the dance

If ever there were two mismatched partners, it seems, it would be joy and pain. Imagine the two, dancing together, what an absurd picture that would be! Wouldn't they repel each other, instead of moving fluidly, gracefully, as one? Perhaps, but maybe not.

You see, I think Garth Brooks, the great country lyricist, was onto something when he wrote, "Life's a dance you learn as you go: sometimes you lead, sometimes you follow." Sometimes joy leads and pain follows, and sometimes, pain leads and joy follows, but the two must learn to dance in sync together, responding to what the other is doing. Such is life, I've been learning; to be a whole person is to open yourself to both joy and pain. As humans, we naturally embrace joy, but we cringe at pain and seek to shut ourselves off from it, going to great lengths to avoid it. Even to the point that to always be happy is seen as virtuous and enviable. We don't envy people for experiencing and expressing pain. We may admire them, but we don't wish to be them.

But isn't it both, dancing together throughout life, that lends depth and meaning, compassion and grace, wisdom and humility, to our character? I surely don't need to envy anyone's pain; that is sadistic. Nor do I need to admire how "good" they are in the midst of it. But neither do I need to fear pain or shrink from its touch. Whether I like it or not - and let's be honest, who likes pain? - the two are not such unlikely partners after all.

As I approach the two-year anniversary mark of my Papa's death, I feel the energy between these two dance partners heating up within me. Joy and pain, pain and joy. I think of him, and I feel joy leading during the song of his memory. And then, the music changes, pain takes the lead and the dance steps intensify. I cannot think of him without both; indeed, as much as I loathe the pain, I don't want it to be all joy in my heart. I need both in this dance. They substantiate the memory of his life. It is more real this way, more human, to feel both. And so, I let go once more, I open my heart, and I let them have their dance.

Understated

It's unreal, incomprehensible, how devastating this "mess-up" is to the Gulf region, to the environment and all its residents, to the U.S., to the economy. Oops. No, oops is appropriate for a misguided weather forecast, a minor blunder in a political speech, a piece of machinery that failed at a less consequential task but is repairable. Oops is offensive in a mistake of this proportion. Maybe no one at BP has uttered the word blatantly, but it has felt like the tone from the beginning of the spill. People are human and we're all going to make mistakes, but I'll be honest, I want BP to pay. For the loss of life, for the way they and other corporations like them and governments (especially ours) have raped the earth. It makes me mad and it breaks my heart. As humans, we really need to take care of what we've been given. If we cannot deal with the consequences of our mistakes, we should not be playing such casual games with the environment. Obviously we cannot take on the ocean and win. Obviously all our technologies and advancements fall dismally short right there. For how does one repair a potential crack in the ocean floor...?

Apology

I'm reading an excellent book, unChristian, an honest and thought-provoking synthesis of research based on what the generation of young people in America (who are outside the Church) thinks of Christianity. I highly recommend this book to any believer who loves and follows Christ. It contains perspectives that, while sometimes quite painful (whether or not they are entirely "accurate" or fair), we desperately need to listen to, validate and evaluate. One of the chapters addresses their perceptions of Christians' attitudes toward homosexuals. From my reading of this chapter, and from my own journey of wrestling with the complexities of the issue of homosexuality, I have written this letter. At the end, I have also included an excerpt I loved from the chapter on homosexuality, written by a pastor in Georgia.

To the gay community in Seattle,

For quite some time now, I've felt I owe you an apology. It's both personal and on behalf of the faith community I belong to - the Church. As a whole, we have not loved you. In fact, we have failed miserably. We have too often been offensively in your face about moral behavior, or we have uncomfortably and with cowardice hidden or skirted from the topic of sexuality. We have not admitted our own sexual brokenness or confusion, or our own imperfections and inconsistencies. We have targeted you as a special group of sinners, forgetting to acknowledge the truth: that we all have sin that leaves us broken and at the mercy of a gracious and compassionate God; that no sin is greater than another in God's estimation; that only He can redeem us and make us whole. In doing so, I know we have caused a rift known as "us" and "you," and sadly, perhaps between you and your perception of Jesus. We have caused many in your community great pain in our exclusion and judgment.

Please forgive me, forgive us, dear community of people that God loves, for our failure to love you fully. For all our actions that have alienated, berated, humiliated, disrespected, and in some awful cases, actually hated you, please forgive us. I believe our actions toward you have also deeply pained the heart of Christ, for they have misrepresented his heart to you.

I do believe, however, that in order for our love toward you to be sincere, we as followers of Christ must begin with a foundation of honesty and humility. We can't affirm what you hold to be a central part of your identity - your sexuality. As far as we can tell, the Bible introduces us to one kind of sexual union, between a man and a woman. So we do believe that this is the course that leads to the fullest life, the life intended for us by the Creator. But we also want you to know, not only with our words but largely with our actions, that we believe God loves every person deeply and equally - homosexual, bisexual, transgender, heterosexual. It would be dishonest for us to pretend that we agree with or understand the path you believe is right, but we accept that you are free to choose your own life course. We believe this because of God's outrageous generosity and charity, not our own.

From this place of honesty, we want you to feel that you are valued and respected by us, as the precious human beings that you are. This is what you deserve from us. We want to learn how to have real conversations, real relationships, real partnerships with you. We want to serve you. Over time, we hope to, in turn, earn your trust and respect. We understand we will have to work for this, that we need to be willing to hang in there for the long haul. We know we don't deserve it, but we really need your patience and grace with us, too, because we aren't perfect and we're still going to make mistakes along the way. But we want you to see a true expression of God's heart and of the life of faith He envisioned us to live as followers of Christ. This will take time, but I pray we'll be committed to the path of love.

Thank you for being willing to read this.

Humbly,

Amber

The fracture in our soul

During the Alexandrian plague (third Century), Christians risked their lives in caring for the sick, taking a posture of grace that said, "I am here for you. I may die, but you will not be alone." The church embodied the gospel and its message was not forgotten.

In the 1980s, the AIDS epidemic hit the gay community. Otherwise healthy men were dying and nobody knew why. The only link seemed to be their sexuality. The church had opportunity to again speak grace and instead spewed venom. Rather than showing compassion, we self-righteously proclaimed God's judgment. The message came through loud and clear.

It was the wrong message.

And it has not been forgotten.

When Greg, who is gay, discovered I was a pastor, his demeanor changed. His wounds had history. After a few minutes of hyperbolic invective, I stopped him. "Tell you what, you don't assume I'm a gay-hating bigot, and I won't assume you're a pedophile. Deal? If we buy into stereotypes, we'll never be able to love one another."

Tears streamed down his face. He asked, "Are you sure you're a Christian?"

Now there were tears of my own.

Christians may say, "Love the sinner; hate the sin," but Greg and many other homosexuals hear, "God hates fags." Its's unfortunate. It's wrong. It's our fault.

It may look different from person to person, but sin has fractured every human soul (see Rom. 3:23; 5:12; 1 John 1:10). Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn said, "The line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being." It is time we lived and loved as though we really believed that.

At our church we regularly say, "As Christians, none of us have the freedom to live however we want. Man or woman, young or old, gay or straight - we are all under God's authority and called to conform our lives to Christ."

The Bible is clear: homosexual practice is inconsistent with Christian discipleship. But there is not special judgment for homosexuals, and there is not special righteousness for heterosexuals. For all of us, our only hope for the fracture of our soul is the cross of Christ.

~ Shane Wheeler (taken from unChristian)

Let us learn to walk truly in the way of Christ's love.

Imagine

“I also am other than what I imagine myself to be.

To know this is forgiveness.”

~ Simone Weil

Imagination. It's something I had in abundance as a kid. I lived my daily life in a continually unfolding, adventurous drama - a screenplay in my mind - where I was the writer, producer, director and lead actress. A touch of childish narcissism, yes, but also the heart of a compassionate girl who dreamed of doing something special, something brave and meaningful, with her life. I didn't know what that would be, so I created scenarios in my imagination and I acted them out, hoping someday I would find my way into a real life adventure.

It's sad how often "growing up" means you have the imagination sucked right out of you. Idealism is traded in for realism, dreams for practicality, and imagination for intellectualism. The imaginative ones are relegated to professions we deem as the Arts, to social or business entrepreneurs, to the few in the public eye whom we admire as visionary leaders in some specific realm. We check our imagination at the door and let others do the creative thinking.

I do see imagination making a fair comeback in my generation and the ones behind me. I see young people seeking creative solutions to the unique dilemmas our world faces today. I see kids and young adults less satisfied with the status quo, wanting to be part of a story bigger than themselves, daring to dream bigger. And inwardly, I cheer.

I even see little seedlings of imagination sprouting up in the field of the Church. They may not be prevalent yet, but they are there, quietly spreading in beautiful splendor. In my imagination, I see a Church who has broken off from other lovers and is committed to Jesus with a steady, lovesick devotion. I see a Church whose heart is tender in compassion and gentleness, fierce in love and purity, gracious and humble within and outside the walls of church buildings. I see a Church who can place their fingers on the pulse of the culture, connecting with the life of the world around them, while themselves emanating back the heartbeat of Christ. I see a Church who cares more about the poor and unpopular and offensive and marginalized than they do about buildings and programs and projects and positions and church services. I see a Church who is outrageously generous, content with much and content with little, sharing whatever they have with anyone in need.

I see a Church who actually believes they are who Jesus says they are and who live from that place of revelation and freedom. I see a Church who lives and loves with extravagant sacrifice. I see a Church who is honest and real about their imperfections, not seeking to cover their flaws with superficiality or pride, letting people see them as works in progress. I see a Church who is known, not for what they stand against, but for who and how they love. I see a Church who is not afraid to be uncool, who stand faithfully and intelligently on the truth of God's word, who know how to communicate this truth undefensively, with actions more than words, but with words when necessary. I see a Church with people of all colors, shapes and sizes, living in unity and community, not always uniformity. I see a Church that has possessed a vision of the kingdom of heaven and lives with this vision in their hearts at all times.

Yes, in my imagination, I see all this. In my heart, I yearn for it. In my experience, sometimes, I taste it. But there is more, much more. We may not be there yet, but must not lose our imagination. To lose our imagination is to perish, and the world needs for us to be fully alive.

Outdoor symphony

Some nights, when I wish to escape the caucaphony of distraction, I wander in the direction of water. And there, tonight, I found myself stretched out upon a chaise-like rock, one of the few fingers of a fountain on the pier. A front row seat to the outdoor symphony. In the cool of the late May evening, I lounged in my seat of honor, awaiting the music.

And it's amazing how the ordinary stuff of nature is arranged so artistically from a different perspective. In this case, sideways.

The opening act: nightfall's descent from a sidelong glance, revealing the heaven's wrinkled brow. Creases of stormy blue and pearl and silver. Sailboat masts pierce the sky's brow, stately and stoic, bobbing rhythmically in the bay.

Second act: nature's surround sound increases as my mind's distraction decreases. The distant roar of a train thundering by, wheels squealing intermittently. The more immediate gurgling of the fountain above and below and around me, sometimes, sneaking up behind me. The gentle hum of the wind, blowing through sails and blades of grass. The synchronicity of the outdoors.

Final act: Tall wispy grass bends and dips, shakes and shimmies, plie's and pirouettes, dancing with an invisible partner. Dancing with grace and ease. Dancing because they can.

I close my eyes and open them again slowly, the world around me appearing to spin ever so slightly. I photograph the moment in my memory, knowing this symphony will be here when I return, but never will I see this exact performance repeated.

I sigh, contented. It is time to rest.

Shades of grey

“Sometimes I think we are trying to find the black and white

when all we have is varying degrees of grey.” ~ Kristine Davidson

I’ve noticed a trend in my life. The more I learn and experience, and the older I get, the more I negotiate a tense alliance with shades of grey. This is a difficult thing to explain, as it can prick the sensitivities of peoples’ deeply held beliefs, and on the surface, some might decry, “Moral relativism!” But I object, it’s not that simple.

On a fundamental level, absolutes are simple. Some things are just “right” or “wrong” in the world, whether or not we care to admit that. For those of us who put our faith in God and biblical principles, absolutes are a part of the package of faith. We know that murder is wrong, idolatry is wrong, adultery is wrong, the list goes on. We know that loving our enemies is right, that seeking justice is right, that forgiveness is right, and again, the list goes on. I have less of an issue with professing moral absolutes than I do with declaring the circumstances in which they often unfold “black and white.” Issues of morality do not occur in a vacuum. They are engendered in the messiness and blurred lines that all of us call “life.”

In studying theories of human behavior, I’ve learned one important thing. People don’t fit into theories, not neatly at least. I’ve noticed, as a counselor, that therapy and formulas don’t mix well. On paper, in a case presentation, formulas look good. They seem simple enough. But when a client is sitting before me, a human being in all his or her complexity and unique intricacies, formulas about techniques slip away. Am I saying that the experience or circumstances of each individual dictates what’s defined as right or wrong? No. What I’m saying – really, what I’m posing as a question – is, can we directly transfer black and whites into a shades of grey world? Or is there a meeting point, sometimes, in which the two intersect and are subsequently affected by the other?

This raises the question, for me, what is God most concerned about? Undeniably, He is a holy God. He is a just and true God. There can be no bending of truth in God’s sight. But in a world where things are marred and messy – a world in the process of redemption, groaning for transformation – God is dealing with lives that are not black and white. And I have to wonder, are there times when God is more concerned about the life at hand and with revealing Himself than with the bottom line absolute? That may be heretical, but it’s an honest question to ask, and I’m not afraid to ask it. I’m not afraid to wrestle, because in the world we live in, we cannot afford to get by without wrestling. Indeed, some people have no choice but to wrestle.

In an example from Christ’s life, He encounters a desperate woman, caught in the act of adultery. [On a side note, have you ever wondered how she was caught, the circumstances surrounding the capture of this sin? Surely some people had a close eye on her, plotting her demise. And where, I wonder, was the man? It takes two for “adultery” to occur]. The religious leaders wanted to stone her. Jesus refused to judge her. Instead, He made a statement. God seems like He’s into making statements, the ones that make us stop and scratch our heads. He said, “Woman, where are your accusers?” Stunned, she replied, “They have gone.” And He responded, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.” I’ve heard a lot of people refer to this story as a way of pointing out that Jesus neither passed judgment on her nor dismissed her sin. But I’m not convinced that was the only statement He was making. I’m not so much concerned with His words, as with the statement made by His actions toward this woman. There are certainly black and white components to this story. But Jesus encountered this woman in her shades of grey, and He let her go. By law, she should have died. More important than the Jewish law, in this instance, was the encounter and the revelation of Himself to a woman whose life was messy. I wish I could put my finger on it, but it feels like there’s something deeper I’m missing in this story. Something about the character of Jesus that can’t be quantified, formula-ified, or dogma-ified. Something in the way He was with this woman. What was Jesus’ bottom line with this woman and was it really what we assume on the surface when we read this story? To me, Jesus is more mysterious than that. Not in an illusive, out-of-touch way, but in a defying-my-sense-of-logic way.

So how do I live uprightly with a foundation of moral absolutes in a shades of grey world? Perhaps there is no real formula.

The discipline of authenticity

The past two years have been, for me, a practice in the discipline of authenticity. When you experience a significant loss, you have, broadly speaking, two choices before you regarding your pain: to stuff or to share. There are, of course, a plethora of subtle degrees in between the two choices, some healthy and some not, but the polarizations are clear enough. One of the central questions posed to me by my loss was, "Will you be real?" The answer came, not in an automatic rational response, but deliberately, over time, through experiencing the landscape of grief and maneuvering the uncharted terrain within myself and in relationship with others.

This may not come as a shock to some, but I found the most challenging place to practice authenticity, at times, was in church or among other Christians. Though this may resound with cynics, with people who have been burned or turned off by church people, I do not write as one of those people. I love the Church; I am bound to the Church as I am bound to my family. There is no perfect church, just as there is no perfect family, but in some churches and some families there is a fuller degree of openness and authenticity than in others.

But I do not wish to make this singularly about grief, or my grief. I merely wish to make a point, that in the same way I craved authenticity as a person in grief, I crave it now in my everyday life, and I have a strong hunch that there are many who share this craving. I have developed almost an intolerance for falsity, beginning with myself and also in others, but particularly within the body of Christ, the Church. We cannot afford to be disingenuine. The rest of the world is searching for what is genuine and real and they - and collectively we, as human beings - can sniff out a fake from a distance. People with pain and questions and brokenness walking into a church need to see something other than a bunch of people who have their stuff together all the time, who cannot talk about their trials without wrapping it up with a Christian platitude and tying it with a "praise the Lord" bow. We need to move beyond merely talking about being people in process and actually allow ourselves to live it out in relationships with others.

I know many are already moving in this direction. I look forward to the day when the Church as a whole has made our peace with uncertainty, developing a level of comfort with not having all the answers for pain and suffering and injustice. What healing we will see when we've laid aside our bandaids, no longer fearing the pain of others, or for that matter, our own pain. To acknowledge pain and suffering and weakness is not to minimize, but to accentuate, faith in the strength and character of God. In fact, I believe it takes faith to allow the these emotions and experiences and questions to co-mingle.

I do not have a list of Christian disciplines that I practice religiously, though I am aware of practices that I intentionally seek to incorporate in my daily life, flowing freely from intimate relationship with God. Of these, it has become my aim, when I am around other people - those who know Christ and those who do not - to be authentic. To allow others to see that I love Jesus, but I am not immune from doubts and fears and anger and depression and heartache; that, though I may be shaken, I do not crumble. Not because I am "so strong," but because Christ alone is the solid foundation of my life and he cannot crumble.

If such is the case, what have we to fear in being real? In being fully real (something I have not yet achieved, but strive for), we experience a greater depth of being alive, not sheltering ourselves from the shared human experience of struggle and suffering. When I witness this authenticity in the family of God, it causes me, not to retreat in disillusionment, but to praise God for his incredible grace and faithfulness to his people, that he has not left us alone, not left us without hope, but lives among us and within us as a living testament of his glory and redemption. When people truly behold this kind of community, I believe at the very least there will be a curiosity and, hopefully more; hopefully, a desire to become part of this unique family, the hands and feet of Christ fleshed out in sweat and tears, joy and pain, joining with God in his beautiful, redemptive work among all of creation. It is my heart's cry to be part of this kind of family, this kind of faith community. Let it begin here, with authenticity.

I'll close, echoing Tolstoy's candid words in a letter he wrote:

Attack me, I do this myself, but attack me rather than the path I follow and which I point out to anyone who asks me where I think it lies. If I know the way home and am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right way because I am staggering from side to side!