Milk, Sapiens and Sexuals: ALL the Homos!

You're right, God DOES hate cigarettes. But you shouldn't be smiling.
Cigarettes kill.

I've felt incredibly compelled to write this blog post for a long time now. Because if the real Bible-following Christians don't stand up, the Eminem ones will. You can be as against homosexuality as you want to be, I don't give a flying fish. But unfortunately most Christians against homosexuality don't know how to separate their own personal beliefs from what the Bible actually says. What I mean is, the Bible is fairly clear that homosexuality in some form is a sin. The Bible is also very clear that lying is a sin. And greed. And that just thinking about having an affair is considered as bad as actually doing the deed. It is also incredibly clear that Jesus died for all sins because He absolutely, positively loves all people. I cannot express to you how stupid any Christian is who could even think, let alone say, "God hates homosexuals." God might hate homosexuality you silly goose (and I'm not even convinced He does), but He sure as heck doesn't hate homosexuals. If that is true, good luck getting into heaven. I talked to St. Peter and he said stupidity is actually a worse sin than homosexuality. He picked it out of a bowl at random, but he's firm on it.

Why do Christians love to focus on homosexuality? It's like some kind of bizarre fetish. Now if that doesn't sound sinful I don't know what does. Why aren't they focusing on well, basically anything God focused on? Because He sure as heck didn't focus on homosexuality. Here's what Jesus had to say about homosexuality: oh wait... nothing. Here's what He said about hypocrisy: well, it would just be easier for you to read the entire Gospels than listing all the times He told off the Pharisees. It makes me wonder, these gay-hating Christians, have they even read the Bible? If so, which version exactly are they reading? Because I feel like the translation might be a little off. How in the world do you ever plan on bringing anyone to know the love of Jesus by proclaiming that "God hates..." instead of "God loves"? I want to ask them, "Do we know the same God? Because I feel like yours is... different." But maybe I've got them all wrong. Maybe they're talking about a different god when they say "God hates gays." Like Zeus for instance. Man, I would not be at all surprised if that guy is a total homophobe. He just has anger-management written all over his face, in lightning bolt scars. Anyway, I for one want God to use me, not work extremely hard to get around me and heal the massive damage I've done to people's hearts by the incredibly stupid, ludicrous things I've said or done in the name of God - who is Love itself. I was going to post all the times God mentions homosexuality in the Bible (which I could, because there aren't that many) but seriously just read your freaking Bible. Now, I know there are a lot of Christians who agree with me for the most part, but they think that as long as they sit there and don't do any damage, they aren't part of the problem. Is that really all you want to be? You see, there are always going to be crazy Christians out there doing so much damage that unfortunately the rest of us can't just sit back and keep our heads down. Instead we need to love so much and so loudly that we counteract the idiots flailing around with Bibles they have obviously never read. Don't get me wrong, I love those idiots. Their parents were probably idiots too and passed it down to them. It's a vicious cycle of idiocy.

I personally used to have a problem with homosexuality. It made me feel really... weird. And then I met people who said they were gay and heard their story and I knew they were absolutely no different than I was. So why did it make me feel weird? Because the only way I could try to understand was by imagining what it would be like to be in love romantically with the same sex. And that felt really weird... and revolting = I'm straight. Yay! Life is easier for me! I was also weirded out as child even thinking that I could have been created by my parents having sex. I still am... in fact I'm convinced a stork brought me. That would explain a lot. Children delivered by storks are bound to be a little... odd. One thing that made me realize I needed to get over my weirdness was that I knew for a fact that there were men and women out there who were born with the brain/body of the opposite sex, or hermaphrodites who were born with both sex organs. If I knew this to be a fact, how could I ever conclude that one person fit this description and one did not? In which case, I COULD NEVER JUDGE. It no longer mattered whether I understood how two people loving each other, even if they were the same sex, could possibly be a sin. It didn't matter whether I believed practicing homosexuality was the sin, and not the sexual orientation itself. It did not matter whether it still grossed me out.  As long as there was the possibility of doubt, that I didn't actually know if it was genetics, upbringing or just plain choice, I COULD NEVER JUDGE. And that let me open up my heart to realize that it was actually, absolutely none of my business. It was between them and God. Which let me trust God implicitly: I no longer had to question whether God was fair because some things in His word didn't make sense to me. He knew every heart and I didn't even know my own half the time.

People say, "Love the sinner, hate the sin" which is great, but I think as long as we continue to choose not to understand the person behind the sin (or what we consider sin) we are still going to judge them. We judge what we don't understand. So instead how about trying to understand how difficult it must be to realize at any point in your life that you are different than almost everyone around you and that most people you tell this to are going to look down on you instead of loving you as you try to not to drown in the confusion of figuring out one of the most important things in your life: your sexuality. I mean, sex still confuses me. You put what in the what with the who now??? I wonder too, if those hateful Christians know just how many homosexuals have been sexually abused as children. And you are going to tell these abused children that God hates them? Good idea! Why don't you go steal from an orphanage while you're at it. God loves that. Don't you think you might be a little sexually confused too if someone had abused you when you were the most vulnerable and impressionable? And for everyone who can understand someone being gay but can't understand people who are bisexual, don't you think it might be a little bit confusing if you were attracted to both sexes? Think about it, now your potential soul-mate could be any person on the entire planet. I mean just the anxiety of that alone would make anyone choose a side. Yeah. That's right. Okay maybe not, but the point is, these are people who are struggling to understand who they are. Don't you think, if they could simply choose to be "normal" and live an easier life, they would? The thing is, we don't have to understand it, we just have to leave the judging to God. And we have a pretty good idea from the Bible what He will be judging more than anything else: our hearts. Besides I would way rather spend my time hanging out with a group of LGTB peeps (who are usually very nice people because they know what it's like to be an outsider and therefore have developed that part of their brain where this thing called "compassion" lives) than a Christian who says they hate gays. In fact, you will find that most gays don't actually hate Christians. I have no idea why. I guess they are just smart enough to realize that we are not all the same.

You don't have to agree with this to see it makes some good points.

PEARL

I got a new name. Pearl. I like it because it reminds of an old lady and I took up knitting not that long ago and then knitted for three hours and put a kink in my neck that is still healing. Also, the students like to pretend I am old. They're all just waiting for me to fall over dead. And I don't blame them, a couple days ago I popped a rib in my back along with my sore neck and had to go to a chiropractor appointment in Lake Cowichan, so it's probably going to happen any day now, the dropping dead thing. I've had to sit out on a lot of work but I'm not going to sit around crying about it (that would be stupid, I got out of work). I also like my new name because I love the comic "Pearls Before Swine" which I can relate to, because I find myself frequently throwing my pearls of wisdom before swine (everyone else). Just kidding! The real reason they gave me the name Pearl is because I'm like a clam. You know, clammy hands and stuff. I mean because they want me to be like a clam, like a clam is my spirit animal. Maybe I'm not explaining this well. They want me to be able to turn the irritants in my life - grains of sand - into pearls. At one point it definitely sounded like they were saying there were a lot of irritating things about me but they eventually clarified that these things in my life were irritating me like chronic fatigue and depression and digestive problems. This was an area they wanted to see grow in me, something they already saw in my life and wanted more of. I found it really encouraging, especially to hear how they already saw that happening. I was definitely expecting to be ripped a new one (because they're all really just savage beasts up here) but instead it was all encouragement and simply confirmed my old lady persona. Right after they prayed over me Steph suddenly went to her room to get something and came out with a pearl necklace to give to me. She didn't know before hand what my name would be, she just remembered the pearl necklace and decided it should be mine. It meant so much to me I could cry just writing it.

THIS JUST IN: two of the girls were shrieking in the bathroom after waxing their legs. They decided they were sick of shaving and would finally try this other torture tactic called "waxing." My favorite was when I heard one of them say after yelling in pain, "Who decided this would be a good idea?!?!?!" On another really important note, some of the boys started playing Pokemon and the girls were getting all in a huff. It became a big problem, but not before I decided I would join in and play Pokemon too. Here was my thought process: instead of harassing them for playing so much, I would make them play with me and teach me their Pokemon ways, and only play a little at a time. Am I a genius or what? Turns out I just got slightly addicted and now want to play Pokemon all the time. The point is I don't. At first I decided I would read the Bible and then reward myself with some Pokemon until I realized how backwards that was, Pokemon being the reward for reading the Word of God. So I stopped and just play every once in a while. Gotta catch 'em all!

The week before last we learnt about First Nations Reconcilation. Mark Buchanan and Shane Woodlief, the pastors of the church we go to in Duncan, taught us. New Life Church has been building a relationship with the First Nation's community in Duncan for years and there is now a respect and trust growing that is beautiful to see. A bunch of us in Auxano go to Kidzone and play with First Nation's kids on the reserve. I feel so privileged to get to be a part of something that a few people at the church have spent years patiently pursuing in faith and prayer. We learned more of, or were reminded about, all the atrocities the church did to the First Nation's people and how spiritual damage requires spiritual healing. It makes perfect sense that the church should be the ones healing the damage they did, and yet here we have these incredibly broken people damaged by Christians in the past and now seemingly ignored by Christians in the present. Mark taught us about how the First Nation's people are our Samaria. Before Jesus leaves He says to be His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. To the Jews the Samaritans were their close neighbors, but totally looked down upon and ignored. When Jesus came along He focused a lot on witnessing to and healing the damage done to the Samaritans and tells His disciples to do the same.

Last weekend we had a "Ditch the Girls/Ditch the Guys" time. The girls stayed at Gussie's house in Sidney and the guys stayed at Matt's house in Shawnigan Lake. The guys did something really spiritual and watched "The Passion of the Christ." The girls spent almost the whole day talking about, but not really accomplishing, making a funny video of the random things we did. We went downtown in Victoria and had some fun in Value Village trying on crazy outfits, had some Bubble Tea in Chinatown then explored the top of Mt. Doug, headed to Gussie's beautiful house in Sidney for dinner then went to see Jen's sister Sarah perform a show at the Spiral Cafe in Esquimalt. Needless to say, a lot of driving. Gussie's house was beautiful. We felt like we were at a retreat, a big new house with lots of windows surrounded by the forest. I could have stayed there for a long time. It was a lot of fun, even if we were kind of exhausted and had to wake up the next morning to get to church at 8:30 where we were putting on the church service at Parkdale. The musically talented ones did the worship (AKA not me), a few of us talked about what we'd been learning and Brad gave a sermon on our First Nation's class. Then we ate lunch and hurried back to Duncan for Kidzone! We like to fit a lot of things into our days. YOLO, right? (You Only Live Once. Brad likes to say this about twenty times a day and no matter how much we fight it, it's caught on.)

The girls on Mt. Doug. From left: Katie, Steph, Gussie, Shayla, me and Jen

Big Mouth Betty (Debby Downer's BFF)

I am a faulty machine. If you bought me, hopefully you kept the receipt. For instance, sometimes I have a big mouth. No, I don't mean the actual size of it, though it is large. Actually my mouth isn't so large as my gums are ginormous. When I smile it is equal parts gum and teeth. Some might say large gums are not aesthetically pleasing, and although I haven't yet had a dentist say, "You're lucky, you have large gums," I prefer thinking of them as well-endowed. I imagine that some day I will be old and have no teeth, and then I will be happy that I have such large gums to fill up my smile. What was I saying? Something to do with talking too much... Oh right, what I actually meant by having a  big mouth was that I say things without thinking. They call me Big Mouth Betty (fortunately no one's ever called me that). She's best friends with Debby Downer. I wish I could say that at least I mean well. Unfortunately when you say something without thinking, you don't have time to sneak good intentions behind your words and use that as an excuse. And telling someone you mean well instead of apologizing is about as effective as telling someone you didn't mean it. Didn't you? Didn't you? Then there are the times where you actually do mean well but you still shouldn't have said it. You may have been thinking before you spoke, but you were thinking of bunny rabbits. These are some of the ways it happens:

1. I want to be funny, so I say something slightly hurtful but hilarious.
2. I have this desire to share things with people but some things are not mine to share.
3. I like to talk.
4. I usually think I am right (I usually am) and so I argue for no reason (except to prove your ignorance, obviously).
5. I am always overtired and when I get irritable sometimes bad things come out.