For you “love the sinner, hate the sin” kind of Christians, let me remind you what love looks like. Love looks like welcome. It looks like hands-on care. It looks like kindness without expectation of return. You cannot love people and at the same time keep them at arms’ length. Love requires vulnerability and openness. Love gets messy and isn’t always comfortable. Love can only manifest in relationship. Love does not and will never look like exclusion.
WARNING: This is an uncensored rant against God. If you find such things as doubt, anger, and questioning toward God offensive, read no further. If not, then read on.
Now that we are into February of the new year, I’m at a place removed so I can adequately reflect on the year that was 2012. It has taken the better part of a month to process, and even still, I’m not sure how to digest it all. But here’s a first crack at getting my thoughts, questions, and overwhelming confusion out of my head and into this blog.
Every year at Thanksgiving, my mother would place a kernel of dried Indian corn on our plates, and one-by-one she would ask each of us to hold the corn between our fingers and answer this question for the entire table to hear: What are you thankful for this year? It was a corny tradition (pun intended) but we participated anyway, repeating the same answers year after year: beautiful children, loving partners, adoring parents, warm homes, delicious food. Who wouldn’t be thankful for these things?
Recently, there has been a lot of political admonishment to vote for “biblical values.” Pulpits, radio ads, and television commercials are flush with it. We see it plastered on flyers, littering our mail. And most recently, the Billy Graham Evangelical Association placed a full-page advertisement in local newspapers reminding us all to “cast our ballots for candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles.”
What happens to us when a deeply loved dream dies? But what happens after we’ve tried once more, stood up once more, gone further, and refused to give up ad infinitum until there is nothing left to give?
The first presidential election in which I voted, I cast my ballot for Ronald Reagan. I understand if some of you cringe. I also understand if some of you miss the conservative girl I used to be.
Here we are again, the church at the tail end of a fight for human rights, human dignity, and tolerance. The president came out in support of gay marriage. In response, a pastor in his pulpit declares before a cheering crowd that parents should punch young boys who exhibit feminine traits. From another pupit, a pastor suggests a final solution to homosexuality by keeping gay men and women in electrically fenced ghettos. And this week – the coup de gras: a pastor in front of his entire church called for the United States government to execute all homosexuals per Leviticus 20:13.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart. And try to love the questions themselves.” – Rainer Maria Rilke
I’ll never forget the reactions people gave me when I told them I was going to seminary.