I mean, hell, I'm blogging right now, aren't I!

It seems to be, that in my short life of 21 years, the folks that have impacted me most reside in a place that is physically distant from me.

I have been blessed to have many spiritual mentors that have pastored me, guided me, advised me, led me, and loved me. And yet, the vast majority of them, live in places that are just far enough away to consider taking a plane to see them, if not further. What these beloved children have done for me and how they have impacted my growth (intellectually, socially, and spiritually) leaves me with the frequent desire to experience life with them on a more consistent basis. Reflecting on this has led me to the question: What would it be like if we all lived in the same place? How would our relationships exist if we saw each other all the time?

I am blessed to have many friends spread across the states. And I often wish I could gather us all in one place. But then I think about possible answers to my aforementioned questions. If we all lived in the same place, would we have ever met in the first place? Probably, because the Spirit brought us together. But the context would have been different, and therefore, the relationship as well. If we saw each other all the time, we would grow together in different ways. I feel safe to say that the growth we'd experience in that situation wouldn't be as good as the growth we experience together, at a physical distance, because if it were better, that would be how it is. The relationship wouldn't exist in the same, God created, way that it does from being in physical distance from one another. But we must still communicate regularly to grow with one another. So how do we do that? Dare I say it: the phenomenon that is the world wide web.

As a person of 21 years, I came of age in the heyday of the internet and it's development. I'm old enough to remember having a family computer that no way was going to ever connect to anything like the internet. I'm old enough to remember wanting to support guns so I could shoot my computer because the dial-up was so damn slow. And I'm young enough to remember spending many hours, almost amounting to full days, using old school chat programs and playing simple online games. I've been an avid internet user since the day my family signed on. I rocked AOL, frequented AIM, wasted time browsing yahoo and googling random things. I never got into myspace, but I'll proudly inform you that I joined facebook [as a high school student] when it was only available to college students. (The benefits of having a high school email account.) I posted ridiculously dumb things to livejournal. We used internet programs in my classes at school. I wouldn't get off youtube for months (and still don't). But then I started getting upset over our dependency on these internet programs. The thing that really triggered it was the fact that, in order to stay informed about my classes and extracurriculars, I had to check my email regularly. Which, at Warren Wilson, I rarely had the time to do. But if I didn't, I wouldn't find out about the meeting I needed to attend in half an hour. I wouldn't find out about the assignment change for my Peace and Justice class. I couldn't be informed without depending on the internet. This frustrated the hell out of me. But of course, when I did have internet access, I spent it floating around facebook and surfing the web. This frustrated me more. How ridiculous this all is!

But then, I think about the many friends I have been blessed to make. The many friends that are spread out all around this country. If I didn't "waste" my time on facebook, I wouldn't be keeping in touch with them. I'm awkward on the phone, and terrible about taking the time to call someone in the first place. If it weren't for these online programs that I had grown so frustrated with, I'd be completely out of touch with folks that I love.

If you came up to me about 2 months ago, I would have told you "I hate twitter. I think it's a silly waste of time." Though I think we're very capable of allowing the internet and what it offers to take up too much time of our lives, I now also feel we can greatly grow as individuals and relationals through it. I thought I'd never do it, but I've joined twitter. (you can follow me @freddiedoesit) I still insist on calling tweets "twats" and the folks that post them "twitties" just for my own selfish fulfillment. But there are many things I've gained from twitter. I learn about national going ons and the way people feel about them. I learn about religious and spiritual going ons; and the way people feel about them. And I learn about personal going ons [and the way people feel about them] in the lives of people that mean wonders to me. Same certainly goes for facebook, but I'm a new twittie, so that's more of my focus right now. And my twitter is focused on political and religious feeds, whereas my facebook follows everyone and everything. I digress.

I've struggled with my feelings to these online social networks. Sometimes I feel they take up too much of our time and distract us from what's important. But often, through them, I find out what's important. I feel that we could function just perfectly without them, but also know that at this point, we really couldn't. And I've come to be ok with that.

I value nothing more than human interaction, and insist that we don't allow these online social networks to replace them. And I gladly witness so many people living out this statement. If it weren't for this crazy internet, I would have lost communication with many influential and important folks in my life. Live on, virtual networking, live on.

This just in

Suddenly, science fuels my belief in God. For, I have seen larger things. I have seen the Creator. And so have you.

Oh, human nature, you. Oh, how we all must seek any form of belief.

Let us always seek understanding, in whichever manifestation we desire.

dada poem

Neighbor, Wrong

continents, you're overall married around feelings
history misinterpreted
musician attack got math
slaughter generations, War Division Time
maybe, personally, my very loyalty is worst
I, presidential, open the administration
don't fight illegal
damage comparing humanitarian far back why it was
sick achievement on walk to get gift of you
assignment apart
questions don't remark
power will take that to the end
and just try--and understand
the administration's media were two
but impact the evolution and far year
we reach greatest trip and ask blindly for what wasn't careless
where simple donation
will think to be certainly worse
i see me and the world
the estate has help but open hatred

The Mennonite Story

I've just returned from attending the Montreat College Conference, which was themed "God without Borders." At this conference, I went to an afternoon workshop called Storytelling. In this workshop, we talked about affective ways to tell stories, particularly about our interfaith experiences in order to promote more interfaith communication and cooperation. It was led by a man who works with the InterFaith Youth Core (IFYC), an organization that seeks to empower young people of different religious traditions to work together to serve others. Towards the end of the workshop, our leader asked us to tell an interfaith story aimed at a particular audience. For the final story, he asked for a volunteer to tell a story as if speaking to their college president, asking for funding for an interfaith council on their college campus. It was silent for an awkward minute, and before I knew it, I was sitting in front of the workshop about to tell my story. This story is one that I had told to many individuals and peers before. I've told it in abridged and extended versions. I've told it in it's entirety and in bits and pieces. But I had never told it before an audience. This is that story.

I was raised in the Presbyterian Church and have always been what I suppose you would call a typical, or maybe stereotypical, Presbyterian. I was an active leader in my church's youth group. I was a member of a Presbytery Youth Council. I was a small group leader at a middle school conference three years in a row during high school. I was an officer of the Presbyterian Student Association at Presbyterian College. I think you might be getting the picture, but to put the icing on the cake, I was a camp counselor at Montreat, a Presbyterian Mecca filled with energetic, God-loving youth and adults alike running around talking about our Presbyterian ways. Because of this, last summer I decided to try something different, something new, something challenging. Through the Presbyterian Church, surprisingly enough, I found out about a Mennonite organization called Sharing With Appalachian People (SWAP). It is a home-repair service organization with locations throughout the Appalachian mountains of Kentucky and West Virginia. I would be working in Wild and Wonderful West Virginia as a construction site coordinator for the groups of volunteers that came in each week. I was excited to be doing service, to be living in a new place, and to be learning more about the Mennonite Church, a religious tradition I knew very little about.

At the beginning of the summer, I had been out as a lesbian for almost two years. So I had a very pressing question on my mind: What do the Mennonites believe about homosexuality? I was very curious to find out, but I also deeply feared the answer. During our orientation week, while driving in a van with most of my coworkers and my two adult supervisors, I openly asked that question that had been on my mind for months previous to that moment. I was told, immediately, the exact answer that I so deeply feared: Homosexuality is a sin. God intended for marriage to be between a man and a woman. Clinging on to hope that that was the belief of their church, and not of these individuals, I asked if they agreed with the church's beliefs about homosexuality. One of my supervisors sternly repeated herself: Homosexuality is a sin. God intended for marriage to be between a man and a woman. One of my coworkers even took a solid amount of time to explain how God could and would never love a gay person. I conversed with them for a few minutes, even citing scriptures, to defend the other side of their argument. I quickly realized that it was an argument I was not going to be able to win in that moment. Not to mention that I was growing more and more angry and was bound to say something I regretted. So, at that moment, I took a giant step back into closet. I never brought the subject up again until I decided to come out to one of my coworkers who I had grown close to. I felt he would be understanding, compassionate, and trustworthy. And I was right and am very grateful for that.

But as the days went on, things got harder and harder for me. I was ashamed. I was angry. I was lying to my coworkers, my bosses, and to myself. I was uncomfortable. And I grew more and more depressed. And I feared my neighbors. I was terrified they would judge me, hate me, and try to "fix" me, or at least fire me. This got worse as I learned that my Mennonite supervisors, due to the nature of Elkhorn, WV were also Pentecostal. Every Friday evening, we would hear a message from a local Pentecostal preacher. Messages that were very different than any I had heard before. Messages that were difficult for me to accept. Messages that made me more afraid and more uncomfortable. Eventually, I reached a point were I could no longer live or work in that setting and that community. One of my supervisors had a metaphor he used often: SWAP is like a train, and it's coming fast. You can either get on, and have the ride of your life, or you can get run over. So, one evening, I sat down with him and told him I was getting run over and I needed to return home the upcoming weekend. I gave him some other reasons as to why my time with SWAP had come to an end, and he compassionately said they would see me off on Saturday. I was ready to be returning to places where I knew I would be welcomed no matter my sexual orientation, some places welcomed because of my sexual orientation. But I still couldn't leave without coming out and sharing why our God loves all people of all orientations. Hopeful to change the way my coworkers thought about homosexuality, or to at least get their wheels turning a little differently, I made a plan.

After the group of volunteers left on Saturday morning, I informed my colleagues I would be leaving that day and returning home. I then asked them to join me in watching For The Bible Tells Me So, a documentary film that follows the stories of multiple families of various Christian denominations and their experiences with homosexuality in the church, and how these families were or were not able to overcome the hatred and pain that occurs within the church when homosexual people are persecuted. It also reveals how the Bible doesn't actually say anything about homosexuality being a sin. I didn't tell them anything about this movie before I played it, though I gathered one girl knew the general gist of the film as she told me, "Oh, they played this movie at my school. I didn't go." I replied, "Well, I suppose now you have to see it, don't you?" and pushed play. After it had ended, I stood up, in tears of course, and said to the group, "I'm not sure if you've figured this out or not, but I'm gay. And believe it or not, I'm also still a Christian." The two girls sitting directly in front of where I stood, one of whom was the same that missed her first opportunity to see the film, quickly dropped their jaws to the floor in shock. I know I hadn't come out to them, and I suppose it's a good thing they didn't make any assumptions, but I really thought the cargo shorts and all the flannel would have tipped at least a couple people off. One of my supervisors explained how when I had brought up the subject earlier in the summer, he and his wife had determined that I was gay, and decided to do their best to work with me anyway. After all, we're all sinners...I tried to explain that, in fact, me living as the person who God created me to be is not a sin, but his opinion was not going to change. I don't care much for the "Hate the sin, not the sinner" sentiment, but I suppose it's a start. We continued to have some interfaith dialogue, and the coworker who had originally explained God's lack of love for homosexuals, surprisingly explained, "If you condemn someone to hell because of who they love, and then call yourself a Christian, you're lying because you clearly don't have Christ in your heart." I was shockingly pleased, touched, and grateful to hear her make this statement. And I was honestly quite proud. She'd made a complete 180 degree turn by seeing For The Bible Tells Me So and I was the one who had showed it to her. My other, younger, Mennonite coworkers began to come around in their own special ways, saying things like "It's totally ok that you're gay. I knew some gay kids at my high school and they were cool. You're totally cool even though you're gay." I think it will be a while, due to their limited exposure to much of the real world, to really get the full picture, but some positive steps were made. My other supervisor even privately came to me and apologized for anything she may have said that made me feel judged, hated, or condemned. I simply said, "It's ok. You've been thinking that way a long time. I know I alone can't change you're beliefs, but I'm trying to." We then went out for a goodbye lunch at one of those Golden Corral type places before I hit the road for, you guessed it, my Presbyterian Mecca full of liberals and fellow homosexuals: Montreat.

While I was working with SWAP, I found it so difficult and impossible to live in that community. But now, looking back, I see how, on that last day, when we truly began an important interfaith dialogue, I could have more easily coexisted and we could have lived in a more positive interfaith community if I had only come out sooner. However, I sure was glad to get back to my people and be the Lesbyterian that I'm proud to be.

those mennies...

So I'm working this summer with a Mennonite organization called Sharing With Appalachian People. Every since I heard about it, I expected it to be a very good and rewarding job. I also was very apprehensive. We host volunteer groups and do home repair projects. I've been here for two weeks, and the first group of volunteers arrived tonight. When we held a little orientation meeting the group, the Location Coordinators (my bosses) encouraged them to do some journaling. I decided after that I would finally sit down and start blogging about SWAP, which I've been planning to do since I arrived.

One of the things that definitely makes this experience very interesting is that my faith is very different from all of my coworkers. The majority of them are Mennonite. Keith and Charlene, the Location Coordinators, have Mennonite background, but now attend a Pentecostal Church of God. One coworker is not Mennonite, like myself, but seems to me to be a Southern Baptist type (she doesn't associate herself with a particular denomination, but that's what her religious behavior reminds me of.) And here I sit, a liberal Presbyterian Meher Baba lover that, when makes it to church, goes to a Unitarian Universalist one. I knew getting into this, that it would be a very religious and spiritual job (part of the reason I was interested in it) and I also knew it would be different from anything I've experienced before. But I was never really sure what quite to expect.

But despite these differences, one thing that I've noticed is that there are a few commonalities as well. And those commonalities just so happen to be things that are most important in my faith. The people I'm living with, working with, and interacting with use terms and language I've never used or try not to. Things like "eternal damnation," "born again," and a very extensive use of "Father" for God. The latter of which I'm used to to an extent, but they use it quite frequently and I try to use more inclusive language.

I'll elaborate with examples. Last Sunday, I went to church with everyone at the Church of God up the road. I was honestly a bit uncomfortable worshiping there. There was so much focus on sin and hell. Hell was a more common topic than grace - something I'm not used to and am opposed to. However, there were a few things I did appreciate. The main one being that everyone in the congregation called each other brother and sister. That was a habit I tried to get myself into years ago at camp, but it faded after a while. I love the feeling of community and comradeship it creates within their congregation. But for me, I would extend the use of brother and sister to those that "aren't saved." They use it to remind themselves that they are all one in Christ. I would use it more widely to remind us that we are all one in this Earth. What I surely wasn't used to, and honestly don't really buy, even though I witnessed it right in front of my face, is a lot of the hooting and hollering and practically speaking in tongues that happened in this church. At one point, people went to the front of the church to be prayed for. As the pastor was praying for one woman, her mouth was just running and running and I couldn't understand I single word. Then her body began shaking and she nearly fell to the floor. I still don't know what I think of this. It's really just something else. But another thing I did appreciate was during Sunday School, the leader made one point that whenever we come to God, we must free our minds and spirits of everything else going on in our lives. I like this because I agree, and I found it especially interesting because I very recently just read about Baba making the exact same point. The paths, the worship, the prayer, is so very different - but that one point was exactly the same. And that point is the most important aspect of that Sunday school and lesson and of that particular message of Baba. I dig that.

On Friday night, our neighbor Randy, who is a preacher and a business partner with Keith, came and spoke to us. He isn't the typical preacher I would be a fan of, but again, I appreciate to similarities more than I criticize the differences. (Which it took me a few days to get to that attitude, I'll admit.) One of the first things I noticed is his obvious passion and love for God, which I admire and love witnessing. When he opened in prayer, and every other time he prayed, almost every other word was "God" or "Jesus" or something along those lines. He spoke so quickly, I was almost annoyed by it. But then I made a connection. His prayer reminded me of Baba telling to keep God's name (whatever it may be) on your heart and have your heart and mind always be saying God's name. Randy's heart and mind, and mouth, were clearly repeating God's name. When Randy got to speaking, he spoke mostly of being born again. He told the story of when he was saved and when he was born again and proclaimed that everyone must be born again to go to heaven. When left at that, I disagree on many levels. But as he continued, he said "maybe you don't call it born again - but whatever you call it - everyone should have a time in their lives when God transforms them." Now that I can handle. I was easily reminded of two specific moments in my life when God certainly provoked a change in me. I cherish those moments and recognize and appreciate God's presence in my life before and after those moments, but I would never say I was born again. But once I got past my stubborn disapproval of that term - I appreciated Randy's message.

So far, I've certainly already changed spiritually a lot. I can see that I have - but I can't quite say how. We shall see...

obama

Our sexuality is such a small part of who we are.

It'd be good to have a friendly face in the crowd.




I've grown so much. But I still have so far to go.


That's all.