The song “Let Your Glory Shine,” by Lincoln Brewster came on my mp3 player today, and it gave me a second or two of pause. The song begins with a short but lightning fast burst of guitar that just melts your face. Then he gets into the verse, which is pretty much straightforward blues/rock with a nice groove. Of course, then Brewster and the band go absolutely nuts after the bridge, and there’s another face melting guitar solo.
In the following video, Brewster tells the story of the song:
He talks about when he came from the secular music world (he played for Steve Perry, the original Journey singer) into playing worship music in a church, he always felt restraint, so far as his playing went. But it seemed like God was telling him to just play with what he was given to play, and in this instance, that was crazy guitar skills.
But the chorus of the song really tells the story.
“Let your glory shine, let your glory shine, let your glory shine through me.”
I’ve heard both pastors and worship leaders over the years say things like “church isn’t the time to showboat,” and maybe it isn’t. Perhaps a song like this IS more suited to a concert setting. But to me, that doesn’t meant the song doesn’t carry a valid message.
Let your glory shine through me.
Brewster also says in the “making of” video above, that “If I don’t give Lord everything, both musically and spiritually, then I’m not being obedient.”
He’s letting the talent God gave him shine (worth mentioning is that he always gives God the glory for what he’s been given).
That sounds OK to me.
Certainly, I’m no pastor, no bible scholar. Can’t sing or play.
But if there was something I could do OK, I would do it, and honor God with what he’d given me.
What that is, I’m still doing my best to discover. Maybe it’s writing. Maybe telling people about the Good News.
Maybe it’s simply my work. I would guess that’s it for a lot of people. Steven Curtis Chapman has a song where he says something like “do everything you do for the glory of the one who made you.”
Can I write and edit documents to the Glory of God? I think so—I hope that’s what I’m doing today.
But maybe it isn’t something so glamorous as typing for you, or playing ridiculously awesome guitar solos.
Maybe you drive a cab, or wash dishes.
Maybe you scoop dog poop in a park.
Or you could be a stay-at-home parent who spends a great deal of their time following children around and vacuuming Legos out of the carpet (you can do that, right?)
Try to think that in that moment, you are where God meant you to be.
Handing homeless people a meal, or stacking chairs.
Flipping burgers.
Making bouquets.
God put you there.
You can glorify him wherever you are.
I wish I could sing all the time. I’m the only one in my nuclear family who can’t, including my 4 year-old.
But that isn’t me.
Instead, I am spending my lunch trying to think, and write, and eat something from the roadrunner without getting some meat-sickness.
Then I will go back to Word, and Publisher.
I will write, and I will edit. And I will drop the mic when I am done for the day.
“If I don’t give Lord everything, then I’m not being obedient.”
These two paragraphs from a New York Times article upset me so much I hardly know what to think about it:
When asked about American military policy, the spokesman for the American command in Afghanistan, Col. Brian Tribus, wrote in an email: “Generally, allegations of child sexual abuse by Afghan military or police personnel would be a matter of domestic Afghan criminal law.” He added that “there would be no express requirement that U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan report it.” An exception, he said, is when rape is being used as a weapon of war.
The American policy of nonintervention is intended to maintain good relations with the Afghan police and militia units the United States has trained to fight the Taliban. It also reflects a reluctance to impose cultural values in a country where pederasty is rife, particularly among powerful men, for whom being surrounded by young teenagers can be a mark of social status.
The article was in reference to the struggles soldiers are having with looking the other way while these Afghan chicken hawks rape and abuse young boys (occasionally girls). Domestic Afghan Criminal law? Please. This is a country that seems to encourage (or at least condones) the perpetuation of child sexual abuse as policy.
Really? These are our allies?
Isn’t not being raped a basic human right?
And while I’m thinking about it, just because these…men have always been a rapin’, does that mean they always should?
Does it really take a doctorate and a radio telescope to see when something is wrong?
If placating our “allies” requires allowing them to violate children because they’ve always done so, then we need to rethink our own military’s policy.
I spent several years witnessing first hand the terrible cost perpetrators of this “policy” exact on the victims of it (meaning rapists and victims–though domestically rather than internationally), and the closest I can come to describing how it makes me feel is rage.
And I know that makes my own faith–my own Christianity–sound feeble and hypocritical, but I could not ignore something like that. And I have nothing but respect for the soldiers who acted, and are going to lose their careers because of it.
I will just say it. It’s difficult for me to see the wrong in putting a beat down on a sack of goat crap like this Afghan commander. He’s lucky they didn’t kill him.
My response to all of this is there are some things in life that should not be compromised–one of which is the right of children to experience life at their own speed, and to not be subject to things like what our soldiers are told to ignore in Afghanistan.
Ignoring the screams of children is wrong, and the message this…policy is perpetuating is also wrong.
No, it isn’t the United States.
Yes, they should police these men in Afghanistan, in accordance with Afghan law.
They aren’t going to.
In my opinion, ignoring this crap is going to backfire big-time.
There has to be something we can do?
At the very least, the people entrusted with command of these men–as well as our commander-in-chief, should create a dialogue with our “allies.”
Because eventually, someone is going to go all “Marcellus Wallace” on these Afgan commanders.
Here’s what I’ve been thinking about lately. Our country has some serious problems–both domestically and abroad. These are issues the executive branch is capable of handling, but for some reason has been choosing to act and/or negotiate from a position of weakness rather than strength, in both areas.
I think there are times when that sort of approach can be affective, but in this instance, it seems the greatest country on earth is approaching the head of the soup line with our palms up in supplication, asking if we can please have some more.
Do I think we should act like the playground bully and take more control?
Of course not.
I think our current USA CEO could even be a great president under better conditions–under peacetime conditions.
Except that in our current domestic and world situations,
IT ISN’T LIKE THAT AT ALL!!
There’s a war going on, and a pestilence made up of radical Islamic thugs and murderers spreading in the middle east.
Is the answer to keeping Iran out of the fray gently petting their back like a kitty?
Maybe not.
But letting them inspect themselves to determine if they are stockpiling nuclear weapons?
Have they proven themselves to be both truthful and trustworthy? Sane, even?
And what about the Islamic State?
What about our own country, for that matter? What is going on?
It seems as if life has no meaning beyond Webster’s definition.
People kill each other almost arbitrarily in places like Chicago, and really across America.
Young African-American men are killing cops, because black lives matter.
Cops are occasionally killing African-American men because they have been conditioned to fear them, and even expect the worst.
Stupidity, AND latent and active racism have a hand in both.
Here’s the thing, in my opinion.
Life is never easy, for most of us.
But it has value. Each life has value.
Black, white, blue, born or unborn.
How do we get people to realize that?
It’s there where I usually get myself into trouble.
It isn’t by preaching wrath.
I think it’s by preaching the love of Christ.
Not Allah, or Vishnu, or Baal, or anything like that.
Christ.
It’s a shame so many people don’t know that.
It’s a shame it often seems the government is working toward criminalizing people for saying it, in one form or another.
It’s my belief that if people knew what value they had to their maker, maybe they would act, think, and feel differently.
Maybe I’m being optimistic and naïve, but I think there’s always hope. It may be that my saying that in the way I have offends you.
I’m sorry if you’re offended, but that doesn’t make it any less true.
There’s just one way to find real peace.
It may not be popular.
It may be difficult (of course it is. Morality seems more vice than virtue these days). And moral relativism is a lot easier to achieve and maintain than a relationship with Christ.
Man, I don’t know what to tell you. I only know my own pain. I only know my own hopes, dreams, and fears. I only know the sources of my own scars.
And I only know that it wasn’t until I began a relationship with Jesus that I began to find relief.
I know that with the same certainty I felt when I knew I wanted to marry my wife.
Listen, folks, you don’t have to believe me. You get to decide the route your life takes.
We are all different, in almost every way.
But we are also all the same.
We’re drowning in a deep, dark pool, and we need someone to throw us a rope. Lots of people will, but only one rope leads to rescue.
I’ve been up at the front exactly twice during an invitation at church, both times at my church in San Diego. They did it a little differently than some places I’d been. People would sort of hang out on the short steps leading to the stage, and if you wanted prayer, you’d come up and have a seat. Sometimes you’d do the same in the chairs. Seemed to work pretty well.
On the day in question, it was because I was a small group leader, and the pastor called us to the front to pray for or with people that wanted prayer. Typically, it was people involved in worship or ministry in some way that would be the prayers, but there was a retreat or something going on, and the pastor needed a little help.
Honestly, it wasn’t something I was terribly comfortable with at the time, because I didn’t feel…worthy, or qualified to lift anyone else up to God. I felt broken, and sort of…held together.
But the pastor called, so up I went.
I remember the first time, I sat nervously on the step, wondering if anyone would come to me—there were quite a few people sitting around the stage. I silently prayed that if someone did end up with me, that I would have the right words to say when the time came.
I felt like the kid in left field, asking God “Please don’t let anyone hit it to me.”
Shortly after that, I saw a pretty woman in her late thirties or early forties make her way down the aisle to where I was sitting. She was tall for a woman, and very slender. She had a bandanna tied around what looked to be a very bald head, and my first thought was cancer.
What I remember most is she looked very, very tired, and from what it looked like, had been sitting alone in the sanctuary.
She stopped right before me, and I slowly stood. She took both my hands in hers, and I could see the gentle sheen of tears in her eyes.
“Hi,” I said. “How can I…”
Before I could finish my sentence, she dropped her head toward her chest and the tears began to flow.
God, I prayed. What do I say? What do I do to help her?
You do nothing, was the sense I got. You say nothing.
So I didn’t. She was a little older than me at the time, but I just reached out my arms and I hugged her.
She cried on my chest for a good five minutes, and I just prayed silently in my head for her. Mainly that she could experience Jesus through her pain, and that I not ruin any experience that might happen. I never asked for healing. I don’t know why.
She lifted her head a minute or so later, and she just smiled a gentle smile at me, and said “thank you.”
“It was my pleasure,” I said.
She stepped back and said, “I guess I needed that.”
“Me, too.”
She looked at me for a moment, and then walked back down the aisle, and out of the sanctuary.
I stood there for a moment, and realized I didn’t feel nervous anymore. I actually felt peaceful. I could still feel the woman’s arms around me, and smell the faint scent of Sunflowers (I think that’s what it’s called) clinging to my t-shirt.
I didn’t remember anyone holding onto me like that since I was a kid. Not in a romantic way, but still loving. Comforting.
Like I was a brother.
I realized it was me who needed the prayer, and in that moment, needed her.
And it occurred to me that maybe she’d been praying for me the whole time I was praying for her. Maybe she was crying for me. I felt like I got the most of the blessing.
That was the only time I saw her.
I don’t know her name, but when I think about God meeting my needs (which he does every time I ask), I always think of her, and of Sunflowers perfume.
And I think one of the funny things about God is sometimes you just need to show up, and let him do the work.
I keep a sword behind my bed—two, actually. A pair of sheathed Roman-style gladiuses (or is it gladii?). Not much of an edge on either, but both have relatively heavy blades and nasty points. So while I may not shoot you, if you break into my house and try to hurt someone who lives there, you will either be killed and partially consumed by a Chihuahua and a dachshund, or stabbed in the head by an angry, middle-aged bald man.
Or that’s my plan.
The issue I run into is that I am not certain I could do it. I hope I never have to find out. That’s the thing about courage. I guess you never really know if you have it until you’re tested. I think these days, home invasion is the most likely situation in which that test would ever occur.
As I said a minute ago, I hope it never does.
When I think of courage, I think of people doing what has to be done in spite of potential danger to themselves—up to and including killing to protect those in their care.
I don’t think about senior-aged men deciding they were meant to be something other than what they already are, and then going on national television and suddenly becoming heroic for talking about their issues. Identity. Whatever.
Courage, of course, does not always have to be meant in a martial or violent sense, either. I think about people like Randy Pausch, maintaining his composure, and hope, and delivering his last lecture in the face of certain and eventual death.
I don’t mean hope of death passing him by, either. Randy had something he wanted to achieve before he passed, and he did, in spite of his illness.
That’s courage.
I think of my brother-in-law, John, climbing this…electrical tower thingy and bringing a potentially suicidal guy back down to earth.
That’s courage.
Or how about those Coptic Christians being marched down that beach earlier in the year, moments from literally dying for their faith?
Most definitely courage, and I can only hope to be as brave should something similar ever happen here.
Talking about how God gave you the wrong plumbing?
Not so much.
I guess in a sense, every boy wants to be courageous when the time comes. We all want to be heroes. What am I after with all this? I’m not sure. I guess I just hope that if and when it is necessary, I come through and do what needs to be done.
Until that day, I will just do my best to raise my boys to know that I am there for them, and will protect them and their mother to the best of all the abilities God has given me.
I never served, and never had the honor of protecting my country–I wish I had, now.
What I can do is support my country however I am able, and support those who do protect it with the best of all the abilities God has given me.
And I will hold all life as sacred, because God said to (and because I read Coleridge–the Ancient Mariner had some real problems) and because all life is sacred. All lives matter.
I think if I can do those two things, even when society tells me I don’t need to, or don’t have the right, then we will be OK.
Over the past week or two, I’ve written, rewritten, and ultimately discarded a post that’s been sticking in my craw like county fair taffy. In the end, I think I only need a few syllables. 17, to be exact:
All lives are the same
Created in His beauty All matter to God
I think about life, and then Thoreau speaks quiet words into my ear:
“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation, and go to the grave with the song still in them.”
I don’t want to listen to him, because I got a “B” on my Civil Disobedience paper, and his sideburns are ridiculous.
Am I quietly desperate? I don’t know. I don’t want to be.
That doesn’t make his words any less true.
Do you really want to live the rest of your life with the song still in you? Ain’t nobody got time for that.
Sing.
At my best, my voice is…not good. But in my own way, I carry a tune (even if it is in a bucket).
I just decided that it’s OK if people don’t like my melody—or don’t think I’m musical.
Maybe my music consists of letters instead of notes; bouquets of words, and sentences, and imagery.
I’m good with that.
All I want to say to you, whoever you are, is find your music.
It’s different for everyone.
It’s probably something else for you. Your music will sound different than anyone else’s.
It should–you weren’t designed the same as they were. You don’t have the same purpose, but be assured, you have one.
For my wife, it’s singing and pouring out her amazing heart for children.
Find your own song, and belt that thing like Andrea Bocelli.
Let me finish with these words from Psalm 51–about the most appropriate I can think of, given what I’m talking about:
14 Deliver me from the guilt of bloodshed, O God,
you who are God my Savior,
and my tongue will sing of your righteousness.
15 Open my lips, Lord,
and my mouth will declare your praise)
Today I read an article online about the TV show Six Feet Under. It was pretty much just a quick oral history of how the show came to be, but there was a small part of it where the actor Peter Krause, I think, was talking about how the Fisher family was dysfunctional on the show, but that cast as a family was very functional.
It got me thinking about my own family growing up. Not that we were terribly dysfunctional, really. I think we were like lots of families during that time period. My brother and sisters grew up in the 60’s and 70’s (I came along in 1968), and it was just a different time then.
My siblings dealt with the same things lots of people did during that time period—Viet Nam, drug issues (not necessarily their own), probably some politics, meeting (or not meeting) societal and parental expectation, and simply finding their own way.
And they had this baby brother come along, and they were really more like parents to me than anything else.
My mom dealt with health and alcoholism issues as long as I can remember. Then it was cancer issues, and it took her a really long and painful decade to succumb to them.
I got along with my sisters much better than my brother. They showed me the love and support my parents couldn’t, for whatever their reasons. My brother, not so much. If I had to name an individual responsible for most of my woundings and scars, it would be him. Both literally, and figuratively.
He single-handedly formed the self-image that almost completely undid me.
I didn’t get it before—not for years—but I think I understand why things played out like that a little better now.
He was a little different as a kid, from what I have been made to understand. Perhaps there could have been some mental or chemical issues, I don’t know. He wasn’t always easy to love. Still, the girls did what they could.
Then I come along, and for whatever the reason, I was treated and loved well by my sisters and was a total mama’s boy. I don’t think there was anything special about me, but the love I was shown shaped my personality as much as my brother’s hate did, I think. And I get that it upset him and probably caused a lot of his issues with me.
Plainly put, this new brother did not help his issues at all, and certainly stole a lot of the time that he used to get. It felt like he hated me for being more loved than he was. I don’t know if that’s true.
I suppose that is a dysfunction.
Yet there were also moments of kindness. He would give me things of his I wanted that he didn’t use or play with anymore. He would take me for rides on his motorcycle. One time I got sick in the middle of the night and puked all over the place. He cleaned me up and put me back to bed, and then cleaned up the mess all by himself without waking anyone else up.
Lots of things like that.
My dad seemed a little aloof, but I think that was a generational thing. Men of his time (the greatest generation) were not always the touchy-feely uber-dads you see so often these days (I try to be that kind of dad myself).
I think he did the best he could considering what he had to deal with himself. There were periods of unemployment, my mom’s alcoholism and cancer. Probably hopes and dreams he had of his own that never happened. I don’t ever remember him striking me or anything like that. But I also don’t remember encouragement coming from his direction. I don’t remember much in the way of physical affection, though I suppose he did love me after his own fashion.
He died when I was 16.
Still, I had my friends, and I had my mom and sisters. My brother was thankfully not home much that I remember, and that was good. He only seemed to come around when something bad happened, and he wanted me to feel like it was my fault.
Like when my friend shot himself about ½ mile from my house.
Like when my high school girlfriend broke up with me shortly after graduation.
Like when my mom died in 1987.
That was when my downward spiral started, and didn’t end for a really long time. There weren’t really drugs, unless you count binge-drinking. There was lots of that. There were also several empty relationships, the last of which ended in the early 2000’s. There was a short foray into occultism. Pornography. Despair.
More dysfunction, I guess. During most of those years, I was not a good brother, or probably friend. I preferred shadows, and I would walk in them.
Then God started to introduce people of faith into my life—slowly, so I didn’t notice it was happening.
And for the first time I can remember, I also had accountability.
I met a guy in college who introduced me to a Jesus I hadn’t heard much about, and he called me on it when I was doing dumb stuff. My self-image began to change. Slowly, and I didn’t notice it was happening. The Jesus he told me about loved people as they were—even in their imperfection and sin. He forgave. He changed them from the inside out.
He changed me, in the fullness of time, with many missteps along the way.
I think about all the dysfunction, and I think about the many valleys I’ve been through in my life. Lots of pain. Lots of bad things.
I would not change any of it, and I know how that sounds.
But had I not experienced that stuff, I would not be here today, literally.
There’s a line in the Pat Conroy (one of my very favorite authors) book, The Prince of Tides where the narrator says something like “There are lots of families who go their whole lives with nothing of interest happening to them—not a single thing. I’ve always envied those families.”
I like the book a lot, and used to feel that way myself.
Not anymore.
My family is interesting, and has overcome a lot. Everything I have and more.
I love them.
We are weird, and we have phobias, and predilections, and strange habits.
But strange and dysfunctional as we are, we are a family.
Wilkins in various forms, ideologies, shapes, and colors.
I have been shaped by my life experiences, and by the love I have been shown over my life. Not by the hate. Nothing good is.
I am not the person some of those experiences led me to think for so many years.
God showed me that.
So here I am today.
Arizona.
I work for the Army (indirectly), doing a job I like very much.
I have my own family, and though we might not be Wilkins-level dysfunctional, we try our best. We are loud, and crazy, and we fight, but not as much as we love.
My wife is literally the most extraordinary woman I have ever known, and I will love her until I look like this:
All that dysfunction was for a reason. It got me here, by the Grace of Jesus, my abba.
The Wilkins family is here to stay. We’ve got branches all over the country, though my main concern is the San Diego Chapter.
I am grateful beyond measure.
I love show tunes, and I love metal, the language of my people.
My wife has introduced me to country, and I like that, too.
I like mince pie, even though I seem to be the only person in Arizona who does.
I like to read all kinds of different websites and blogs when I have the chance, and occasionally I will read Huffington Post articles that others have shared. They clearly had a more liberal bent to them, but it was easy enough to overlook in the interest of having something to read on lunchbreaks, etc.
If I ever had any doubt that Huffpost was dragging its left wing on the ground, this little nugget removed it. Sure, it’s an opinion piece, but why not publish something opposing as well? The supposed minister who wrote this, while clearly well-spoken and rather erudite forgot to mention something that occurred to me.
Now, I am no apologist, and certainly no pastor. I have only been six classes deep into biblical studies.
But I know this much about biblical truth.
If you know God–really know him–you can feel the truth of his word when you read it. It’s powerful, and personal, and sometimes nearly ineffable. Sometimes when I read scripture, it’s almost as if the bible vibrates in my hands.
Because
the truth
resonates.
Not just in the mind, but the heart.
Also, if His book is not truth, and He isn’t who scripture says he is, then He is a sham. If He is God, then what is to prevent Him from Divinely inspiring others to record His word? If He is not God, then we are truly stuffed.
His Word, left for us, is part of both Him and His divine nature. Yes, not every version is exactly the same, but neither is every language. Yes, the King James version was commissioned, but the documents it was based on were real, with many documents of the same era still in existence.
His Word is not actually the book itself, but the wisdom and truth within.
I acknowledge the difficulty of a person who’s never acknowledged God in believing scripture is actually the word of God, but it’s equally difficult for me to imagine someone who professes faith not believing.
I believe His word is real, and though I may not read it as much as I would like to (or should), it is no less truth to me.
Without God, my life would not be worth a darn thing. Scripture helps me to walk that jagged path with a little more surety in my step.
The…minister who wrote this HuffPost article? Despite his eloquence and writing ability, appears to have lost his way. If the Word is not truth, then what does he preach from? One can only hope that his article causes little more than a Left-leaning backslapping party.
Lastly, I would say that denying truth doesn’t change it. I have learned that the hard way.
I know my wife isn’t the biggest fan of overt and public sentimentality, but something happened a couple nights ago, and I thought I’d go ahead and share it, because it felt significant to me. She’s probably used to me getting all “Air Supply,” anyway.
Plus, everyone who knows me knows I have a gooey center.
We went to bed not that long after getting home from the Rock Youth 4th of July extravaganza, and we were both tired. We lay there and talked quietly for a few minutes, and laughed over a few dumb things, and then I fell asleep holding her hand–with our entertwined hands clasped between us at chest level.
What I thought about the next day was that I hoped I got to do that when this particular love train pulls into the depot for the last time.
But I have peace in my heart either way.
My faith assures me there will be plenty of time for that stuff.
Forever is a long time.
I never thought I would be down with the optimism.
Can’t help it.
My wife is rad.
And she makes me want to do awesome things together.
I don’t think I will ever be done with revisions on this one.
There’s been a great deal written over the past few years about how the church is “losing” millenials (young people coming to adulthood around the turn of the century, the year 2000, that is) or members of Generation “Y.” Many have speculated as to the reason, but it seems to me to have something to do with the rise of liberalism and/or progressivism in both politics and the church. This is manifested in many ways, but I believe most significantly is the extreme antipathy of many young people toward conservatives for what they feel is a hawk-like view of the war in Afghanistan and the potential for war in places like Syria, Libya and Gaza. Not to mention conservative support for legislation like the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and legislation against gun control reform.
There are probably lots of personal reasons people have for turning away from or leaving the church. But based on news coverage and changing public opinion, it seems to me the perceived (and sometimes actual) treatment of LGBTQ men and women by conservatives and “evangelical” Christians has had the most effect on young people as far as changing their views of the church. Recently, for instance, there have been several instances of business owners not performing services for certain customers because of their sexuality.
Of course, what people often do not discuss is that to an extent, the reverse is also true. From what I have observed and to an extent, experienced, many among the gay community have highly skewed ideas about conservatives among the straight, conservative, often Christian community. This manifests itself in several different ways. Chief among them, I believe, is the frequency with which gay people file lawsuits against Christians who are not able to do something for them because of something they either believe or do not believe. They make no secret of their faith, and it would be obvious to most folks of course they would object to supplying service to people who are in the process of doing something they object to—something that offends them—on the grounds of their core beliefs being different from that of the gay folks bringing the lawsuits.
So why do they approach businesses they know will probably not render them services? Is it because they have discovered someone doing a perceived wrong and they want to right it?
Is it because they’re looking for a nice payday? Or maybe because they want to destroy a business operating apart from their own agenda?
Do they have an agenda? Is it “tolerance?” If so, of what?
It may not always be so, but these cases always smell a little bit like an ambush. It often seems as if these Christians who object to supplying food or services to those Gay people getting married or whatever the need happens to be, are targeted specifically because the person(s) making the request already know what they will do and they wish to make an example of them.
For my part, I don’t know if I agree with denying services to people as a form of protest. I am not sure what I would do given the same situation as some of these folks, but I think my inclination would be to make the best cake I could, and do it for the glory of God. It’s a bit of a sticky wicket. Does providing services to someone practicing a lifestyle someone else does not indicate some sort of heresy or blasphemy? I don’t know.
I do know the situation is ugly both ways, and certainly seems as if it could be mitigated by a little understanding from both “sides” of the issue. After all—is freedom really freedom at all if it can only be interpreted and exercised one way? Either way?
So, to be clear, I believe what Jesus and others say in the bible regarding sin. I believe that it is rampant in the world, and we are all covered in it. But I also believe in God, in Jesus, and in his sacrifice on behalf of the world and everyone in it. Not just everyone who believes, but everyone.
Lately, the issue is no longer simply that of “gay marriage.” Also coming into the ring is that of recognizing people with…alternate gender identities. Can they dress a certain way, or “identify” a certain way without “persecution?” My personal thought is that hating your “original” genitals does not mean they aren’t the ones that are supposed to be there. I do not believe that God makes mistakes. And I do not believe that, say, removing your hood ornament makes your vehicle something other than what it is. But it doesn’t excuse being a jerk to people simply because you think they’re doing something they shouldn’t.
Still, there is this: over the past year or so, there have been several incidents where young people with gender identity issues have been persecuted in their own way by other teens who are not in the midst of gender identity issues, and have consequently taken their own lives. This is real, and sad, and terrible. I think it’s true that few people can be more condescending, ruthless, and just plain cruel than one teenager feeling superior to another.
With the advent of people being much more open about how they identify regarding their gender (among other issues), has also come the same cruelty teens are often made to endure. The current Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner “controversy” is a great example of that. I believe that’s because people are often afraid of that which they do not understand. Gender identity that does not conform to what people expect based on the “actual” rather than perceived sex of the individual in question with the “non-traditional” identity is really pretty hard to understand, especially to people of faith.
We just don’t understand it. If you find yourself with a chromosomal structure that says you’re a man, well…you are. Or are you?
Part of that issue is that we believe God is perfect, has a perfect will for our lives, and does not make mistakes. Identifying as a gender opposite from what you are genetically seems like putting a “my bad” on God.
I can’t think of an instance where that happened, biblically.
So here we are.
Those with “alternate lifestyles” are offended because many, many Christians do not recognize their desire to be married as valid, or consider their lifestyle choices simply that; choices. They think those living in the “alternate” do whatever they do or think whatever they think because they are sexual or psychological deviants. That is probably no more true of gay people than straight people. There are creeps and freaks everywhere. That kind of deviance transcends any type of sexuality, I think.
Many of the people who share my faith also share a view that (and I am not speaking solely of the loathsome Westboro Baptist “Church” here) homosexuality and gender identity issues are chief among sins. They will be what will ultimately bring down the country, the world, and bring about the return of Christ to wreak vengeance on a gay-loving world. Or something like that. I can only speak for myself, but as a believer, I don’t really believe that. I don’t because it isn’t biblical. Sin is sin, and it’s all black against the purity of Jesus. I do not believe that being gay is any worse than anyone else’s sin. I’ve struggled with lust and addiction my whole life, and each of those in its own right is just…bad when you hold it up against one who never sinned at all.
And.
People talk about the gay “agenda,” and while there may be some gay men or women who seem to have a fondness (and no small amount of skill) for springing legal or legislative booby traps on unsuspecting business owners who also have strong ideals about faith and biblical principle, it does not mean they are trying to turn the world gay. They aren’t drinking the blood of hetero people and making more fabulous blood suckers. No. And I believe that is where the problem lies for so many believers.
We aren’t doing it right.
Often, the approach of my Christian brothers and sisters toward gay people—both at gay events and in other forums, such as online, in newspapers, magazines, etc.—is to let those men and women know in no uncertain terms what fate awaits them should they choose not to change their evil ways and repent. Seldom–if ever–mentioned is the true message of Christ. He loves them, just as much as he loves me. He died and rose for them, too.
We are supposed to love in the same way. Love God, and love others. By this all will know we are his disciples. If we love.
Love God, and love others as you would love yourself.
The problem that I have now—and have for many years—is that approach taken by so many standard-bearers for Christ sounds nothing like Jesus to me. Jesus didn’t tell his followers to condemn. He told them to go and make disciples of all nations. He told them to love their neighbors. That doesn’t mean love their sin. It doesn’t mean approve of it. But it also doesn’t mean justify your own by holding it up against something you find offensive. Hold it up against Christ if you need perspective.
It just seems to me that spewing vitriol at people does not let them know a loving God exists, a God who is in the business of deliverance. Not to mention that if I ignore the plank in my own eye, I am also sinning before God.
Let me backtrack a bit—all the way back to the very early 1980s.
My first encounter with a gay person was in the 8th grade, shortly before I moved up to high school. I wrote about that day a while back here. For those of you younger folks, homosexuality wasn’t something much talked about then. It was a different time, in almost every way. For my part, and also for many of the kids I hung out with, the word “fag” was tossed around almost haphazardly, without any concern for what it meant (many of us didn’t have anything but a rudimentary understanding of what homosexuality was, or how it was practiced. I include myself in that number).
We just said it, and it was almost a…good natured insult. Never considered was the fact that it could have been hurtful to anyone. It was just something we said. A lot.
I still regret what happened that night in my friend’s backyard, and I probably always will, to an extent. I’ve asked God’s forgiveness for my part in it, and I wish I could find the young man we hurt and ask for his, but that is not to be. Believe me, I spent a considerable amount of time looking.
So what has happened since then is that I have come into contact with a great many gay men and women at various jobs, and at the junior college I attended back in the 1990’s. With each encounter—and with each friendship developed—I began to notice something.
Each one of these men and women were people just like I was. They ate, and slept, and got dressed, and showered, and pooped. The only difference I saw was that they were drawn to people of the same sex and I was not.
We have a lot of untruth we learn throughout our lives we desperately need to unlearn. It’s the same for the gay community. They’ve got a lot to learn about Jesus, and Christianity, and Christians.
The gay people I have known over the course of my life were all involved in monogamous relationships at the time I knew them. They loved the people they were with, and in many cases had been committed to them alone for long periods of time. I worked with one lesbian couple that had been together for decades—almost as long as my parents were before they died.
Another thing to consider is the tendency of many gay people (not to mention the unquestionably liberally-minded media) to single out Christians, conservatives, and the “religious right” as chief amongst their oppressors, in a world that otherwise loves and supports the LGBTQ lifestyle and practices. The truth is, in many parts of the world (including the parts practicing Islam and Orthodox Judaism) homosexuality is condemned in stronger words than most Christians use, and gay marriage isn’t mentioned at all. That typically is not discussed, though.
It would prove that it isn’t just straight, white, followers of Christ who feel that to conform to the status quo, politically correct idea of modern normality is to compromise what they believe.
No one should have to do that.
Recently, the terrorist group ISIS (or ISIL) has began throwing gay men (and those they suspect of being gay) from rooftops in Iraq. Then they post merry, see-what-you-get posts on social media, playing up their contributions to keeping Islam true. They’re murderers, plain and simple.
It’s a little more complicated than that, though. This is certainly a multi-faceted issue.
For example, another thing I do disagree with is the tendency of late for LGBT people to liken their quest for what they call “marriage equality” to that of the struggle African-Americans faced during the civil rights movement of the 50’s and 60’s. Yes, they are fighting for what they deem a right they are being denied, but of the states who are denying LGBT men and women the right to use the word “marriage” to describe their unions, I would submit that many—if not most—of them are doing so based on the definition they have to work with on what marriage is—which for a great many conservatives and those on the religious “right” means the union of a man and a woman. While that is how I would personally define the word as well, I would do so while taking the following into consideration.
What has changed in my heart over the years (and this is way before I became a believer) was that I no longer cared about whether or not these people wanted to do the same things I did with the people they were involved with. It occurred to me it was none of my business. It still isn’t, and I still don’t care. I wouldn’t want them to try and peek into my bedroom, either (if it was up to me, I would always keep the light off—bald headed and middle aged white dudes carrying a little extra in the midsection are not exactly Da Vinci sculptures).
I’ve dealt with and related to gay men and women on a personal level, based on how they treated me and others and not who they slept with (or didn’t). It worked out pretty well, and I made a couple of good friends over the years.
One of the things that gave me the most food for thought was seeing the Larry Kramer play The Normal Heart back in the early 1990’s. It was a college production at SDSU and I remember they had this display set up in the lobby with cast pictures, pictures of the author, and I think sections of the AIDS quilt. This was around the time of the first season of MTV’s The Real World, which featured a gay cast member (yes, I watched the show). He was supposed to appear and speak at the play, but he died of AIDS shortly before it opened.
Anyway, the play got me thinking of gay people a little differently, at least regarding the way they were sometimes treated back in the early days of the AIDS epidemic. They didn’t have many rights regarding their partners–certainly nowhere near those rights afforded straight couples. And nobody seemed willing to acknowledge AIDS with the seriousness it merited, nor recognize how widespread it actually was. It didn’t seem that fair to me, even then. Yet it was what it was, and I had no intention of becoming any sort of activist. It wasn’t my issue. Still isn’t.
But.
When I came to belief in 2000, I was in a place in life where I didn’t work with or know anyone who was gay (that I knew of, anyway). I began to grow and deepen my faith, and it was so interesting to see that the Jesus I came to know through scripture and discipling was not the same one I’d heard about over the course of my life before knowing him.
In the course of time, I became somewhat involved with a young woman I worked with, and we began to spend time together with a group of friends of hers—most of whom were gay men.
I did not make a secret of my faith, and they respected it. I treated them just like I did everyone else, and I began to notice something the more time I spent with them. The gay community—at least to the extent of my involvement and casual friendships with these men—was way more of a community than the straight people I’d hung out with prior to that. They supported each other unconditionally, and seemed less interested in judging themselves and others than they did in simply living their lives. I got a little tired of the music these particular gentlemen favored (for pity’s sake, there’s only so much Missy Elliot a person can listen to), they were mostly really good and really friendly guys who liked to do different things than me.
I didn’t preach to them, and they didn’t try to convert me. I was more than willing to talk about any aspect of my faith they wanted to hear about, but I did not shove hell down their throats, either. I just tried to love them the way they were, to the best of my ability—even if I didn’t understand their lifestyle—It just didn’t seem to fit with the way we were made. But I could let that slide, for the most part. They didn’t share details of what they were doing in their relationships, and neither did I. So we had a mostly very friendly relationship, each of us understanding we were different, and that—for the most part—was OK. And the truth is, this particular group of gentlemen was a lot of fun to hang out with. If I had a dollar for every time I told someone “I’m not gonna wear that,” I could probably pay off my house. But that’s neither here nor there.
One time in particular, one of them told me, “It means a lot that you’re here. I don’t think anybody’s used to that with people like you.” I assumed he meant straight people at first, but then I realized he meant Christians.
I told him that I just loved God, and that scripture says I’m supposed to love people, too. They were gay, but they were no less people than I was. He smiled and gave me a hug.
Eventually, though, things began to change a little bit, and I started to struggle with some of the things I saw. It culminated in an evening where the young woman I was involved with and I were at a party where we were the only straight people, and things started happening around us. Very quickly, it started making me feel really uncomfortable, and I told the girl that I wanted to leave. It got to a point where I could no longer balance what I believed versus what these men did—mostly because I was being confronted with it in a way that got me a little weirded out, to tell the truth. Although it’s also worth a mention that extreme PDA from straight couples does the same thing for me.
I think it would be better if folks kept that stuff to themselves. Nobody needs to see you demonstrating your affection for your significant “other.” Seriously.
That evening’s adventures certainly weren’t in the privacy of anyone’s bedroom, so I no longer had the luxury of not being involved. My…whatever she was didn’t feel the way I did. That was the night we decided to “take a break,” which we never recovered from. There have been times when I wondered what would have happened if things hadn’t gotten so crazy that night. Would God have convicted me in some other way? I don’t know. And with things being as they are now, I can’t imagine wanting to change anything or go back. Yes, it ended up being a painful end to my relationship. Perhaps that was what it took to refine my heart.
In any case, after the party that night, I didn’t spend much more time with the group of guys, as I didn’t spend much more time with the girl—not any more, actually, outside of work.
It was five years later before I was involved with anyone else, and that was with the woman who would later become my wife. As we grew into our relationship—and later our marriage—it was around the time all the gay marriage propositions were going through the process of becoming law (or not). “Marriage Equality,” and all that.
I hadn’t thought much about the fact that gay people couldn’t (or could) be married over the course of my life prior to that time period (not since viewing The Normal Heart, at least), so it was interesting to see all of the various things on the news, including the Chik-Fil-A controversy of couple years ago.
It was interesting—and I felt a little conflicted inside—because while so many of my fellow Christians were up in arms about the potential legalization of gay marriage, I just…wasn’t. I didn’t see the point of marching on Washington or anywhere else. It wasn’t going to convince anyone of anything—it just made the people involved look bad.
I knew what the Bible had to say about homosexuality, and I agreed with it. But I also did not have a troubled heart about any of those people who wanted to get married. It didn’t matter to me what these folks wanted to do in the privacy of their own homes, and it seemed fair enough that they should be able to marry, if it made it easier regarding insurance and benefits, etc. I never felt that if they were able to marry it would threaten the sanctity of my own marriage. How could it? How could two men or two women marrying each other make my own union any less holy in the sight of God?
What did occur to me, though, was to wonder if all these people who complained, and protested, and cried out about how gay marriage was a danger to the family felt the same about divorce? Why is it we never see news stories about millions of people marching to protest how common arbitrarily ending a marriage has become? God is also very clear how he feels about divorce–perhaps even more clear than about gay marriage—which I never found a specific reference to. And while all these people were spouting off about how a word is defined, it occurred to me to wonder about how a marriage is defined? What does it mean to these people?
Certainly, I am not trying to say that divorce is never the right course of action, because sometimes it is the only course of action. It’s just that people are often so…fickle about it. The statistic you hear all the time about 50% of marriages ending in divorce? I believe it. Why wouldn’t it be true? It seems that few people understand what a covenant is these days. To me it suggests a sacred promise, and the rings my wife and I exchanged are a symbol of that promise. In short, I got married to her because I wanted to, because I knew I didn’t want anyone else, ever.
And on Valentine’s day a couple of years ago—I think I realized what marriage really was. It’s spending the night before Valentine’s Day in the ER with your husband, while he yells and pounds chairs and walls in his pain.
It’s spending the day itself in a chair next to his bed, and praying for him. It’s holding his hand and making him think of other things.
It’s sleeping (sort of) sitting up rather than going home, even for a little while.
It’s devotion to the person with whom you made the covenant, and that is what my wife showed me those two days. It made me love her all the more, if such a thing is even possible.
So to recap.
While I understand the biblical reasoning behind the stance so many take on whether or not homosexuals should be able to marry (based on the “biblical” definition of what marriage means), the conflict I feel comes from feeling like if people are devoted to one another, and are willing to make a covenant saying they are going to mean it for the rest of their lives, it’s hard for me not to want to just let them. Even if I don’t agree with or practice the same lifestyle they do.
Also, a while back, my adopted state of Arizona has passed (and sent to the governor–who vetoed the legislation) SB1062, a law that in essence allows people who refuse service to someone a defense (‘deeply held’ religious beliefs) in the event they are sued for discrimination or something of that nature. Of course, while legal recourse may ostensibly be what the law is about, the unspoken subtext is that it would also give others what they feel is license to treat gay people and their potential business in an unfair and discriminatory manner.
I believe that is it, in a nutshell. It is also what has millions of gays and pro-gays in such an uproar once again. They’re crying foul, and likening the legislation to the old Jim Crow laws from decades ago. While that may be a much lengthier discussion for another time, it does seem to me that while the “Jim Crow” battle cry is closer to pro-gay hyperbole than anything else. There is, however, a great deal of potential for discriminatory ugliness with this law, because people are people, and prone to do bad things with ambiguously worded legislation such as this.
With all that in mind, I think perhaps it is not just what some Christian folks are saying, but how they’re saying it. The arguments are the same, and probably always will be. Scripture decrying homosexuality is referenced, and gays along with supporters throw up scripture they feel counters their Christian counterpart’s efforts in the same regard. It gets uglier all the time, and nowhere on either side of the discussion is the real message of Jesus referenced.
It seems like this to me: if the bible is true, and it tells us that God is love and that all people will know we are the disciples of Christ if we love one another, then how are we showing the people who do not know his love the face of Jesus by so often treating them with open hostility? Same for gay “Christians” who do understand how people can still interpret the bible literally, and who seem to be all for prosecuting people defying their own deeply held beliefs.
There is definitely more than one side to this coin. How does feeding gay people fettucini alfredo or making a wedding cake for them make you a participant in whatever sin you feel they’re committing? I mean, I get it, but I don’t agree.
The problem is the wording and the design of the legislation, and I wonder sometimes if that was an intentional, CYA move on the part of the legislators. If so, we have to think about how this legislation is like (or could be like)…giving people already inclined to do so the right to treat others shabbily. There may be a place for some similar type of legislation, but this particular law is not going to go over well, not with the social climate surrounding this issue what it has become.
For my part, I can’t do it anymore.
I can’t treat people that way, and I never really could. Maybe some of it is my California-ness regarding gay people carrying over into my life in Arizona, but it’s really more about not wanting to feel like I’m any better than anyone else because my sin is different. I am not better than anyone else. I am the same. In my dotage, I’ve found it so much easier to treat people kindly. I would rather make them their food or a cake or floral arrangements, and then tell them God loves them and died for them, then let Him do the convicting.
I want people to know the Jesus I do. Whether they’re gay or straight or…whatever, I want them to know him, and know how he feels for them and what he did. I do not now—nor have I ever—felt my marriage (or any marriage) could be threatened in any way by who else can get married.
I wonder, though, how many gay men or women are known by the folks protesting gay marriage?
I also wonder how many Christians are known by gay, bisexual, or gender conflicted men and women?
If we don’t know each other, how can we expect anything to change in either direction?
Jesus talked to people. Walked with people. Ate with them. Probably fished with them, and laughed and drank and danced. I believe that in the end, the Eternal Kingdom will not be filled courtesy of those who spoke out against the things God hates the loudest—those who shouted condemnation from every rooftop. I think souls will quietly slip in thanks to the people who have shown them the most love, who have shown them Jesus.
To that end, because I am loved, I will try to be loving. I will choose to show people the Jesus I know by telling them about what he’s done in my life. I will tell them about how I am incomplete, and wounded, and broken, and still sin, but am loved in spite of the things that queue up to keep me from Jesus. I will explain what scripture means to me as I understand it, and I will tell people what I think if they ask me. If I love Jesus like I say, I owe them the truth.
I just have no intention of shouting it at them, or telling them God hates them because of their sin. Brand me a heretic if you must, but I feel that if God hated people because of their sin, he would hate all of us equally. And he would not have redeemed us from anything.
You don’t die for people you hate.
And to see so many people caught up in the definition of a word and how it threatens them rather than simply getting to know people and telling them about Jesus just doesn’t make any sense to me. I can’t understand how telling people they’re damned for what they do in their bedrooms is going to show them the Jesus I know that has changed my life and could also change theirs.
To be clear, once again, I am aware of the mentions in the bible of homosexuality, and that it is addressed as sin—just not by Jesus. While it is true that God hates sin, it would be errant—once again—to imply that he hates homosexuality more than any other type of sin. And that he hates homosexuals more than anyone else. Sin is sin. If God hated homosexuals, he would also hate every other type of sinner, and probably all Christians. The bible doesn’t say any of that.
Homosexuality is not something I indulge in, and whether or not I “approve” of it does not really even matter. I think the bible makes it clear what God thinks of homosexuality and what it entails, and I acknowledge the punishment for it is the same as any other sin—all other sin. Omission of mention by Jesus is not the same as approval. While Jesus himself may not mention homosexuality specifically, he did come in fulfillment of Old Testament Law, and prophecy, not to nullify it. I think where we go awry is when we start classifying sins, and justify ours as less terrible than homosexuality.
It isn’t.
No one is righteous, no not one. “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” (Jer 17:9)
Certainly not me.
We’re all different, but we are also all the same. We need God.
We need Jesus if we are to be freed from our chains and our sins. God knows it, and Christians do, too. Yet if we can condemn someone else for what they’re doing, then we don’t have to think as much about what we’re doing. All of which means that we can take comfort in our own perceived righteousness, while we decry the unrighteousness of gay men and women as if it were anything different than sins that we have committed, now, and throughout history.
Take a look at Matthew 5: 27-28. Go ahead. Read it and come back. Still here? Good. Let me repeat what I said before. Sin is sin. No one is righteous, no not one. How can I justify condemning a gay person with my own words, while justifying my own actions as a lesser sin. To God, they are the same. The punishment is the same.
Let’s talk about those Old Testament laws for a few minutes. You know the ones. Many people will talk about how scripture also mentions other things as being sinful that people don’t seem to care about anymore, like eating shrimp and other sea creatures for one example (take your pick, there are many others). They will tell you that those old laws—like the ones that condemn homosexuality as well as other sexual sins—do not matter or apply anymore, because the world is a different place. That’s partly true, and I’ll get back to that in a bit.
Those laws again, from the Old Testament. Taken specifically, there are three different types.
Laws pertaining just to the (ancient) state of Israel. They are pretty specific.
Also for consideration are ceremonial laws (many pertaining to sacrifice, and diet, and things of that nature), which were superseded by the New Covenant, fulfilled in the person of Christ.
Lastly, moral laws. It is only the moral laws of the Old Testament which remain and are held as truths by most Christians based on the validity of the Ten Commandments. I won’t go into every piece of scripture here, but at least to address the dietary laws and some of the other laws that seem to apply mainly to those of the Jewish faith rather than Christians: take a look at Mark 7:19, Acts 15: 5-29, etc.
Of course, if one does not hold the Bible as truth, then this would make little sense. And there’s the rub.
Then Jesus enters the picture, and everything changes.
As believers, we are called to share him and his truth with people. So while the biblical principles of the Old Testament make it clear how God feels about all different types of sin, there is hope, and in a world that seems to have so little, that is indeed something.
I posted a picture on Facebook not long ago I’d seen online of a group of Christians (mostly men) at a Gay Pride event, and they were holding signs and wearing shirts that said “I’m sorry.” They were apologizing to gay people for the treatment they’d received at the hands of standard bearers for Jesus. In the picture I posted, a gay man in great physical condition wearing tighty-whiteys gripped one of the shirt-wearers in what looked to be a very emotional bear-hug.
I thought it was a great picture and that it was a great way to actually show Jesus to people who needed to know him instead of just telling them they were on the Bullet Train to hell.
I got a bit of an ass-chewing from a couple of people to the effect that treating gay people as if their lifestyle was OK was the same as personally condoning and supporting it, and that wasn’t right—as if because I was a Christian, I should tell them they were going to hell. Never mind all that “love your neighbor” stuff. I want to tell people about Jesus, and I will tell them about sin. I just feel the right thing to do is let them know they are loved first.
I can’t convict someone of any sin, and I wouldn’t want to if I could. Jesus does that. And it isn’t my function, as a believer, to punish people for sin. Let him without sin cast the first stone?
That ain’t me, man—I’m a mess.
I’d rather tell someone I’m sorry, then hug them and tell them Jesus loves them.
I will leave the condemning up to God.
And if by some chance I came across the former Bruce Jenner or anyone else like him, I would do my best to simply say hello, and wish them a good day, just like I would if I met you.
A Work in Progress 