Sh*t Christians Don’t Say: Egos

July 9, 2019 — Leave a comment

We all LOVE preaching at the pulpit pride is bad. Pride comes before the fall. Those who are proud will be humbled. We will preach our lungs out about being humble and to set aside yourself, for Jesus… and maybe for others.

Yet do we do that when we engage with someone who challenges our theology, our thought process, our framework? Do we really hold an openness to engage humbly with those who present a different way of thinking?

I am very guilty of wanting immediately to write someone off if they love Trump or say something so overtly racist that my heart aches and I fume. And for many people, they would find no error in my ways. But I really don’t want to be that person. Jesus hung out with people who disdained him, who believed and said very contrary things to him. Yet he managed to hold space. I am not Jesus and I probably could not withhold the pain and harm as well as he did, (well I guess he didn’t either — he died.) But I really want to try. I don’t want my circles to be of people who all think like me. Diversity is so buzzy nowadays, and to that, how broad is our landscape of diversity. Do we have diversity in color, gender, socioeconomics, faith, career, thought and so forth? Look around, do the people you hang with all look, think and act like you?

This is not to say that you should let ANYONE into your inner temple. Nah people need to earn your trust for those inner courts. What does trust entail? Love and safety. Commitment and faithfulness. Forgive the and humility. Vulnerability and an ability to listen. Hopefully a sense of humor and no judgy eyes when I kill a bag of Hot Fries. The last few I added for my specific courts.

But I really do try and it is hard and ever increasingly impossible. It requires breaths and filters and thinking the best of another. It’s hard but thus is life. I’m friends with Christians and heathens alike. But why is it that so many of my Christian friends can not handle conversations where their frameworks are being challenged? It’s as if their faith is in their framework, not in their God. God is rooted. God is unchangeable, but our frameworks can. How does Jesus talk to people? Differently depending on who he is talking to? He’s the same. He has integrity. When I challenge especially white Christians on race, gentrification, and god, white male Christians, on being a woman, I honestly am often met with skepticism and defensiveness. They meet me as if I’m an anomaly and I must prove every point I make. Again that feeds into the fact that YOU ARE IN THE DOMINANCE AND REVERSE RACISM & SEXISM DO NOT EXIST.

Please for the love of God trust that I am not demolishing your worth and your God when we have uncomfortable complicated complex conversations. I am trying to bring us closer, to find a common ground. Stop equating your worth with your mind and thoughts and your life here. That’s your ego. Your EGO should be killed because then you will all the more know your worth and God are still immovable.

Sh*t Christians Don’t Say: Singles vs marrieds

June 29, 2019 — Leave a comment

Just kidding. The church LOVES talking about singles and marrieds. It’s both adored at the pulpit and anticipated in the audience. There’s this rush of hope every time that maybe this sermon would unlock and unravel the pain of waiting for singles, and root and make sense the never talked about pain of staying for marrieds. Yet no one really talks about the pain of waiting because we love focusing on how singleness is a gift and that the Lord can really use you specifically in this season. So we have a bunch of singles hurting inside lashing themselves with this holy waiting and trust. And no one talks about the real pain of marriage. Ya we talk about how it’s ultimate sanctification and how’s that’s the hardest BUT MOST BEAUTIFUL thing on earth, blah blah blah. But can we cut the glamorized version of difficult sanctification and get into the nitty ugly cave. Do we talk about falling out of love with your spouse? Do we talk about low grade amounts, and I dare you, overt abuse? Do we talk about how monogamy is not natural and how sometimes this fight seems too uphill? We don’t. We wrap obstacles in, we’re being sanctified.

The danger of never talking about these things is that when someone is in that position, the response is guilt and shame. If we are ever in a space that is not publicly discussed as normal, we feel abnormal when we experience these human tendencies. Shame is hiding because of a fear of losing worthiness. Shame is hiding because of a fear of judgment. Shame is hiding because a facade keeps others distant from your mess. Isn’t that what happened at the garden? We assumed God would lash at us so we hid and lied instead. I wonder if those peeps in Eden were outright about what they did, would they have been able to stay in the garden? God might have let them stay? The transgression wasn’t the issue? The hiding was? But the reality is, we are no longer in Eden and people are not lovely like God. When we are vulnerable people do cover us in judgment, create distance and make us feel less Christian or unwise/blind/foolish when we talk about said topics above. It’s a fucking catch-22. If you talk, you might get shamed. If you don’t talk, you are imprisoned by shame. How do we change the culture to merely listening and holding space, suspending your judgment and quickness to scripture showering?

But I think the deepest issue with this whole thing is singles v marrieds. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP DIVIDING PEOPLE IN THE CHURCH IN TWO CATEGORIES. Why do you do that?!! Why do you delineate people by relationship status? Inherent in that boxing is our huge human-created difference, there’s a type of crossing over, there’s us v them and they wouldn’t understand the struggle. Don’t act like after marriage, spouses don’t want to sleep with a hot emotionally available dude that walks by. Don’t act like singles cannot get deeply sanctified by close friends and roommates, FO SHO. When you say singleness is a gift, then proceed to spend 15 minutes chatting about the beauty of waiting….take a nice exhale, smile and then get into your inclusive circle tone of voice to talk to those who are married, it is obvious and weird. Stop taking a few verses in the Bible and elevating them into central to our faith structure — don’t we Christians love doing that with whatever scripture seems perfect for such a time as this. Why don’t we talk about things we as humans struggle with that cross all boundaries? Greediness. Jealousy. Greediness. Racism. Sexism. Misogyny. Defensiveness. Ego. Gossip wrapped in we should pray for her. Ego. Fucking ego. Why do we need pastors specifically for singles and marrieds? What qualifies one to know people in these categories better? I’m really asking. Do I go to one pastor if I’m thinking about masturbation and another pastor when I want to hoard my money? Stop drawing out details of my identity like they’re my defining trait. Stop making such a big deal about my status like that’s the reason I sin. I don’t always put God first because I’m human and selfish. My relationship status is not how primarily relate to people. We have created a culture of such connection like that in church. It’s incomplete and often damaging.

Stop putting people in boxes so it’s easier for you to manage and control. Stop defining people so you can quickly go to your prescription box of scriptures. See me as a complicated human. Show me the wisdom and faith and trust I too have the Spirit.

Sh*t Christians Don’t Say: Masturbation

June 26, 2019 — Leave a comment

I was 17 when I grabbed Nick A’s crotch and asked him if he was having an orgasm. He wasn’t, I don’t think…could my innocent Christian hands coming in contact with his vulnerable gems make him cum..? Anyway, the point is, I had no idea what orgasms were. I probably heard it in passing and here I was drunkenly letting my suppressed curiosity bust out.

And of course innocent, save myself for marriage teenage self, won a sex basket my freshman year in college. It had lube and condoms and I think TWO vibrators. I never win raffles but God thought this was the surprise I needed in my life. Then I proceeded to have sex for many years, and I think I never had an orgasm. It’s no one’s fault. I didn’t know. They didn’t know. We all moaned along so no feelings were hurt and relationships were preserved. I didn’t know my body well enough and I didn’t know who to turn to to ask about how to feel my very best. We all want to come but we don’t know who to go to. At least I didn’t. I was already dealing with a low grade of Christian guilt having sex before marriage, so I wasn’t about to really welcome the devil by really accessing all the feels.

I got a purple vibrator in the mission after college, as most do when you’re free and in San Francisco. D. A. M. N. That was what I was missing this whole time. Why would God give me a sensual biological needy body and prevent me from enjoying it fully? Why would God create the opportunities for climax when we are taught to only walk through the valleys of shadow and death? Is our Christian obsession with suffering so evasive it’s blocked out access to peak human living and loving, may I say?

Then I really had a Jesus encounter when I moved to LA. I will never forget God’s full embrace of bitter, lonely, lost Nancy. I will never forget the feeling of someone having my back, always. I will never forget my response of, alright, I’m yours. Tell me what’s next. And thus led into my long beautiful journey with the Christian church. I met the bestest of people who are my dearest of friends. I’ve had ideas of family redeemed. I’ve learned the difference between forgiveness, reconciliation and forgetting. I’ve also tucked myself into a narrow hole of sexual repression in the name of boundaries for the name of said Christ. If I am to truly follow Jesus, I am to lay myself down, ignore my bodily impulses, not be selfish and wait to come with another. Masturbation required list and lust was sin. Masturbation is self indulgent and true Christians put others first. Sexual acts, regardless of the number of parties required, are reserved for covenants. Single, you WAIT and ENDURE till you get to the merry other side. And we all know the other side is equally fucked.

But I was a leader. I was a FOLLOWER. I loved Jesus. I spent days and months googling, is masturbation a sin? Can I masturbate without lust? Does masturbation really ruin my future marriage? And after my solo google research, I confessed my sin of self pleasure and tossed away my beautiful vibrator.

And I stopped masturbating. So I stopped lusting and felt complete in Christ alone in my singleness. The end. SAID NO ONE EVER.

I got myself a new sleek AF vibrator. I would vibrate with a blank mind, with nothing but presence, and still come. I would vibrate with pop music. Still came. Sometimes, yes, I did think about a dude I had the hots for and yes I still came. Is that really SO BAD? Am I really using the dude by making him the center of my affections and body exploration? I don’t know. I don’t feel guilt. I feel like a child with a lot to learn. I still feel really shy, but I’m also proud my body works and I get to be a woman who also has the right to come. Why would God make us with a clitoris and g-spot? To dangle them under us all day and night to tempt us, to test us, to see how much we can suppress and repress?

Are there dangers to masturbation? There were nights when I felt really shitty and lonely and dealt with it by vibing. Maybe I band-aided my pain with a little self-love? There was one night I made plans with a guy and before meeting him I had a little fun and actually didn’t want to see him anymore. Damn it, did I feel content without said guy who was actually not good for me?!

Why is the church so afraid of me getting to know my body when we so readily forgive a dude from jacking off because HE JUST CAN’T biologically help it?! What kind of patriarchal blatant bull shit is that? How is my exploration and owning of my body a threat to your family/marriage structure? Are you afraid that you can’t control me with your singleness is a gift sweet nothings? Are you afraid that if I masturbate, I might not see the beauty of marriage? Sweet audience, I can’t wait to get married and bone my hubby all day and night and you know what, me getting to know my body now, will be a gift to my marriage.

xo

Sh*T Christians Don’t Say: Sex

June 25, 2019 — Leave a comment

I had sex a few weeks ago. And, I don’t feel guilty about it. I feel like I’m supposed to because as much as we preach in the church, don’t feel guilt and shame, I’m still supposed to feel that sort of guilt that proves that I actually love Jesus THE MOST which is best shown if I feel guilt for having sinned. I don’t.

I loved how close my body was to this incredibly attractive guy who I also respected. I loved the way he kissed me. When I think about the time, yep, I still smile and giggle.

But hey, after having sex with said cute gentleman, I do get WHY Christians preach the “save yourself for marriage.” The rigid, one-size-fits-all, headed by fear and tailed by guilt rule stems from a truly good heart of wise protection. What God intends as wisdom, Christians like to draw strict boundaries for control. God intends to protect us from harm. He has our best interest at hand. He does. He really does! After sleeping with cute gentleman, I thought about him, a lot. I fantasized about what we could become. I checked his social media. When he texted, my heart skipped a beat. And audience, I only met the guy. We hung out for maybe 48 hours and here I am about to plan a wedding. If I had not slept with him, I probably would not have wasted precious minutes, hours, whatever don’t judge, dreaming up a world where I very much felt like I was in love. (I’m a scorpio so I’m obsessive with everything.) I would have saved myself the disappointment because truth is, it’s probably not going to happen. It was a one night stand. The end. So the “save yourself for marriage” team, you’re still on the scoreboard.

BUT if I didn’t sleep with him, I would not have realized my engrained desire to perform and make sure my partner feels good, and not give 2 shits about myself. I experienced the deep insecurity I felt about my body. I was obsessed with him feeling good, again, could give 2 shits about myself. I felt that my worth was tied up in my performance. (Enneagram 3) Why did I feel a need to show hard, I was having a good time, instead of just being present with how I was feeling? I’m so needy. I also learned I really love intimacy, all of it. Physical. Emotional. Spiritual. And I often neglect the physical because I’ve been told it’s slutty, tempting for others, desperate…I like to be told I”m beautiful. I like to feel another beating heart next to mine. So yes, I have spent precious minutes thinking about said cute gentleman, but I’ve also spent a lot of time reflecting on my own body and sexuality because of this experience.

Is the bit of obsession, slight heartbreak/disappointment that I know I will get over worth a lesson on myself? I’m probably not a one night stand kinda girl because this is my tendency. And now I know. I don’t need the attached guilt with the lesson. I don’t think Jesus is pissed at me. I think he might be like…well, what did you learn? how do we move forward? cool! still here with you baby girl.

Some of you Christians out there might be saying, oh just you wait. In 10 years the guilt will smack you hard in the face…when you’re married, it’s going to affect you in this way…you just don’t KNOW how it’s going to affect you? Well, look, do we ever? Get your guilt and shame away from me. Get your control away from my wisdom and faith. I love Jesus. I love being a woman. I want to explore my sexuality and sometimes it means talking about sex real explicitly and sometimes it means, well…let’s leave some things to the imagination.

xo

Day 71: Do not forsake me when my strength is spent

March 6, 2019 — Leave a comment

Judges 4-5; Psalm 71

In the world, we are disposed of when we are no longer useful. That’s the perfect time for God to use us as a vessel.

In the world we are pushed to the side if we have nothing to offer. That’s the perfect time for God to shine generosity and provision.

In the world, we are often drowning with no one to come to the rescue. That’s the perfect time for God to say I’ve been here with you in the water. Breathe. You will not drown.

In the world, we are measured by our strength. In God we boast of our weaknesses so when good arises, we can remain humble.

May we not project onto God how humans treat us. When we are spent, God will again pour into us. When we are tired, God will provide rest. God can not be boxed.

Day 70: God! Act. Now!

March 3, 2019 — Leave a comment

Judges 1-3; Psalm 70

How we demand of God to do things quickly. How we demand of God to make haste when we are in need. How we want him to act as soon as we are poor and needy.

Isn’t this desperation and cry to God what God wants? Does that mean we actually need to be in a state of poor and needy in order to be where God desires us? He wants us pleading with him to intervene, not to taunt us, but to remind us how little control we have. He wants our eyes focused on him.

Right now God looks blurry and I’m not even sure where to pull focus. Jesus help.

Day 69: Can I get a Witness?

February 25, 2019 — Leave a comment

Joshua 22-24; Psalm 69

We are our own witnesses to our covenant with God. We are held accountable to our own actions and promises. We are to tell the truth, know the truth. We are responsible for what we do in this life. If we pledge our life to God, we better do it because it’s all seen.

Can I get a witness?

Day 68: Powerful Safety

February 23, 2019 — Leave a comment

Joshua 13-21; Psalm 68

God is the perfect balance of power and refuge. He conquers enemies and provides a home for the fatherless. How can one person be that strong, commanding yet safe and welcoming? Because his power is not used to rule by ego but to create space for good and love. Strength can lie in power and refuge. It ascribes a weight and a breadth to God’s character — you cannot put him in a box.

Power and safety. Love and safety. He is completely trustworthy. He rules with compassion and desires to create space for those pushed to the side. Can we be a bit more like God and a little less like selfish humans?

Day 67: Do not be afraid

February 22, 2019 — Leave a comment

Joshua 9-12; Psalm 67

This is the constant repeated plea from Joshua to the people as enemies surround them: do not be afraid.

This is a reminder that the appearance of fear can be reflexive and out of control. Your body may shudder. Your body might tense up. Your mind might start running and you didn’t even step off; it just started happening. One, from our experiences and from narratives around us, this is totally normal! No shame for having the feeling of feat. No guilt for how your body naturally reacts.

But what we do have control over is how we respond to that fear. Is it a fear that has been programmed from outdated narratives? Is it fear we need to re-examine against the reality? Is it fear that doesn’t serve but actually harms? Take the time to hold the fear loosely with open hands. Why are you afraid right now? How is this current fear colored by the past? How can this current fear be released by looking at the present?

Joshua is not scolding the people to stop being afraid. He acknowledges the fear, but points them to something more powerful. When our gaze is on something more magnificent, lesser feats and obstacles gray out.

Day 66: Neither for or against

February 21, 2019 — Leave a comment

Joshua 5-8; Psalm 66

Joshua asked, “are you for us or for our adversaries,” essentially are you for us or against us.

The commander of the Lord’s army says, “no. I lead the Lord’s army.”

Humans think in binary. Yes or no. Us or them. This or that. God is a third way that offends everyone and throws everyone off. His mission isn’t to divide. His purpose isn’t to take someone’s side. His purpose is to lead the Lord’s army of justice, protection, grace and love.

How can we act more like God instead of human? The more we think in binaries and in boxes, the narrower the future will be. Let’s dance outside the circle. Let’s color outside the lines. But I’m all of it remember home: then energy of it.