Let's scribble outside the "normal" box!

I'm convinced that I'm a child of God. That's wonderful, exhilarating, liberating, full of promise. But the burden which goes along with that is, I'm convinced that everybody is a child of God. Maya Angelou

Celebrating All families ----------Everywhere!!!!

Start as a human being in this culture, toss in madness, toss in mystical states, toss in being gay, toss in being HIV-positive, toss in religion that assures you God hates you for all of that - and then look me in the eye and tell me you can feel ok about yourself. I dare you. I just dare you.Ken Wilber

Source: Soulfully Gay: How Harvard, Sex, Drugs, and Integral Philosophy Drove Me Crazy and Brought Me Back to God, Pages: From the Forward by Ken Wilber Contributed by: Digital Ghost

 Margins…..most of us are brought up to believe they are good things….

As children we are repeatedly told……

                        “now color inside the lines…… …”

In school the teachers repeatedly tell us to

“keep our writing inside the lines and to stay away from the margins of the page…..”

Many of our homes are set on a designated plot of land….separated with dividing markers…so we know where our property ends and the other begins………..

     Margins:  They are good things ……..right???           {Pause}

But throughout our history,

 margins have also been used to separate God’s children from each other and to build walls that divide…….and truth be told …..most of us sitting in this place know very little about what it might feel like to stand outside the margins …..we don’t know or fully comprehend what it might feel like to be pushed outside the box of what society considers normal and good….do we?

We don’t fully understand what it might mean to be separated by the margins of culture and sexual orientation and religion and age and financial security and even gender…do we?

Where do we start???

….where it always begins…..

……….by being present…by looking for Christ in the depths of the eyes of all we encounter…by touching a hand that might be dirty or wounded or slobberd on….by stepping down our foot with courage and believing  that we can and will make a difference in God’s world….

with God’s help….

All people ought to have equal opportunity in God’s world…..

…………………and if they don’t’……then the people of God are called to make justice happen….which is more than doing the things that make us feel good about who we are…

Erasing margins is hard work……………………….it’s about engaging, touching, inviting, allowing ourselves to wrestle in those uncomfortable places that move us beyond our own preset  ideas about who is inside our world and who is not…. And calls each of us into an unknown adventure in God’s world………where margins do not exist…….

…………………..

……and ALL people are invited into the River that holds no boundaries…where they can experience healing and be made whole by and through God’s radical love……………but it takes all of us……to make it happen….to take down the bricks one by one, to erase the boundaries…to color outside the lines………………

In God’s world…………………

There is enough space

for The unwed mother,

The latino migrant worker

There is space for those caught in the confines of their physical limitations,

for those who are mentally depressed or psychologically impaired….

for the single the married,  the straight, the lesbian, gay and transgendered…

for the poor, the disenfranchised, the homeless, the homeowner, the rich….

The strong the weak the old the young…..and thankfully…for you and for me….

In God’ world, there are no margins…

….May we all begin to work toward making it a reality…… ……………….amen.

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Karen from over at Karen's Healthy Lifestyle inspired my post today.  She had a very thought provoking story from her student teaching.  Go on over to http://www.karenshealthylifestyle.blogspot.com/ and check her out.

Celebrating our families everywhere and praying that someday all the margins that divide us will be diminished.....Happy Wednesday and hugs to all of you....................................

ps.  I may actually blow my blogger up....the comments keep messing up and it has eaten my post three times tonight..................

Ramblings part 2...to make you think abit...

Now just tell me, what does the [sexuality of a person] tell you about

a person?  Does the [sexuality of a person] tell you whether that person

is intelligent?  Does it tell you if that person is loving?  Suppose we said that the thing that determines privilege is whether one considers themselves to be [“gay” or “straight”---homo or heterosexual?]  Now I am a [heterosexual]---supposing we said people who are [straight] are privileged people?  And they say now, “Ah, you want to attend church and [serve in ordained leadership]; you can come to this church but leadership is reserved for [heterosexuals] only.”  If you are [homosexual you are going to be in trouble.  Leadership in the church is only open to heterosexuals], like me.[1]

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[1]      This quote was found in the writings of Desmond Tutu, The Rainbow People of God  (New York:  Doubleday Dell, 1994), 261.    Bishop. Tutu writes in the context of racial relationship, but  have been adapted  to fit the needs of this ethical issue.  Sexuality was not the context of Bishop Tutu’s writing, but the writer of this passage adapted the words of Bishop Tutu as it pertains to the issue of this context. Words added to the quote are in brackets.

What do these statistics say about Humanity?

     Even the effort to search for the variance from what is normative, says something of great importance about the nature of humanity.  People are comfortable with that which is similar but more suspicious of that which is different.[1]  When diversity causes them to look within their own “zone of comfort,” people are then invited to question their own place within this “warm fuzzy box of ‘like’” which can cause  uncomfortable emotions.  Members of the human race, who differ from us, invite questioning, examination, and a determination of an understanding.   Calculating the number for the normative and ‘non-normative” sexual behavior assists in helping those who are of that dimension, in this case Christian heterosexuals, to feel comfortable.  Many even feel safe enough to say either explicitly or implicitly “we are alike and God loves us” and therefore you may come to our place of worship...

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[1]      One can apply the theory that Poplin discusses in her “spiral theory.”  We only know what we have been exposed to and taught, and these experiences form our interpretations of other experiences.   If one has never known or loved a homosexual, then  he/she does not have the unique intimate understanding of what is normative for something different within his/her experience.  It is only through the connected and loving people of other sexual orientations that one’s spiral of knowing begins to change.  Once the spiral has grown, then the intuitive knowing of God’s love prevails.

.    A friend of mine who is a gay woman in a relationship of covenant wrote an anonymous letter to a local church task force wrestling with the issue of ordination of gay and lesbians.  It stated following:

                       Gays ought to be ordained leaders in the church.

Why?  There are many dedicated, highly intelligent gay people out there who are yearning for the opportunity to serve God in higher leadership roles than the Presbyterian Church now allows.  I disagree with the viewpoint that our teens and their sexual orientation could easily be influenced by a gay person in a leadership position.  This is a scare tactic.  I, as most gay people, grew up in a heterosexual family surrounded by exclusively heterosexual influences from peers, from authoritative leaders in the church, community and school and from the media.  If sexual orientation is so easily influenced, I and millions of other gays would certainly be straight…..I can’t even imagine the inner turmoil that gay teens must feel without even one role model or person that they can talk to who can identify with their feelings.  In closing….we shake our heads in amazement that Biblical texts were ever used to support slavery, anti-Semitism, and oppression of women.  Years from now, the same will hold true for the church’s restrictions that are now imposed on gay members and the gay community.[1]

Reason, Experience and Intuitive Knowing

      Scientists struggle to find proof that gender orientation can be attributed to something biological.  And while there have been a few studies that showed trends, none have been conclusive.  In the same way that we struggle to find proof that God does indeed exist,  we also struggle to find a way to explain why individuals have different sexual orientations.  Our reasoning ability takes all we know about God and humanity into our “spiral of knowing”, makes reasonable claims about sexual orientation.  For the person who is heterosexual and has been brought up in a heterosexual world, without exposure to people of other sexual orientations, then more often than not, that person does not have within his or her  “spiral of knowing” the experiences needed to reason and reflect upon the need for acceptance.  Poplin says that there are “ basically four reasons why someone might fail to learn: 1.  Insufficient involvement in learning, insufficient previous experience, insufficient interest and mismatch of previous experience.”[2]   It was only when I began to have intimate relationships and friendships with gay/lesbian people that I began to question the religious information in my own spiral.  If God is love, and I am called to love God and neighbor, as well as myself, then it began to make sense that God loved the gay/lesbian just as much as God loved me.   I am a women brought up in the tradition which states that women could not be called by God to minister to the world, and I am called into ministry, then it only makes sense that God could and would also call someone who is gay/lesbian into ordained office.   People in the church struggle with the understanding of inclusion, as a result of the information that is present within their spiral of knowing.  Many by the ministers and teachers and members in the local church don’t have the experience to talk about the gay person. Sometimes, there is little interest in talking about sexual orientation in the church, especially that of someone other than heterosexual because fear keeps one from allowing new information to enter the spiral.  When new information is explored and reflected upon, the new information reasonably might allow for change.  Unless new ideas enter into the spiral, then “it is very difficult to get someone to learn and grow unless they first have an interest in the subject.”[3]  Therefore, if the church refuses to wrestle with this difficult subject, then new experiences do not enter into the collective understanding of those gathered.  Without information and experiences, reasonable reflection cannot and will not occur.  

[1]      Anonymous,  Letter written to Gay/Lesbian Task Force at Maxwell Street Presbyterian Church.  (Lexington, KY:  anonymous letter, 2003), page 3.  Permission by writer of this letter was granted..  She is responding to a comment of the task force that should gay leaders be welcome in our church they would influence our children to become gay. 

[2]      Poplin, 6. 

[3]      Ibid. 8

May our world one day.....wrestle with the issue of GLBT to come to understand---we are all just people---part of earth---

part of humanity---more alike than different and may we come to learn what living in full communion and community can look like!!!!  That is my prayer for the night!

Happy Wednesday and Hugs to all of you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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