I’m going to write about how I think that the fervor towards Ground Zero is idolatry, and that I think if God were going to become infuriated by American culture I think that patriotic idolatry could be a bigger tipping point for the great I AM than gay marriage.

I feel deeply ambivalent towards Ground Zero.  I find it to be a place of great sadness and a monument to national pain.  I find it fitting that whatever is built there is a suitable memorial to the thousands that died that day, and the many lives impacted by the tragedy.  I think it would be incredibly disrespectful to take a place of such loss and turn it into a mega-mall or monument to consumerism.  Yet, I also feel that many people take that sense of deep regard and carry it too far.  One example?  While writing the previous sentences, I had to catch myself about to type “it would be sacrilege… to build”, and I am again reminded of the language that many people use when discussing Ground Zero.

Ground Zero has been called “Hallowed” or “Sacred Ground”.  The idea of building a mosque near it is called “sacrilige” or “abuse”.  We have elevated Ground Zero in our minds far beyond the honor that seems fitting, and to a point where our regard seems to have transcended respect and tipped into idolatry.

What, exactly, is the reason that Ground Zero needs to be respected?  Is it because people lost their lives?  Because it’s a national tragedy whose scars have yet to fade with time?  Because it is a place where a great act of voilence occured, and the reverbrations there of have not quited?  Or because our Nationalistic Pride demands that good patriots elevate its status to thus prove their devotion?  Any of the excuses that could be used for showing reverence make sense to me, except the last.

Yet the language that is utilized when discussing Ground Zero seems to imply that the truth is the fact that we of patriotic tendencies have made it our own Sacred Calf.  We have set aside the “ten commandments” of our Patriotism, that is, our constitution and societal principles, in order to defend our Sacred Ground from the assault of enemy Muslims.  We defend Ground Zero not with rational arguments but with vitriolic attacks towards those who may be wholly innocent.  We practically worship Ground Zero, making it not just a monument in our minds but something bigger, something not just set apart but wholly unassailable.  Just look at the expressions on pundit’s faces as they defend it- if the volume were on mute, you’d have to assume that someone threatened to rape their mother.

The Bible is clear:  idolatry is bad.  When the Israelites again and again turn to Idols and turn away from God, God is clear about what will happen to them as a result:

Leviticus 26:30-31   I will destroy your high places, cut down your incense altars and pile your dead bodies on the lifeless forms of your idols, and I will abhor you.  I will turn your cities into ruins and lay waste your sanctuaries, and I will take no delight in the pleasing aroma of your offerings.

I shudder for the thought of what will happen to my country, a country I dearly love, if people continue to turn away from the tenets of our faith (loving the alien among us as our equal, as we were once aliens in Egypt, to paraphrase the Bible) and the principles of our country (liberty and justice for all, for one) out of patriotic idolatry.  Do I believe that God will destroy us?  No, not really.

I believe we’ll do a fine enough job of that ourselves.

It is a journey, and “journey” has a far different connotation than “stroll”.  I do not leisurely idle my way through life, smelling the roses and counting the paving stones.  There are periods of life that seem like it, but right now I’m literally trekking my way cross country carrying heavy burdens, conquering the mountains to make my garden in the desert.  (I mean that word literally in a literal way, I’m being transplanted out of the Midwest to the far eastern side of our fair country, and will be planting my figurative tent stakes in soil that is alien to these hands.)  It is a grand adventure and full of moments of grace and sweetness and what can only be Godly synchronicity, but that is not all it is.  It is heartbreaking and back breaking and at the end of the day I often find myself too exhausted to be grateful for what I know is nothing short of the mercy of an ever-loving Creator.

To put it simply:  I am so tired I often do not know how to be anything but cross, which is a shame, because I also realize that these are some of the best days of my life.

And that’s life.  We take the bitter with the sweet, we find the best days of our lives spoiled by petty annoyances like a bride who breaks down in tears because the fresh cut flowers for the bouquet are either too open or too closed, or her weird uncle Steve embarrasses her with a bridesmaid.  At the end of the day, we find it hard to separate ourselves from the divine and the mundane, we find our figurative caramel of quotidian life smeared on the chocolate of supreme happiness and while it may not feel like the dark chocolate peppermint truffle  we crave it’s still pretty damn good.

I guess what I’m trying to say, is that the next time you taste a hint of blood in your wine, don’t cry foul.  Remember that Jesus Christ himself was both the embodiment of God’s love and our human misery.  We would do well to remember that even the most resplendent of lives on this earth was not unmarred by suffering.  I believe, that in the midst of it all, Jesus probably saw some pretty beautiful sunsets and stayed up too late at some smashing parties.

What I wouldn’t give to be able to hear more of those stories, right now…

When I say “since my kids learned how to fight” I don’t just mean verbal squabbles, although those can be noticeably painful for everyone involved.  What I’m talking about are knock-down, drag-out fistfights.  The fights usually start over something that seems completely irrational to fight about.  “I want a baby brother named Peter Parker”, my son says.  “I want a baby sister named Diana Tinkerbell”, my daughter says.  Before I can even open my mouth to point out that God is going to have to intervene miraculously for either of them to get their way (which they are confident He will, as both have prayed about it) they are on each other  like some sort of feral animals.  At that point, pain is inevitable.  They are 3 and 5 respectively, so their little fists can’t do much damage.  But they are also small and prone to falling or just kicking wildly when cornered, so based off of the places these fights normally happen (while seated at the table, on the couch, or in bed) someone is bound to get hurt.  Even if my husband and
I can gain the power of flight to get to them before things escalate, there will be time outs and the forcible holding of squirmy children in place to explain the consequences of their actions.

Someone is going to end up crying.

And here is the thing:  that’s not bad.  It’s not bad that my kids fight.  It’s good that they are developing their individual personalities, and the wholeness and bond that they once shared when younger is dissolving so that they recognize that they are two seperate people with two seperate sets of needs.  If this never happened, they would never be able to live a well adjusted life as adults.  The way in which they fight is bad, but they are kids and they have yet to realize their own capacity for causing pain.  In order for a child to learn the consequences of his or her actions,he or she has to act in the first place.

That is why pain is a necessary part of enlightenment- if there were no pain, there would be no reason to absorb life’s lessons.  We would never learn to grow or evolve.  We would contentedly breeze through our lives as if whatever we grasp today is right and good, as if our own actions are perfect because they are ours, and as if the needs of others mean nothing because there is no consequence to selfishness.

As my children realize the inevitable consequences of fighting, this temporary phase will quiet down.  They are intelligent beings who will surely recognize that no good comes out of violence.  That particular kind of pain is avoidable by ceasing the actions that cause it.  (This is what I tell myself, although my mother laughs and says that my brothers and I didn’t stop until we’d all moved out of the house.  She must be joking.)  And as we deal with our own pain, we will inevitably learn lessons as a result that lead to more enlightenment.  Whether it be the pain of a poorly chosen relationship, the pain of a sudden illness, the pain of a loved one passing, or the everyday pains that haunt each of us in the home and work place; there are valuable lessons to be learned.  We learn to recognize patterns inside ourselves that lead to destruction.  We learn to care for our bodies and treat them like the fragile gifts they are.  We learn to embrace life passionately while it is here and remember it fondly when it passes.  We learn to set aside our pain and sorrow and hold on to things that give us hope.  We learn compassion.  All of these lessons are good and necessary, and  rather than resenting the pain that leads to them we would be better served by viewing that pain as a tool.

One might read this little ponderance and say that I must have forgone my Christianity for some kind of mysticism.  Perhaps, in a way.  I would be lying if I didn’t say my respect for Buddhism sometimes colors my faith.  Yet I don’t think that is entirely what’s going on here.  After all:

Romans 5:1-5

Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

For the time being, I have given up wishing people nice days.  I think it’s more honest to wish them a day that moves them forward on their journey- however that may be achieved.  Life doesn’t need to be “nice” to be beautiful.

But there are days that I really, really hate my job.  For the most part I work with people who have had a lot of bad things happen to them.  Sometimes it’s really awful- the kind of stuff that seems more at place in a horror novel then a quiet midwestern town.  Sometimes, it’s the kind of stuff that leads to me locking myself in the bathroom for a time out.  The worst part of it isn’t the fact that I’m a visual person by nature and thus struggle with visualizing the badness and taking it home in the form of nightmares.  The worst part is that often I’m dealing with people whose lives have trained them to believe that they deserve no better, they will get no better, and the best that they can hope for themselves is to grow thick enough skins that they become numb to the pain.

There are men who learn that “real” manliness is fighting back and fighting dirtier.  Women who think that they need to trade sex for safety.  Kids who think that learning is for nerds and losers and the way to get ahead in life is to punch the other guy first.  Mothers who reject their children because responding with sympathy to a babies neediness makes them vulnerable.  Men who reject their pregnant wives for the same reason.  The world is full of people who know nothing other than cycles of poverty and pain, people who see daily happiness as just as much of a fantasy as the whole family getting along over the holidays.  The world has a seedy underbelly of pain and discontent that so many are blissfully unaware of- but for the people who live there, that is the entire world.

Pain, heartbreak, rejection and more pain.  The smart ones learn to reject before they can be rejected, to cut more quickly and more deeply, to make sure that everyone else owes them more than they owe anyone.

It’s hard to remember that there’s hope beyond all hopes, that there is a love that conquers fear, that there is a peace that surpasses all understanding.  It’s hard to remember, but most of the time I manage to.  And I do my best to continue to be God’s hands and feet in this world.  I offer love, and then I experience the greatest heartbreak of all: love rejected with a wary eye.  Love mistrusted.  Love responded to with anger and fear.

And I lock myself in the bathroom again.  And sitting there, in the dark and heat (because for some odd reason our bathroom is the hottest room in the building, like a sauna, suffocatingly hot) listening to the sound of the radiator rattling like Marley’s ghost, I realize that what I am experiencing is only a fraction of the heartbreak that the Spirit feels every day when we mistrust God’s love for us, when we respond to salvation with cynism, when we judge others before they can judge us.

The answer is simple:  love more strongly.  Believe with more conviction.  Offer more grace.  Create an overflow of mercy and affection so strong that it washes away even the most stubborn of barriers.  Live every second of your life in the hope of salvation.  Pick up the shield of faith, wear the belt of truth, set your feet in the readiness that comes from the Gospel of peace.

We already have earned our reward if we only love those who want to be loved.

We have to love the way God loves.

And God just… loves.  Everyone.  Constantly.

I would say it hurts like Hell, but that’s a misnomer.  It hurts like Heaven, but that’s the kind of hurt that’s worth carrying with you.

It could change the world.

I came across this odd phenomenon through working with the homeless, but honestly I’m noticing it now everywhere.  I’ll start with a fairly inocuous example:  some guests needed winter clothes.  We had a grant for after-hours care to provide them with winter clothes.  A discussion arose over how we’d go about meeting that need.  Do we take them to Wal-Mart?  Sears?  Macy’s?  The high-end resale store downtown?  There’s a limit to how much money we can spend, but we want them to have good things.  We also want to demonstrate that one should think critically about how one spends money.  Is anyone noticing the problem, yet?  It’s a little sneaky, but somewhere in the conversation, we went from talking about meeting the guests’ needs to talking about changing them.  We want to change them, but honestly they don’t want to be changed.  Is there really anything wrong with buying a coat from Wal-Mart (where all of our guests are comfortable shopping and feel at home and unnoticed) when you’re on a budget and are hoping to get pants and sneakers too?  Maybe a middle class person would approach the problem from a different angle (wanting the coat from Macy’s and hoping they could find it gently used at the resale store thus allowing them to get jeans and sneakers, too) but the fact that a middle class person would approach it from a different angle doesn’t mean that the choices made by a person in poverty are inherently wrong.  In most cases, the choices made by a person in poverty are made from a survivalist standpoint.  I need a coat, now.  I need a CHEAP coat, now.  I need a cheap coat, now, and the bus stops in front of Wal-Mart so I won’t have to bum a ride.  No one in Wal-mart will notice that it’s mid-November and all I have to wear is a mini skirt.  Score.  I am shopping at Wal-Mart.

The internal dialogue that guides my choices isn’t even on the radar for them, so why judge them and try to force them to change based on my own experiences?  Just because my experiences are different and were fulfilling to me, that doesn’t mean that their experiences are worthless or ought to be devalued in favor of inserting my own will.

Faithful readers- you may be wondering what any of this has to do with the normal tone of my blog.  Hopefully that last line reassured you that the old Lindsey is still here plugging away.  See, we all have experiences.  Many of us have a lifestyle and worldview that is fulfilling to us.  Some of us want to spread our contentment with our choices by trying to force other people to make the same ones.

We really are very silly creatures.

If I, as a person who once experienced poverty but is making a successful transition to “middle class”, try to force my lifestyle and choices on the homeless, I’m making a huge mistake.  I can model my own happiness, but if I try to force my hand I alienate the people I’m trying to help.  The same thing goes for Christians trying to evangelize to people who really don’t want to hear about God’s love (but could maybe use a free ham for Christmas or help fixing their car) and heterosexuals who decide that what lesbians really need is to hear how awesome the penis is.

Seriously, folks- we can model good choices all we want.  That’s life.  You can radiate your own happiness.  But don’t assume that your brand of happiness will taste the same to everyone else.  For some people, it’s going to taste awfully bitter.

And that’s okay.

There are negative things to the change, as well.  Working full time means that for the time being I’ll only be free to post on weekends.  I’ll do my best to be consistent.  Oddly enough, I think that working full time will lend more time for me to blog, as working to make up a part time income from home while job hunting was a major drain on both my time and energy level.  It’s hard to be creative under that kind of constant emotional stress.

I’m so grateful for all of the relationships I’ve gained through this blog- getting to know all of you has been such an incredible blessing.  I am a bit nostalgic for the past, for the time in my life where I could easily devote an hour of every day to this blog, to your blogs, to growing our circles of influence and trying to engage the world in a discussion.  It’s been some time since life has afforded me that, and it may be a very long time before it ever does again.  (If it ev er does again)

But despite my new work, I don’t think my work here is done.  So I’ll still be around, banging my head against the same old wall.  Maybe we can manage to put a few more cracks in it.

I hate that phrase.  It’s dishonest at best and a flat out lie at the worst.  I know what people are saying, what they are basically saying is that all you need to do to get to heaven is say a simple prayer, it’s the easiest thing in the world, everyone should do it just in case. Ugh.  I’m a gentle person, but that makes me want to smack someone.  First; if one says “Jesus I’m so sorry forgive me of all my sins” but they don’t mean it, it’s only fire insurance, do you think Jesus is going to see that as honoring his sacrifice?  If we bully and nag and break people into saying a simple prayer just in case do you really think that is honoring God or that God will honor us in turn?

Oh, but someone might say, it’s still a free gift, even if it’s not meant that way.  If we wish to follow Jesus, he asks for nothing more.  Oh, really?  Really?  Please, explain to me in the Bible where someone told Jesus “I want to follow you”, and Jesus responded, “I ask nothing of you but your desire to follow me.”

I call bullshit.

The statement that Jesus asks nothing more than that we follow him is semantically sound.  Yes, all Jesus wants is our obedience in following him, but that obedience to actually follow him leads to all sorts of things like us having to treat our family like they are dead (Matthew 8), selling all of our possessions to give to the poor (Matthew 10), denying our own selves (Mark 8).  Not only does this call to sacrifice for Jesus’ sake come in those three places, but it is reiterated throughout every single gospel.  There is a cost.  The disciples did not walk beside Jesus down roads lined with flowers and people cheering (okay, they did that once, but Jesus was crucified shortly thereafter so I’d still argue that it’s not entirely a pleasant affair), it was a long hard slog through many trying, sometimes treacherous, and sometimes terrifying affairs.  In Jesus’ scant two years of ministry he still somehow managed to change the world.  Not because of hearts and roses and come on everybody let’s love one another- there was that, one cannot deny that- but there was also work.

There was sacrifice.

There were tears shed, long and hard prayers, countless miles logged and nights that dwindled into morning.

There was blood shed.

Ask the disciples, that last night in the garden, if they felt that their salvation was something free.  As Peter, as the rooster crowed, if he counted any cost.  Ask Paul, as he lay suffering blind, if he felt that Jesus’ call was a joyous thing.

It’s not free.

It’s worth the price, but it is not free.

I hear the words “Salvation’s Free Gift” with the same jaded ear that hears a salesperson in the mall asking if I want a free bottle of perfume.  Sure, it’s free, after I finish paying out all the contingencies.  Now, at this point I’m sure someone is thinking about the fact that we pray the Sinner’s Prayer and are guaranteed entrance into Heaven and all those nasty bits are about the reality of pursuing a holy life here on earth.  I could argue the theology that backs that realm of thought, but instead I’ll ask a practical question:

What use is it to be saved, if one does not actually desire to live out that salvation?  What use is my own salvation, if I have no desire to live in God’s light and offer up love for my fellow man?

If the only reason I gave my life to Christ was for my own selfishness, I don’t want him to let me into heaven.

And any Christian that would trap someone in selfishness in order to get them to follow God is as foul as the salesperson who claims that the bottle of perfume is free.  That’s no way to run a Kingdom, especially in the name of God.

/end rant

That moment is iconic of the choice I’ve had to make every day since I came back to my faith.  Do I say I’m a Christian, and allow people to make false assumptions about what I believe?  Do I say I’m a Christian and try to create a new paradigm?  One in which someone who acts evangelical (as opposed to Is An Evangelical) isn’t a gay-bashing anti-choice gun-totin’ Bible-bangin’ war-lovin’ conservative-votin’ unimaginative non-intellectually-inquisitive probably secretly scared-of-everything uh…  you get the point.  The assumptions people make about someone who is vocally Christian aren’t always the kindest.  And in many ways, I’m the opposite of many of the stereotypes.  So, for the record, let me be clear about what I am and am not:

• I don’t think gay people are the enemy of society.  I like my gay and lesbian friends, and only want them to change if they want to.  Honestly, the complexity of this one is way too much to fit into a single bullet point, so suffice it to say this:  I don’t think gay people are the problem, I think judgmental and legalistic attitudes are.
• I’m politically pro-choice.  Personally, I’m pro-life.  I could never imagine a circumstance in which I would have an abortion.  But that doesn’t mean that I want to tell other women what to do with their bodies and their lives- there is no ethical argument to keep an unborn child that doesn’t rely on faith in God, so a secular society should allow women to have choice.
• I’m a registered Democrat, mostly because I wanted to vote in the last Presidential Primaries.  In my time as a registered voter, I’ve actually voted for both Republicans and Democrats.  I believe in voting based off of who you’re voting for and what their record shows, not based off of party.  Just do not tell me I’m a Republican who’s afraid of change.  I will end you.
• Guns scare me.
• I don’t believe the Bible should be used as a weapon. It is for worship, for exhortation, for meditation, for the strengthening of the body…  not for destruction.
• I don’t believe in quoting the Bible to people who don’t read it. Which is why I so rarely quote it on my blog, and why fellow Christians sometimes assume I don’t read it.  I do, I just think that Christians should be able to make logical arguments without spraying Bible verses into the fray like bird shot.
• I’m a pacifist. I was raised in the Anabaptist tradition, which means I was raised with a keen awareness of the multitude of people who were martyred for the Faith.  Martyred, that is, at the hands of the Catholic church, which leads to:
• I believe that people should be able to worship God as they wish- no matter how much you disagree with them.  Not everyone agrees on all the tenants of faith.  I don’t think I’m right and you’re wrong, I’m more likely to believbe that we are all wrong. 
  
• I actually do have an imagination, really I do. In my other lives I am a novelist and a jewelry designer.  I have no fear of thinking creatively.
• I have no fear of other religions.  In fact, I study Buddhism and live out some of it’s practices.  I have a tremendous amount of respect for the Dalhi Lama.  I respect anyone who practices their faith with compassion for others, regardless of what their faith is.  I think Christianity could learn an awful lot from other religions.
• I have no fear of being questioned. Don’t believe me?  Question me.  Debate me.  If I can’t argue my faith rationally, I don’t want to have it.
• I have no fear of being wrong. I’ve done it before and it didn’t hurt too badly.  If I am forced to examine a belief and find it lacking, so be it.  Better that I know now than go through my entire life mistaken.

My name is Lindsey.  I am a Christian.

And I may be a pacifist, but if I ever met Fred Phelps, I’d probably have to drop kick him in the balls.

Just so we’re clear on things.

It’s horrifying- but let me explain.

Children are taught from birth to respect people in authority.  While to a point this is necessary, it’s often abused.  Some children are taught, for instance, never to question an elder.  Children are taught to wordlessly obey anything that an adult requests of them, “except for strangers.”  Wait- what qualifies a stranger?  Often the dangerous people don’t look like drunken panhandlers, more often the person a child ought to be afraid of is “Uncle” so-and-so from the local church.

This is a very insidious thing.

And it’s not just physical abuse people need to worry about- it’s emotional and intellectual abuse.  I hate it when children are taught not to question.  There are some kids who are from a young age stripped of their inquisitive nature.  They are told it is wrong to correct a teacher, that questioning their parent’s philosophy is evil, that doubts they have about faith or about who they are were put there by the devil.  This sort of brow-beaten indoctrination is just wrong, and too often leads to children who grow into adults who are lost, even if they are where their parents would have wanted them to be.

And I’m not even going to get started on sexual abuse by church elders.  Suffice it to say that I’ve heard stories.

We need to teach our children to have boundaries and to enforce them.  We need to teach them to draw back if they are uncomfortable.  We need to teach them to question if they want to question, to argue if they want to argue, to stand up for themselves even if it’s uncomfortable for us.

We need to teach them strength.

And for the love of God- we need to stand up for ourselves.

I know one guy who loves making short films.  It started in the sixth grade, when his class was given the option of writing an essay about a Shakespeare play, or making a video essay.  He got his family to help him put on a production of Romeo and Juliet, with a running joke that went, “what, is that FORESHADOWING?”.  It was clever, got him an A, and made him want to do the same thing for Micheal Crichton’s Jurassic Park the next year.  His love for short film has been going on 16 years now, and fills shelves full of homemade DVDs with everything from stop animation to puppets to religious inspirational fare.

I have another friend who loves to build things.  Give him anything, even a wire hanger and a snips, and he’ll make something.  Conversations over coffee lead to the food on his plate becoming a sculpture, or place mats folded into elaborate designs.

And then there are the dancers, like my daughter.  Awkward when just walking around the room, she’ll hit her head going through the doorway.  But put on some music and her five year old body flows.  She glows with happiness, she comes fully alive.  She adores dance, she lives to sing little songs about how much she loves the little things like birds or her brother or birthday cake.  Why does she do it?  She just does.  Ask her, and she’ll respond that it’s happiness.

It is.

There is a school of thought that says that some people are artistic, some aren’t.  That some of us have creative drives, some don’t.  I refuse to ascribe to that thinking.  We all have creative drives in some areas of our lives.  Some people plan menus with an amazing depth of creativity.  Some stay-at-home-moms order their days with mind-blowing creativity.  Some executives run their companies in incredibly creative ways (and these are the ones that are successful- cardboard cutout executives are a dime a dozen).  I think that tuning into that creative streak and allowing it to be a part of your daily life is one of the most fulfilling things a person can do.

So what’s your streak?  Where are you driven to think outside the box, to dazzle a little more than the average bear, to flourish?  Don’t fight it down.  Don’t force yourself to be average.

Embrace it, and shine.