In Defense Of Love

Author's Note: I am kind of a shite writer sometimes. This is one of those times; I've had this flowing about my mind for a good few months/years now, but it always seemed like... like writing out the steps to an equation that you see complete in your head-- which is actually a lot harder than writing something complicated out-- it seems self-explanatory. But. All the same, here is the first bit; when I have a bit of time to breathe, think, and re-calibrate my head, I will write the second, which deals with "What God hath made clean call not thou unclean," and, if I were a philologist of absolutely any skill whatsoever, would also deal with the works of the Apostle Paul, and why I don't think what he is saying is what a lot of people think he is saying. As it stands I might try and touch on the point that he was writing to wayward churches with advice, not transcribing The Words of Jesus to all Christians everywhere at any point in the future. Or I might leave it-- sometimes it's better to have three decent points than three decent... and one weak.

In Defense Of Love

Let me begin with a disclaimer. I am not the best person to write this—nor anywhere near the top of the list. I am not as wise, nor as eloquent, nor as learned a writer as it takes to do this subject justice. Furthermore, it has been said before, I’m sure, and will be said again, more eloquently – and again, and again, and again, I hope, until it is no longer necessary to repeat; until we are, as the poet says, too old to need such crutches. In the meantime-- here goes nothing.

With the disclaimer out of the way, a more… traditional introduction is in order. This is a hard essay for me to write, simply because the final conclusion is something I reached a long, long time ago; it’s something I find self-explanatory, and I don’t know how to convey that simplicity.

Put succinctly – expect rewrites.

To the Christians the world over—every church deacon and pastor and preacher and priest and bishop, and every authority who’s made the claim that God Hates X. Unless that blank is filled with a word like ‘bigotry,’ ‘hatred,’ ‘hypocrisy,’ and especially if it is filled with a specific group of people, consider this essay directed almost entirely at you. I am a Christian, and it’s taken me a while to be able to say that again without wincing at all the implications – after seeing what this religion can be capable of, it’s hard to then take a deep breath and go back, and say to myself that it’s the institution, the people in charge – that I have no beef with God (at least, most of the time – I will admit to a fair amount of skyward-fist-shaking, and furious profanities shouted in quiet dark spaces), that I have never disbelieved in Christ.

That I believe in Love.

For that is the greatest commandment, is it not? Love the Lord thy God, with all thy heart, and all with thy soul, and with all thy mind. No side-stepping, no hemming or hawing; that’s straight out of the KJV, the Bible the more strict churches believe is The One And Only Word, right down to the punctuation. Love thy God; love thy neighbor. These, Jesus says, are the greatest – there are no commandments greater than these. But what does that mean? Love thy God – how, exactly, are we to do that? Besides an internal belief, and surely that isn’t all, what are we to do?

Peter doesn’t ask this at the time – I can’t recall if any of the disciples do. It’s a lawyer who originally asks him what the greatest commandment is – what he must do to inherit eternal life, depending on which gospel you’re reading. But at the end of the gospels, Jesus asks Peter. I’ll just… I can’t paraphrase this.

“So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, [son] of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.

“He saith to him again the second time, Simon, [son] of Jonas, lovest thou me? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my sheep.

“He saith unto him the third time, Simon, [son] of Jonas, lovest thou me? Peter was grieved because he said unto him the third time, Lovest thou me? And he said unto him, Lord, thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee. Jesus saith unto him, Feed my sheep.” (John 21:15-17)

Unless there’s an entire lost gospel kicking around somewhere about Jesus’ time as a shepherd, those are metaphorical sheep there he’s talking about. The message is clear: If you love me, take care of your brethren—your neighbors. Everyone you can. My sheep. My flock. You. How do you uphold the first commandment? Follow the second.

God is Love. Over, and over, and over again, this crops up in Christianity. So why is it that apparently, in order to worship Him, we need to wear nice clothes to church every Sunday, marry a nice boy/girl (depending, obviously, on gender) in our own social group, always support our country first, and spend much of our life shaking our heads in disapproval at those who don’t follow our set of rules? All of our rules are meaningless – yes, everything even The Apostle Paul wrote, everything that does not uphold those two commandments. Love thy God; love thy neighbor. If it’s not supporting that, what is the point?

So there’s my first proof. But that doesn’t quite hit the heart of the matter; there are plenty of people who preach the doctrine ‘Love the sinner, hate the sin,’ and in this manner avoid outright acts of violence towards any subgroup they disagree with, while at the same time telling them, basically, that their love is something God hates. That they are condemned as sinners – oh, of course we all are – but… they are, moreso, for something they didn’t choose.

Here, I will pause the sermon-type bits to make a short point that I find very difficult to talk about LGBTQ without mentioning. Often, the argument or debate or discussion quickly disintegrates into a snit-fight over whether homosexuality/bisexuality, etc. is something natural, or something chosen. I have one quick question to every single person who’s about to rush me with one finger upheld, pointing, condemning, or, most infuriatingly, holding up invented 'studies'. Look at your Significant Other. Your Better Half; your fiancé, fiancée, your wife, your husband, your lover, the one person who you want to spend your life with. Look at everything that makes you love them – if you will, an itemized list. (Note: Do not actually try to make an itemized list. It’ll take you a good few eternities, I assure you.)

Did you choose that? Did you choose her eyes that make you smile? Did you choose to have that little flutter in your chest every time he looks at you? Did you make a conscious choice, at some point, to first be attracted to that person, and then to fall in love with them? (...Or to fall in love with them and then find yourself blown away when you actually meet them face to face?) Somehow, I doubt it. So unless you’re about to tell me that you made the conscious decision to be attracted to girls with red hair, to really tall guys, to girls with dark eyes, to guys with green eyes, or to guys or girls at all, I don’t want to hear it. Nobody chooses who they fall in love with, okay? Moving on, now.

I'll pick this up later with a Part Two. But I'll summarize that Part Two now by saying that it is unbelievably hypocritical to blather on about homosexuality being a huge, incredible, horrible sin, to persecute and attack and marginalize the very humanity of couples, two people whose major crime seems to be loving one another, while ignoring the rest of Leviticus. And before you go on and point out that shrimp and unclean animals are allowed by Peter's vision, I will quote that passage: "What God hath made clean, call not thou unclean." God seems to have scattered people in all different molds. I'm pretty sure His intention was not to make some automatically more powerful than others, simply by dint of being born out of the majority. And before you put on airs about that passage applying to food, not people, and who do I think I am anyway, I will roll my eyes in advance, and point out that the same passage of Leviticus forbids women to leave their rooms while on their period, forbids men from touching them, or sitting where they have sat, and declares that if a man rapes a woman who is not betrothed, they must be married. (If she is betrothed, her family/fiance gets to kill the rapist! Fun times.) That passage was never specifically refuted either! (Unclean, unclean!)

Now I'm going to go beat my head against the wall until the overtired crazy goes away, and write that rest thingy later.

I should also add, as an aside... this is not meant to be patronizing. As I said, it's a letter to Christendom, explaining... well, why I think they're wrong. It could be argued that everything I've said here is heresy-- so be it. But I don't want anyone thinking this is a "Hey, gay dudes, lesbians, trans people! It's okay, you have my religion's permission to love, now!" It's more... a statement of belief-- I don't think love is condemned by my religion, or ever has been. I think we got something wrong, somewhere a long ways back.

Disclaimer:

Now, I may have a messiah complex as big as Bono's.

but.

But I believe, somewhere between skin and soul, I believe that I have a calling, that God put me here to do something. I believe that I am supposed to be out there helping fix this world. I believe that I can change the world.

Someday, slavery will be gone from every continent. Someday, no one will die of mosquito bites, of a disease we cured over a century ago. Someday, people will not starve in a world of plenty, someday children will not be murdered for the color of their skin, someday enough people will care, someday this kind of shit won't happen anymore.

I believe that I was given this life for a reason, and if I don't work on that I will have wasted this gift. I believe, somewhere inside of me, that I was given the dreams and visions that come to me for a reason, and that through Christ I can do all things, and also that it is distinctly possible that Coyote was sent to help me, or decided to help me, and I have faith that this is not blasphemy, that my ancestors believed it for a reason, and that there is behind me a Trickster who will lend me his strength if I ask him.

As I thought this on the way home, my mind immediately spiraled off into the mythic dimension, and before more than a few seconds had passed I had to shut off the train of thought concerning Coyote, because it would lead me to... well, vision over visibility. An illusion, a trick. But mark my words.

This will not stand. There is a day coming when this world will be at peace, when love will triumph hate and bitterness, when despair will be washed away. This world will change.

Of snow, forgiveness, new beginnings to eternal cycles.

This night, I walked out into the air, clear and cold, and went to a quiet place, a clearing in a wood, covered in snow and quiet. And I knelt, there, and prayed for forgiveness for all I’ve done this year, all I’ve thought, all I’ve felt, all I’ve said with malice in my heart. There’s a lot of it. I prayed to be forgiven for all that I am, underneath the grin and laughter, all that I am instead of what I could, should be. And I said that this year, I will do better. And I meant it, and still do.

And then I stood beneath the lights, walking away from that quiet place, as snow began to fall from the sky in little, whirling, crystals, and I caught them on my sleeve and marveled at their beauty, their crystalline perfection, and I stood with my head thrown back to the sky and watched a dance older than any can say, a new thing each time it begins, and I laughed, and spun, and caught the sweetest of life’s moments one at a time on my tongue.

This is the same planet as it was yesterday, as it always has been, and this sky is the same as it has been, the stars still shine as they have always, the snow still falls the same way, but this is a new snow, it is a new night, it is a new year and a new life, and I am forgiven, and I will start anew.

It Doesn't Have To BE This Way

There’s a website which I often fool around on called TV Tropes, which analyzes common themes found in different media; some of you may be familiar with it. One of the tropes discussed at length there is the “Crapsack World,” which is… well, exactly what it sounds like. Here’s one of the descriptions in the summary: “An immutable Crapsack World has corruption and pain Inherent In The System, both physically and metaphysically. Trying to fight this corruption will always result in it winning.”

So basically, this describes a world that is inherently unfair, a world in which good is not only useless, but often counter-productive. This is a world where the evil overlord wins. This is a world where humanity really is reduced to numbers, where the Daleks succeed because the universe doesn’t care; this is a world where a sonic screwdriver and a brilliant smile will get you killed, regardless of how clever or powerful you are, how strongly you want to save the world. This is a universe where the more unfortunate people of the world are taken into slavery to serve the whims of the culture on the other side of the world who doesn’t know or care about their plight. This is a world where an entire population can be decimated on a whim, once more to benefit a class more useful to the people in power, and no one bats an eye. This is a world where those born into poverty and disease and starvation are, more or less, thought of as deserving of such a fate; this is a world where Scrooge was right.

This is our world.

And speaking against any of that makes you a bleeding heart, an emotion-driven basket-case, and it pits you straight up against the power-driven universe, in a world where greed and oppression are rewarded and selflessness is mercilessly stamped out.

I’m not exaggerating. This isn’t hyperbole.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, and I will keep on saying it until the day I die.

THIS IS NOT RIGHT. I don’t give a used fig as to what your personal beliefs concerning the semantics and wordplay of “ethics” versus “morality,” or which political party you support, or whether you’re an independent or a moderate or on the fringes or outside altogether.

If you are supporting slavery, genocide, if you have nothing to say to this world we’re living in, if you don’t believe that there is something very, very, wrong with what’s going on in this world, get the hell off of my friends list. I don’t care if you're a conservative who believes capitalism is the only thing that will save this world from itself, or you’re an anarchist who believes capitalism is what’s killing this world. You should be fighting for the same ends right now. There are people being driven into slavery, not only in Mali and Cote d’Ivoire, but on this continent, in the cities and the suburbs and all around us. There are people dying on the streets, of malaria. A disease that was cured over a century ago. Not a lot of people know that. Mosquito bites are killing more people in this world than any other animal. Mosquito bites. Death. By. Mosquito. Death by a disease we cured. A disease that’s become a joke in this country. That doesn’t even touch the disease we haven’t cured, AIDS, which people are also dying like flies from.

That’s the one that makes me sick – people believe, somehow people allow themselves to be convinced that it’s not that important. They deserve it, right? Just like the kids born into starvation deserve to die before they reach adulthood, and the people being laid off from their jobs in this very country deserved that, and they deserve to be homeless on the streets with their families, the filthy savages. But not on our streets, no, how about the darker part of town, tucked away somewhere we don’t have to see them? This country makes me sick sometimes. I’m an American, that much is true. I believe in freedom, and I mean that literally. I believe everyone should be free. I believe that freedom is a human right, not an American right. I believe in liberty, and I believe in justice. I believe that no one should die because of a damned bug bite. I believe women who are raped are never ‘asking for it,’ I believe that in a world where there is enough food to go around, no one should starve to death. I believe that it is twisted, sick, and downright evil to refuse homeless men the basement of a church to sleep in on winter nights -- to let them freeze to death in their sleep -- because it brings them too close to the business district.

To be fair, not many people know the reality of all of this. (That's why it's important to do this. Because people don't know.) It’s mentioned in passing, occasionally, but rarely expanded on. We’re very careful, this country is, of tucking things that make our viewers uncomfortable out of sight. We wouldn’t want to lose our viewers. We wouldn’t want to make them too uncomfortable, to make them turn aside to somewhere where the view is a little more pleasant.

Don’t forget this. There is nothing – nothing – that makes you somehow innately more worthy of life than someone else on this planet. I’m a Christian, infinitely more than I am an American. That’s what I believe. I believe in unconditional love, and unconditional forgiveness. You were born (for most of you, anyway) in a wealthy country, if not a wealthy home. Your parents were able to feed you, because they’d worked hard, but also because they’d been born to a land of opportunity. That is why you are here, and not starving to death, or dying of malaria or AIDS, or being beaten to death in the cacao fields on the Gold Coast. Because you were born here, and not there. It doesn’t make you a bad person – but it doesn’t make your life worth more than theirs, either. A life is a life is a life. Please, please remember that.

This world has become a horrible, horrible place -- we don't have to leave it that way. We don't have to submit silently to what this world has become. I mentioned earlier that in this universe, morality is punished and powerlust is rewarded. I don't believe that's Just The Way It Is, I believe it's the way the human race has made it. And we can change that. It's not idealistic to believe that conscience should overrule politics.

Politics are supposed to be a way to follow your conscience; they are not supposed to subvert it for the party values.

I'll say it once again.

We don't have to take this. If you have a conscience, if you want to see this world become something other than a prison, do it. Don't wait for a signal. You ARE the signal.

And I don't want to promise, because I don't want to lie.

So I’m sitting here listening to If God Will Send His Angels, by U2 in Dunkin Donuts, after taking the written portion of my driver’s test. I can’t work on the novel I’m supposed to have done by December. I can’t think. I’m running over things in my mind, restless, upset, not understanding things. That’s how I roll. I worry, and I fret, and I think, and I pick things apart in my mind and analyze the pieces, and then I sit down and write about them. That’s why I want to be a journalist. That’s what makes sense to me. But that’s not what I wanted to say. That was this morning.

I deleted that little bit, this morning, because I wound up wandering off on life careening out of my control, of not understanding my own destiny.

My dad and I had this huge political argument. This time, it started with me telling him what my older sister, who had been in the Army, said about Fort Hood – that it reflected the state of the United States Military. My dad said it had to do with political correctness. I disagreed. We proceeded to argue from there about everything currently on the political plate; I scored a few points, he scored most of them, because he is good at verbal arguments, and I am not. I can write. I’m not good at talking. Anyway. The whole thing culminated with me saying something about universal health care, and him laying a pretty hefty guilt trip on me and then giving me a lecture about using analytical thought instead of following your heart, your emotions.

I cannot accept that. I cannot. I cannot sit here, at my desk at my laptop in this house in America, the United States of, and make imperious analytical judgments without conscience.

I have derided my conscience as neurotic. Maybe it is. But it’s still there. There is still a voice telling me that what I am doing with my life, most of the time, is wrong. I am doing almost nothing to improve the lot of the poor, the sick, the needy in this world. What am I doing to feed the fatherless, the widows? I cannot vote without my conscience. I cannot vote without my emotions. The two are tied, the two are more me than I am, and there’s a logic bomb for you. That is who I am supposed to be. Not who I am, no – I’m not happy with that person. I get angry when people talk about me being a kind or a conscientious person. If I was the person – half the person – who I should be, I would be vegan. I would be working my ass off, and then sending most of my paychecks off to Save Darfur or to pay for cures for malaria, or to combat the AIDS crisis. I don’t hold up to the standards. That’s fucked up. I am not a kind or conscientious person.

My dad gets angry when I talk about this stuff. I don’t phrase it like that – that would be trawling for pity. (I phrase it like that here because I don’t have anywhere else to talk about it. I have to get this off my chest somewhere, and this is the only blog nobody connects with me.) But when I talk about ONE, (Red), Save Darfur, Fair Trade, hell, if I mention the word ‘hybrid,’ I get a death stare. Those, you see, are causes Liberals use to make themselves feel good about themselves. (Sometimes I wonder if he knows that is almost exactly the same thing anarchists say about them.) Those Damn Liberals, they’re so smug about what they’re doing to help the world. That Bono, he’s so smug about trying to fix the world. Don’t they realize that they’re being led around by the nose because they listen to their emotions instead of their minds?

Fuck. That.

After he left, I sat here thinking, wondering, trying to make sense of it all. I have a conscience, you see. It’s neurotic, probably from not being listened to, but it’s there. And, thanks to Slacktivist, I’m starting to see more about the world, viewed through a Christian’s eyes. An evangelical, no less! And someone who’s disgusted by the evangelical scene today, someone who hasn’t forgotten that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord thy God, and the second commandment is to love thy neighbor as thyself. And someone who is consistently calling evangelicals out on it. But I bring any of these points up to my dad, and I get called out as a Liberal, smug in my own false sense of conscience.

I listened to If God Will Send His Angels, and I cried, and I shook my fist at the sky and begged for a sign, and I knelt and pleaded for a sign, and I despaired of there being any hope in this world, any true way to live for a Christian, anything to cling to. And I walked out and sat in the woods, and cried and stared at the sky and was accused by my conscience of praying to Bono, and defended my Not-A-Prayer by saying “at least he’s here, in this world, tangible and real,” and then had to admit that God is more real than anything tangible BUT ANYWAY. I don’t need a sign. I want a sign. I saw a cross, white and lit up, that I’d never seen before, on a hill, just visible behind some houses in the trees. Struck me as odd – I thought I knew that neighborhood backwards – but I desperately went to where it looked to be, and it turned out to be a flagpole.

Really, I should’ve seen that coming. I don’t need a sign. That, I guess, would make things too easy. But God, oh God do I want one. Something – anything – to make it just a little bit easier to believe that there IS a right way, always a right thing to do. I walked home. I sat down. I watched Jon Stewart, I listened to If God Will Send His Angels again, I cried a little more, and then I glanced at Twitter, saw Bono had just tweeted a few seconds ago (if it’s him; not a verified account, but I can be pretty naïve in my desperate hopes sometimes, and I’m willing to believe), and told him in a message he’ll probably never see that he’s a hero. My hero, anyway. Someone who actually gives a damn about this world, someone who’s working to do something about it, and someone who wrote a song pleading for a sign. A modern-day psalm. God, I want that sign. And it’s never given, you know?

There are all these stories, they tell them in Baptist churches, about the diver who’s been an atheist all his life, and one night he’s late at the pool, and he spreads his arms, about to dive into this pool, and perceives that the shape is like a cross, and he gets this spiritual moment of just… I don’t know what, and he walks down into the pool and discovers that there’s no water in it and he would’ve died, and he repents his sins and gives his life to God. It’s one of those posters you see in foyers, like the footprints poster… oh, the footprints poster. A friend of mine wrote on that:

“I guess what irks me about this, and other sentiments, which try to make life's hurts "better" is the implicit message hidden in them. They say, no matter what, there's comfort in knowing God is with you. No matter what, face life with the eternal hope and optimism of Christian life. God will protect you. God will make things better. Your life before Jesus: :-(. Your life after Jesus: :-).
…
So not only did I have issues, I suddenly had a religion that was smacking me across the face with, if you believe in God, it won't be as bad.

So it was bad, so what did that mean? It obviously meant I didn't believe in God enough.

A Good ChristianTM lives in the Grace of God. The reflect the Peace of Christ in everything they do. They walk with the joy of the Lord. They're happy and live happy lives. This was the positive side of religion presented me as a convert. I felt like, simply by being depressed, I was failing at being Christian. My unhappiness and troubles and self-hatred were because I just wasn't good enough.
…
Most importantly what happened was, by slow degrees, by example and prodding and (most important) just figuring it out for myself, I left the world of platitudes and inspirational posters and beaches at sunset and turned to the Cross.

Which, in most churches I frequent, features an emaciated man dying in agony. At some point in the process he, God and most beloved of God, looks up and says, "O God, O God! Why have you forsaken me?"

A man in abject helplessness, incapable of optimism (because optimism is thinking things will turn out okay) but still, in the depths of his despair, with the hope that this suffering will accomplish something. A man who carried his cross though in agony, but who--still--didn't soldier on, ignoring the pain; he fell, grew weak, needed help.

This, I recognized. This was me.

I think, sometimes, we are a little too afraid of pain. We are a little too anxious for everything to be over. We are a little too addicted to neat, clean, pat answers. I'm not advocating drawing things out unnecessarily, but honestly. Can we stop saying, "It's okay," when it isn't?”

So I guess that’s my point, after much rambling and whining and whatnot. It’s not okay. I’m not going to get a magical vision that shows me a clear path, gives me the willpower to follow it, and makes it impossible for me to fall from that path, whether into self-flagellation or apathy or wallowing or whatever the case may be. All I can do is follow what I perceive to be the right path, do what I think His plan for me is to do, and pray that if and when I delve into self-flagellation, apathy, or wallowing, He sends either a friend or a musician or a hero to slap me upside the head and put me back on track.

And that I always remember to write when things stop making sense, and maybe the words will bring me back to where I need to be.
…Amen.

So much for that, then.

For a very long time, I have been saying that I will not have a romantic relationship because I am afraid of hurting someone, which I see as inevitable in the course of a relationship in a relationship containing a schizophrenic. Guess what?

I lied. I am afraid of having a romantic relationship because:
I’m afraid of opening up to someone
I have serious self-esteem issues
I don’t trust most people that much at all
and countless other very normal and not-related-to-madness issues! (oh, but the madness issues are still there; they’re just not the whole truth)

I really thought that admitting that to myself was supposed to be a big huge step, a big huge relief, and taking a weight off my mind. The truth! Sets you free!

Yeah, except that that passage is consistently misused and taken out of context. (John, chapter 8) 31: Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;
32: And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.
33: They answered him, We be Abraham's seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?
34: Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin.
35: And the servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever.
36: If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.

Anyway, my point was that, despite admitting to myself that truth, I am still just as lonely, and just as closed-off and unlikely to have a relationship. Bah! Bah, I say! Eh. Maybe someday I will meet someone who is as crazy as I am, and it will be beautiful and wonderful and love, but for now, I think that despite realizing that I’m not incapable of a relationship, just unwilling, I’d rather be lonely than dating someone who I don’t actually like or love.

Pointless post is pointless.

When Love Comes To Town

I was a sailor, I was lost at sea
I was under the waves
Before love rescued me
I was a fighter, I could turn on a thread
Now I stand accused of the things I've said

Love comes to town I'm gonna jump on that train
When love comes to town I'm gonna catch that flame
Maybe I was wrong to ever let you down
But I did what I did before love came to town

I used to make love under a red sunset
I was making promises I would soon forget
She was pale as the lace of her wedding gown
But I left her standing before love came to town

I ran into a juke joint when I heard a guitar scream
The notes were turning blue, I was dazing in a dream
As the music played I saw my life turn around
That was the day before love came to town

When love comes to town I'm gonna jump on that train
When love comes to town I'm gonna catch that flame
Maybe I was wrong to ever let you down
But I did what I did before love came to town

When love comes to town I'm gonna jump on that train
When love comes to town I'm gonna catch that flame
Maybe I was wrong to ever let you down
But I did what I did before love came to town

I was there when they crucified my Lord
I held the scabbard when the soldier drew his sword
I threw the dice when they pierced his side
But I've seen love conquer the great divide

When love comes to town I'm gonna catch that train
When love comes to town I'm gonna catch that flame
Maybe I was wrong to ever let you down
But I did what I did before love came to town

--U2 and BB King

October

October
and the trees are stripped bare
of all they wear
What do I care?

October
and kingdoms rise,
and kingdoms fall,
but You go on
and on.
You go on

Because I am tired of masks.

Because I grow tired of addressing different parts of my soul when I find myself with a new set of people; because I wish to be who I am, and no other; because, as I have said in other places, the inner wordsmith, the writer in me, is the most honest part of my soul. For all these reasons, and others which I cannot name even to myself, in conscious thought, I will try now to say what I feel to be the truth. Would that I had the conviction of C. S. Lewis, the wit of Terry Pratchett, the lyrical flow of Guy Kay—but that is another point altogether.

I do not, cannot, and will never be able to believe that religion, Christianity, human belief in God, is predictable, or even convenient. Again, I wish very much that I had the skill of Lewis to explain myself, but it is not given to me to speak and debate eloquently on subjects which I hold so close to my heart. My point is simply, this: how can love, belief in perfect love, in forgiveness, in redemption, be an easy thing, a convenient thing—a predictable thing? I remember, ages ago, in a long and very, very drawn-out debate, someone claiming to believe in Christianity, but not being able to accept someone else paying her debts for her. In my self-centered, unsympathetic state, I scorned her, saying loftily that that was “the whole point” of Christianity, that there was no belief if you did not accept that sacrifice. In my defense, I was only saying what I had been taught. It is so easy to put down weakness in others—so much easier when you’re trying to hide the same weakness in yourself.

It was—and is—so, so hard for me to accept the very idea of unconditional love, let alone forgiveness, redemption. For a very, very long time I went through phases of horrible, horrible guilt that would not go away. Guilt for stupid, tiny things, things I didn’t always even have control over. Friends would tell me endlessly that repentance, true repentance, was final, ended it, should end the guilt and the self-blame. What was my answer? Obviously, I had not repented fully enough. (Hah. I was about to write about how this little phase ended when I found out that one of my best friends went through the same thing, but that would be a lie. It made things a bit easier, but end? Hah.) My point is that believing in eternal forgiveness, unconditional love, is most definitely not the first leap of human consciousness.

Even leaving out that which may be an oddity in me and many I have known, that lingering guilt and self-blame, even leaving that—what human would willingly say to their enemy, “Kill me now, and you are damned, but if you repent, thirty days hence, you will be forgiven and absolved”? What woman, what man, would so easily accept the concept of eternal forgiveness, seventy times seven, towards their brother, their killer, their enemy? I cannot speak for all religion—I would never claim that responsibility, or that right. But deny me that. Tell me that unconditional forgiveness, unconditional love—the preaching of this as extended to all fellows, to be more Christlike—is predictable of humanity. Tell me that it is convenient to forgive a brother each and every betrayal he levels against you—or a sister. That is the core of Christianity—love. That is what all the Church is built on, believe it or not.

We are human, we are corruptible and predictable and prone to every conceivable weakness at some point in our lives. But the spirit within us is not. No one in this world could ever make me believe that any part of that is wrong. Perhaps it makes more scientific sense to say that enough evil could damn anyone, in the end. But a repentance of that evil? Would that balance it out—the will, the will inside to balance out any evil done? I could not say; I do not claim to understand metaphysics. But never say to me that unconditional love and forgiveness is a predictable, convenient excuse for human evils. Can it be used for such? Of course. Anything can be used and twisted for evil; someone determined enough to hurt and harm will use any excuse and reason in their power to do so. But it taints them, in the end, not the good that they have ill used. A fire cannot be evil, even if it is used to burn down a house. That’s a poor example, but the point stands, I think.

It’s been a long time since I made such an argument as this. My original intent was to tie it back to my original point about masks, and anarchism, or whatever other facets of my heart which I had at some point taken up and hence found false, but continued to follow. To any belief I have held, any philosophy I have fallen from, I say this. When a belief, a philosophy tells me that all are equal and free, I will agree, whole-heartedly. When it tells me that truth to an inner self should come before law, I will rejoice. When I am told to be angry, to hate, to betray my conscience, I will refuse. When I am told that God is dead, that religion is useful insofar as it aids that philosophy, that morality or ethics are an excuse or a weakness, that conscience is a hindrance, I will take my leave.

Why did I write this? In part, to answer a discussion and debate with a friend. In part because, as I said, I am tired of masks. I am tired of putting on my carefree anarchist face when I go to Food Not Bombs, my detatched philosopher face when someone challenges something I believe in, my selfless Christian face when I'm talking to certain friends, or on certain subjects, and God only knows how many others. I'm sick of it. This is who I am. I'm a Christian. I'm not an Anarchist, or a Republican, or a Democrat, or a Liberal, or a Conservative, or whatever other political label it's possible to wear. It is not given me to be a philosopher, or a singer, or an orator, or a philanthropist, or whatever else. I am a Christian; I believe in charity, not in the common definition of giving money to those you feel deserve and need it, but in the old definition of feeling-- or believing in-- love for all humankind, Just Because; I believe in conscience over law, but I do not believe in lawlessness; I believe in order over chaos, but that order should be just. What more shall I say? I am tired of masks. I no longer believe that I need any worldly label or face or party to hide behind. I need no excuse to be who I am.

Again, on love, and life, and indifference.

indifference, numbness, cold. things i want, desire, need. since the first day desire touched the heart of a man, since the first night a woman suffered dreams, since the first emotion in the first moment of the world, it has been as much a harm as a help, if not moreso. more, actually, definitely. Indifference is a wall, a shield, an insulator that we need so much, that never comes when we need it most; indifference is a thing that changes us, takes our most human parts and cloaks or steals or destroys them. unfair, perhaps, but true, nonetheless.

i do not want to be human, today. i do not want to love, i do not want to hurt.

there are times, when in despair or jest, i tell those i trust of my most beloved, terrifying dream, in sleep or awake. but, despite it all, i am human, whether i will or no.

And I feel, and love, and hurt. And I am powerless to stop that. I am powerless to deny platonic love, the empathetic pain that comes with it; I am powerless to deny romantic love, and all the desire and pain that comes with that; I am powerless to hold back emotion for my family, as much as that hurts me. As many times as friends may hurt me with a careless, or aimed, jest, as many times as I am betrayed, as many disagreements as we may have, I will love them. As many times as I am denied, or lied to, or used, I will fall in love, stupidly, helplessly, repeatedly. As many times as my family hurts me, denies me, turns from me, steals from me, lies to me, I will love them. Each and every one of them. Forever. And my God, it fucking hurts. Because love doesn't always mean turning the other cheek, especially when more than one life is at stake. Love doesn't always mean gentle kindness. So I'm not sorry. I'm sorry for the events that led up to this, and I'm sorry that it had to happen, and I'm sorry for the pain. But, it was not my decision, and, that aside, I would stand by it.

Friends that I grew up with, and friends I made later, might notice with disapproval that Agape I have left out of the above. And Charity. Both of those are as true, and as painful, in a way-- Charity, I have had less reason to fear; I suspect that I'm not doing it right. Agape? Painful. More personal, less for and to other people. Agape is a private thing, I think, especially for one without a church. I love God. It's true. I think, sometimes, that I have been given ample reason not to. But, nevertheless.