The hot button issue.

I am exhausted today. Probably like everyone else. I'm overwhelmed and emotionally a bit fragile and it hurts to walk and I hate that I thought it would be gone by now and it's not. I feel pitiful.

But that's not really who I am. In my spirit I feel like a bird who just had its cage door opened for the first time- a bit hesitant, a little scared, but intrigued and overjoyed that there is a whole new beautiful world waiting to be discovered.  I feel like I've been shaken and a lot of the extra junk sifted out. Fell onto the floor boards and my bare feet like a shedding of skin and I feel fresh. I feel ready. Expectant.

There are glimpses of grace here. The simple, the mundane, that now I see are more than they had appeared-  even these are sacred. Pay attention. This small thing, this waking up of the spirit, it matters.

Today I am a paradox. The wonderful thing about this is that it demands that you acknowledge that the two very polar sides are not opposing at all, but are intertwined in places unseen. They don't just balance each other out as though on a linear cosmic balance board.  They reside in the tension, in the deep, in the questions. Tension is fast becoming a cliche word, and I'm in danger of overusing it, but I can't think of another English word that feels right. That's a challenge. Find me one please. Maybe I should make one up.

* * * * *

I read a blog post this morning that stirred up some new questions in me surrounding the homosexuality conversation. I am wishing all my Christian friends would read this, let it be another voice, mull it over like I am. I wish it would stir us, keep us up at night if it hasn't already, remind us of this tension and caution us to tread gently, choose our words more wisely, refine our beliefs a bit. New voices matter. 

This is not a complete theological exposition. It is personal thoughts from one human being living in the tension to another. Somewhere in the comments (which are also insightful) he says this:

I am not asking people to change their beliefs about gay marriage,

 but instead I am asking people to struggle more deeply with the implications

 of that belief, so that we may be better equipped to spread a

 compassionate gospel. We are to grieve with those who grieve — if the

 application of the scripture is as hard as you say it is, then it had best be applied 

with tears and tenderness, lest we crush those we serve. Those tears and tenderness can only be acquired through deep struggle with the cost of our words.

With that said, here it is.

http://sacredtension.com/2013/07/08/three-reasons-the-traditional-perspective-on-gay-marriage-makes-me-uncomfortable/

If you are willing to be a part of this conversation, let's all agree to do it well, to speak kindly, and be respectful. I have failed at this enough times to know the damage it does. But it's too important to ignore.

Bridges.

Communication, on the other hand, is painstakingly difficult and increasingly complex when so much of it happens in typed word and emoticons instead of voice inflection and body posture. Complex, but not impossible. After all, being face-to-face with someone and engaged in conversation does not necessarily mean there will be greater understanding or mutual respect or better chance of converting the 'other' to your own worldview.

STOP.

That is what we want, isn't it? If we're honest? We so passionately believe in our own worldview, our own interpretation of right/wrong that it must be our goal to communicate this truth adequately so the one in disagreement comes to this full knowledge as well. After all, love means telling the truth.

We are addicted to answers, to the idea that all views have opposition they must fight, addicted to labels. The yes/no, the right/wrong, the us/them, the black/white, anti-/pro- paradigm.

I don't buy it.

The real stuff of life happens in the tension, in the conversation, in the bridge-building between two opposing sides that both seek to convert the 'other'. I use the term 'tension' purposely. It is tense. It is uncomfortable. As the saying goes, when you're a bridge you get walked on from both sides. Truth.

Lately the gay marriage debate has taken the spotlight, and necessarily so in MN. I see my FB feed fill up with passionate conservative friends taking a stand for 'truth'. I see my equally passionate progressive and gay friends pushing back, standing for 'equality'. I have dear friends on both sides of the spectrum, and I've been known to offend both sides at times. I'm learning. Slowly. Too slowly.

If there's one thing I've continually felt God's pull toward in my life in the last couple years, it is that I am to be a bridge builder, in this conversation and others. Living in the tension. It's become my mantra of sorts. I'm not trying to sound cliche. Nor am I trying to side-step having to answer hard questions. I'm just learning to recognize that without building relationships and communicating by listening first, nothing will ever change.

So I choose to stand in solidarity with the Other. Because that is the example I see in Jesus. Feel free to disagree with me- plenty do. 'But Jesus said, Go and sin no more!' you say? Yes, he did. After he had taken the sinner's side, risking his own reputation and even his life. After he let her know that he did not condemn her. Then, and only then, had he earned the right to speak into her life.

Time to follow suit. Earning that right, earning trust in a relationship takes time. Serious time. And it involves much listening and not a lot of talking.

It's easy to dismiss someone out of ignorance or intolerance when you don't have to put real faces to the labels. It's not so easy to do once you've heard their story, listened to their heartache, felt their pain or confusion, called them Friend. Relationship is everything.

So much misunderstanding. So little listening and too few relationships being built between these two camps. It breaks my heart. I believe it breaks God's heart as well.

Can I be a bridge? It's certainly seen as risky business, often labelled as lukewarm, not holding to Scripture, divisive. I've been told it's not real reconciliation without repentance. I disagree. And we can disagree.

We can seek to elevate these conversations to a place that earns back the trust and respect where it was lost. We can see the beauty in diversity by creating space for these honest discussions. We can speak louder that the image of God exists in ALL people, gay and straight. We can ask honest questions to better understand instead of merely convert. We can decide that it isn't about agreeing on interpretations of Scripture or on a political hot-button issue. We can recognize that it's about how we love the one who disagrees with us. I haven't done a great job of this myself.

I'm saying it now, out loud, because I HAVE to.

***For the conservative person: How can you, or how can the church, better love the LGBT community? How can you better seek reconciliation with those who disagree with your interpretation of Scripture?

***For the progressive person: How can you seek reconciliation with those who view marriage in the traditional way? How can you love the LGBT community while respecting the conservative view and even inviting them along in that process of learning by listening?

Demanding conformity to beliefs is not helpful, nor is it the unconditional love that Jesus exemplified. Maybe our refusal to repent of our intolerance is precisely what we need to repent of. Maybe the first step looks like humility and more genuine questions than we think necessary. Maybe it looks less like choosing sides and more like bridge-building. Maybe saying 'congratulations' to a newly engaged same-sex couple doesn't have to mean you condone it. Maybe it's just an extension of some much-needed dignity. Maybe it's the first step toward a relationship- one that you can learn just as much from as them. It is possible to disagree in a variety of respectful and even hospitable ways.

‘Rather than being disappointed in less than complete agreement or understanding, I’ll be grateful for even small steps we can take together in challenging dangerous features of the status quo and opening up better possibilities for the future.’ – Brian  Mclaren

Small steps. What do you think?

Rock-sitting, veil-tearing, and learning to shut up.

“And then there is time in which to be, simply to be, that time in which God quietly tells us who we are and who he wants us to be.  It is then that God can take our emptiness and fill it up with what he wants, and drains away the business with which we inevitably get involved in the dailiness of human living.”  ~Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water

I know we are called to movement. To change. To growth. But sometimes I feel like that's not possible until I sit myself down and get comfortable in an uncomfortable sort of way. Comfortable like sitting on a rock is comfortable.

I mean, this learning to be business is harder than change. It takes patience. Letting go of control (it's an illusion anyway). It takes focus to be still and listen. And I'm not talking about being physically still, because that is way too easy for me these days.

No, I'm talking about stilling my heart.

Mind.

Spirit.

In a culture that idolizes the race toward success, this s-l-o-w-i-n-g  d-o-w-n makes us feel restless, even lazy. But that's hardly the case.

"Be still," God whispers.  "Know that I am God." 

Be still. Not static, but still. Lean in a bit closer. Now listen.

I'm not one to expect God's voice to be audible. I'm sure it happens. Not to me. 

I don't expect writing in the clouds. Not anymore. (yes, there's a story behind that)

I don't need a lightning bolt to tell me where to go next.

I need God.

That is all. It is enough. Just knowing, remembering, that I am God's. I belong. I exist because of Love. That makes me loved unconditionally. And not just this, as if it weren't enough, but I get to be with him! There's that word- with- it keeps popping up everywhere now that I'm looking for it. I get to be with God, in relationship with him, I get to bear the image of my Creator. I have complete access to something divine because 'the veil of the temple was torn in two'. Top to bottom. It was rendered useless, meaningless, nonexistent.

What does that mean for me, sitting on this rock, in this hard place, trying to just be?

I'm not entirely sure yet. I do know that back then there was a boundary, a barrier between the holy and the profane. The sacred and the mundane were separated.

But then something provocative happened. Jesus showed up. As a baby of an underprivileged and unwed (impure) family. His life becomes a story of reconciliation, one where all the rules are turned upside-down. A rescuer, he was, but not in the typical sense. God became flesh and came to dwell with us. With us.

Jesus essentially tore back the curtain that separated us, the creation, from being with our Maker.

So I get to sit here and take it in. I get to stop trying to do good things for God and just be with him instead.

Stunning.

* * * * * * * * * 

Be-ing is an odd thing. But it is what we were created to do. After all, when asked what God wanted to be called, what his name is, God answered "I AM". There it is again. God is. And that isn't just enough, it is everything.

So this place I'm in, this rock that I sit on, uncomfortable and quiet as it may be, is the very best place for me to lean in and hear my Maker whisper these truths back in the wind, in the rustling oak trees, in the bubbling stream...that I am loved just because he loves. Because all is sacred. Because of Jesus.

Because I AM, too.

Learning to Lean In

She leaned forward over the table and set her mug of lukewarm coffee aside. Words soft but lips tense. "How can you be sure that all this struggling means anything?" The sadness behind her eyes was piercing and impossible to ignore.

I certainly don't know much. Each year the number of truths I know beyond a doubt shrivels. Each year questions replace the list of doctrines. Each year my view of God expands. It has settled, sifted, much of the I'm-not-so-sure-anymore falls through holes I poked out of my skin like a sieve. But what remains! The tiny diamonds, glistening anew, beauty begging to be marveled... it cannot be denied. This sifting is painful and sometimes gives way to loneliness. The sifting, the questioning while still intently following has brought me into much sadness. It's the same sadness I saw across the table- one that knows there is hope or the questions wouldn't have even escaped her lips. Oh yes, my friend, there is hope.

I reach in and show her one of those diamonds I've spent years cleaning off, painstakingly, gently. Still dusty and raw.

You lean into it. Press into the questions, the doubts, the pain, the struggle, all of it. You stay there awhile, in the wondering, in the loneliness, in the waiting, leaning into the biting wind instead of running to safety. You keep on leaning and saying the hard things out loud and naming the hurt, owning this place, the shifting ground you've landed on. You lean in, until you're sure God is there, too.

But shouldn't we know? I mean, that's what faith is for. I am supposed to have faith.

We've lost so much of the richness of that word- know. Knowledge is something of the intellect, taking place in the brain. But it's deeper than that. To know deeply is something more than just knowing consciously. It's more than my finite mind can explain like facts on a power-point presentation. It digs, sharp and deep, down through myself to the core of who I am. That thing- and it is a thing of substance- it is my absolute foundation.

I know that what God creates God will not abandon.

I know my calling and everyone's is to co-create by Jesus' example of the power of love over the love of power.

I know that nothing can separate me from that Love. Not even death.

I know that the human condition is one of pain, but I also know that I find my life when I offer it up in service, not when I act independently, grasping for control and security. Instead I can invest infectious love into my community and trust that others will catch on to the notion that either we all matter or none of us do.  Repeat: Or none of us do.

I know that my perspective of the joys and struggles is so very small, and I must trust a bigger story.

Much like childbirth, the more we tense up, clench our jaw, fight the pain, the more it hurts. Mommas know. I learned by my third delivery that the key to suffering was to surrender. This process has to happen. It takes everything within me to not fight back, but to breathe and focus on release of all tension. And you know what? The pain doesn't go away, but somehow it hurts less. And there is such freedom in trusting the process will give way to LIFE.

******

I am listening. Keep talking. There is no rush. And there's always more coffee.