed before hand. That God will answer prayer the prayer of an American searching for a parking spot but would deny the request of a dying Darfurian refugee. 

One might find the story of Jesus bullshit. Here, the idea of God reaching down and becoming human doesn't shake me. Of course, according to Savage, I would be naive and easily appeased. But a story of such love strikes me as true. Honest. Grace, being known completely and being loved completely seems true. An archetype. Everyone's heart swells when they see acts of heroism, when somebody shoves the kid out of the way of the bus. Everybody wants to be that person. Everybody aspires to love and be loved, to give to be given to. 

But the other bullshit just ain't flying. My bullshit detector is honed to perfection. The fact that Christians live in denials has been intellectually dishonest. And, if being a Christian required such suspension of disbelief, I didn't know if I could do it.

And, in a weird way, I wanted to get completely naked and yell at God (I do this a lot). I wanted to say that "this is me. I can't lie and pretend. Take me or leave me!" 

This is where we get it wrong I think. We think we have to get it right. That we have to be something we can't be. And that's the rub. We don't.

Tonight, I opened the RELEVANT I was too scared to open; it's sat on my desk for two weeks (an article on abortion...).

God and I do this. I get all pissy and hide. And He gets this stern, loving look on His face. Then, She speaks and allays the misgiving. 

I found an article about doubt and how God welcomes that hard honesty; S/He was like "let us reason together."

I love when S/He speaks, it's not always about what S/He says, but that S/He says things. Or, speaks at all. I missed Zir. 

And my eyes were washed, and I got my sense of balance again.

They say 3 a.m is a spiritual time. I think it is. 

I missssssssed Zir (just like a certain other person *sighs*)...

I can't wait until Sunday. Mark and I are going to MCC. They don't stone the queer.

*gigglesnort*

Remembering To Remember

Lately, I can think only in yin
In pink and profit
Humanity traffiked through the one way mirror
Of memory,
Honest as a hieroglyph
Or a scale of cyclopses

I always blamed her mouth, a stiletto thin spike of focused light, the little girl perpetually poised
Over the magnifying glass 

Or that's the way it seemed

I used to believe in kindness diligently, watched her hands like garderners through wax fruit and
Rubber gloves, 

Before that last back handed 
Compliment about a lost shoe

I palmed a prism
And never said her name
aloud again

it was highschool
In a closet
Of psychic ties
Too obscure even for a scientist to recognize, 

And I swallowed the things she said
 eyes and limbs divorcing from 
Their logical conclusions

And limped back from love in monochrome

An Aside...

My girlfriend writes some of the sweetest things.

I love dating a poet. 

So much. 

That is all. 

Jennifer Beals Said...

"You have to realize how precious human life is, when there are tsunamis and mudslides, when there are armies and terrorists -- at any moment, you could be gone, and potentially in the most brutal fashion.
"And then you have to realize that love is truly one of the most extraordinary things you can experience in your life. To begrudge someone else their love of another person because of gender seems to me absolutely absurd."

OMG! 

Juneteeth, You, Me, and Story

Simone De Beauvoir, in The Second Sex, claims the "regular", "non-descript" human, in culture at large, is the male and that women are somehow derivative, an aberration to "mankind." I believe this also holds for race. The generic, non-descript person is still white. And any person of color is an "other."

Today, from my front yard, I could hear music from our local park and the Juneteeth festival happening there. And, I couldn't help but cry. It was beautiful to me that people who once had there culture ripped from them, could now begin to celebrate it again.

It seems odd I reacted so viscerally, and sad that it seems odd. On one hand, I don't understand why everyone isn't weeping, for the humanity we share. The fact that we can hurt each other so deeply.

On the other hand, I realize, a white person, that it is a privileged position that I can cry about something not specific to my history. I've never felt odd, wrong, or out of place as a caucasian person. It'S wrong to appropriate someone else's history, someone else's past and present struggles, to empathize with a wound I've only seen others sustain. 

It irks me even more that, a white woman, even a cripple or bisexual, an "other" in other contexts, race is still such a problem for me. And for America. 

Or rather, I hate that I am the problem.

No matter how "progressive" I want to be, it's a huge exercise in humility to realize, like confirmed "racists" and "bigots", I, too, have internalized several oppressive attitudes and behaviors from my family and from culture at large. I feel them when I walk down the street and see a black man walking towards me. I have to shove the stereotypes down when I'm in racially mixed groups. Skin color is the first thing I see. It's written into the culture, and it's written into my personal history.

It has been drilled into me, as de Beauvoir might say, that I am the default. Maybe not explicitly, but it doesn't have to be. I go to church with white people, live in an almost exclusively white suburb. When I go to a movie, I see my ethnic group represented. When I  look to my local leadership, I see people of my race. No one stares at me (because I'm white) when I walk down the street. I never have to "behave", or to act a certain way to represent my race. I have never suffered violence for being white, and I have never been called terrible names for it either. People like me are the rule, and anyone else is a variation, an aberration, an abomination, or a novelty.

Of course, as a cripple, it would be easy for me to say I understand. I don't. I may have an analogy with disability, feeling out of place or marginalized because I'm different. This is, I realize, only an analogy. Similar, but not the same. 

And, while conservatives claim that it's not "our" fault that slavery existed. It's not "our" fault that Jim Crow existed. It's not "our" responsibility to apologize for something we didn't do. They might say it's not my fault, nor my burden to bear. 

However, these same folks fail to realize how removed they may be from the experiences of people of color (it seems). Of I fail to realize how removed I am. It is my responsibility to get over the bullshit!

Sotomayer is NOT a racist. She, like any of us, has sovereignty over that which she understands, her heritage and experience...

It's remeniscent of well meaning people who exclaim "I broke my leg and was in a wheelchair for two weeks. I understand."

Let me tell you, people who break their legs only "understand" about two weeks of my life. They don't know what repeated exposure to rejection does to you, especially when your body, your circumstances, are not in your control. At least, not in the specific way I do, the way a differently abled person does.

Of course, the analogy stops here. I don't understand. But, I know a way white folk can help effect racial reconciliation, is to understand how little we do understand...

This is my first step. What the bleep do I know?

*insert smarmy music here*

Mark and I are outside, tapping away on our computers. He's wearing one of my plaid jackets and his plaid pajama pants looking a little like a lesbian...or, more specifically, my twin brother. 

Right now, I'm being a solipsistic limerist (if you don't know what that means, look it up). Today has been fun and sleep is beginning to appear attractive. Though, there is one problem. When Mark and I separate for the night, I'll be alone. 

Which is ok, since being a hermit by definition means one is comfortable with being by her lonesome.

But I miss her and, these past few nights have seemed longer than usual. Even longer than the past few weeks. Which have been long without her.

And, I miss her. I miss everything, and I want everything even though I have everything...

Is that weird?

Tonight

even the moon 

is breathing

Good Day

Tonight was good, even getting off to a shaky start. The family, all of us sleep deprived, headed home from the beach.

As you know sleep = sanity and I was feeling like roadkill again. I made the mistake of rereading a journal from age sixteen after two years of "madness". I wrote of the women I loved at summer camp, there were many and nostalgia appeared in full force. For the feeling of community there. I am much less social than I would like to be. And then it turned into oh no! God is gone again! (not true). And that turned into shades of existential panic.

Fortunately, these days, the voice of sanity is louder than it has ever been. I told God, and myself, that I would have "faith". That I would trust that the feeling was temporary and that I was sleep deprived and everything would work out. Instead of mourning, or freaking out, I decided to accompany my mom and aunt to a concert at auntie's church. 

This has never happened before, the ability to say: "stop freaking out and keep moving."

The concert was good and God seemed to comfort me. And, since it was a worship concert, I actually worshipped. Which, seemed superfluous before like "why does an omniscient, perfect being need us to stroke His ego"? 

Short answer? He doesn't. We need to see Him. I, personally, desperately needed to see beauty and purity and love. And, seeing and communing in this way, was nourishing and was a step of faith. It reminded me that it's not all up to me and there is a magnificent transcendence in which to lose the ego.

And, three out of five of the "major" religions recommend losing the ego...

That being said, I didn't want to buy the guy's cd since it was worship thing. But a nice lady decided, out of the blue, to give it to me anyway. I suppose this is either a message or an example of the rampant commercialism in christianity. Mine. And Everyone else's. I think, or choose to trust, that it was a message. 

The cool thing I read about depressives is that the worst thing you can do is be nice to them. If you make them function, they can. Because, while depression is an illness, it's also a neural pattern and a pattern of habits. You can't erase the craving to smoke, but you have to change the routines that trigger you too. 

God, I believe, understands this and forces me to stretch. Another instance of grace. C'est belle!

Later, I tweeted snarkily about "Christian culture" and auntie messaged me about it... This is going to be a fun discussion (not really) *groans internally*

What is Christian culture?

The fact we honor our itinerant, Jewish Carpenter by singing "Christian" songs, in a "Christian" place and buying "Christian" stuff. I'm bad as anybody, so I can't talk. But my conscience was pricked about money and my relationship to it and the way I waste it. And the way faith can be so masturbatory.

It's about us and Jesus. And our Starbucks and our apathy about problems in the world (guilty as charged). 

But I digress. 

Tonight was good. And now, I think I'm gonna sleep. 

A Night At The Beach

I'm back at my aunt's beach house in Nag's Head after a space no longer than a few days. It's 2:20 a.m., everyone else is sawing logs and dreaming about Santa Claus. lol.

Originally, I planned to stay home by my lonesome but my father, with skill and persistence (and bribery), wore me down. For several reasons, I really wanted to stay home. Accessibility, for example (being stuck in one place while sleepless with no friends to cuddle with like last time). And, of course, R. We were going to meet up away from the watchful eyes of mes parents, or, that would be, if they knew...

And omg. I'm clawing at the walls missing R. (More on this later...)

It's been a firestorm of emotional activity lately. I've been cleaning out an endless closet of old notebooks, and excavating the accompanying memories. From summer camp which was an amazing experience, of high school which was arguably the worst, of childhood, middle school. I have eleven years worth of pictures of Mark, enough to create a wall high shrine. Letters from boyfriends. Letters from old crushes. Old friends. Current friends. Old poetry...

It was a surreal experience to walk back down those roads, to read of joy and pain in my own handwriting. 

But, of course, the thing that stood out most was writings about the "point of contact" (though POC was a person, it's not about the person. Instead, the experience of an event. It was a trigger for mental illness for me). That weird moment in my life that seems to have halved it into THEN and NOW. It could just have been puberty (those crazy, killer female hormones! *shakes her head*). That would explain a lot, actually. But, I can trace all the SAD and depression to this one point in time. And this is weird because you'd thing enough scratching could relieve the itch but it doesn't. So you have to suck it up and keep moving. It's the only option if one wants to avoid being a rolling, breathing Heathcliffe...

Brooding is soooo last season. 

The good news is that now, even though I still feel it, I can close the book and leave the vivid sadness that used to spring up when I thought of THEN. 

Life is good. I like the blend of joy and sadness. How every silver lining has a cloud and every cloud has a silver lining. The duality keeps each experience fresh, keeps it in a tension of flying and falling. Right now, I'm doing both relationally...

Something weird I noticed, which totally escaped me, was that I thought my dyketry was "caused" by POC. Reading back, it was clear that women have always fascinated me. That several girls in my adolescence stopped me in my tracks long before ninth grade. At the time, it didn't seem anymore than "admiration." Even when squeally crushes would keep me up at night, shifting in my bed because I was excited to see her (whichever her it was) the next day...

Yeah, real "straight"...

Anyway, besides this non-event, I've been formulating some ideas. Today, inspired by Josh Blue and Margaret Cho, seriously considered stand-up comedy. I even wrote out some jokes about crippletry. Maybe another CP comedienne would raise awareness? Get a dialogue started. Though, the audience would be an interesting one.

Cripple, Christian, Queer, or Crazy? This would appear to be a unique, and small, niche. But a riotously fun group. 

Then, I've been writing a apocolyptic lesbian love story. In B&N, they seem to have a lot of lesbian erotica. A lot of books on lesbian sex. Though, not many good old fashioned love stories. Girl meets girl. Girl loses girl. Girl flies across the country to convince girl to come back. Girl and girl live happily ever after.

*sighs* It's love. It makes you want to write silly love stories. I miss her. So much. I can't even type how much I miss her right now. 

You have no idea. 

Purple Prose

The night before, they lay naked in each others arms waiting for the sunrise; that last, potentially noxious sunrise that would lay waste to their former lives.

“I love you, Tina,” 

“I love you, Bette.” 

They closed their eyes. 

Update

So, I haven't blogged in a while. Life has been great/crazy/terrible/interesting/insert adjective here. I quit school and, as my dad says, I'm recouping, having taken somewhat a downward turn in the last few weeks of the semester. In a way, it seems like "running away" but also taking a break and re-examining life. Priorities. Right now, it's my best (and only) option. 

Things are going back up. The big difference is sleeping. Some people get thrown off by the weather. Some people can't handle their alcohol. Without sleep, I am a nut case. It's just not good. So, I've been sleeping. And while some of my issues are perennial, sleeplessness intensifies the crazy one hundred thousand percent. 

Doing art work has been another good change. I've gotten into art work, some weird found sculpture. Not only is it a fun, relaxing activity, it's also satisfying and meaningful---to create something tangible and beautiful. Culture pivots on it's artists. So much is said, even without words necessarily. It is nourishing. And someone else might benefit from the work, which is its aim anyway.

And then, I saw people. Namely, Mark, my bff/fag to my haggotry. We spent several, stupefyingly silly days together. And it was all good. 

Weirdly enough, my father, lately, has been amazingly sweet and loving. One day, he brought "his favorite girls" flowers. Turns out, he had a revelation a several weeks ago and realized how much he loves me and how he has hurt me. It's been nearly a 180 shift. It's brought so much healing and joy. Another instance of grace.  

Consequently, I've been happier. And I'm making peace with God, life, and sexuality. God loves us. A lot. I realize how much grace has been present. It will still be a long journey, though, to find shalom. But He knows everything and loves anyway. My dad is a miracle. Mark is a miracle. Love and happiness are miracles...

I have determined to rest in that, and have also decided to "crucify belief", to hold belief in abeyance in the search for truth; so often "orthodoxy" muddies truth instead of clarifying and helping one understand. Words like justification, expiation, trinity, propitiation, with their cultural baggage, have done nothing but distance me from things like "salvation" (relationship with God through Jesus) and God's compassion, forgiveness, and love.

As for my sexuality, I really feel like I need to accept myself. R (or TGF as Mark and I have referred to her in surreptitious discussion around the house) is my girlfriend. And friend. And I love her. I love how kind she is, and how generous, and how creative and how she is yet another facet of grace in my life. 

Just to let you know, I don't think homosexuality is wrong. Or, at least, modern homosexuality (it was way different in the old school). 

This is not just because I'm bisexual (or, pansexual/queer). I did some research on the Bible which made me think twice and also found whosoever.org...the website flipped me out because it was so kind and inclusive and "grace-filled." Trapped with the acceptance which has floored me from God Himself. The LGBT folk on that cite exhibit a hundred times the grace of other "Christian" sites. 

Besides, the relationship with Rachel is making me happy. Not just the giddy, excited "abducted by aliens" kind (though that too), but it's also inspiring me. We get each other, nurture one another. She is a beautiful woman, and, for her, I want to be the best woman, christian, human possible. The relationship has taught me how to express negative emotion in better ways, has taught me more about grace in general. From what she says, I believe we have tutored each other...

Interestingly enough, I became emboldened when my dad started changing. I believe it was because something is knitting itself back together in my heart. Trust. Slowly, but surely. 

When our relationship becomes destructive, I'll end it. But I don't forsee that happening...

So here you have it. My life. Thanks for tuning in.

AC Out.

Seasons of Love!

Go Cho!

Saved Again

Last night, I was up late on this project and, having not slept the night before, felt like complete death. To make matters worse, God was seemingly MIA. I kept praying that He would say something. Anything. A peep. A holy whisper...

I checked the devotional on Christianity.com and it said something about being the pure bride of Christ. At this time, the last thing I wanted to hear was about being "pure." Pure has wrecked so many lives, just ask the ex-ex-gay survivors, or the rape victims who never got a fair trial because they had been "sluts" before the rape. It seemed that God was behind the whole messed up system. Injustice. Pain. His servants are horrible PR people, God bless us all. 

Of course, this little episode was projection of my hang ups of the highest order. So, I went outside and yelled a bit David style.

"WHO ARE YOU??? ARE YOU SADISTIC??? DO YOU CARE???"

 Of course, none of this is His fault, especially the silence. "The pure in heart will see God" the bible says. A heart will see what it is and not what really is. My heart has been out for blood lately, and not pure in the least, not loving, not hungering or thirsting after "righteousness." It's starved.  

Then, I put my ipod on shuffle. The song that came on first was about "her putting her hand in mine." Please please please don't call me a heretic, but it sounded like Jesus. His essence. Only conceptualized as female. Or, if you'd rather, God as Sophia, the gentle, "feminine" side which nurtures and heals.

In this way, God affirmed me, again. As a woman. Or, more specifically, as a woman wounded by the "patriarchy", i.e, the family patriarch and alienated by gendered language. He affirmed me as a person with very specific experience and a lot of pain at a time when thinking of a "Heavenly Father" or "Heavenly Husband" or Boyfriend (Jesus is not a boyfriend!) would make me want to froth at the mouth and burn a bra-ible or something. 

And, answered a prayer. Why. Why is this so hard to remember? He does listen, and He is so incredibly responsive...

But, even more than that, the most important thing about this answer was that He affirmed Himself, gently and without condemnation reminded me "what manner of spirit" He is of.  I was able to sense His love in the midst of a total existential temper tantrum. His grace. HIS purity again. He was a perfectly loving God who chose to serve and die on earth at our hands to break down the walls. The walls my anger was building between us. Remembering this was a total attitude adjustment. He is so beautiful, behold the lamb of God!

Hallelujah.