I just don't want what You give me.

that's what it comes down to.  I just don't want it.  I hate it.  right now, for some reason, I just really do.

"You make us realize that nothing is more important than your love, and no trophy or prize can make us more or less in your eyes."


nothing can make me more or less in His eyes.  it doesn't matter if i'm gay or straight, if i'm masculine or not, if i were the opposite of everything He wants me to be.  i am accepted.  i am loved by Him.


oh, but how i feel like it does matter.  i want to be everything that's right.  everything that He wants me to be.


but it doesn't matter what i want to be.  He still accepts me as i am.  I can yearn all I want and strive all I want to be someone else.  I can pretend to be someone i'm not.  but He still accepts me as I am, right now.


even when i don't accept that.  even when i don't accept His love for me and His acceptance of me.  He still loves me.  He still accepts me.  I can't do anything to stop that.


it doesn't matter if i'm not who He wants me to be.  He still loves me.  He still accepts me.  He still does.

On Doubt

". . . doubt is as old as faith. As Kierkegaard suggested in one of his journals, "doubt comes into the world through faith." As I've suggested elsewhere, some of our greatest saints have been our greatest doubters, too. Some of our exemplary believers have also been masters of suspicion. The new kind of doubters have nothing on the likes of Graham Greene or Mother Teresa or Bernanos' country priest or Endo's Jesuit missionaries.

But there is also an important difference between emergent skeptics and catholic doubters: The new kind of skeptics want the faith to be cut down to the size of their doubt, to conform to their suspicions. Doubt is taken to be sufficient warrant for jettisoning what occasions our disbelief and discomfort, cutting a scandalizing God down to the size of our believing. For the new doubters, if I can't believe it, it can't be true. If orthodoxy is unbelievable, then let's come up with a rendition we can believe in.

But for catholic doubters, God is not subject to my doubts. Rather, like the movements of a lament psalm, all of the scandalizing, unbelievable aspects of an inscrutable God are the target of my doubts--but the catholic doubter would never dream that this is occasion for revising the faith, cutting it down to the measure of what I can live with. It's not a matter of coming up with a Gospel I can live with; it's a matter of learning to live with all of the scandal of the Gospel--and that can take a lifetime. Graham Greene's "whiskey priest" doesn't for a moment think that the church should revise its doctrine and standards in order to make him feel comfortable about his fornication--even if he might lament what seems to be a denial of some feature of his humanness. All of his doubts and suspicion and resistance are not skeptical gambits that set him off in search of a liberal Christianity he can live with; they are, instead, features of a life of sanctification, or lack thereof. And no one is surprised by that. The prayer of the doubter is not, "Lord I believe, conform to the measure of my unbelief," but rather: "Lord I believe, help thou my unbelief."

For just this reason orthodox, catholic faith has always been able to absorb doubt as a feature of discipleship: indeed, the church is full of doubters. It is the grace of our scandalous God that welcomes them."

--James Smith via Wesley Hill's Tumblr (go figure)

I've thought a bit about why I choose to be Side B.  Honestly, a large part of it is because of what I grew up with.  I learned the read the Bible's passages on homosexuality this way, and while I've looked into alternative readings, those interpretive arguments just aren't as convincing.  Whether that is because my upbringing has lodged itself into my brain, or because I truly think the Side B arguments are much more compelling, I'm not sure.  I'd like to say it's the latter--after all I can defend Side B pretty well--but I cannot deny the influence of the former. 

In some ways, it is easier to be Side B.  I have the support of the Church and my Christian friends.  My view is the orthodox, the conservative, the historical one.

On the other hand, it is naturally a more lonely, difficult road.  But like the excerpt says, right now, I just can't seem to bring myself to cut that out and take Side A.

". . . all of the scandalizing, unbelievable aspects of an inscrutable God are the target of my doubts--but the catholic doubter would never dream that this is occasion for revising the faith, cutting it down to the measure of what I can live with. It's not a matter of coming up with a Gospel I can live with; it's a matter of learning to live with all of the scandal of the Gospel--and that can take a lifetime."

And what is that scandal?  The scandal that the one who created everything, who is so far above, so much greater and better than anything we could possibly imagine... that that one would seek to love us.  Us, in all our disgusting, nasty brokenness and ugliness.  That he would want to be with us, and he died and resurrected for that purpose.  "but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."  Romans 5:8.  A verse that has been on my mind quite a bit these last few weeks, applicable to what we're teaching in Sunday School, and it is also one of Kevin's favorite verses.

Myths About Christianity

The following list is from Tektonics and are the myths that I find most salient in my life.  They are also myths that Christians themselves propagate.  Read the article for more of the author (James Patrick Holding [JPH])'s thoughts on each one.

I bet at least one of these will surprise you.  But bear with me, I think each myth is true in that it's false.  ;)

Here's a short table of contents so you can just choose whether you want to Read More or not.  (I highly recommend that you do, though!)

1.  Hell is a place of physical torture.
2.  God is my buddy and Jesus is my friend.
3.  The end times are coming.
14.  The supernatural exists.
Original Sin

My Eyes So Soft

Don't

surrender

your loneliness so quickly.

Let it cut more deep.

Let it ferment and season you

as few human

or even divine ingredients can.

Something missing in my heart tonight

has made my eyes so soft,

my voice so 

tender,

my need of God

absolutely

clear.

Hafiz
(Sufi Mystic 1320-1390 A.D.)
translation by Daniel Ladinsky

I can't believe I'm blogging again. I should be studying...

"Stop comparing yourself to them."