What Israel can do to a man.

"I would like to buy $3 worth of God - not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough to equal a cup or warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough of God to make me love a black man or pick beets with a migrant. I want ecstasy, not transformation. I want the warmth of the womb, not a new birth. I want about a pound of the eternal in a paper sack. I would like to buy $3 worth of God, please." (Wilbur Reece)

My discussion last night with Joel made me realize how little faith I have in the world that I live in, and how little faith I have in the inspiration of God to change the world; to make it an environment of love.

Joel suggested that there are people in my church are much more capable of love than I want to give them credit for. I have my doubts. But Joel said that there are people in my church that are aware of the radical love of God's kingdom, and try their hardest to live it out. People that know that God's love is far too radical to allow for hate - not just because they are a dueling opposites, but because God is not hate.

I want to be able to afford that radical love to the people of my church. To the pastors of my church. I want to have faith in God for change. And I should be so inspired by the change that has taken place for the gay community at large.

But then shootings take place in Israel at a gay community center for teenagers.

And I hide in my closet. The revolutionary in me dies down. I am quiet. I stumble in the dream of being straight.

Damn my fear. Shit on my cynicism. I wish to dispose of them and become a good person again. The person I want to be.

Joel is a good friend.

So you say you want a...

Revolution.

This song, a Beatles classic, comes to mind tonight for two reasons. Firstly, I was listening to the Across the Universe soundtrack, and I quite enjoy this scene from the film. Secondly, because of a discussion I have with a friend tonight. Maybe I should get it tattooed to my body or something.

I was discussing frustration in my church with my friend. If anybody is reading this blog at all, then they would have have read my recent post on why I attend my church. Well, I should perhaps inform you that this reasoning is not particularly sustainable - though ideal, it doesn't last long. I was on the verge of collapsing today and asking my pastor for an exit interview. I may still do it.

I was having a conversation with somebody that I have been "out" to for about a year. I kind of forced myself out to him on the eve of Heath Ledger's death, in a kind of shock response to his death, and a ode to his incredible acting ability in Brokeback Mountain and pretty much everything else. He was locked in my car. For about 2 hours. Playing word games with me while I imagined methods of coming out to him.

If you've been reading, you'll know that I have moved onto e-mailing distant cousins and close friends. Perhaps a poor policy. I'm still in a state of no-response limbo. I hate this.

Anyways, on to the point.

I shared my frustrations with my friend, Joel, who listened. Recently my church's senior pastor has decided that young adults are not prepared to ask questions regarding the complete validity of the entirety of Christian scripture. My best friend from high school (the first to hear of my sexuality) is in the role of leading this group of young adults, and had his heart destroyed when this took place.

I was thoroughly unhappy with the result, or the process. This pastor is horrible at resolving conflict, and making people uncomfortable, and providing people with opportunities to be challenged. And this is the church in which I must find solace once I go through the process of "coming out" publicly.

Which I think I am nearing. Joel could turn me into a revolutionary.

I attend a Mennonite Brethren church - which is Christian talk for conservative central. We aren't particularly well known for changing our ways, or our thoughts and approaches to social concerns. We are known for helping those in need around the world, but keeping to ourselves locally.

And just to avoid the questions - I drink alcohol. Regularly. I dance. Regularly.

I don't take a horse-drawn cart to church. Ever.

I think I am normal.

My friend Joel is telling me that my church needs to change - that there is no way that the old-school way of viewing Christianity will survive another 50 years because there are very few youth that are interested in carrying the torch anymore. We have been inspired and infected by social liberation theology.

Me being gay could make this obvious. It is a decisive matter. The church would be separated on it - they would confront the disunity and have to respond. The young and the old would disagree.

But I hate that part of revolution - where people don't agree or get along.

But people shouldn't get along while others are oppressed. Ignorance is bliss, but unacceptable.


So do I start a revolution? It is damn tempting.

But it isn't quite so simple, just as it never is. And if a book is ever written about the gay Mennonite that changed the world, I don't want it to present it as simple.

I help out with youth ministry. Children.

And I am gay.

Special questions arise. None of them are valid questions, but they arise. Have I touched little boys? Have I convinced other boys that they are gay? Have I turned others gay? Maybe these are questions that need to be confronted so that we can become aware of how barbaric our image of gay culture is.

But do I have to be the person who is hurt throughout the process?

“Abba, Father,” he cried out, “everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine.” (Mk 14:36)

What is there left to say?

Below is an e-mail that I just sent to one of my closest friends and cousin. I'm blotting out his name. This is kind of an OH SHIT! moment.



Hey XXXXXX,

I don't know why the hell I am sending this to you. Perhaps in the hopes that I can stand before somebody naked, stripped of a dream and encountering reality. Read on, if you are still interested.

I'm finding myself entirely crippled in discussion recently. I live in a world entirely alone, it seems. I cannot relate to other people's discussions, and I find them fleeting and entirely uninteresting. The content is fascinating and relevant, but they demand a discussion for hope, a phenomenon which I find myself having in decreasing numbers in the adult world and in my own heart.

I hear about how you, Tyson, Joni, Jenna, and Kyle and Andrea are protesting the expansion of foreign industry in the community, and I am jealous. You are people who are using your morals and operating in the world with them.

I haven't felt this freedom for a long time, and even then I have only felt it in limited amounts while working with youth ministry. As I am no longer involved with that at church, I do not know if I will be able to change the world, or even hope to. I get frustrated by trying, and I am so thoroughly conflicted that even my most exciting of ideas seem to be flawed by imperfection.

I don't think I can call myself a believer anymore, or if I ever could. Agnostic - certainly. Trying desperately to believe in something as sexy as God, but always finding myself restricted and incapable. Disappointed by those who claim to follow Him, and frustrated by the being himself.

I am also immensely lonely. I feel like I live on a continent entirely alone.

I have no friends who fulfill me anymore. Nobody who challenges me, or who is interested in the same things as I am. Nobody who will discuss politics or religion and do so with interest, or immense, blunt, and painful honesty. Nobody will listen to my compositions and provide proper critical feedback. Nobody will actually become a part of my life - exist with my existence. Befriend me with any consistency. I am on the backburner, in a locale called Regina, alone in a sea of 200,000 souls that move like giants. My continent is shaken by earthquakes and I do not respond. And I know that i have done this to myself.

You talk about Meadow Lake and it sounds sexy. Fulfilling. As though you don't really want anything more.



I have recently come to the conclusion that I am developmentally and relationally retarded or immature.

The disgusting part is that I know that only people who care about themselves have self-esteem issues. And I want to be able to put down my concerns and pick up a cross for somebody else - to die to myself so that I may live. But I am at an impass that I cannot overcome; I stand at a cliff alone and insecure. Unfortunately I must jump off in order to go anywhere.

And so I leap, with a question I thought of while we were discussing my relationship with Danae on Tuesday night.

XXXXXX, what would you do if I told you I was gay?

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.