The Horns of a Dilemma

We don’t have mega churches here in Alabama, we have lots of mini churches instead. Maybe that is why their leadership has no problem being politically on the reactionary extremist side, and loudly proclaiming so from the pulpit. Maybe mega churches would be a step up for us. Hmmmm.

Paula Stone Williams

This week Jupiter and Saturn will appear as one in the sky, the first time that has happened in 800 years.  When I heard this celestial event is called the Big Conjunction, I thought of the dilemma currently facing large evangelical churches in America.  When it comes to the big conjunction of Donald Trump and Covid-19, these churches are lost in the cosmos.

Megachurches are America’s great religious influencers.  There are more megachurches (churches that average over 2,000 in weekend attendance) in Nashville today than there were in the entire nation just twenty years ago.  The influence of these churches is huge, and their decisions make news.  Flatirons Church, the largest church here in Boulder County, recently held an outdoor service (pictured above) in which mask wearing and social distancing were obviously negotiable.  The event created quite a ruckus in our Covid-compliant region.  It was not the first time the…

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“Intersectionality”: that word probably doesn’t mean what you think it does.

If you learned of the term “Intersectionality”in the 90’s, or are over 40 years old, that word probably doesn’t mean what you think it does. When feminists started using the word in the 90’s is was to indicate a simple notion, that the fewer lines of privilege you have, the worse your life is likely to be. That means, if you are a gay, trans woman of color, you are likely to see a lot more oppression that a straight, cis, white woman like me. Pretty hard to argue with that, right?

A few days ago, liberals all over America started to organize and join Facebook groups to protest the election of Donald Trump, a racist, xenophobic, homophobic, transphobic, classist, ableist sexually abusive, rich white guy. Yeah, we elected “that guy.” And you bet, we had no intent to take it quietly and docilely. We planned to raise hell, and from our starting place, the wonderful 3 million strong group called Pantsuit Nation, we started forming smaller, more manageable discussion and support groups.

One such group was a secret group comprised of sexually and domestically abused women. Now these groups typically exclude men in order to make a safe place for women to speak of their experiences. That is a perfectly reasonable and necessary exclusion, since the vast majority of victims are women, and the vast majority of abusers are men. In this case, a white woman was speaking of the safety pin and what it meant to her. Over the course of the next 20 minutes or so, 3 women of color began to attack her saying things like, “Shut the fuck up with your safety pin,” and “I don’t need no fucking white woman as an ally because I will never trust a white person” and most cruelly, “you aren’t an ally, all you have to give are white guilt, and white tears, and we don’t need that.” No one spoke up, except for me.I begged them not to be divisive. Nothing from the admins, nor any other women, no one but me with my ineffective voice. The woman left the group, messaged a friend that she was going to hurt herself, and shut her Facebook profile down. Dangerous signs. The group closed, and a few of us waited grimly to find out what happened. (Turns out she was a cutter, and a friend got to her before she did anything more than make a few small cuts.)

So, I, with my big mouth, start going into other groups and speaking against this kind of divisiveness. To my surprise, I made a lot of people angry. I reached out to personal friends. Most agreed with me, but one very close friend would not listen, and even berated me, and finally blocked me. I was heartbroken. I couldn’t figure out why most of the people I personally know agreed with me, yet so many online were very, very angry about my words. I was thrown out of 2 groups with intersectionality in their title, before it finally came to me. The difference between the friends who agreed with me, and those who were angry was age. Those over 40 generally were in full agreement, while those under 40 were enraged? What was going on here?

So, I started reading up on intersectionality. I read about 30 articles on the subject, including some so scholarly I had to have a thesaurus handy the whole time I waded through them. Whew. And then the aha moment came. The words “race, class, gender,” were used in all of these articles, but the less scholarly the article (ie Wikipedia), the more likely that “race, class, gender” indicated a hierarchy of oppression. To the point that a rich black man’s voice would be given greater amplitude than a poor, white woman’s voice. Most of the scholarly articles and older articles decried this practice as divisive, but the fact of the matter is, when the word intersectionality is used, the COMMON USAGE does embrace that hierarchy. Personally, I still think it IS divisive, but it really isn’t my call to make.

So, after reading all those articles, I started reaching out to as many of the women I had angered, and apologizing to them for my uninformed statements. I now know that if a group speaks of intersectionality, as a white person, my place is to listen, not speak. It isn’t right or wrong, it just IS. I am going to assume, however, if that word isn’t in the name of the group, that I am free to speak, and my voice may or may not be welcomed, and I can chose to accept that, or leave that group.

This is something that we older activists need to know.  We can accept it, we can embrace it, or we can talk about whether it is, indeed divisive. It does have a sting to someone who learned activism from Dr. Martin Luther King, but times change, and so, I am afraid, must we.

Me And My White Guilt

While we are all talking about white privilege, let me tell you when I started unpacking my own. I was about 28, it was the late 70’s, and had gone with my friend Helen to the NO Jazz festival. We were at the stage listening to the Neville Brothers, and a few black men approached her to hit on her, and ask why she was hanging with a “pasty” girl. She, at first, told them she wasn’t black, just had a tan going, and that I was her sister (this despite sporting a huge Afro.)

After about the 5th time this happened, she got up, and said “come on, lets get out of here” and insisted we go to a stage where a white artist was playing. Totally confused, I followed her. When we had settled again, I asked her why she was mad. I had no clue at all why she would be mad about someone of her own race calling her “sister” and asking why she had a white friend. She looked at me and said “It makes me furious when ANYONE, black or white, makes assumptions about me based on my skin color. And not only were they making assumptions about ME, they were making assumptions about YOU as well.”

Still confused I asked her, “Well, isn’t there some truth that most whites are racist? I can understand them thinking that about me.” She looked at me and asked, “Denese, when we first met, did you see what color I am? My first impulse was to say the popular, “I don’t see race,” but instead I told the truth. “Yeah, Helen, I immediately knew you were a black woman. ” I felt like I was admitting something horrible. She said, “That is why you are my friend. You saw ME. White people always say they aren’t racist because they have a black friend. You ever say that?” I told her no, I don’t think so. She asked, “Am I your first black friend?” My answer was no to that as well. She told me to think about that for a while. Still confused, I said I would.

Later, when we got to the car to go back home to Lafayette, it started to rain, and one of the windows in the car wouldn’t stay up. I got out of the car, and started looking for some sticks. Helen asked me what the heck I was doing. That is when it happened. I replied, ” I am looking for something to nigger rig that window.” As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I was horrified, and burst into tears and sank to the ground.. I apologized hysterically, over and over, getting more and more manic as the moments ticked by. Helen got out of the car, grabbed me up out of the mud, and roughly shoved me into my seat in the car, and got back in and slammed the door. I kept sniveling and saying :I am so sorry, so sorry, so sorry!” She angrily told me to “Shut up,” I kept crying. Then, she said, “Denese if you don’t shut the hell up, I am going to slap you!”

Sure I had lost my friend forever, I tried to get myself under control. When my sobs had reduced to hiccups, Helen said, “Denese, look at me.” I turned to her, my eyes full of tears, and looked her in the face, expecting her to tell me that I was a miserable racist piece of shit, and I knew she would be right. Instead she gently asked me, “How old were you when you first heard that phrase?” I told her maybe 5 or 6. She asked how many times I had heard that, or similar phrases. I said,” I dunno, thousands….millions?” She said “Yes, so many times that it is just background noise, and has no real meaning, don’t you see?” She explained that accidentally using a term like that did not mean that I was racist, but that I had been born into a racist world. She asked if I had ever called Asians, Japs or Chinks. I said of course, I had not. She asked if I had ever heard that Asians were good at math. I said I had. Then she asked if I had ever met an Asian that was bad at math. I remembered my friend Yvonne from 6th grade, who I always helped with her math, so I said, “Yes.”

We then started talking about all kinds of common terms, phrases and assumptions about race. A great deal more were in common use in the 70’s than we hear now. We agreed those were all racist things…everything from “White people can’t dance” to “Blacks are best at basketball,” to “Asians are all good at math” to “All Mexicans are wetbacks.” We named all those awful things, and we called them what they are….racist. We talked about whether white people should feel guilty, and when. We agreed that they should if they let racists remarks pass unchallenged. We agreed they should if they didn’t look at their own behavior, and correct it when needed. At the end, Helen asked me, “Are you ever going to forget, and use that phrase again?” I said that I hoped not. She asked me, “Are you going to speak up when you hear stuff like that?” I promised her I always would. We didn’t use words like “privilege” or “micro-aggression” or “silencing” We used the words that were in common usage at the time. But we were talking about those very things.

When we got home, we hugged and told each other we loved each other. Our friendship continued, better than before, until she left the state, and married someone, and changed her name.

That is the time that a wonderful black friend showed me my privilege, showed me that I still had work to do, that my guilt was useless, and galvanized me to always stand beside all of my brothers and sisters on this planet who speak for good, and who speak for equality, fairness and understanding. And most of all for peace.

There IS only one race on this planet…the HUMAN race. No one will ever convince me otherwise.

Thank you, Helen, wherever you are.

CALL ME ANGELA A while back several night clubs and bars started a program in which if you were on a date, or approached by someone who was making you uncomfortable or scared, you would go to the bartender and ask for Angela. That would let them know you needed help, a ride home or protection of some kind. I suggest that we expand this notion. If someone is hassling you, calling you names, threatening you, as a woman, Muslim, black, hispanic, LGBTQIA you can come to me (I will be wearing a large safety pin.) call me Angela, and I will know you need help. I will escort you to the ladies room, talk to you, walk you to your car, call a cab hug you, or just listen to what help you need. I will be your ally, even though I do not know you. We are all in this together, and together we are better. God bless us all.

This is what it was like to be a woman in America in the 20th century.

TW: Sexual assault, rape, child molestation.

I am going to tell you a story now. I have never told this story in full detail before, just bits to certain people I trusted. Now I have to speak. Now you have to know what happened to me in my life. Now you have to know why I feel so betrayed by my country

The first time I was molested, I was 4 years old. I met a man who treated me nice, and asked me to cuddle and kiss him. One day he grabbed me by the pussy (in the words of our President elect.) He put his finger inside and broke my hymen. There was blood. I was terrified, but I kept silent because I was sure I had done something bad. Sure enough, when I told my Mom I didn’t like his kisses, she was mad. I thought she was mad at me. Maybe she was, but probably she didn’t know what I was talking about. I did not remember this until I was in my 30’s, but once I did it was clear as day. I even remember what his aftershave smelled like. I still don’t like aftershave on men.

Bad enough, right?

When I was 9 my breasts started growing. I was the first girl in my class to have to wear a bra. The boys loved to grab it and snap it. If I complained, I got in trouble. By the time I was 12 I was wearing a D cup. It was almost a daily occurrence to have a breast grabbed, or swatted. Everyone laughed at me during sports because they jiggled. My father started lecturing me about tempting boys. He didn’t lecture me about how to make them stop grabbing my breasts though. I heard him laughingly tell my brothers that rape was “assault with a friendly weapon.” Not that it was bad. Not that it wasn’t their right. If I got raped, it would be my fault.

Guess what? I was raped. Thanks to my father for that one, too. He hated the guys I dated because they had long hair, so when we had moved back to Louisiana, he insisted I go on a date with the clean cut boy next door. He asked me to dinner and a movie. He wanted to park beforehand, but I said I was hungry. He went to McDonalds, bought me a hamburger and threw it at me. I should have fled right then, but I didn’t. That was just how I expected men to treat me. After the movie, he drove out in the country to a deserted lot. I had no idea where I was. He pulled out his penis and said, “Get on that.” I started to protest that I didn’t know him that well, but he shoved me back and locked the doors. I couldn’t get out, and I didn’t know where I was. I was crying, but somehow I got him to agree to take me home if I gave him a blow job. So, I did, and he drove us back to town. As soon as I saw the lights of town, I jumped out at the nearest stop sign, and ran. I found a pay phone, and called one of my cousins, who came and picked me up. He offered to kick the guy’s ass, but I just wanted to forget. The next day my father asked how the date had gone. When I tried to tell him that the guy had done inappropriate things, my father told me I must have led him on. That was the last time I ever tried to tell anyone about the way men treated me.

So, I married an abusive man and lived in terror of him for almost a decade. The only reason I left him was that I had met a man who made me believe that I was worth more than that. That was my Roland, and if I am not a blubbering nutcase, it is because of his love and its healing power. When a man that good tells you you are amazing, you start to believe a little. But guess what? He still had a masculine sense of entitlement. The only thing we ever fought about was over things he wanted me to do with my body that I didn’t want to. He would acquiesce, but expressed resentment nevertheless. That just added to the scars on my heart.

I forgive him, because I now know that that is how men were/are raised. They are taught that they are entitled. They are taught that women’s bodies are for their pleasure.

When he was dying, he told me that I was the best woman he had ever known, and the best thing that ever happened in his life. He also made me promise to marry again, because I was too wonderful to be alone in life. So I did. That’s what I do, after all. I do what men tell me to do.

In the course of dating after he died, I was assaulted again. This time there were horrific bruises. I told my daughter I fell, though there were obvious bite marks. I vowed to be more careful. And I was. I met a nice guy. I married him too. And he thoroughly humiliated and embarrassed me, before leaving me for someone else.

So now, I will say “no” to all men, and try to be happy on my own. Because we as a country just validated all those men who abused me. Every damned one. And we guaranteed that this kind of thing would continue to happen to little girls in this country for a few more decades. I will try my best to fight that, but my voice is so very small.

So, for those of you gloating about Trump’s win, and calling it an act of God, you will forgive me if I don’t agree.

Am I living in a Post Traumatic World Yet?

This is a journal. Or these are…all (or most) of these blogs will be.  Some will even be assignments from my therapist.  Be warned.

 

Let’s start with the now.  Right now I am sad and sore, stressed, depressed and disabled, lonely and broke.  Like a country song or some shit.  My heart still broken from the lover and husband who left me in January. Our first wedding anniversary would have been/ was the 4th of July.

The 4th of July is also the 6th anniversary of my husband Roland’s memorial service, in 2010.  At least my futile relationship with Dave stopped me from grieving for a matter of years, although much of that grief is back in different ways.  Imagining how I would have handled similar problems with Roland.  It is so hard not to, and yet so unfair, to compare and contrast 2 lovers, much less two husbands, isnt it?  You must turn loose of the memory of the dead one in order to have any hope of success with the living.  Right?

Maybe not.  Maybe one must keep checking the norm against the desirable to see if you can live with the difference you discover in reality.

Also still much in the middle of grief for my older brother and room mate…my co-experiencer of our father’s abuse,  who died in my living room 8 days after my husband left.

I have lousy luck like that. Bad luck or karma, disaster seems to follow me. My mother’s death when I was 19, followed by my grandmother’s a few months later.  At least that time we got a few days to be able to breath again.  8 days!  That’s fucked up, God!

And then there was 2013. My 20th anniversary as a photographer with the same company.  One of the top salesmen. Decent benefits, finally, though the pay was lousy.  But accommodations were made for my disability, so I stayed on, planning to retire when I was 60.  Nope.  The company died in April. I lost my job, my health insurance, my retirement plans, all my savings etc. in one day.  Of course, my friends all thought that was what was making me act weird.  My lover saw it clearly first.  Something was bad wrong with my brain. I couldn’t follow the plot on a TV show. I said things over and over.  I fell a few times and injured my knee…twice out of bed in a sound sleep…I thought.  Apparently some kind of seizure.  Because I had a brain tumor. I went to the emergency room on June 29th, 2013. On July 5th, 2013 ( I think) I had a rather large menengioma removed from the base of my brain, that had so severely displaced my brain that a few more days of spinal fluid build up would have killed me.  Medical staff was amazed that I had not suffered grand mal seizures or had a massive stroke.

I don’t remember any of that however.  I remember standing outside my home, talking to Randy in the driveway, about going to the hospital because I was falling and forgetting stuff.  I was thinking it was a big fuss about nothing.  The next thing I remember is waking up in the NICU with bandages on my head, a catheter in my urethra, high on drugs and hallucinating parades through the hallways outside my room. Good times.

I had no idea what had happened. It seemed I was in a place where traumatic brain injuries were treated.  Why?  Not a clue.  I thought I might have been in a car accident.  No one seemed to want to tell me much.  I had had surgery.  That’s about it.

So, I became disabled in 2013. Dave moved in with me, as well, and was quite supportive during my recovery….except when he wasn’t.  Which is another chapter in this story I will address at a later date. Suffice to say, for various reasons, he left. Badly.

So, 2014 was for recovery. Both of myself, and to some extent my lover, and my relationship with him.  All badly in need of repair, but only the physical is ever addressed. Who knew?

 

2015, I thought was to celebrate rebirth.  New and different friendships and relationships. An attempt at poly and communal living. Hope for the future. Commitment and appreciation.  And then, suddenly in September…disaster. People around me, people I loved started an exodus. It was supposed to be so loving, so enlightened but it became secretive and abusive.

That is a story for later as well.

 

I tell you this to explain why my world seems traumatic.  Being abused as a child. Sexually molested at age 4 by a neighbor. Fleeing from a nuclear crisis  (another story) at age 7. More abuse from father. Several instances of consent being violated in date situations. Even being coerced into crossing sexual boundaries by too many men.  Unsolicited dick pics on the internet.  And now my new husband, a man I loved with all my heart cannot see why I am sad when he is 2,000 miles away with another person, and he chooses that day, the 4th of July, our wedding anniversary to talk about picking his stuff up. Shit.

I have recently gotten “shed” of a person that came into my life  through him, and who refused to leave space for me in my own home. By that, I mean bullying me about the way the household was run, without contributing all that much to its betterment. I am sure I WAS a bitch to her, because I was angry at being taken advantage of, and with my history, have never been able to feel anger about people like the two of them. So, that anger is magnified through a lens of my own past, I guess. Not having had experience with anger, I dont really know how to handle it.  I suppose, as with all the other emotions I have been having to face this year, anger is going to be one of them.  The trick, for me, is to use it as a tool, rather than a weapon.  But there was some more stress and trauma with that of course.

 

September

Now, three days ago, I find that soon to-be ex has instead of having the tax refund money that was going to be a new start for both of us, into our joint account, has had it deposited to his private account.  And has the nerve to be mad when I call him out on that!  I have been in panic and disappointment mode for those 3 days, with what little I sleep full of nightmares.  And then the “daymares,” when I cant make my brain return to the present, because it is spinning out on various “what ifs.” So, no, I am not fuctioning well at the moment.  Shit.

The thing about anger, is how much it is like light, in that it is easily refracted and reflected, and in do so, becomes something else. Sometimes brighter, sometimes duller. Nothing at random though. Even the act of thinking about anger can change the direction of the light..reflecting it back to your eyes brilliant with truth., each thought a prism that you must experiment with to see the result.  Anger however, often best experimented with internally. Unlike light, which all are free to see, anger might need to be hidden from the public’s’ eyes. In a sense, that is a damned shame, because I have to hide that beautiful truth from others because they can be exposed to that much light.

That sucks…especially for women, because that emotion is trained into us as always a choice. Of course, it is not.

More about that later, too.

My reason for this litany, and the direction this arrow is flung, is to bring up the fact that I have PTSD. Lots and lots of it. Have probably had it since I was about 3 years old. But the thing is, It is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and I feel like there has not yet been a Post for me in a very, very long time.

I know, a lot of my feelings about this are also influenced by the politics of the day. So many people angry, so many afraid, so much trauma…

The first doctor who diagnosed my PTSD said that writing would be a wonderful therapy for me.  I undertook online psychological therapy also.  So, what I do, and what I need to keep doing is write about it. I must take out all those bits of trauma and look closely at them. Live them again, even. And in doing so, I learn along with it how to release each individual piece of trauma from its place of honor in my psyche. Ignoring them do not take away their power to work their way into that place of honor. I just can’t see it happening. So I have to look. I have to put it all under a microscope, so to speak, and magnify it all, intensify it to the extent that I can bear, and by learning of it, feeling it all again, I control it for the first time.

Because that is my goal now.

Post Traumatic.

POST

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whole Lotta Sinnin’ Going On. (MySpace)

I had a blog deleted from MySpace today.  It was one of my milder ones too.  Apparently MySpace will delete a blog just on the say-so of a bully.  So, now I am back to copying all my stuff from MySpace to here to protect it.  Censorship is lame.  Always.

Whole Lotta Sinnin’ Going On!
Current mood:  argumentative
Category: Religion and Philosophy

WHOLE LOTTA SINNIN’ GOING ON
(Or, What’s Sin got to do with it?)

I spend a lot of my time on MySpace surfing the religion and philosophy blogs.  Sometimes, if I like what is written I leave kudos, maybe an attaboy comment,  and cruise on.  Sometimes I don’t like what is written.  So, no kudos, and I still cruise on. It’s their blog, and they have the right to their opinion.  For me to voice disagreement seems like bad manners.

But when I arrive at a blog I like, or one written by one of the friends who’s writing I follow, and find  someone has started a name-calling, hissy-fit of a slam war, then I jump into the fray.  Good manners are suspended for the duration. The disagreements are usually among various factions of Christians, and usually have something to do with either sin or redemption from sin.

The sin in question is almost always homosexuality, but sometimes its something like not taking the Bible literally enough to believe in Creationism, or some such.

Some of what is contained here are recycled from my comments to these wars, and some of it is new.

Here is where I think that all the disagreements get started.  We all agree that Christ is The Savior.  What we disagree about is who He has saved.

There are many Christians who  believe that Christ saved all mankind. Perfectly logical, simple and easy to agree with.  It says so all over the New Testament.  It says it is God’s will for this to be so. And if it God’s will that all are saved, who will stand in the way of God’s will?  Not me, honey!

There are others who  believe that only those who repent of their sin are saved.  Says that here and there in the Bible too.  People who take this line are usually fundamentalists or literalists.  The problem  with that is that the Bible also says that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  So, in order to be saved, all men must repent .  If they don’t repent…not saved. Ok, I can go along with that.

The arguments start when we can’t agree about redemption. Because then we are led to question, when does this repentance have to take place? Just one time when we are first saved?, or over and over again, every-time we sin?  So, are we re-saved every time we repent?   And of course, we have the  eternal question, “what happens if we sin a tiny little sin and then Wham!…hit by a beer truck before we have time to repent?!

And now we come to the deal breaker for a lot of people. The question of what, exactly, constitutes sin?  How do we know?  You would think it would be easy.  But no….

We start out fairly simply.  10 Commandments.  Ok, we can all handle 10.  And these are good, no-brainer commandments.  Don’t steal, check.  Don’t lie, check.  Don’t covet, well that’s a hard one, but check, got it.  Honor thy mother and father, un-huh, no problem. And so on.  Yes, we can quibble about the no killing one, because of military service and death penalty, but, yeah, we are pretty sure God meant murder, so ok.  The 10 commandments are good.  Let’s keep them.  But then we get to later in the Old Testament.  Whooo boy!

You got all these sins added in.  We have, don’t eat pork and we have don’t wear certain kinds of clothes.  And on and on pages and pages of sins, so many and so complex that it is a full time job to figure out who is sinning and who’s not.  Which is pretty much what the Hebrew priests and rabbis did.  Full time!

So, to clear up all this sin stuff, early Christians decided that Christ’s coming brought us a new law.  A new covenant, or contract with God, which threw out the old law.  Oh, good…because I was getting a headache, and besides, I love me some bacon!

However, we are also told that Christ didn’t do away with sin.  Rats, just when it was getting easy!  OK, so what are the sins, now?  Well we go back to those original 10…yeah bring those back.  But all that no-eating pork, etc.  no we don’t go by those.  OK Cooking along here, gonna eat me some bacon, oh yeah!

But wait, we find out that God doesn’t like some stuff that was a sin in the Old Testament, so we have to keep those on the sin list.  “Sigh”  Ok, what are those sins?  And here we go! Fornicating, prostituting, homosexuality…well just make that pretty much anything sexual.  Wait a minute!  God don’t like sex?  Well, He does, but only in marriage between one man and one woman, and only in the missionary position.  Oh, and only to have children.  So if you are married and use birth control, you are back in there sinning again!  Well, Geez, no sex would be a whole lot easier!  Which is where we got celibate clergy I guess.  But we better not all be celibate, or that would be the end of us all, which might be ok, because at least we wouldn’t  be arguing anymore!  But probably not the end God has in mind for his Creation, after all. Ever wonder why there are hardly any Shakers left around anymore?  The “no sex” thing did them in.

Well, the idea of all these sex sins turned out to be so popular, that, oh dear!  here come a bunch more sins.  Greed. Pride. Envy. Bring ’em on, bring ’em on.  Especially since I don’t do any of those things, do I?  Oh, wait.  Man!  Someone just made it a sin to eat meat on Friday.  Here we go again!  More sins!  Seemingly stupid sins, but God has a plan.  We just have to trust.  So trusting in God, we find more and more sinful things.  Women shouldn’t cut their hair or wear pants, or talk back to their husbands.  Sin, sin, sin.  Well, only for some kinds of Christians, so that’s ok. Because I am the other kind.  Well wait a minute.  We got some others that say that dancing is a sin, and so is smoking tobacco, drinking alcohol, coffee and Coca-Cola!  And now we are back to a state where sin is so darn confusing that we just go buy our beer on Sunday and go to the lake.

Which gets me to my point, finally.  If salvation is based on sin, or not sin, or anything we,as humans, can do or not do, it is a total mess. If salvation has anything to do with sin,  don’t you think God would have made it very clear exactly what sin is?  And yet He didn’t.  Through time millions of brilliant Bible scholars have not been able to figure it out.  Why is that?  Because sin doesn’t have much to do with salvation.

Now, wait a minute! Here I am, all saved and everything, and I have repented of my sin, which is sometimes hard, you know because of Adam and Eve and all.  But we got some nutcases telling me that people who don’t repent of their sin are going to be saved anyway? Why do they get a free ride, and I have to try not to sin, and sit on the front row at church and listen to some preacher drone on and on and make me late for the football game, and I read my Bible faithfully everyday (well, ok I nap with my Bible over my face most of the time because a lot of it will just put you out!)  What is wrong with this picture?

Well, back again to the definition of sin, and the definition of repentance.

You see, it is real confusing, even to Christian scholars, whether we are to return to the Old Testament lists of sins, which include some strange stuff, like not wearing clothes of mixed fiber, and no eating shrimp and pork and such.  Or do we look for our definition of sin in the New Testament?  If we do that we have a hard row to how, because  you see, Christ’s words on the subject of sin aren’t very clear.  I mean, like the little boy in Sunday school, we can discern that on the matter of Christ and sin, “He’s against it,” but we don’t have any good old lists like Leviticus provides us with.

Sure, we know that from his actions in the temple, strowing the tables around and such, that Christ was of the opinion that some sinning was going on.  But was it the money lending?  Uh, Oh!  Bad news for bankers.  Oh, it was all the buy and selling going on.  Oh, dear, and here I am in sales!  At Wal-Mart no less! Dum de dum-dum.  Or was it just that they were making a whole lot of racket and disturbing the quiet holiness of the place.  Now you folks that hoot and holler on Sunday are in for it!

Christ also made some comments on hypocrites and Pharisees, so we can probably assume that hypocrisy is a big ole sin.  Are you ever a hypocrite?
No?  Liar, liar pants on fire!

How can you tolerate the fat lady sitting in the front row of your nice, clean church shouting amen, when the sin of gluttony is so obvious? Why don’t you get up in her face and witness to her that she is going to hell? I bet you don’t. I bet you ask her to bake her delicious chocolate cake for the Ladies Aid bake sale? And in doing so, you are a hypocrite.  There ya go!

When we tell someone that they are going to hell for the sins you see them commit, you let Death and Satan into your heart, and Satan’s words come out of your mouth. Cursing is a sin, and telling someone they’re damned to hell is a curse….a much worse curse than saying the word bullshit!

Which is what I hear a lot of on MySpace on the subject of sin.

You say sin is a choice?  Well, science has pretty much come to a consensus that homosexuality is not a choice.  You are born that way.  If Christianity could actually cure homosexuality, as wide spread as it is (about 10% of the population is homosexual) it seems like there would be a whole lot of cured homosexuals around to tell us about the experience.  And there just aren’t.  There are a few  (a very few!) deluded folks around who say they have been cured of their homosexuality!  Folks, either they were just a little curious and tried it a few times, or they are so fu**ed up that the cure is just a matter of time in becoming a relapse.  And with it, a complete turn from their faith.

And if you are of the opinion that some things are sins because they are in the Bible as sin, then you had better be keeping kosher, because you just can’t say that every Word in the Bible is absolute truth, and then go picking and choosing that truth.

For God’s sake, and our own, people, we have got to keep it simple or Christianity becomes unlivable. Let’s stop shouting damnation over our differing opinions, and present a united Body in Christ.

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God! Remember? ALL. The Bible doesn’t say we quit sinning when we accept Christ as our Savior. It doesn’t say we have to repent and repent every time we sin, because nobody would be able to do anything for all that constant repenting.

My point is that if we as Christians remain obsessed with sin, we miss the whole point of Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Christ’s sacrifice saved us from the consequence of our sin. Christ’s sacrifice conquered sin, and conquered death.  To say anything else makes the awesomeness of that event trivialized.

And if that ain’t a sin, it ought to be!

I welcome comments from all readers. I do ask that you not cut and paste tons and tons of scripture, as I have a Bible, I read it, and I don’t need another copy.  By all means, provide scriptural reference if you want, but then give me your interpretation.  I want to know what you think!

Be blessed.

Original post: http://www.myspace.com/denesebramblette/blog?page=3#ixzz0zYMF3Kq3

What’s a QuickPress?

So, lets just see what this thingy does.

My best from MySpace: Weirdness

Weirdness Originally posted on MySpace on 7/16/10

Tomorrow will be three weeks that my Roland died.  21 days.  Very, very long days.

This is a little reflection on what it is like.

I am in a very weird place.

I hope you will bear with me.  I know you have all grieved.  For lost parents, brothers, sisters, friends, and others. I have too. This is worse.  Much worse.  The only thing that could be worse is the death of a child.

First of all, let me say, “Widowhood sucks.  There is nothing about it that does not suck.  Period.”

For those of you in happy marriages, my advice is, die first.  Really.  This is a really bad place, and I can’t think of anything to recommend it.  Other than that if I had, in fact, died first, I would have left my love in this position.  So, with that thought, I must accept that this is my cross to bear for now.

Thea wrote this for me:

Trying Cry

Still and silent soul
Finally and too soon bereft of its twining mate
Spinning quietly with the momentum of parting
Soon spent…how on Earth—God!—do we find
Our dark clad foot on a darkly lit path
Never mind the next step, but just to place it down again,
Now the piper’s tune is done and the dance replete?

Vision altered with diamond tears in velvet night
Pain in nova blossoms anew and spreads
Articulated, sharp-edged, and merciless
Until all is a conflagration of grief
Travelling a raw and well-seasoned network tracery
In to every abode, den, and way place of body and mind
Faith and hope become millstones of cold reprove…

…yet…

For a breath, all that tarries is Love
Plain, unmet, answerless…

Ask again, Denese…for the twelve quartered wind
Is always listening, and draws its zephyrs even now
To your succor…however it may shape and press
The cloth of your being against your beleaguered frame
Love that is spent is not lost, and well-spent flourishes beyond its wielders
Returning on a sister brother breeze

Seek ye out the breasts of your loved ones
And lay your head down upon them
Be held and caressed and kissed
Cry all of your tears
That in sweet catharsis you may be left
Limp and pliant, and there you may rest awhile
Seek not beyond this for now
It is enough to place your foot down
On that darkly lit path, and wait for the coming dawn

I think Thea must have been here before.  Or she is amazingly empathetic.

My first impression was the surprise at the physical loneliness.  That caught me unprepared.  The physical presence that had been a given for me…hugs, kisses, hands held, the weight of him next to me in bed, or watching television. The sound of his footsteps, his constant cough.  The sound of his labored breathing the last few weeks, even. Now a big empty space.  A terrible”wrongness” in the world.  Because he is not there. And for 26 years, he was never “not there.”

We always met adversity by saying, “It will be alright, as long as we are together.”  That saying was my mantra through all the many adversities in life.  So now I must find a way for “it” to be alright, even though we aren’t together anymore.

Because, you see, I know he doesn’t want me to stop living.  Or enjoying what life has to offer.  I know he wants me to go on and be happy.

So, rather than curl up and die in my grief, I must work through it.  And it is a very hard thing.

The day before yesterday, I did not cry.  That was a milestone.  I made up for it yesterday.

I cry when I meet a friend of his that doesn’t know, and when they ask how he is, I have to tell them that he is gone.  And endure their shock and sadness.

I cry when I see something that he would have enjoyed seeing or hearing about.

I cry when I see a book that he would have enjoyed reading. Or a TV show that would have stirred him.

I cry when I am reminded how much I have lost.  I cry when I run errands.  He always did that for me, because he knew I hated it. I cry when I cook.  He always cooked for me.  I cry when I do laundry.  Because he always did the laundry.

How selfish am I?

But you know, I am starting to get real tired of crying.

When will I have cried enough.  I wonder?

When will I stop reaching for him unconsciously?

When will I stop looking for chocolate to buy for him?

When will I buy teal blue clothing that I like, but never did because he doesn’t like that color?

When will my grief stop being the center of my existence.  My daily task?

Ever?

I hope.

This is a very strange place for me to be, this unhappy place of grief.  I don’t like it at all.  But, I know that it is where I must be for now.  So, I am willing to accept.

For now.

OK, enough crying today.

I will think of something to laugh about.

Stolen funeral flowers.  I have to laugh.

Thanks everyone for being my friend, and my support.

Denese

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