I have planted a garden in my backyard.  The seeds went into the ground almost two weeks ago, and the little green heads of the plants are just starting to break ground.  What exactly have they been doing all of this time, I ask myself?  Waiting for the right weather?  Canoodling each other?

They’ve been putting down roots.

The roots have to be well established before the stalk is formed, and the stalk has to be well established before the leaves unfurl, and the leaves have to unfurl before fruit can be born.  There is a natural order to these things, and that order must be observed for the plant to survive.

People are the same way.  You can’t judge them by their fruit before you see where their roots are.  You can’t expect them to be spreading out in faith to receive before their stalks have formed.  You’ve got to let them do things in the right order.  Allow me to explain.  Come with me.

A young girl enters your church, and by rumor you learn that she’s “living in sin”.  Now is not the time to approach her about her sin, though, is it?  She’s only been known to you for a few hours.  So you introduce yourself, you treat her warmly.  You and the other members of your church are now preparing the soil for her to take root in.  You need to foster an environment where she can grow, give her the “water” of the spirit and the “light” of the Son.  Perhaps now she chooses to plant herself in your congregation.

Do you now approach her?

No.

You give her time for her roots to harden off, and for her to put that stalk up from the soil and for those leaves to spread.  You expose her to the proper teachings, put her into a mentoring relationship with a trusted elder, you give her a chance to form friendships and become well and truly established in your garden.

Do you now approach her?

Test the waters, see what is there.  Has she been allowing herself to be discipled?  Showing signs of sincerity and change?  If so, a confrontation becomes uneccessary because God himself is tending to her.  Allow the process to complete.  Has she been questioning the precepts of faith?  Showing doubt or discomfort?  If so, a confrontation could nip her faith in the bud.  Allow time for her to warm and soften, and see where the process goes.

Is she professing to have faith and to be committed, but is in all ways the same as the day you met her?  If so, a confrontation is warranted, as if she is planted in good soil and in all ways showing that she should be fruitful, you should be able to find the fruit to judge.

But even then, the conversation should not progress like this;

PASTOR:  You are living in sin.

GIRL:  Excuse me?

PASTOR:  If you want to be a member of this church body you need to stop sinning.

The conversation should go more like;

PASTOR:  I’m wondering if you’re feeling like you’re getting what you need.

GIRL:  What do you mean?

PASTOR:  By this point most people would be showing signs of having grown into our community and becoming secure in their faith, but you don’t seem to have taken root.

GIRL:  That may be true.

PASTOR:  Why do you think that is?

And then listen- because she will most likely tell you exactly what the impediment is between her and faith.  And then you can help her remove it.

And she will take root.

In a recent comment on another post, someone who is Christian and questioning their sexuality asked the million dollar question:

“Can someone be Homosexual and Religious?”

Oh, that hurts me.  Right in my gut, I feel it.  If someone can be addicted to Porn and religious, a gossip and religious, be cheating on their spouse Saturday night and still preach with conviction Sunday morning- how is homosexuality different?  “But wait, Lindsey”, I can just hear someone say.  “Those people are clearly not all that religious, or they wouldn’t be guilty of such obvious sin.”

Oh, Really?

As long as there has been faith, there have been flawed people of faith.  As long as there has been sin, there has been sinners.  And as long as there has been Jesus, there has been God’s love poured out on a weak and undeserving people.  Who was it that said that thing about healthy people needing no doctor?  Who was it that said, “he who has not sinned…”  When we start to put prerequisites on faith we abolish the need for it entirely.  Broken and hopelessly flawed people have to be able to live out religion, it’s they that need it!

Now, to continue on to some of Renegade’s other questions, we will go on a journey together.  It starts with conception and birth.  God is weaving together all of the fine strands that make the potential for who a person is.  He weaves A with B even though A and B mean “gay”.  Do you think he meant to?  I think he probably did.  Now we can argue about whether or not this is “unnatural” or whether God meant it as permission or a test all day long.  Some people contest that Homosexuality is not found in nature- they are wrong.  I’ve seen very nice, cuddly, obviously gay dogs that prefer to sniff the underparts of other boy dogs more than girls.  (Whether or not that is a fair comparison to human sexuality is another post entirely.)

Is the act of homosexual sex inherently sinful?  I’m not a scholar, so I will refer you to a wonderful page on SisterFriends-Together.org, which discusses in depth the meaning and intent of passages used to describe homosexuality as sinful.  This page, “The Bible and Homosexuality“, makes a far better argument than I would expect to on my own.  I will repeat the words of that site’s founder and simply say, “Christian and Gay?  It’s not a contradiction, and neither are you.”

I realize that not everyone agrees.  Some Christians will say that homosexual feelings are not sinful, but acting them out is.  Or they would say that the feelings are sinful.  They would say that we must “unbend” our sinful nature and return to the straight and narrow that God intended.  Perhaps this is what you, oh commenter, feel.  Perhaps it is not.

This is what I would suggest:

Find a quiet place.  Sit down, and center yourself with God.  Pray.  Ask these questions:

1. God, do you see me struggling with this?
2. What was your intent in giving me this burden?
3. Who do you want me to be?
4. Should I be gay, straight?  Stranded in between?
5. Am I sinning?

You may not hear an audible answer right away.  You may spend days, weeks, months, even years continuing to ask these questions of God over and over.  But trust in the fact that when we ask in sincerity God always answers.  It may not be the answer you expect, I expect, anyone expects, and it may not come in a form that is easily recognized.  But the answer is out there.

In the meantime, rest in Christ’s love for you.  Rest in the people who love you.  Rest in the knowledge that you will be cared for, and your needs will be met.

You will find love.

God is love.

You will be held by God.

Apparently a great deal of my readers are avidly pro-life, which comes as no surprise to me.

So on my last post I received a lot of comments reading, simply put: Abortion is murder.

Let’s imagine that tomorrow Abortion becomes illegal. What, then, would be the penalty to the doctor who performs the abortion and the mother who requests one? Shall they be given a life sentence? A manslaughter charge of ten years? Negligent homicide (which hardly seems appropriate, as it’s not negligence), a misdemeanor charge? If it is truly murder, a mere fine seems insufficient.

What do you think?

I am stranded somewhere between being pro-choice and pro-life. This is a tenuous position to be in, but there I am.

I had two unplanned pregnancies that ended in the light of my life and the breath in my prayers being born. The first pregnancy showed my husband being laid off from his job a little bit in, us having to scramble to find somewhere to live and some way to support ourselves. I won’t go into extreme detail as this is not a personal blog, but suffice it to say that we were strapped for cash, living hand to mouth, and bad off. Very bad off. The second pregnancy we were still in a transitory position when it came to housing. The husband was again without consistent work. Things were still hand to mouth (and still are). So when I see a statistic that says that over 90% of women who had abortions ascribed failure to provide for a child/pay for a pregnancy as their primary reason to abort, I sympathize.

It is terrifying to bring a child into this world, even more so when one asks “where is my next meal coming from” and “how much are diapers again?” Now add into that the physical and emotional rigors of childbearing, instability in intimate relationships- and what do you have? A cocktail for disaster. Any time I am asked I will be frank about the physical symptoms of pregnancy, the strain it puts on the father of the child as well as the mother, the fact that labor and delivery while not the end of the world are not easy. There is an insurmountable psychological impact to pregnancy and childbirth that MUST be observed.

That is why any time I hear someone say, “why can’t the woman just put the baby up for adoption” I cringe. Not to mention that women who are not Caucasian will have a harder time getting parents for their child, and women who have done drugs or drank alcohol before they were aware they were pregnant will also have a harder time finding a family for their child. Ask a poor black woman with no intimate family to afford her who innocently drank alcohol a few times before realizing she was pregnant to just “have the baby and give it up.” Have it? With whom footing the bills? And to whom shall she give it? The overburdened foster system? What if the baby has permanent defects from the alcohol? She’s got no way to know.

When I found out I was pregnant with my son my first thought was, “dear God just undo this.” I was in no emotional or economic shape to give birth to and take care of a child. I had no way to know if we’d have insurance to pay for my care, and we were still in the process of paying off our uninsured delivery of our first child. Have another baby? In my state? With the state of jobs in our area? With no home to live in? With no money to buy healthy food to eat?

There was no way that I would abort. I knew from the second I suspected a pregnancy that I loved this child- but part of the reason I DIDN’T want my child was my love for him. I didn’t want him brought into the kind of life we were struggling through.

And that is why I am pro-choice. Because unless YOU, YOU YOURSELF are willing to take a woman’s child into your own home and raise it yourself, you’ve no right to make that decision for her. Is the unborn child a real life, imbued with soul and breath? That is another thing to be argued about. But consider embryos that implant into a woman’s fallopian tubes. Those are aborted without a second thought, because there is no hope of them being viable. If the woman carries them past the first trimester she will die of internal bleeding. What about the amount of miscarriages that happen? Were all of those sacred life? And if so, why would God allow a God-fearing couple who desperately wants that child to endure such pain?

These are questions we MUST ask ourselves if we enter into the abortion debate. But the greatest question of all we must ask is whom shall we love? The unborn, or the struggling mother? Whom must we embrace? The unreachable, or she who stands outside our door? Whom must we pray for in whispers and moans? Those who are with Father God, or those who must remain on this planet, within our reach?

Ask yourself that. And ask yourself if you were with her, at her side, holding her hand, wiping her tears, and she simply could not bear the thought of bringing her child into this world of pain and distress- would you still judge?

Or would you land with me, somewhere in the gray land between choice and life, choosing to embrace the life that we can see and touch and bear with.

Everyone ends up in arguments.  Every personal relationship has it’s moments of extreme tension.  How we confront them and the way in which we cope afterwards says a lot about who we are, our maturity, and our ability to maintain intimacy overtime.  So how to approach conflict?  Here are a few things I’ve learned in six years of marriage:

1. Tell the person who hurt you that you are hurt.  The assumption that offense is known and acknowledged is a dangerous one.  No matter how intimate the relationship, your spouse, family and friends are not mind readers.  If there is pain, allow it to be exposed.  Be frank.  That is when healing is possible.
2. Acknowledge wrongdoing. If you bring up thing (A) and your spouse brings up thing (B) that you did to hurt them, stop.  Breathe.  Apologize.  A true and heartfelt apology will open the door for your own hurts to be dealt with and healed.  What is more important, that you immediately achieve recognition of your own pain, or that intimacy can continue?  Be willing to be wrong, and you will find your spouse (or friends, or family) willing to admit their wrongs to you, as well.
3. Deal with the fact that you only control yourself. You can’t force humbleness, you can’t evoke change, you can’t create better intimacy by requesting it from others.  The only one you can birth those things in is yourself.  If the most important thing is the continued relationship, you will have to make sacrifices.  If the only thing that matters is your own perceived needs…  You may just go on needing, forever.
4. Always use a soft tone. You may be angry.  You may be red-in-the-face screaming angry.  You may be throwing the chairs up against the wall angry.  But if you approach the conflict that way, you immediately put everyone else on the defensive.  Use a soft tone and a gentle touch.  “Demonstrations” of anger don’t have to be loud and rude.  Softly saying, “I am angry.  I cannot deal with (this) or (that) and I need you to hear me.” will allow for the conversation to grow.
5. Use personal language- don’t say “you did this, you did that, you hurt me.”  Say, “I was hurt when this or that happened.”  “I had a bad reaction to your words.”  “You may not have meant to hurt me by saying this or that, but I was hurt.”  Do not immediately place blame.  Speak sincerely about yourself and your feelings and needs, and allow an opportunity for the offending party to take blame.
6. Don’t bring in a third party- don’t immediately bring other people into your personal problems.  It may be tempting to call your mother before broaching a subject with your spouse, but if you do and then say, “mom said this about what you did” expect the fight to continue.  If you must call someone else for emotional support, leave them out of the discussion.  Your problems with your spouse or family should remain between you and the people involved.
7. Learn how to calm yourself down.  The heat of anger can be dangerous.  Figure out what calms you down, be it breathing slowly or cleaning or fishing or yardwork or painting or handling your Wii (gaming system, for the uninitiated), and if you feel yourself losing control- go do that thing-  BUT-  never just walk out on a conversation.  Tell your spouse (or friend, or family) what you are doing.  Say, “I really want to have this conversation, but if we keep talking right now I will say things to hurt you that we will both regret and be unable to unsay.  Is it okay if I take a few hours to do (this) or (that) and we can talk after?”  If you want to sweeten the deal, you could even say, “here, take this twenty and go see a movie or get dinner while I calm down.”  That way you both feel taken care of, and the discussion can take place over calmer waters.

So, this weekend, have a happy relationship!

No, I’m not talking about fantasy in a sci-fi/fantasy sense- I’m talking sex.

Is it wrong to fantasize?  Many women will admit to fantasies of being held, talked to, emotionally stimulated in some way.  They will admit that sometimes they dream about people they’ve met in passing.  Not necessarily always in a strictly sexual sense, sometimes it’s just about companionship.

But if we are Christian a question remains: is it sin?

Psychologically speaking fantasy is a “safe” way in which to engage in behaviors deemed “unsafe” in reality.  One knows one would pay a price for arguing with one’s mother, so one fantasizes.  One knows one isn’t ever going to date Edward Norton, so one fantasizes.  Fantasy can also be an exercise for certain things one is unsure of- and in this sense women have much more active fantasy lives then men.  Women tend to fantasize about the course of the day, how to interact with a boss, what to make for dinner.  Women tend to think about these things to a much greater extent than men.  It’s not a wonder we’re often seen as a “mystery” seeing as we spend such a large amount of time in our heads.  (And yes- I realize this is a gross generalization.  Some men operate this way and some women simply don’t.)

Yet, the question remains:  when it comes to sex, is it a sin?

Ask yourself a few questions:

1. Do you ever replace real interaction, necessary interaction, with fantasy? Are there times where you know you need to discuss something, and yet you don’t?  Where the anger/disatisfaction/desire you are feeling causes a rift in your relationship, and yet you continue to exorcise it with fantasy instead of interaction?
2. Do you find yourself unattracted to your mate and only stimulated by fantasy?  This is a major problem- and in this way fantasy can be as dangerous as pornography.
3. Does your fantasy life take you out of your daily life to the point that it’s an obstruction? You know the kids staring out of the window instead of listening in class?  Is this you in your job?  Your marriage?

Do you throw yourself into romance novels?  Soap operas?  Do you find yourself hurting and longing for something that you only achieve in fantasy?  While in small doses an argument can be made for the safeness and even health of fantasy, there’s a time when you need to embrace and appreciate reality.

Not to mention communication, communication, communication- perhaps if you tell your spouse that you fantasize about being spoken to in a certain way, held in a certain way, approached in a certain way, you’ll find that his eager to behave this way himself and fulfill you.

But- is it sin?  In Matthew 5:28 Jesus says, “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”  Where is your heart?  Is it with your spouse, your life?  Or have you given it to something unattainable, something that is only in your head?

Luke 10: 38-42

As Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to him.  She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what he said.  But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her.”

This passage is usually related in a single context.  That is, a call to stop being distracted by the things of house and home (or work) and take time to sit at Jesus’ feet.  It can be a confusing teaching, because Jesus isn’t really here with us and his feet aren’t right there- so what should be do?  Well, we are told, pay attention to teachings, read your Bible, fellowship with the believers instead of worrying about what to have for dinner.

As a woman I’ve always been irritated by this- especially when I was living in Mexico and the men would regularly nag their wives for being “Marthas” when they were trying to get the food out.  It felt to me like disrespect, because the women have their own way of fellowshipping and serving God and they did it by serving their men.

The truth is, Marthas- in one sense- are necessary.  We need people who think about things like what we’ll eat and if the table will be clean.  So what, exactly, was Martha’s problem?

Let’s take a closer look at what Jesus said.  “You worry about many things, but one thing is needed.”

Doesn’t it seem like he really is trying to help her?  He’s acknowledging the frustration and pain she’s feeling, he’s inviting her to join in the fellowship.  He’s not coarsely reprimanding her and saying that Mary is better, he’s simply saying that Mary chose something better by allowing herself to be ministered to.  Martha’s problem is the hardness of her heart.

Think about it more.  Martha invited Jesus and the disciples into her home.  She took upon herself the burden of meeting their needs.  She did not have to make that choice.  Why did she do it?  Did she want to hear the teachings, or did she want the status that (in that society) came from being a hostess?  Was she seeking some sort of fulfilment?  And if so, did she feel that her sister was somehow harming her by not helping her to put on the kind of show she wanted?

Perhaps Martha’s problem was selfishness, and that is why Jesus responded that Mary’s good choice would not be taken from her.  He wouldn’t allow Martha selfishness.

In any case, I don’t think that Martha’s problem was wanting everyone to have food.  No, Martha’s problem was somewhere in her heart.

How many women whose eyes will touch this post have benefitted, in some way, from Women’s Suffrage?  How many prize their right to vote, enjoy wearing blue jeans, are enamored of the fact that they can stay home with their babies or choose to continue careers or never have babies at all if they don’t want to?  How many feel stronger as a result of their rights?  Feel validated and taken care of by their country?

Every woman, I would hope.  Because the rights we all recieve as humans in a free society are one of God’s greatest gifts.  God gave us free will, and in America God’s gift of free will has been translated into free enterprise and civil rights.

Yet…  How many women reading this blog post also mourn the rigidity of marriage laws?  How many have a sister or a friend who loves another woman?  How many are women who themselves are in love with a person of the same gender?

My word of caution to all women who enjoy equity under the law is to not become complacent.  We, blessed as we are with our own rights, must not forsake the sisterhood.  Yes, there is a sisterhood.  There is shared knowledge and shared pain, there is shared desire and shared regret.  We are all one body as sisters under God and under the law.  We must stand together.  Even as Christians we must remember Christ’s call to love and not forsake the sisterhood of believers-

We are humanity.  We must muddle together through the dark of night and the quiet of unspoken bias.  Every woman who cherishes her rights under the law must turn to those who are not considered equal under laws elsewhere and those who are not considered equal here at home, and lift each other up.

Today I was listening to the radio when an odd guest came on- the leader of the KKK.  Unfortunately I didn’t get to hear most of the interview because it was lunchtime, and thus I was distracted with the kids and getting food on the table and making the day continue to run smoothly.

Yet, as in all times when my body is involved in routine movements, my mind disengaged enough that I started down this line of thought.  I thought, first, of a few days ago when in a conversation with my father he mentioned that the welfare system has “destroyed black society”, a statement which seemed so empirical as to give me no reply.  I don’t like entering into a debate in which I feel crippled by my own lack of information, so at the time I said nothing.

But my irritation with the statement hasn’t faded over time.  For one, the statement seems incomplete.  He meant “black society in America” and it’s obvious given the context in which it was made, but even so…  I think that people too often assume that the whole of the “black experience” (another phrase I find irritating) hinges on the black experience in America. That and they too often say “black society” when they truly mean the inner city- two things that are wildly different.  Not all black people live in the inner city and not everyone in the inner city is black.  So let’s please keep those things separate.

That isn’t the whole of my irritation.  The implications as well as the overall lack of information they portray is what truly gets to me.  So lets, just for “fun” (by “fun” I mean sorrow inducing meditation, but whatever…) go over the history of the “black experience” in America.  First, black people are brought over on slave ships to be exposed to conditions worse than what we put cattle through.  They are worked to the bone, beaten and raped, subjugated, barred from learning basic skills, starved, and have I mentioned the beatings and raped?  Women would stand up to defend a stray dog being stoned in the street, but not a black man.

When the obvious injustice of this treatment was recognized and black people were given personhood- and note, by personhood I literally mean being identified as people- what were they given to correct this injustice?  These people, battered and beaten, barred from ever having so much as learned to write their names, were given a donkey, some papers and some land.  How were they expected to start to mete out a living?  And do you think their neighbors, the people who had been beating and raping them a year previous, would give them a pittance of help?  Do you imagine they were given years of free tutelage, invited over for dinners, loaned seed crop?  Perhaps some of them were, but for the most part I am not surprised by the fact that they banded together in shared misery and poverty, desperately trying to make the most of their meager circumstances.  At least they had their freedom.

But look at their situation honestly- these black communities are desperate and impoverished.  They have little more than the clothes on their backs.  They are surrounded by white people who have inherited wealth and circumstance.  Even the poor bakers and blacksmiths have inherited their trade- they have something to build wealth on.  Black people have a mule and the derision of the white people who still, at that point, felt that something had been stolen from them.

That divide has yet to be closed.  I refuse to believe it.  One can say that the white people in America built what they had from nothing- but those people came into the states with their health, their determination, their personhoood, their education- whereas the blacks were starting at less than zero.  It is incredible that they were given as much as they were, considering the bitterness on the part of the south, but even so…

Can anyone say that it was enough- not enough to assuage our own guilt, but enough to birth equity?  I don’t think so.

Do you?

“We shouldn’t run the church like a business,” The man said.

I found myself agreeing and disagreeing.  It’s true that we shouldn’t think in terms of dollars and cents, judging effectiveness by cards filled out and people sitting calmly in the pews when the service starts.  In that way, our churches aren’t businesses.  We are in the work of helping people, not lining our pockets and stroking our egos.  We shouldn’t have to make money to have church.  If a church can’t afford a building they can meet in a school or home or community center.  If they can’t afford to properly pay for a full staff they need to evaluate what the staff is there for.  If the mercy funds end up getting used on the pastors, some questions need to be asked.

No, church isn’t business.

But in the same vein, there’s a lot that churches can learn from how businesses are run.  Business is necessarily ruthless when it comes to trimming the fat.  People need to be qualified for positions, not just available.  A church secretary that gossips and files her nails is still thanked for her ministry (what ministry, really?) when a business secretary that ignored her duties to gossip would be fired.  So there are things to be learned there, certainly.

And then there’s a much, much bigger lesson.  That lesson is that you don’t make a product and then try to figure out how to convince people to buy it- not unless you want to lose money.  You find out what people want to buy, and you give it to them.  Sometimes church people get uncomfortable with hearing that ,because they say that we shouldn’t change Christ’s message just to fill pews.  I agree, wholeheartedly.  I also think that Christ’s message IS what people want.  The problem isn’t the message, the problem is the way we go about sharing it.  We shouldn’t be thinking in terms of filling pews,we should be thinking in terms of getting out in our communities and really helping people.  We shouldn’t think in terms of inviting people to the building to hear the message, we should go out into the world and invite people into our homes and lives.  We shouldn’t be dragging people back to home base so that the pastor can give them the gospel, WE should be giving them the gospel.  The problem with church is that the message never seems to impact our lifestyles and thus our culture.  People don’t know what they are buying because it’s not obvious what we are selling.  If we tell people that the Christian life will bring them vibrancy and hope we should be able to demonstrate that by showing them our own lives.

I think we know what the right product is, we’ve even got the right wording on the package, but the package is empty.

That needs to change.