phrase your answer in the form of a question

Sorry so brief! I’ve been having a health issue which has been rather distracting. I didn’t know that a body could just stop making tears. It hurts. Apparently modern science can fix this? We’ll see.

NPR had an interesting article about a guy making a distinction between how he defines “homosexual” and “gay.” Moreover, the comments were thoughtful and worth reading as well (yay NPR & readers! stay classy…)

The whole thing reminds me about how tricky it is to navigate a conversation on this subject with my Christian friends. Half the time I’m thinking, “Are we having the same conversation?” Even when I’m talking to Crosswired, we’ve had to stop and ask, “what do you mean when you say that?”

Miscommunication happens.  And it’s kind of awful when the other person doesn’t notice or isn’t able to shift gears.

SO how do we navigate this? The chicken and the egg are replaced. Which comes first? Relationships or words?

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A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.
John 13:34-35

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On that thought, I’m going to go close my eyes and listen to Alec Baldwin…

wired to link

My small group at church is meeting tonight to talk about our spiritual gifts: what they are, what they mean, how God intended us to be gifted beyond our normal talents… spiritually.

To prepare for our chat, I took an online test to help illuminate what my gifts might be.

Now over the years I sort of claimed the spiritual gifts that seemed rather obvious to me and were affirmed by other believers. If you asked me yesterday what I thought my gift for the church was, I would have said, “Encouragement.”

Today? I’m supposed to think my spiritual gift might be “Wisdom.” Huh… and a Perfect Score. It totally blew the other options out of the water.

I’m not sure what I think about this online quiz and it’s results.

Maybe that’s…ah, wise?

for the following section? reader be wise____________________

I came across a lot of material to peruse today. I’m from an evangelical church background so I’ve never seen a church accept the LGBT community well. OneWheaton has helped a lot to create some community resources so I quite often follow the rabbit trail from there.

I cannot possibly review all of this for good thoughts, but I’d like to take a longer look later so I’m making myself a to do list (recreating the rabbit):

OneWheaton
Peculiar Faith
Welcoming Resources – literature (including several online)

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Alright! Now, I’m out the door to see how many people laugh when I cough up my online quiz results…

to love and to cherish

I might think about marriage differently because I’m not married.

Looking at marriage from the outside doesn’t give me any sentimental notions about falling into that status. I gather that my Christian friends have a romantic relationship with marriage because of how they see it as a Biblical connection between God and them and each other and Christ and the Church Bride and that’s… wonderful.

On the flip side and quite frankly, I know a lot of straight people who are only and simply married because it’s a social norm for starting a family and getting various secular benefits. God didn’t factor into that marriage at all.

I went to my first straight, nothing-but-secular wedding a few months ago. It was different.  The day was beautiful and the volume of butterflies just hanging around was rather magical. No pastor. No church. The vows exchanged were like nothing I had ever heard before in a wedding. Nothing about eternity and quite a lot about “reasonable expectations.”

But did we celebrate the couple’s new status as recognized spouses?

Sure we did. And I daresay no one in the church is going to give them any grief about using the word “marriage” to define their relationship either.

So I don’t really get it when my Christians friends suddenly pipe up to disapprove of gay marriage. It seems a strange line to draw for something they only feel protective about in one area.

That being said, I was reading this reaction article about Austin, Texas where “Council members will discuss a resolution that would declare the City Council’s intent to support what the agenda refers to as “marriage equality” or same-sex marriage in the state.”

How does the article end?

“…social conservative and right wing religionists remain vehemently opposed.”

Vehemently? Bleh.

Not exactly the word I want to have describing the relationship between the church (or larger religious community) and the LGBT community.

Any thoughts on why “social conservative and right wing religionists” (and the majority of my moderate Christian friends) try to police this issue? Why can’t we let this one go and let gay marriages be recognized for the same social, family, and spiritual reasons as our straight friends?

____________coming soon:___________

Crosswired has an awesome post on the editing block! I’m going to see if we can post it early!

God Changed My Entire Worldview

Hey! Meerkats009 here.

As Crosswired likes to remind everyone, I really enjoy reading. Especially a good history book or some science fiction. A large part of the reason why I enjoy reading is because it expands my world.

When I was sixteen, one of my best friends told me a secret.  She started out by wanting to know how Christians should think about people who are gay. After I gave her the standard (and frankly homophobic) answers of a baby Christian, she explained why she was so curious. Her dad was gay.

That night, immediately, God pressed on my heart in a way that significantly changed my life.

“See the reality here,” he told me. “This issue isn’t abstract. It isn’t simple. You aren’t being asked about a sin. You’re being asked about a father. A brother. A sister. A loved one.”

God changed my entire worldview that night. But the church didn’t give me a lot to go on, practically. So I read Every. Single. Book I could get. I still do. I’ve covered the spectrum of beliefs from It’s Okay To Be Gay to Christian Don’t Send Your Kids To College Or They’ll Turn Gay.

The key for me was that even identifying as an LGBT-friendly Christian is incredibly lonely. The church I currently attend doesn’t offer any intentional community that acknowledges gay Christians. I can’t even post an article on Facebook without someone saying something unhelpful, intentionally or not.

So I wanted to share some of those books, links, and articles that we find as an archive here. Agree with some, disagree with others, but not so isolated anymore.

Today I’m going to share two:

1. I’m interested in reading this article in Montreal’s Maisonneuve magazine. A preview of the article is here. And from that preview I just love this quote:

They call themselves LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) evangelicals. They are among the kindest, gentlest people I know. They are also among the most unwanted and unrecognized.

2.  I’m very interested in this project that covers a whole spectrum of Christians persons: single, straight and gay. Jesus, Don’t Let Me Die Before I’ve Had Sex (because, really, this is a factor). Watch the preview video here.

So do you have any recommendations for me? Even if I’ve read it before, we can add it to the list. Discussion is welcome too.

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Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. – Philippians 2:1-4