A Letter to My Fellow Citizens Regarding Marriage

To my fellow citizens of the United States of America (the place where freedom reigns!),

I want to thank you for not voting for who I get to marry or not marry. It means a lot to me that my freedom to choose my spouse based on love, not law means enough to you to give us our space and enjoy each other. As long, as, you know, he has a penis and everything.
I'm also super thankful that we live in land where "separation of church and state," is a phrase that we take seriously. I mean, a government ruling by religious ideology sounds a lot like Sharia law to me.While I respect my Muslim brothers and sisters, I'm not really sure I want their laws dictating what I can and cannot do. So it's super awesome that we're able to keep things separate, making sure the beliefs of others aren't dictating our lives. I truly love the old school Republican idea of small government, you know, the kind that lets people decide what's best for themselves. I love living in a free country where we have the freedom to pick and choose how we live our lives.
One of the things I love most about my faith, Christianity, is that Christ (you know, that guy it's named after) never set up boundaries between himself and others. He invited all to come to him. He never forced his opinions on others and in fact told those guys he sent out (you know, the disciples) to "shake the dust from their sandals" and head out of town if the people didn't care to listen to what they had to say. People disagree with you? Great! Brush the dirt off and get on with your life. Leave them to live theirs.
Then, he instituted the Church, his body, to take care of folks. I'm pretty sure he said "Go then and make disciples," not "Go then and make voters."
Don't get me wrong, voting is important. It's pretty cool that we get to live in a country where we have a say about what goes on. But when we start voting on religious issues, the lines get blurred in a hurry. The government cannot and never will be a religious institution.
Have an issue with the way someone is living? First of all, ask yourself, how much does it really affect you? Second, if it's religious issue, and you really feel the need to, take it up in the proper place: a religious institution. The Church is not the Capital. The Capital is not the Church.
So thank you, fellow citizens for treating others as you'd like to be treated. Thanks for letting me marry whichever boy I choose, because it in no way affects you. Thanks for not singling me out as responsible for the demise of America because of who I'm attracted to. And thank you, Christians, for being the body of Christ and following the greatest commandment of loving your neighbor as yourself. (No stipulations.)

Sincerely,

Melisa

About a half and hour after posting that, I read this:

"Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other's eyes for an instant?"
-- Henry David Thoreau --

Balancing Humanity

I've been going to yoga on Monday evenings lately. Last night as I was there, somewhere between my downward dog and pigeon, I decided once a week may not be enough. It occurred to me that I love yoga. My friends have been proclaiming its wonders for years, and I've gone with them from time to time. But it hadn't really clicked until recently. I discovered the poetic nature about it. The fluid motions mimic dance, giving the body both wellness and art. At the same time, I am both weak and strong. My muscles quiver as they work to sustain my posture, feeling both that they will collapse at any given moment yet continue to hold me upright. As I ache to return to a relaxed state, I feel my body grow stronger. Sweat drips from my brow and my body thanks me for the challenge. Afterward, I feel strong to the core and balanced both physically and mentally.

It is the notion of balance that strikes me, I think, and more than just that which I experience from yoga. In several matters in my life, balance has been playing a more important role, and I am oh so grateful for it. I want to say that Christians are terrible at balance, but I am hesitant to throw a blanket statement out there. It could be simply my personal experience, but really, I think that I am not alone in this. Please, correct me if I am wrong and am the only one who has felt completely off balance as a result of modern evangelicalism. 

Here are my thoughts. Christianity, at least as portrayed by modern evangelicalism, scarcely allows for balance. To allow for balance allows for being human, and we certainly can't be having that now, can we? For years and years, my perception was always to strive to "be holy because I am holy." (Lev 11:44/1 Peter 1:16) and to "put to death the self." So, I'm still working out the theological implications of these verses, but from what I've seen and recently experienced, modern evangelicalism has taken them way off course and used them to beat the bloody hell out of those who seek to be holistic followers of The Way. Obviously, "being holy," and "dying to self" aren't bad ideas. The bad idea is that somehow we are able to, and should, do these things on our own. 

This leads to nothing but loss and devastation.

We (Christians, collectively, or perhaps just me) are told repeatedly that we are not doing enough. So we strive continually to do more and more to put to death the self. In the end, we wind up doing just that. When we attempt to kill the self in us, death of self is achieved. Our "self" becomes corroded in our quest for holiness and we end up hallowed shells of who we could and are meant to be.  However, when we stop striving, seek balance, and allow ourselves to be the self God created us to be, there is life...abundantly.

This is something I've been mulling over for quite some time now, but recently has been in the forefront of my mind. It first caught my attention when I was reading C.S. Lewis. I believe it was in Mere Christianity when he states, "We were never intended to be purely spiritual beings." When I read that, it was like a previously unknown window had just been opened in a dingy, barricaded cellar. Fresh air filled my lungs and I suddenly had an inkling that it was possible to be...normal. To be human. To be me.

Despite the fact that our created bodies and minds have needs, modern evangelicalism tells us these needs are bad. We are taught to keep ourselves constantly in check for fear of "falling away." Again, keeping one's self in check is not a bad idea. However, often "keeping yourself in check" ends up simply denying the self most things and starving our physical and emotional selves to near anorexia. Moderation is not in the vocabulary of many evangelicals. The verse "Don't give the devil a foothold," gets thrown around a lot. So in order to keep that darned devil away, it's best to just avoid anything that remotely looks like it might be something he's dangling in front of our face. It's best to just live our lives in a little sheltered box, making sure to stab whatever aspect of human nature dares to raise its ugly head in us and kill it dead. 

No. 

Wait. 

Don't do that!

Live! Find balance! Go to church. Pray. Worship. Fellowship. These are good things. But then...Eat. Drink. Be merry. Taste. Touch. Feel. Listen. Love. Be moved. Experience this life as it unfolds before you. Be yourself. It's okay, it's who you were created to be.

Gandhi, Obama, and the Body of Christ

While it will most likely be January 13 when this is published, it is currently January 12 at the time of writing. Normally not a notable detail, however what I am writing about this evening entails events which occurred on January 12...2011 and 1948.  At least, those events will be the jumping off point. (Stuff happened on some other days, too, but, you know...whatever) We'll see where this ends up.

(Um, that being said, it should be made known that pretty much everything on this blog is a rough draft. I don't really edit or revise much. One of my main points in keeping this blog is simply to get myself generating material, keeping my writing brushed up on and the creative juices flowing.)

On January 12, 1948 Gandhi began his "last successful fast" meant to persuade Muslim's and Hindu's in New Dehli to work with one another toward peace. Despite being Hindu, he seemed to get Jesus' meaning of loving folks and is even rumored to have read the Sermon on the Mount nearly every morning. 

On January 12, 2011, US President Barack Obama addressed the nation at the memorial of those whose lives were lost in Arizona this last Saturday. Obama said something that has been on my mind for quite some time. He said, 

...at a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized; at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who happen to think differently than we do, it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds.

Whatever your views of President Obama may be, and I know they are varied, and whatever sincerity or insincerity you attribute to this statement, I'm going to take that statement at face value and run with it. Not because President Obama said it, but because it is true. 

It was the word "polarized" that caught my attention, and it isn't solely to politics that I used that word in reference. It's true that polarization finds a fitting home in politics, and that issue crossed my mind. However, polarization has found it's way into the one place it has absolutely no right to be, and that is in the Christian Church; what is supposed to be the united Body of Christ. In fact, it seems because polarization is so at home in politics, it has been allowed to ooze into the Body. Rather than "separation of church and state" we are simply ending up with "Separation of Church." (Church. Capital C. The one meaning every single one of us in the whole entire world who have professed faith in Jesus Christ.) 

Both the United States of America and the United Body of Christ are nearing the point in which "United" could simply be stricken from their names. Democrat. Republican. Fox News. CNN. Red. Blue. Beck. Cooper. Conservative. Liberal. Catholic. Protestant. Evangelical. Emergent. I could go on. These are the labels that we allow to rule our lives and in turn separate us from one another. So many of us are convinced that the other guy has it all wrong, when, whoa! Reality Check...

WE'RE ALL WRONG!!
Wasn't that the point of needing a savior anyway? "For all have sinned..." Emphasis word "all." I'm sick of being in the middle of friends and family consistently bashing the other side. Through the course of conversations, had I taken what was being said and applied it to people I know personally,  I've heard my friends and loved ones be called "communists, bastards, assholes, naive, tree-huggers, biased, bigoted, uneducated, bible-thumpers, destined for hell, narrow-minded..." Well, you get the idea. And yeah, I've heard those pseudonym's come from professing Christians as well as professing atheists and humanists. I've been known to use a few of them myself, I suppose. 

I don't know. I wasn't there when he said it, but I'm pretty sure that's not what Christ meant when he said both "love your neighbor" and "love your enemy." 

So...I don't know where to go from here. People are set in their ways and will continue to watch one news channel over another, claiming the other is biased. Liberals will be liberals. Conservatives conservatives. Writing this has lead me to despair, the hope for unity perhaps too far to be grasped. It seems so simple to just say "get over it, love each other." I pray that our words as Christians become words of healing, no longer of wounding, for more often than not, it's only ourselves that we maim. I'm not really sure why that's hard. Are we that threatened by people who think differently than us that we either curse them or avoid them? Is there a place for conversation between two sides without one side getting offended or the other side getting riled?

Oh.

I guess it's probably at the foot of the Cross.

But, I don't spend very much time there. 

Maybe we can all meet there? In humility? Political and Religious agendas aside? And find commonality in our human-ness and just love and be loved by a savior? 

But, how do we do that, in a real life setting? If you have any ideas of how we can take this polarization thing and send it packing to the darkest pits of hell and instead, work on this unity thing, either as Christians or Americans, (no, they don't go hand in hand) your suggestions are more than appreciated. Frankly, I'm at a loss. Idealism occasionally gets the best of me.