Untitled

I hate these nights when I come home having had a bit too much to drink. My mind races to realities than dreams. And the reality is that I live in a dream.

Constantly.

For the past 22 years of my life. 23 if you are from Korea.




I am gay. This is the reality. The dream is that I am straight - and this is the dream in which I live. My friends are relatively convinced of this dream, and I am more than prepared to live in it.

Kind of.

Tonight I got a phone call from one of my best friends, saying that she was engaged to this wonderful man that she met in University. I am enormously happy for her - this man is gold, as best as I can tell, and I am enormously happy for the two of them.

The problem is this - I was part-way through partying with a good friend of mine, as he was celebrating the last few nights of his bachelorhood. And in the very near future, my best friend from high school is getting married.

Perhaps I am not making myself clear enough just yet.


It seems that everybody that I know is in love with somebody. Is permitted to be in love with somebody. And is moving beyond just being in love with somebody, and I am merely existing inside of a dream that I know is reality but that I kind of want to be reality. But I know that it isn't a reality that I can exist in.

And so I have to ask myself whether or not it is time for me to starting the process of declaring another piece to my puzzling existence - my homosexuality. And if it isn't - have I already missed the time? And if it is - how do I go about it, and how do I find counsel in doing it?



Now, I shouldn't pretend to be entirely alone. I have told some friends in the past that I am gay - and they have all been relatively supportive, and many have remained very close and reliable friends. Good people that I have been blessed by.

But the fear of rejection from everybody else is enormous.

Let me say that again.


The fear of rejection from everybody else is enormous.

Where else?

I recently quit my involvement in youth ministries at my church, for many reasons.

I am now confronted with the question of why I attend church. And I find myself entirely incapable of providing an answer, because I find the word "church" so limiting.



I go to church. Not regularly, but I go.

When I attend, I sit in a row of conference chairs rather than pews. I sing contemporary worship songs, filled with contrived music and poor theology. I listen to the words of somebody else praying and close my eyes thinking that something good is bound to be said. I listen to thoughtless, sentimental sermons that are based on the Epistles rather than on the Gospels. I hear announcements which keep the community more interested in itself than the outside, changing world. Then I enter the foyer and visit with friends, where I often wish that a strong wine was served for communion rather than juice to ensure the scars of the past hour and a half could be more easily forgotten.

And I spend a lot of time wondering where God is in our church.

Next to me in church, in an equally uncomfortable and equally transportable conference chair, is a person. Usually a person of my age, who seems to have this all make sense, or who buys into it more than I do. It is wonderful to watch this person communicate with their living God. Wonderful. And entirely foreign to me.

Why do I attend? Perhaps for the hope that something worthwhile and inspiring will transpire, that suddenly God will make some sense, or that I will somehow find the missing link that will convince me that Christ died for me. None of this has happened. And I'm not sure if I really want it to.

So why do I attend church? And perhaps, why do I attend my specific church?

I spend a lot of time wondering where God is in our church.



And I spend a lot of time wondering where God is outside of our church.



And I haven't given up on the world outside of the church, so why should I give up on the church?

Come listen children, to a story...

I was just at a Bible Study - one of the few that I have attended in the past 12 or-so months that has used the Bible exclusively as its resource. It was refreshing, and felt entirely untainted. Regardless, there were many comments that made the entire experience slightly more aggravating to me than I was fully prepared for; I felt as though people weren't entirely prepared to devote themselves to an authentic study of the Bible.

There was one comment in particular that caught me off guard. We were discussing Matthew Chapter 11, and included in this topic are some verses that discuss God providing the gift of understanding to "children" rather than to the "wise and intelligent." This actual lead to good discussion - one comment in particular was quite impressive: Jesus is using the term Children metaphorically to refer to the Gentiles, who are, as children, being introduced to God with open arms for the first time through Jesus' ministry. These gentiles include those of the actual people-group, as well as those social-gentiles, such as the tax-collectors, and lepers, who were now being welcomed into a spiritual relationship with Christ, or God. Whichever Jesus was.

This was the good comment.

The second comment was the one which inevitably develops out of any conversation with Children and Religion - and it is that the truth of the religion (apparently the atonement of Jesus on behalf of man) is simple, so simple that children are able to comprehend it and believe it.

I'm a teacher. I study and try to understand how human's understand knowledge. No information is simple to the human brain - it all must be understood, no matter how insignificant it is. Atonement? Simple? I don't think this is true. In fact, I think that the religious basis of Atonement is so convoluted that is cannot be understood at all. And not just as a result of our human nature and capacity for knowledge - I am almost convinced that it is poor theology. Circular in logic, self-sustaining. But, if true, enormous in its implications.

And is this the basis of our religion? Or, perhaps our spirituality? Atonement? I hope not. If it is, I should check into something else - I'm not sold on it. Parts of it I understand - certainly the fallen nature of Man, and the confusing, mysterious power of God. I accept this; otherwise God is not God and Man has no excuse for what we are.

But... if our spirituality is simple, why do we study it intently, in small and deeply personal groups?

Why do we have religion? Something that Jesus demands?

And why do we allow the religion to establish rules and traditions? I thought this was simple - everybody would understand it, and buy into it.

I'm hesitant about anybody calling Christianity simple. If this is the case, they simply believe in it and its simplicity. If this is the case, then they are unsure of how this actually plays out in their life - Atonement. Certainly it must affect their life - and this is not simple. How does it do so? Their very action? Is it merely to help others realize that they have been atoned for? I hope not.

If it is, I should check into something else - I'm not sold on it.

And I am not prepared to establish the foundation of my existence on something simple, self-sustaining logically. I need something more. And I would like to this that God provides that, and that it is anything but simple. It is mysterious and elusive. BIG, confusing. Not simple.

Certainly not to us. *though I like the idea that Atonement is only one of God's thoughts

Even if it should be.