Emily thinks you're awesome

I Will Not Do A Countdown...Of The Next 90 Days

2012-01-20T17:03:00.002-05:00

Night mares. Shooting pains in my side. Insomnia. Fits of paranoia. These are just a few of the things I've experienced recently, as I enter the home stretch in the stress mongering life event known as wedding planning. And I'm, to quote a good friend of mine, "The most mellow, relaxed bride-to-be she's ever met." I hope that doesn't mean I'm about to snap and burn down every David's Bridal in a 5 mile radius.

Wedding planning is a nightmare. Literally. I've had wedding related dreams every night for the past couple weeks, and they range from me just staring at a cake like a zombie for two hours - nothing else happened in that dream - to showing up to my wedding with no shoes on, to find that everyone present looks like John Malkovich.

90 days to go. Three months. 1,314,00 minutes.

I'm understanding a little better the joy on the faces of the people whose weddings I've attended. I used to think it was just the excitement of beginning the life long journey with the person they loved more than anything. Now I know it's all that, PLUS the joy of knowing you'll never have to price rolls of fake plastic crystals ever again (60 ft for $43.88.)

All the advice from my friends who recently married, that I secretly scoffed at, has turned out to be true. Our budget grew by 40%. Our guest list grew by 53 more people than we had originally wanted to invite (and there are still people I'm upset we have to leave out.) I've caught myself saying, more than once, something as ridiculous as, "$650 for up-lighting isn't that bad, think of how much ambiance it will add!"

While riding in the car with Ryan, to yet another one of our appointments, I had a moment of complete clarity. It made perfect sense why someone like myself, who three months ago swore I wouldn't get carried away with extravagance, was now seriously considering an offer for professionally trained cellists to play the cocktail hour.

Sin.

The wedding industry, like that damn serpent in the garden, taps into our basest, most secretly obvious desires, and exploits them for it's own gain.

Pride

"I deserve to have the best wedding possible, I'm worth it. And I want my wedding to be better than any of my friends."

Envy

"My dress needs to be the $5,000 Vera Wang that looks like the one Sara's wore, because hers was gorgeous, and I fell in love with it, and I can't imagine getting married in one that isn't as amazing as that."

Gluttony

"Of course we need a full open bar, people will think we're cheap if we don't pay for them to drink all night, and that's the best way to have our guests enjoy the wedding."

Anger

"What is this? This isn't what we ordered! Are you stupid or just lazy? You brought the wrong hor d'oeuvres! I am going to sue you for ruining my wedding!"

Greed

Well this one is just obvious

Lust

"I am eating nothing but protein and spending two hours a day at the gym until the wedding because I need to look absolutely perfect on my wedding day, so that everyone will think I am gorgeous and the perfect, sexy-yet-virginal looking bride."

Laziness

"It's no fun stuffing envelopes and assembling favors all by myself. I'll make my bridesmaids help me. Who cares if they have school or work, this is too hard and I just don't want to do it on my own."

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that anyone who has a cellist or full open bar, or favor-assembling party, is a giant sinner hell bent on ruining everyone's lives to get what they want. Those things are not bad. But believing the lie the wedding industry tells you, that you NEED to have all of these things in order to have a wedding, is. They want to tap into that part of you that says, "I need this, or else everything is ruined." and "My life would be complete, and I would be happy, if I just got this." That's one of the world's greatest lies, and one we all believe almost daily. Me included.

The struggle is in knowing how easy it is to fall down the rabbit hole of greed, admidst planning a big party that costs money, without being unreasonable. About being able to say, "No" and "I don't need that."

I'm lucky that the way things have shaped out, I have vendors who know me, care about me, and are willing to help me, without badgering me into spending more than I can afford. Or trying to tell me my wedding will be ruined without X, Y or Z. Ryan and I will have wonderful food, great music, a beautiful, delicious cake, and all of the things that go into a five figure wedding, without spending five digits, only thanks to these incredible creative people for which I am so, so thankful. But we might not have up-lighting. Or champagne. Or flowers. We might not even have table linens, if I don't get around to calling that lady from that bridal show and asking for a quote.

But none of that matters if at the end of the night, what I am more concerned about is not the color of the napkins, but the person to which I just committed myself for the rest of my life. If that is the focus, no matter what it looks like, the wedding is a success.

I just better not tell that to this guy.

A Glimpse of Heaven Through Hell

2012-01-06T11:57:00.001-05:00

When I was in 6th grade, my then-best friend's mother died, after battling a brutal and painful disease. I remember sitting in her room with her, on her bed, staring silently up at the N'Sync posters on her wall, wondering what to say. We probably sat there for over an hour in total silence. I left her house that day feeling like a failure, and a terrible friend, for not being able to offer a single comforting word. Though we maintained a friendship through college, we're only casual acquaintances now. However, something she told me, years after her mother died, has always stuck with me.

"When my Mom died, what I needed most was someone to just sit with me and not try to make it better. You did that."

The past six months, my friend Greg, who was diagnosed with leukemia, has progressively been getting worse. He's the younger brother of my best friend Katy's husband, Paul, who over the past few years, has grown to be a best friend as well. I've been there with my friends, from the initial diagnosis, to the first round of chemo, to the devastating news that there was nothing more the doctors could do, as the cancer was no longer responding to treatments.

Through the entire process, I fully and completely believed Greg would win the fight against the cancer. He has always been one of those people that is so full of life and goodness, that nothing ever brought him down. Everyone who knows him will tell you that he's one of the funniest and happiest people they've met. If anyone could endure the pain, loneliness, and suffering that cancer brought, it was Greg.

When things started looking really grim, my faith turned then to God to heal him. Again, I fully hoped, and believed, that God would. Last weekend, when Ryan and I made the trip down to his parents house, where he had been moved to via ambulance, my faith started to falter. He was lying in a hospital bed, in the same spot in their living room where their pull-out couch (the one I'd slept on the first time I'd met him, when I went to stay with Paul's parents for a weekend during college) used to be.

I'd never seen anyone in that much pain. He was covered in bruises, and the disease had made him so swollen, that he was almost unrecognizable. But when Greg cracked a joke at my expense, which made everyone in the room laugh, I saw that my friend was still there. I silently prayed the whole time I was sitting next to him that God would heal him, and I left, still having at least some hope, that He would.

Greg died Monday night.

As soon as Ryan and I got the call, we rushed over to Paul and Katy's house. The walk up the three steps to their front door seemed like eternity. When we opened the door and saw Paul, I lost it. The pain I felt at the loss of my friend, was only a fraction of what I could see he was feeling, having lost his brother, and Katy, her brother-in-law.We cried, and silently in my head, I questioned God.

Why? Why would you take him? There were so many - hundreds, if not thousands, of people, churches, friends, and family praying for Greg to be healed. Did you ignore those prayers, or just answer them all with "no?" Why are you putting this family, this good, kind, loving, Christian family who loves you, through such utter hell?

It wasn't long before a few other friends came over, and then a few more. We all alternated between sitting there laughing, telling stories about the funny things Greg had done, to sitting there crying, feeling the loss of our friend and brother. There were plenty of silent pauses too. When at the same time everyone took a moment to hope, or silently pray, that there was something we could do to make it all better.

I started to see something, while we were sitting there, that I hadn't expected to see.

Through that weighty feeling of hell, I caught a small glimpse of heaven. I saw what life will be like when everyone truly loves, and cares for their neighbors. Everyone Paul had called, had dropped whatever they were doing, to come over immediately to console and comfort him. Just as Ryan and I did, without even thinking about it. We instinctively went to be with our friends. We were brought together by the kind of deep, utter sorrow and pain that will only exist on this Earth, but the result was that we were loving our friends who were hurting in the purest, more sincere way I've ever seen love. It changed me. I stopped asking angry questions about things I didn't understand, and instead paid attention to what I did know. That Greg loved God, and God loves Greg. I might not ever know the rest, but those two truths were enough, for now, to quiet my stirring mind.

As I was packing last night for my trip to Greg's funeral, something hit me. Even though he was gone, Greg was still affecting me with his good, happy, kind life. It made me wonder if that glimpse of heaven I caught the night I found out he was gone, was really Greg, reminding me, and all of us, that he was still being loved. Just now, he's being loved by someone who only knows love in it's purest form, and can do it better than we ever could.

At the service tomorrow, I'm going to cry, and I'm going to be sad, and I'm going to feel pain that I haven't felt in a long, long time. But underneath that all, I'm going to pray that God will remind me of what He showed me this week- that Greg loved God, and God loves Greg.

And that is what matters most.

I Draw The Line At Buying a KitchenAid

2011-12-19T15:29:00.002-05:00

One thing I've heard about marriage, is that it's a "mirror" that reflects back an image of yourself that you wouldn't have seen had you remained single. I'm finding that this is also true for the weeks and months that lead up to marriage. In the literal and metaphorical sense, I've never been a big fan of mirrors.

The person I've always judged, snarked at, and swore I'd never become, has slowly started to become someone I understand. Now, when I look in the mirror, I see a big ol' hypocrite.

It's worse than just fighting the urge to make a daily "wedding" related Facebook status (how did I become that person?!) Before I was engaged, I'd attend bridal showers, and wonder how someone could possibly be so happy to receive Tupperware. Now, I'm checking my registry daily at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, and secretly hoping that someone buys me Pyrex. I cannot explain it. Likewise, before, I would eschew anything cooking related with a fear most people reserve for death and spiders, but now I catch myself happily perusing cooking websites and bookmarking recipes I'd like to try. Then, worse, I actually try them!

Maybe the movie Stepford Wives had it all wrong, perhaps the women turned themselves into WifeBots2000.

It has really freaked me out. I'm looking at home decor ideas online. I have a Pinterest account filled with wedding related boards. I'm writing blogs (happily) centered around marriage, instead of ones where I talk about how much something makes me angry. Because I'm not angry, I'm happy. About cooking and decorating.

I never knew happiness could be so frightening.

It got to the point recently where I needed to talk about it with Ryan. He was having a hard time understanding what I was scared of. I tried to explain it to him.

"My whole life, growing up, no matter how much I hated my looks, or my job, or my lack of money, I always liked who I was." He was sitting patiently waiting for me to finish. "It's not being married that's scary, I'm so, so excited for that, it's having a new title and role. My identity, the things that make me 'Emily' are things that I worry I'll lose when I become a 'wife'."

"Things like what?"

Letting out a sigh, I rolled my head back. "I don't know. Like my name? My aversion to not adhering to gender norms? My desire to be different and not do the things or follow in the footsteps of everyone else?"

He did that thing where he actually thought before he spoke which I've never understood. "OK. But how does having a different last name, or cooking every once in a while, change who you are? You will always be 'Emily', no matter what your name is. That's one of the reasons I love you. And just because we're getting married, doesn't mean you have to become the type of 'wife' you're scared of. There's not one type."

"Oh"

His eyebrows rose ."Oh?"

I nodded. "As in, oh yeah, this is why I need you. To show me when I'm being crazy, and keep me grounded."

"It's a dangerous job, but no one else was going to do it."

"Agreed."

I hate it when he's right, but he is. A big wedding, fancy white dress, and legal name change does not mean the traits that make me who I am are suddenly going to disappear. If I want to still be a stubborn, opinionated feminist who gets into too many arguments, after I get married I still can be. I probably still will be.I just might be wearing an apron and holding a glue gun at the same time.

Which really, is even better, because who wants to argue with a feminist holding a glue gun? This might turn out better than I hoped after all...

I'm Not Josie Grossie Anymore!

2011-12-09T14:40:00.001-05:00

One of the things I enjoy, aside from eating copious amounts of processed food that would make Gwyneth Paltrow explode, is exercising. Swimming, tennis, hiking, (to quote Demetri Martin ,"walking where it's OK to pee") pretty much anything that doesn't involve a ball being thrown by or at me, is something in which I'll happily partake. Except running for running's sake. I never understood that. In sports, and life in general, we only run because we have to in order to get to another place, like first base, or away from a murderer. It's a means to an end. Not a means. I understand that running is necessary in sports to get you to the ball/goal/endzone/hoop/I'm-really-impressed-how-many-of-those-I-got, but on it's own? That seems a little pointless. What are you chasing? Hip Dysplasia? No thanks.

Like my early 90's obsession with skorts proves, what I really love, is when two of my favorite things can be combined. This is why my favorite form of exercise is the good old elliptical. Not for it's ability to increase my heart rate without causing high impact on my knees, or it's varying resistance and incline options. I love it for the 2 inch wide, 9 inch long piece of plastic poking out of it's face on which I conveniently can rest my phone. I have an app that lets me watch episodes of my favorite TV shows, so all I have to do is hop on the standing bike contraption, pop on an episode of Law & Order SVU or Modern Family and bam! I've done an hour of cardio. Working out at the same time as watching TV is a win-win, I feel good about myself for burning calories, and don't feel bad about myself for being unproductive by watching television instead of doing something more meaningful. Like reading. Or working on the four million paper flowers I'll need to make MY SPECIAL DAY absolutely perfect.

Because I like, not loathe exercise, the gym is usually a happy place for me. If I can avoid the bag-of-sweat dudes who fling noxious liquids off themselves like shaggy dogs from hell, I leave content. Unfortunately, my post workout endorphin buzz has been killed lately by a dreaded, inescapable nemesis of mine.

The Teenage Girl (TM)

Not to be confused with an actual human female between the age of 13-19, The Teenage Girl (TM) refers to the mocking, loud, obnoxious entity that forms when a group of cruel and soulless female teens come together. Not all teenage girls become a part of The Teenage Girl (TM), but those that do are terrifying and (at least while their apart of it) vile. It usually surfaces at shopping malls, high schools, beaches, and movie theaters. Sadly, The Teenage Girl (TM) has been lurking in my local Y's locker room.

The first encounter was a few weeks ago. Before I ever saw it, I heard it. Cackling. Giggling. Screams that indicated playfulness but still struck me with fear. It's incredible really, that I found myself, a moderately successful 26 year old with a fiance, good job, and large social circle, totally frozen as soon as I heard their shrill laughter. Instantly I was transported to the middle school cafeteria where Ashleigh, my 6th grade friend, then 7th grade cheerleading minion, informed me that I was no longer "cool" enough to sit with her. I remembered the laughing from her friends and me, pathetically walking away.

Snapping back to the present, I reminded myself that I was not 12 years old anymore. I actually liked who I was. I had good friends. A hot fiance. Hair that didn't just sit on my head defying me.

Boldy, I marched out of my curtained changing area, and went right over to the mirror to blow dry my hair. I held my head high as The Teenage Girl (TM) walked into view, making loud noises "because they could" (their words.) Bravely, and with as much courage as I could muster, I narrowed my eyes slightly into the mirror. Looking in their direction as they walked past me, creating a cloud of sound that overshadowed the dryer pointed at my ear, I glared.

Without missing a beat, the smallest of the pack, the one with the beady eyes, looked right at me. Not even breaking stride she snarled,

"What's the matter old lady?"

They laughed. I stood there too dumbfounded to reply.

To my surprise, I finished drying my hair, and got dressed, not feeling hurt or upset at all. If anything I was amused, and happy for something humorous to write about later. All those early years of kids making me feel not good enough, like an "uncool" loser, must have built character and strength. Emboldened by my imperviousness to their mocking, I turned around, marched right over to where they were standing and faced the group of girls. Without wavering my voice even a little I looked right at the beady eyed one and said,

"To answer your question, the only thing "a matter" with me, is you, and your group of lackeys. You may think you're hot shit now, and that you're on the top of the world, but I have news for you. You're not cool, or edgy, or tough. You're bullies. And while that kind of comment would have flied without response back when I was your age, it won't pass now. Real life comes with responsibilities. So I want an apology from you, and I want it now."

Well, if my life was a movie, that's what I would have said. Really I just went home and laughed about it with my housemates and updated my Facebook status, which was just as good. But hey, the good news in all this is that I no longer really care what The Teenage Girl (TM) thinks, and view it more as annoying fodder for my blog than anything else. I've grown up!

Which really finally answers that question that has been gnawing at me for years, "Were all the people who write humorous books and movies about high school, losers like I was?"

Yes. Undeniably yes.

Having the Right To Choose...Coke Zero Flavors

2011-11-30T14:58:00.001-05:00

I just had the best cookie I've ever eaten in my entire life. My brain is trying to convince me that it was not put outside my desk by an angel, but my taste-buds are saying, "Yes. Yes it was." It was sitting on the windowsill right outside my cubicle, bathed in a beam of light straight from heaven. Swaddled in a blanket of white deli paper, it beckoned me. In the back of my mind I heard a little voice whisper "Hey lardo, you have to put on a tight white dress in five months and parade in front of all your friends and family, put it down." But in the front of my mind, a Klump-like voice shouted, "OMG TOFFEE!!"

Ignoring the grease spots on the paper, I tore off a glorious piece of the holy cookie and shoved in my mouth. I'm not lying when I say I felt like a woman in those old Herbal Essences commercials. Gooey. Caramel. Toffee. Soft on the inside, crispy and chew on the edges. Even though it was giant, it didn't last long (that's what she said!)

Shortly after I finished eating it, a co-worker friend of mine IM'd me to ask how my day was. I earnestly answered, "I just had the best cookie of my entire life. So pretty good."

My planned four months of crazy dieting before the wedding are going to be hell.

Food is wonderful. I love food. Not as fond of the making-me-fat aspect of it, but a while ago (probably around the time Ryan asked me out) I resolved to stop viewing food as an enemy hell bent on ruining my life, and see it as something totally OK to enjoy. In moderation. In quantities smaller than what Olympic athletes eat.

Part of what I love about food is the social aspect of it. Especially this past year (wow, cannot believe it's almost been that long) that I've lived in community, with 4-7 other housemates. At least 2-3 nights a week, we take turns cooking for everyone else in the house. We eat together, usually while watching a delightfully awful reality TV show on Netflix, and enjoy each other's company. I look forward to these meals, both when I'm cooking and eating for free. When I move out, memories of these meals will be something I look back on fondly.

Shared meals are also a way to spend time with the other people in my life I care about, who I don't share a bathroom or kitchen with. Last night was one of those. A married couple from church that Ryan and I are becoming better friends with invited us over for a taco dinner, and to watch a movie they were horrified neither of us had seen. Prior to going over there, I IM'D Josh, who I work with, to ask what we could bring.

Part of our conversation went like this:

Josh: soda maybe? We dont have that

Emily: ok cool, I love me some coke. Any preference?

Josh: Nope. Not diet. Zero is ok. So yes ha

Emily: yeah, zero is our fav

Josh: reg cherry or van?

Emily: I like van or cherry, ryan's not a fan of van but likes cherry

Josh: we dig all

Emily: k. me too.

What normally would be a fairly innocuous, mundane decision making process, for whatever reason yesterday, totally floored me.

My life is filled with so many choices.

Where to eat. What to wear. Which Christmas party to attend. Which store to pick up gifts from. Which mall to shop at. When to get married. Where to go on my honeymoon. What type of calorie free but not diet soda flavor to pick up from the store.

Yet, so much of my day, when not choosing things, is spent complaining about my lack of choices.

"I can only afford to buy clothes from Old Navy or Target, not higher end stores."

"There's not enough money to go on a week long honeymoon."

"I can't afford to buy a new car."

"We can't go out to eat until after I get paid, so we have to eat at home."

"Christmas this year is going to be really small."

and of course

"I can't be 100% happy because I'm fat."

How absurd. That these are the things I so often focus on, when my life is incredibly, overwhelmingly, mindbogglingly (sorry for the adverbs) blessed. It's sickening really, how good I have it, compared to so many people around the world. Other Americans too. With my good job. Loving supportive relationship. Car. Healthy happy family. Money in the bank. The right to marry who I want.

Knowing how many choices I have - this holiday season I'm choosing to make one more. I'm choosing to focus more on how much I have, than how much I want. And how lucky I am that tonight, I get to sit in the living room with my housemates, shadowed by the lights on our 7 ft tree, eating the (hopefully not too burned) soup I've made. With a big box of Tums in my bathroom, just in case.

(Disclaimer: presents given to me, while not demanded or necessary, will be happily accepted.. Especially ones in stockings hung on a chimney with care.)

Boy, I Could Sure Use Some Cupcakes or Peanut Butter Cups Right Now

2011-11-21T15:43:00.001-05:00

Saturday Ryan and I met a good friend of ours for brunch, at a favorite diner of ours. Afterwards, she suggested we continue our conversation while walking through the shops and neighborhood nearby. I eagerly agreed. It was a gorgeous day, and there were people all over the walkways, so we turned a corner and headed in a more residential direction. We passed a large, brown, two story, Victorian style house built high on a hill, surrounded by a shoulder high wrought iron fence. Beneath us was a path of lopsided cobble stones, broken and cracked in so many places that we constantly had to look at our feet while we walked. Despite the fact that it was the Saturday before Thanksgiving, the short walk and bright Florida sunshine was making my shirt stick to my back. My friend absent mindedly picked up pebbles from the gravel under the fence as she talked.

"You know what's so interesting about you Emily?"

My heart raced just a little bit. "Uh-oh" I threw my hands up in the air "tell me."

"What's so interesting is that you're really tough, but at the same time sensitive. You know what I mean?"

I did.

Our brunch, and walking talk, was a result of the backlash from my previous blog post. She, and countless others who contacted me via Facebook, e-mail, or the good ol' fashioned face-to-face, were surprised, confused, and a little hurt by the things I said. While my intention with my post was to bring to light a personal issue I'd been struggling with for months, feeling like I didn't belong in "the Church" (capital C), what came across was that I wanted to leave "the church" (lowercase c) that I've been attending.

I'm learning that what I intend to get across, and what people really hear, are often very different. Or, like that one author says, "when you're writing something it's yours, but once you publish, it belongs to the reader."

Ryan sat down with me the day after the messages and comments on my blog started coming in. He saw how emotionally drained and overwhelmed I was, and tried his best to comfort me.

"People don't want you to leave. They care about you." His voice softened and his brow furrowed just a little, which is what he always does when he's worried about me.

"That's not how it feels. How am I supposed to go to church Sunday, when me being there will just be a distraction? " My voice wobbled a little. "It'll seem like I wrote the post just looking for attention."

He shook his head. "Everyone will want to see you, because they love you." I shrugged, wanting to end the discussion.

That first Saturday night after my post, I went to sleep, with no intention of waking up the next morning and going to church. Ryan told me that he was going, and he'd meet me after. Fifteen minutes before the service was going to start, while I was still in bed, my phone chimed, letting me know I had a text.

So i guess i wont be seeing you at church this morning?

It was from my friend Craig, one of the few people who I felt could understand my unsettling feelings with church. I wrote back.

Haha no, kinda scared to show my face.

He replied. i would imagine! but think of how cool of a follow-up post that would make!!

I thought about it, but still wasn't convinced. Then he sent me another text.

i know the timing of this is late..but i really do miss seeing you when i make it to church. you're one of the first persons i look for.

There's very few times in my life where I can say, with a strong conscience, that I know God wanted me to do something. Usually it's a feeling, or a hunch, or a "this sounds like something that the God I'm used to talking to would like." But getting that text, from the person it was from, for a variety of reasons, left me little doubt that God was dropping me the not-so-subtle suggestion to get out of bed, and get to church.

Sneaking in late, I managed to find a seat without drawing too much attention to myself. The sermon was good, the worship music loud, and the friends I did see didn't treat me any differently. All in all, a pretty normal Sunday. Afterwards, I found someone my post had upset, and we talked it over in the hallway. Because he is someone loving, generous, and much wiser than I am, I listened to his concerns, and accepted his invitation to lunch, and then after lunch, Ryan and I went back to his and his wife's house for coffee. He raised some good points about how better I could have handled my concerns, and showed me things about how my writing affects people, that I'd never considered. The whole time we talked, what I felt was not condemnation, but love.

As the week went on, I got more messages, and more invitations to grab dinner, or coffee to talk. At first, my reaction was mostly embarrassment, at what appeared to be people taking my post as a cry for attention. But people were not pitying, or looking down on me. They were sharing with me that they appreciated my transparency, or that they too struggled with wondering if what they believed and did was right. It made me realize that my post wasn't a cry for attention, but a call for discussion.

The conversations did shed light on a major flaw in my logic. Over the past few months, in the spiritual waters of my faith in church, I've gotten angrier and angrier as my head sank lower below the surface. But instead of reaching out and putting my hands up, signaling that I was in danger of drowning, I just floated there, upset that no one came along to rescue me. What I didn't realize, was that by not signaling to someone that I needed help, no one was going to know I was in danger of giving up all together. My post was that signal. It took so long to cry for help, because deep down, I feared no one would care. That they'd welcome me, a troublemaker with tons of questions, finally leaving. What happened though, was that as soon as my church family saw me in trouble, they dove right in, and swam out to meet me. They got wet, and uncomfortable. For me.

The culmination of this realization occurred last night, at Starbucks, where Ryan and I met to talk to one of our church's leaders. We talked about why it was important to be involved with a spiritual body, why people reacted the way they did, and why I'm not the only one who doesn't agree with everything the church (lower and upper case) does.

He said something to me that I hadn't thought of.

"You and Ryan are about to be married, which is above all else, a commitment. Right now, you feel happy and great, but later on, there will be times when you don't feel like you want to be with each other. That doesn't change the commitment you made. Same thing goes with church. It doesn't have to be this one, but it's important to find one, and commit, and stay committed."

I took a sip of my coffee. "Even if I don't agree with everything?"

"Of course! Because if everyone that doesn't agree leaves, the church won't have those diverse voices, and it never has the chance to change or grow. Your voice is needed. Not everyone agrees with everything we do, but that doesn't change the fact that as a church family, we're committed to each other."

As simple as it sounds, hearing a leader tell me that it was okay, even welcome, for me to disagree and question, and struggle with my relationship with the church, reminded me of something I'd long forgot. Something I forgot I believed. That church is a family. Even if I feel like the black sheep, that doesn't mean I'm not a part of it. Or that deep down, even when it doesn't feel that way, I belong. Because of how God made me, it might be harder for me to find my place, or, if there's not a place for me, I might even have to make one. But that place will always be within a family of believers.

After about an hour and a half of talking with him, Ryan and I said goodbye, and walked back to our car. He grabbed my hand and held onto it.

"So, can we stay where we are?"

I squeezed his fingers and smiled at him.

"Yeah. I guess I'm not going anywhere."

Churchless

2011-11-09T13:14:00.001-05:00

Disclaimer: this post might upset some people, a few of them being friends and family I care deeply about. The things said below are NOT, I repeat NOT, a judgment on anyone who may believe or act in ways questioned below. I'm writing this to express the frustration and emotion I've been struggling with for a few months. I'm not trying to take anyone to task.

I haven't been going to church lately. My absence hasn't been out of laziness, or guilt, or even busyness. I do struggle with lazyness, have plenty in my life to feel guilty about, and with working full time, planning a wedding, and writing a book, busyness would be a convenient excuse. However, for the first time in nearly a decade, I've stopped going to church because my desire to is gone.

The past few months, when a sense of obligation has dragged me to church, I've sat there, emotionally un-involved, full of questions and concerns. What is the point of gathering 300 hundred to 1,000 (or more) Christians in one place, once or twice a week? Most would say that reason is to worship God, but what does that mean? To sing? Other than David, who was a musician, who else sang in the Bible? Did Jesus ever sing to his Father? Did the disciples? There's learning of course, and gaining knowledge and wisdom from scripture, but can't we do that in small groups? Bible studies? Do we really need to pay expensive heating, cooling, lighting, and maintenance bills to sit in a giant building once or twice a week and hear something we could listen to in a living room? How do we justify raising money for things like lighting, sound, furniture, and air conditioning, when there are so many other places where that money could go? Like maybe to that person in the congregation, who's wondering where their going to get the money for next months rent.

Maybe someone would tell me the reason for church, more than anything else, is community and accountability. Yet, for the past 4 months, I have been consistently absent from the church I've attended for three years, and only one person (other than the pastor) has said anything to me. No one has called, e-mailed, or asked me about my absences. Maybe the church is so big now, no one noticed.

Most of this frustration came to a head a few weeks ago. Not wanting to just cut out any type of spiritual direction or instruction all together, I was happy when someone invited me to a small Bible study that met in a neighbor of theirs home. I was, and still am, eager to find something spiritually satisfying that doesn't have all the above baggage that church has been weighing me down with. Ryan and I showed up early to this persons house, and were happy to meet a whole group of people who were friendly, kind, and genuine. They asked us questions, and while we shared a meal together, we got to know each other. It was something that reminded me of what it must have been like when early Christians got together.

But then, we went to the living room.

The man whose house it was sat down, and, since Ryan and I (and a few others) were new, went around explaining what was about to happen, and what the goal of their meeting was. It was about this time that the atmosphere changed, and everyone started acting "spacey." I'm assuming the proper term would be that they were, "drunk on the holy spirit." Regardless, the thoughts and feelings they were sharing, and the atmosphere went from normal, to spiritually, "supernatural." Kind of freaked me out. And I'm a Christian. I couldn't have imagined what it would have been like for someone who was not a believer.

The worst part, that really bothered me, came after the worship music, and prayer, during which I was sincerely and desperately trying to "feel" something like the people around me were. I talked to God the whole time, and asked Him to make me not so judgmental, if what was going on around me was something He really was doing. Finally, the man leading turned the worship music off, and asked everyone to share whatever "revelations" God had shared with them. After a few people went, he looked directly at me.

"Emily, I feel like God gave me a prophecy for you. Can I share that with you?"

I nodded my head, half curious, and half freaked out by what he might say. I'd just met this guy an hour ago, and we were in a room full of strangers.

"I got this vision, of a giant white hot needle piercing your heart. It is puncturing your heart, and coming through the other side."

Trying not to cringe, I kept nodding with as placid a look on my face as I could manage.

"The needle is so hot, that it's sealing the wound as soon as it's removed. It's like it's a surgeon's needle, and I get the sense that God is saying that your heart is wounded, and he wants to heal it. He wants you to know that whatever horrible, painful thing has happened to you in the past he will heal."

He stopped talking, and just kind of stared at me for a second. I think he wanted me to cry.

Searching my mind, I genuinely tried to think of something, anything, that his prophecy could apply to in my life. The thing is, I've been incredibly blessed and very few horrible things have happened to me. No one close to me has ever died, my family is wonderful, I'm in a loving and fulfilling relationship, and the worst thing that happened in my past - my broken engagement - God healed the pain from, years ago.

Everyone in the room was silent. As sincerely as I could I said, "Thank You", assuming he was done.

His eyes stayed on me. "So, is there something in your past that this prophecy applies to? Can you think of what God might want to heal you of? Do you want to share, or am I way off base?"

It's rare that I'm speechless. But this man I had just met, who was addressing me in a room full of strangers, asking me to publicly share something that, in his own words, was incredibly traumatic, left me flabbergasted. What if I had been raped? Lost a child? Abused by my father growing up? What if I had come to this Bible Study that night vulnerable, and scared of being exposed? If there had been anything, anything like that in my past, this man could have turned me off from God and Christians forever.

I paused. "Uhm. I don't want to say your way off base, but other than struggling lately to love Christians, I can't think of anything."

The night moved on, and Ryan and I left after two and half hours, while people were still praying.

During the car ride home, he and I talked about what upset us about the Bible Study. How everyone changed when it was time to be "spiritual." How they all seemed "spaced out" when it was time to talk about God. How, the most important part of the night seemed to be the "feeling" and emotional connection, the crying, or "spiritual laughing", or "high" that some people claim to get from God.

He and I both agreed that what upset us, was that to some people in the church, this desire for an "emotional connection" seemed to outweigh any other aspect of their faith. Maybe it's my Presbyterian background speaking, but it seems that it's not really knowing or serving God that defines some Christians, but "feeling" him. That's something I don't understand. Granted, I've had plenty of nights where I've fallen on my face and cried because of something God put on my heart, usually his love, but the more I grow closer to Him, the more I feel like those experiences are part of the "milk" young believers need, not the substantial "food" adults subsist on.

It's not when I'm crying, or listening to worship music that I feel God the most. It's when I'm DOING something for Him. Maybe it's as simple as having a conversation with a friend who's an agnostic, or praying for a random woman on the street who is upset. Or even dancing at a club with a friend who hours before, told me they're losing their faith. The times that my heart moves, and leaps, and feels God's presence the strongest, isn't when I'm sitting in some room or building, surrounded by other Christians, listening to a worship song. It's when I'm engaging with, and interacting with people. Most importantly, it's when I'm being normal. Me. Same tone in my voice, look in my eye, and same vocabulary as I'd use any other time. I'm not space cadet Emily, or "high on the Holy Spirit" Emily. I'm just Emily.

When I look around me, and see the friendships I have, with people on all walks of the spiritual journey, from staunchly atheist, to strongly agnostic, to vaguely spiritual, or firmly Christian, I realize that if it weren't for how God made me, "normal" in my faith, and how I view God, I'd never be as attractive to non-Christians as I am. It means a lot to me to hear my agnostic and atheist friends tell me, "If all Christians were like you, we might believe different than we do." I respect that, and agree with them. Which is why it's getting harder and harder for me to sit in a church building, or living room Bible study, surrounded by people whose view on what it means to connect with God is so different from mine.

I'm not sure where to go from here, but I do know that I won't be going there alone. I'm open to see if God changes my heart, brings a desire back to me for conventional church, or leads me to something different, where I can still be in a community of believers. Maybe something like this. Or this. All I know is I'm open, and I'm looking forward to seeing where God takes me.

Fourth Excerpt of my Book, "Leaving the Religious Lifestyle"

2011-11-02T11:41:00.000-04:00

My workshop is over, hallelujah! Six weeks of verbal smack-downs from writers who are seasoned in the art of the "critique" and don't give a rat's ass about hurting anyone's feelings. It's a good thing I have none. The workshop taught me an incredible amount of craft tools, techniques, and tips that I'm excited to implement in my book. The most important thing I learned though, is that I have a long road ahead of me, filled with edits, tears, edits, blood, sweat, edits, and more tears. Can't wait. Unfortunatley, this means it is taking me twice as long to write anything as it normally does (writing well is hard!) so while I work on my first post-workshop blog post, here is yet another excerpt from my book. There will be many more book excerpts to come, AND hopefully, if my graphic designer gets my cover done soon, I'll put my first five chapters up on Authonomy. Get excited.

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The e-mails kept coming. More often. Longer. Before logging into my Gmail account every morning, I played a little game in my mind. No messages today meant there was hope they’d change their mind. Unread e-mail sitting in my inbox indicated a chance to explain myself. Make them see the good in my intentions.

The little bold black number alerted me to a new message. My heart raced and I held my breath.

“I’m sorry if you’re offended, but I’m not sorry for what I wrote...yes, I’m concerned for your spiritual health and those you are trying to witness to.”

I let out a long, exasperated breath and shook my head. Rolled the button to scroll down the page.

“Did you hear me say, ‘I hate gays?’ Never said that. God hates them if they continue to live in sin, as he does any unrepentant sinner. You can't disagree with Scripture, or can you? There is no such thing as a Christian homosexual, neither are there Christian fornicators/adulterers or Christian drug abusers/alcoholics.”

My fingers hovered over the keyboard, itching to type a reply. Hit the “delete” button instead. Wasn’t worth another angry phone call, like the one received after my last attempt to “explain.” Went to check my blog instead. The “new comment” alert sent my stomach into an unpleasant flip.

The commenter and e-mailer were one and the same. A new-to-the-family aunt who just married my divorced Uncle. She had met me twice. We clashed over politics, like I did with most of my family, but other than a few small arguments, the meeting had been uneventful. Her frequent, long, heated responses baffled me. They started shortly after my family found out my plans to attend the city’s upcoming gay pride festival.

Leaning closer to the screen, my eyes scanned her words.

“What is wrong with standing up for what the Bible teaches? It seems Emily is more quick to judge biblical Christians than haters of the gospel. If we really have a love for the lost souls of this world, we would at some point confront them regarding their sin, so they could repent and have eternal life.”

“Confront them regarding their sin” stuck out. The “them” referred to the gay and lesbian people she so feared and despised. Friends of mine. People I’d laughed, cried, and shared meals with. They weren’t a “them”, they were Chris, Greg, Tyler. My aunt didn’t know, or care, that Chris was my best friend for sixteen years, since we were ten. Or that Greg’s mother told him at least once a week how disgusted his sexuality made her. She had no idea church brought Tyler and I together, and we’d spent hours discussing our faith.

I turned off the computer, put on my sneakers and went for a walk, determined not to let the messages make my cry. Passing my old elementary school with a brisk pace, my mind played back to the events of the past year since Chris came out to me. All the conversations. Experiences. He, and Tyler and Greg, telling me they prayed for years for God to take away their feelings and change them. The more we talked, the more the doubt grew in my mind that being gay was a choice. I’d been raised to believe that sexuality was something God didn’t “mess up.” But, if it wasn’t a choice, that meant God, whose existence I never doubted, created people who were gay. That changed everything.

The words from a previous e-mail flashed across my mind, stinging me as I plodded along the sidewalk.

“Remember that many members of the LGBT have an agenda and they want to legalize their lifestyle on all of us. They want affirmation. They want the rest of us to embrace them and accept them regardless of our Christian principles.”

I wanted to accomplish the exact thing my Aunt cautioned me against. Affirmation. Acceptance. Embracing, like the night I tightly hugged Tyler, after he told me when he came out to his mother, she threw up. Attending Pride wasn’t an act of disobedience to God. It was my understanding of what God is – love – that motivated me to reach out into this unfamiliar territory. It was doing what Christ commanded, loving the people that had been hurt and abused. Showing them that God loved them too, despite what the people who hated them said. What made it hard, was the people behind the hate, were the very ones who have been commanded to love. The ones I grew up attending church with. The ones that grew up with me, my family.

Exhausted, mentally and physically, I stopped walking, and bent over to rest my hands on my knees. Without noticing where I was going, I’d come to the park that Chris and I had spent every day after school in, when we were little. The smell of mulch filled my nose, and the sound of the decades old rusty swings creaking filled me with remembrance. I walked over and sat down on the swing that Chris used to push me on, underneath the tree that provided the perfect amount of shade. Slowly, my toes pushed off the ground, rocking me back and forth. My legs dangled. Closing my eyes, and tilting my face up to feel the sun peeking through the leaves, I started to pray.

Happy Halloween!!

2011-10-31T14:22:00.002-04:00

From Pete and Artie!

Baby Otters Make Everything Better

2011-10-24T14:39:00.000-04:00

Call of the search party, Un-alert the media, and put back the blood hounds - I'm alive. The lack of recent posts is due to me currently being a tad overextended. Turns out that taking a very intensive six-week writers workshop while at the same time planing a wedding, is a lot harder than I thought. My rule is normally at least one blog post a week, and it's been over two without, so to all four of you reading this, I apologize. This Wednesday is my last workshop, so posts should pick back up after that. Already working on two or three ideas that are sure to piss off somebody. Til then.

(if you substitute the word "clam" for "blog post" this photo makes sense)

Bring On the Chiffon!

2011-10-09T11:59:00.000-04:00

Well this is awkward. Just a couple of months ago I wrote two blog posts detailing every concern, worry, and gripe I had about marriage...and now I'm getting married. Too bad all those posts about wanting a book proposal haven't spurned the same effect.

Ryan, my boyfriend (now fiance) of the past two years proposed three weeks ago at the main downtown library, while I was sitting and working on my book. He totally and completely surprised me, while I was in my favorite place in Jacksonville, doing what I love. It was perfect. I was so happy and surprised that the librarian yelled at me, which made it all even better. The past two weeks have been a blur of excitement, planning, budgeting, stress, and contemplating if my life would be more complete with a $200 juicer.

As ridiculously excited as it is to marry your best friend, it's also kind of nerve wracking. Especially for someone as vocal about their opinions on marriage as me. What if people think I'm a hypocrite? What if my wedding is just like everyone else's I've griped about? What if getting engaged suddenly transforms me into the exact type of bride I've decried? Am I going to start breathing fire and crushing buildings as soon as I put on a chiffon dress?

So far that hasn't really happened. Having a ring on my finger didn't instantly change my opinions on the ridiculousness of expensive floral centerpieces, matching shiny bridesmaids dresses that can be "shortened and worn again", or the audacity of asking people to attend multiple showers for the sake of reeling in gifts. But at the same time, I now see exactly how easy it is for brides to totally and completely give into the monster that is the "wedding industry." This monster is very alluring, and pretty, and charming, and promises you that you are unique, and special, and therefore deserve this ridiculous $250 chip & dip bowl, or your marriage will never succeed. (Yes, this is a real thing. From the same store that sells a floating beer cooler shaped like a fishing bob.)

I know all of this about the monster, because Ryan and I registered for gifts yesterday. I started the day like this:

"I love you so much, I am so excited, this is so exciting right? I can't believe we're getting married!"

and ended like this:

"WHY are you being so CHEAP!?! Who says I can't have a $14.99 serving spoon!? It's stainless steel, and matches our color scheme, I NEED it! Our friends will WANT to spend money on us!"

No dramatization included.

The fact that I was able to walk into Bed, Bath and Beyond feeling pretty content and happy with my life, and confident in Ryan and I's future marriage, yet walked out convinced that if we didn't get the $250 set of copper pots and pans, that we were doomed never to find happiness again, shows how powerful the wedding monster is.

After four, literally, four hours in two stores, both of our spirits were totally defeated. Ryan held up a poop brown tablecloth.

"How about this one?" He said. God help him, he was really trying, and being supportive.

I was slumped over, drool coming out of the corner of my mouth, eyes glazed over as if I had been taking a shot every time we scanned something.

"Humph. Don't care. Want to go home." Wedding shopping sometimes makes you forget how to use syllables.

When we were sitting in my living room last night, devouring the Five Guys lunch that we totally burned enough calories to justify, we debriefed. Ryan very lovingly and patiently helped me to see how insane I was being earlier. Once out of the bright fluorescent lighting and away from the salespeople who convinced me that I would regret for the rest of my life not registering for fine china, I agreed with him. We deleted the $14.99 sterling serving spoon. Kept the $50 ice cream maker though because that really would make our lives better.

Looking back, I can see that the thing I learned most from the entire experience wasn't that getting engaged turned me into a materialistic hypocrite. It was that Ryan and I really are good together. He is one of the only people I have ever met who frequently tells me "no", and points out when I am being ridiculous. Even crazier, I actually listen to him. While we definitely did squabble yesterday, we talked, compromised, disagreed, overcame disagreement, and ended the night feeling very much in love. Not trying to rub it in or anything.

Moral of the story? You can have a full, happy life without $14.99 serving spoons. But only if you have an ice cream maker.

Poor Punctuation? Walk The Plank!

2011-09-26T11:46:00.000-04:00

Last Wednesday I started a six week writers workshop, that will meet for three hours every Wednesday night until the end of October. There are ten writers in attendance. Like the last workshop, I am about 40 years younger than most attendees. We have a ship captain (with his dog in tow), a female former navy commander, a retired semi-professional athlete, and many other fascinating backgrounds that make my past 26 years look boring. The leader of the workshop is none other than the "book Nazi" I wrote about, whose session I attended at the UNF Writers Conference. She practically forced me to attend her personal workshop, and seeing how I'm equal parts scared and in awe of her, I agreed.

The workshop meets on her and her husbands shanty boat, on the Trout River in Jacksonville. Before she told me about her workshop, I had no idea what a shanty boat was. To me, "shanty" meant "crappy", so I thought she was just being humble. After Googling, it turned out that "shantyboat" means "crude house boat" , so I wasn't too far off from the Webster's definition. My expectations were low.

Then I went and visited, and totally fell in love. The boat is basically a floating studio apartment. Living room. Kitchen. Porch Deck. Kind of frightening bathroom. It has everything! I'd been on plenty of boats, including boats with bedrooms, but this is something entirely different. (That's it above, but the picture doesn't do it much justice.)

There wasn't much time to look around (not that the boat is large enough to require a tour) before we got started. Much to my unhappy surprise, the writers in this workshop were not just seasoned in life, they were also seasoned in workshops. This being my third go round at having work critiqued, I wasn't too worried. Foolishly confident that the (few and far between) criticisms would just roll off my back. Oh how naive.

I got torn to shreds.

After nearly three years writing, blogging, editing, and publishing work, it amazes me how much I can miss when I'm reading my own stuff. I had typos. Grammatical errors. Misuses of tense. I used the word "I" 25 times in one paragraph. I know this because the guy pointing it out actually counted (thanks dude.) It was like standing naked in a room full of supermodels, while they stared at every imperfection on my body and discussed them among each other. In a word, it sucked.

However, I'm totally looking forward to going back.

It's kind of like how even though you're exhausted and nauseated after a good workout, you still feel good. As sore and bruised as my ego is, I'm looking forward to another lashing. Not because I'm a masochist, but because I care about my writing, and want it to be as good as it as I can be. There is always room for improvement. Like with any skill, improving means work, and pain. Hopefully, when all is said and done five weeks from now, I won't just have battle wounds to show for it, but a sharper, cleaner, more skillful writing technique.

If I survive.

Getting Mad At Your Heroes: The Florida Gators Edition

2011-09-16T10:05:00.000-04:00

This is the third installment of the "Getting Mad at Your Heroes" series (Parts one and two here and here.) Like I promised, this edition if brought to you by a guest writer - the wonderful, talented, funny, one and only, Ryan Reaves. Earlier this year he was writing a sports column for the newspaper, so I asked him to tackle (heh, see what I did there?) the sports edition of this series. As a FSU alum, I balked when he said he wanted to write about the gators on MY blog, but after reading his piece, I'm glad I conceded. But back off ladies - he's taken.

Walking into Ben Hill Griffin Stadium on an early July evening can be a pretty surreal experience for anyone who watches college football or breathes.

Emily, her sister Stephanie and I made our way through the one gate left open for visitors and students who stayed in Gainesville for summer classes. Being the only Florida fan of us three, I gave somewhat of a grand tour of the place when we walked into the empty stadium. Now I’ve been to this place plenty of times and seen both epic showdowns and routine cakewalk games, but this was something else.

I could smell the fresh-cut grass on the field and hear the echo of footsteps from someone running up the bleachers in the north endzone. It’s strange how my most memorable experience in The Swamp will be the day I walked in when it was empty. No orange and blue face paint. No Tebow chants. No football. No fans. Just silence.

While the past five years of Florida football have been the stuff I dreamed of when I was a kid, it’s surprising that it would be the same five years that ruined the experience of being a Gator fan forever. I’m not saying that the level of success we had makes me believe the team is going downhill from here. I’m saying the deifying of Tim Tebow coupled with the ever-increasing sense of entitlement has made me lose respect and camaraderie I had for Gator fans.

Don’t get me wrong. Tim Tebow is the greatest player to put on an orange helmet and is arguably among college football’s greatest athletes. I even got the chance to meet him shortly after he won the Heisman and based on my encounter, he’s even a better person off the field. But why did we have to turn the future fourth string Denver Bronco into Superman? Why carve poorly-rendered wooden statues of him in our backyard bbq? Why put him in Jockey commercials awkwardly telling us we “got to feel this shirt”?

What the average person sees as just another football player, Gator fans see as a clean-cut domesticated All-American Jesus, wearing a grass-stained blue jersey and sporting John 3:16 on his eye blacks. The media saw how the fans worshipped Tebow and got the phenomenon bandwagon going. Now struggling in Denver, fans and media are SHOCKED at the fact that the once invincible Tebow is now vulnerable and human.

What is it about us that makes us put so much pressure on people? Are we so desperate for some kind of “real” savior that we’ll idolize almost anyone? To many, Tim Tebow is the only Jesus they’ll believe in.

The thing about people, teams, organizations, movements, etc. is that when we put too much stock in them, they’ll eventually and inevitably let us down. That’s why God warns us against idols.

It’s good to be a part of something bigger than yourself; whether you’re a fan, a teammate, a member, a citizen or a follower. But we have to be careful with how much of our identity we put into something that’s manmade. Looking at the world through team-colored glasses can blind us from seeing the whole picture and sometimes the truth. The same is true in things like politics. If most of your identity lies in your political beliefs, then objectivity becomes a challenge if not impossible.

Until we see our identities for what they truly are, we’ll never be free. As someone who’s struggled with finding their identity, I can vouch for this. Learning that I am both worse than I could possibly imagine while being loved more than I could hope for has been the foundation of my new identity.

Getting Mad At Your Heroes - The Governmental Edition

2011-09-09T09:46:00.003-04:00

This is the second installment of the new series where I (and a guest blogger or two) explore what happens when the people, or organizations, we look up to let us down. Part one here.
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If you are reading this, you no doubt have some access to the internet, and internet news. Which means this week you have probably seen numerous stories firmly, or sometimes incredibly loosely, based on this weekend’s 10th Anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Without a doubt, the world as we know it changed the day that nearly 3,000 Americans were killed in the NYC twin towers, and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. It changed for many reasons. Americans no longer had the illusion of safety on their shores, the US government took new, historic measures to secure "freedom and safety" for its citizens, and personal liberties were no longer something any American took for granted. If you've flown or watched the news at all since 2001, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

But those changes aren't the only ones that have occurred in the ten years since. We've seen the President change from a two term Conservative white gentlemen, to a junior Senator liberal black man. Watched as Congress elected new members. And more recently, saw, and participated, in the rise of a new, vocal, angry political party that has an affinity for a certain traditional English beverage.

In the ten years that have past tensions have rose, tempers have flared, words have been flung like arrows, and thousands of people have died in wars fought in the name of freedom.

There is no doubt that some people, particularly those in disagreement with the current President, are mad as hell. I know this not just because I watch the news, but because many people that I love and care about, consider themselves members of this Tea Party. We fight on Facebook. Argue over Glenn Beck. Exchange email forwards. And it gets us nowhere. Because fundamentally, we will never agree on one thing, that is the root cause for so much of this anger.

As unpopular as it is to say this week, the truth is, America is not a hero of mine.

Before you encourage me to move to France and kick me out with your crocs, know that I am not anti-American. I am so grateful that I was born in this country, one of the safest, developed, and prosperous nations in the world. The opportunities given to me just because I am American are endless. This country is incredible, and I know it, and I gladly pay taxes, vote, eat hot dogs, and follow the laws of the land I live in.

But I haven't said the pledge in years. Or sang the national anthem. I don't fly a flag. Yet, I harbor no hatred or disrespect in my heart for my amazing country. I just don't participate in rituals that I feel declare my loyalty to the American kingdom, when my heart is loyal to God's.

I don't believe that my country should be a hero, because America as an entity and ideal, is nothing more than a governmental structure. As a Christian, to hold it as anything more would be idolatry. What I hold in high esteem in America is not the documents, traditions, and laws that dictate how it's run - but the people who reside within it. What baffles me is when people personify America (often as a sick, beaten up old woman) while in the same breath de-humanizing and vilifying the citizens within it who they disagree with.

"America" is not a hero of mine, because I've seen what the idolatry of country does to people when the nation (or people running it) lets them down. The Tea Party happens. Islamic extremist terrorists happen. This happens. And this. People on both sides lose their minds, so overcome and driven with fear and anger, that they forget non-Americans and non-Christians are people. Living, breathing, thinking, feeling, people just like them, who God created the same.

"America" is not alive. It does not breathe. Or feel. The people within its confines do. They are the ones who have spent the past 10 years recovering, and reeling, from the shock of the evil acts carried out by extremists on their soil.

What amazes me is how many people who consider the nation of America heroic, forget that the attacks on 9/11 happened to every American. Gay, straight, Christian, Muslim, Jew, White, Black, working, or on welfare. We all had to adjust to the new world - some of us had to learn how to be hated for our religion. Some of us had to learn what it was like when family relationships fractured over political beliefs. But all of us - every one - was an American the whole time. This is not a new concept. America has never been made up of only one party, one way of thought, or one religion.

When the people that call America heroic forget that the country was never theirs - is when they begin to forget that the nations true heroism lies in the ability of its citizens to co-exist.

Yet Another Sneak Peek Of My Book!

2011-09-01T10:20:00.001-04:00

I'll be on vacation from today until Monday,with limited internet access, so I won't be able to write the next post of the "Getting Mad At Your Heroes" series until next week. Since I don't like to go more than a week without posting, that means you get another (lucky you) sneak peek at my book! Huzzah!
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I have nicknames for the people I frequently see at the gym. These people don’t know about these nicknames of course, even though I’ve been dangerously close to saying them to their faces. There’s the elderly man of very slight build who always seems to swim laps while I am, only he does it underwater in fins and a mask (scuba Steve.) The guy who’s shoulder and arm muscles are so big that he looks like a gorilla when he walks (Koko.) There’s the small Hispanic man who seems to know everyone who is constantly laughing like a mad scientist (Mr. Giggles.) My worst enemy, the terrifying man who quite possible reeks so bad all the time because he eats people (Buffalo Bill.) And of course, there’s the young women that always seem to be going 45 miles an hour on the elliptical without sweating or messing up their perfect hair, bodies, sports bra/shorts outfits, or make-up (bitches.)

Sometimes I wonder if they have a nickname for me. I imagine it’d be something like, “girl who sure is trying.” Or “girl who wears the same unflattering yoga pants everyday.” Those are probably much too long for nicknames. Maybe it's something like, “the fat pretty girl.” That’s as good as I can hope for.

I was stretching before my workout on one of the disgustingly soiled yoga mats in the locker room. The girl across from me, who I hadn’t even noticed, suddenly out of the blue said “Hello!”

I was a little startled, but said, “Hi” back.

She kept stretching. “Have you taken any of the classes here?” she said.

I started to panic. Do I know this person? She doesn’t look familiar at all! Mentally I went through everyone I pass in the hallways at work and church. It’s usually church people I forget. High school? Where did I go to high school again?

“Not in a while. I took a kickboxing one a month ago, but the instructor acted like she was on crack and I almost threw up” I watched her face for recognition while I talked.

“Oh I know that instructor! She was scary!” She laughed.

I laughed too. “I need to take another class, but I like watching TV too much when I work out.”

“I’m taking Zumba in 20 minutes if you want to come!”

Again I was taken aback. I definitely decided that I didn’t know her, yet she was being super nice and friendly and I couldn’t figure out why.

“I can’t dance, or I would. I’m just going to do a short workout today, but thanks for the invite!” I was done stretching so I got up. “I’m Emily by the way.”

She smiled. “I’m Amy! Nice to meet you.”

I smiled back, this time genuinely. “Nice to meet you too.”

I thought about my interaction with Amy the whole time I was working out. All she did was politely say “hello”, yet it was so spontaneous and unusual that it startled me. I’m used to walking by a dozen women in the locker room without so much as a nod, and then working out for an hour or so without saying anything to the people around me. It’s normal and routine to be in my little bubble, not interacting, only noticing the people around me enough to give them less-than-kind nicknames. I started to think about what would happen if I spontaneously said “hello” to scuba Steve the next time I was swimming. Maybe ask him to give me tips on how to hold my breath underwater. I thought about what would have happened if I’d been more flexible and taken the Zumba class with Amy. Maybe we would have exchanged numbers, started meeting up to work out, and become friends.

It occurred to me that these people I saw week after week and never talked to were not actually just caricatures to silently mock, but real people, with real lives, families, and feelings. Even the skinny ones.

About five minutes into my cool down, I was exhausted, but not from my workout. I was worn out from the marathon of realization my brain was running through. At pretty much any point in my day, I had the choice to either reach out, or draw myself in. If I chose to reach out and engage with people, I had the ability to open myself up to new experiences, conversations, and even relationships. If I chose to be withdrawn, and live in my own bubble, I was closing myself off to a multitude of people who could positively (or negatively) impact my life. People like Amy. I didn’t have to be that creepy person who walks around with a smile all the time, trying to talk to people who just want to be left alone, but I also didn’t have to be that person who just wants to be left alone either.

I got off the elliptical. On the way to the locker room I smiled and made eye contact with everyone that passed me. When I got there I looked for Amy, but she wasn’t back from Zumba.

Oddly enough, I haven't seen her at the gym since.

Getting Mad at Your Heroes - The Don Miller Edition

2011-08-26T10:12:00.004-04:00

This is the first installment in a new series where I (and perhaps a guest blogger or two) will be examining what happens when the people we admire and look up to, let us down. First up is writers/theologians.

The first time I encountered Blue Like Jazz, the popular best seller from Christian author Donald Miller, was freshmen year of college. I was going door to door in my all-girl dorm with my Campus Crusade Bible study leader, an anorexially thin manic 26 year old who slightly scared me. We were passing out "freshmen survival packs." These held snacks, school supplies, a Bible, a Christian CD, and a copy of the much talked about book by an author I was yet unfamiliar with. It was not exactly my idea of a fun Friday afternoon.

After more than a few annoyed looking grumpy girls slammed doors in our faces, or demanded to know what we wanted in return, my Bible Study leader gave up, and left me with the remaining dozen bags or so. With nothing better to do I went back to my dorm, plopped on my bed, cracked open a "survival pack" can of Pringles, and started reading Blue Like Jazz.

It floored me.

For years I had been festering doubts and questions about why I believed what I did about God. I kept quiet about my growing spiritual cynicism, and tried to drown it in mini "vacations" from my faith (that usually involved alcohol and things that would make my mom cry.) It never occurred to me that I could actually talk about my struggles, or that talking about them could actually strengthen my faith. From Blue Like Jazz, I started to read other books that helped me as I questioned why I believed what I believed, and what I was going to do about it. Donald Miller was my gateway drug to spiritually open literature. From him I went to Shane Claiborne, Rob Bell, Brian McLaren, and others that helped me to come out on the other side stronger in my faith. Finally I was excited about what I believed, because I owned my faith myself. But no matter how many different "edgy" Christian authors I devoured, Don was first, and special. Years later, when I decided to become a writer, he was someone who inspired me not just spiritually, but professionally as well. In many ways, he's been a hero of mine. A little over a year ago, I got to meet him when he was on tour with Susan Isaacs. Sitting on his bus, drinking beer, talking about the stories in his books, was more than just a little surreal.

Two weeks ago, when the Christian blogosphere blew up in Miller's face over two posts he made (since taken down) on how to live a good love story, I was reluctant to enter the fray. Bloggers I respected, like Rachel Held Evans, were quickly and firmly responding to his posts, in ways with which I agreed. After almost a week, I finally gave in and read both posts (they had been taken down by then, but a friend sent me cached versions.)

I was horrified.

Some of the things Miller said, from,

"..when your husband finds out you were the “hook up” girl he’s going to have to have a lot of grace, which is fine, it just puts you in the category of “charity” in his mind and not “equal” or “partner.” He may still love you, but he will have serious questions...Unless you get over it and move on and do a period of time where you put it all behind you, he will and honestly should lose respect for you"

to

"Have you ever noticed that ancient paintings of women always have them draped over a bed or a couch, arms outstretched in rest? And yet the guys are yielding a sword or riding a horse or captaining a ship. That’s because men were designed to work?"

made my jaw drop open with shock and anger. Here was someone I greatly admired, respected, and looked up to, saying things I vehemently disagreed with. I didn't think it needed to be said that women have more worth than their virginity, and, like men, were made to work. The fact Miller was saying, what looked to be the opposite, made me ready to throw in the towel on my whole idol worship of him.

Which I realized, was a good thing.

When I read Don's posts, I wasn't processing them as I would the words of some writer with whom I disagreed. I felt personally attacked. It wasn't an opinion that was so objectionable, it was from whom the opinion was originating. Don, like so many of the other Christian authors and bloggers whose words shaped my worldview, had become a surrogate apostle. Him and the others weren't just up on a pedestal, they were up on holy rafters. I had forgotten that it was these writers words which affected me, and shaped me, words which I believed were inspired by God (much like the writers of the Bible) not the authors themselves. So when Don said something that didn't line up with my belief system, those posts weren't something I was able to disagree with on their own. They threatened to make me question everything he had ever said. And that is totally my problem, not Don's.

The problem wasn't only mine. By the time he took his posts down, they had over 1,000 comments. To put it in perspective, the posts leading up to those had anywhere from 50-100 comments. Sure, people get fired up when sex, gender, marriage, and relationships get brought up. Everyone has an opinion. But that's not the only reason Don's page was flooded with people adamantly agreeing and disagreeing with him. Don has (I'd venture to say) unwillingly become a beacon through which countless young people have found their faith in the fog of cynicism and doubt. For that beacon to betray us, and point us towards the rocky shore of convention, is scary. But our reaction, is our responsibility, not his. Don is not responsible for our faith, nor is any other author, blogger, preacher, or religious leader. Nor are our parents, teachers, or friends.

If you place your trust and faith in the hands of a person, any person, you will be disappointed and let down. You might even question if what you believe is right. No man, woman, or spiritual leader is perfect, and if we put them on pedestals, we run the risk of them falling off. That is why our faith HAS to be only put in God, and what he has spoken to us. We have to remember that whatever, or whoever he chooses to speak to us through is just the messenger, not the sender. Realizing that frees them from the responsibility of never letting us down.

I'm not excusing what Don said. I very much disagree with many of his points. That doesn't mean though that I should write him off. It doesn't mean that he is not someone I can still respect, and that deserves a chance to explain himself. The way Don has handled it, taking the posts down, asking questions, explaining that he made mistakes, is extremely admirable. Even if he hadn't, that wouldn't have given me a write to angrily and emotionally take to his site to tell him how much he let me down. It was never his job to keep me up.

I look forward to Don's follow up post. Even if I disagree with him again.

Bizarro World Me Looks Like Heidi Klum

2011-08-17T11:52:00.000-04:00

"Welcome to Moe's!" is what greets me every time I step foot into the chain "Mexican" restaurant I visit only when every other place is too busy. Whenever I walk into the gaudily decorated, cramped, poorly lit eatery, shuffle through the line to order my Americanized ethnic food, and hand my money to the kid in the visor, I wonder, "where did I go wrong?" I jest. But since moving to the "boho" part of my city, I have become slightly more refined in my tastes. Buying local produce. Eating at non-chain restaurants. Visiting the one screen indie theater. And repeat. So I always secretly feel guilty when I partake in the artificially flavored chemically altered "food" that is Moe's.

It was this past Friday that I found myself at Moe's on my lunch break, somewhat begrudgingly. My first two choices of places were too busy, so right smack dab in the middle of the payday lunch rush, Ryan and I walked into the restaurant, and got in the very back of the extremely long line.

"Oh you can go ahead" said the tall, dark haired guy about my age, with one of those faces that looks like someone you know. Oh wait. This was someone I knew. This was that guy...oh what's his name...the popular one who went out with the cheerleader....and then that other cheerleader...oh crap. "Hey! How are you?" We both said at the same time, probably mutually forgetting each other's names. I'm simultaneously happy and stressed to be running into this person. Happy, because this is the first time I have run into someone from high school while I was with Ryan, and I could introduce and show off my super hot awesome boyfriend. Stressed, because this person was not someone I was friends with at all, and the line at Moe's was long enough that I either had 15 minutes of awkward conversation, or awkward silence ahead of me.

I chose conversation.

"So, are you married, or have kids, or any of that weird grown up stuff I still feel strange asking?" I said, just as cringe-worthingly as it sounds. It was one of those questions you ask to be polite, but really already know the answer too. This guy, I finally remembered his name (we'll call him Devin) was the extremely popular, very cute, very "social", star athlete type in high school, so to picture him married just eight years past graduation seemed laughable.

"Yep, married, no kids yet though. Oh there she is, this is my wife." I shook hands with the sweet looking blonde woman, and tried to hide my surprise. They lived in the same neighborhood I grew up in. Because it has good schools. For their future kids. They have a black Labrador.

I felt like I was in some kind of bizarro world where I suddenly was old, and everyone my age had a mortgage and talked about lawn irrigation.

He, his wife, Ryan and I, talked throughout the whole line, catching up on work, and mutual friends, (almost all who are married with one or more kids by now) and life in our town. By the time we parted for separate tables, I almost forgot that Devin and I never once, I don't believe, every had an actual conversation in high school. Ryan was pretty surprised when I told him this, and I couldn't stop thinking about how strange it was how so much can change in nine years.

Nine years ago I was in high school, single, excited to start college, sure that I was going to end up employed in the political world after getting my degree, very conservative, and of course, highly motivated by "popularity." Senior year of high school was the only year that I was even remotely, briefly, "popular", and only because I was befriended by an "A list" girl who let me eat at the "cool" table with her during lunch. It was something I was so proud of, and I thought was so significant. Even though most of the "cool" kids never talked to me. They secretly probably made fun of me. It didn't matter though, because I wanted so badly to fit in, and thought that being "popular" positively affected you for the rest of your life. I was sure of it.

Fast forward nine years, and I'm standing in line at Moe's with one of the most "popular" kids, who's put on just as much weight since high school as I have, and we're having a mature, polite, grown up conversation with our significant others. And while there's nothing wrong with it - I don't want his life. Or care if I'm in it. And those people I used to care so much about impressing? They don't affect me in the slightest.

It's the kind of experience I wish I could bottle up, package, and mail to my past self, to show her that those things she thinks are so important, and significant? Those things don't matter. You know what matters? Being a good person. Acting kind to others, especially to the kids no one else is. Learning. Caring about who you are, more than who people think you are.

It's also an experience I wish I could give to all the teenagers and children who are miserable right now, suffering through the hell that being different in school can feel like. Show them that if they can just make it through the next four, or six, or seven years, that the world as they know it will absolutely be different, and broader, and most likely better. I wish there was a way to convince these kids that the world they live in now, the one that is so small and seems so rigid and impossible to survive, is really just a tiny blip on the line of their life. Adolescence is like heartbreak. While you're in it, you never think you'll survive, or reach the end, and you are sure if you don't get what you want, then you will never ever be happy. But eventually, you do survive, and it does end, and you realize you are happy even though you never got that thing you thought you would die without.

I never thought that Moe's would be the place where I'd have that kind of epiphany, but I realized over my cheese quesadilla, that for me, it "got better" a long time ago. Life got so much better, and I was so busy enjoying it, that I never noticed how far I'd came. Or more accurately, how far God had brought me.

The experience was a good reminder that I need to spend less time asking God for things I think will make me happy, and more time thanking him for what he's already given me. Like the life I have now, that is richer and fuller than I ever could have imagined it would be. And the recognition that, no matter how big the struggle is, or how painful the times ahead may be, it will get better.

No Book For You!!

2011-08-09T21:52:00.005-04:00

The first thing I saw when I pulled up in the parking lot was a middle aged woman who resembled my third grade English teacher. She was dancing exuberantly in her car to the latest top 40 Latino pop song. With both windows down. In a PT cruiser.

It was a pretty appropriate start to the writer conference that I attended this past weekend. As much as I'd like to think I'm cool, and unique, and the real life fatter version of Zooey Deschaneal - I am not. Because I am a writer. And writers are weird.

Picking out my favorite moment of the conference is about as hard as figuring out why the lady I sat next to at Saturday's lunch, was carrying a giant Tupperware container holding a baby squirrel. Was it the serious looking older gentlemen who walked with a military gait, that for some odd reason had a head full of bright, ocean blue hair? Or the joy I got from hearing the seventy year old, Seinfeld-esque Jewish man in my workshop read my dialogue in my book aloud. I can honestly say I never before imagined what my voice would sound like if I was a seventy year old Jewish man from the Bronx, but I can tell you now that it sounds AWESOME. Or perhaps, more seriously, it was when the conference director came into the room with the event videographer, then audibly gasped and exclaimed, "wow", when an excerpt from my book was read. That made me very proud.

No, the best part was by far my instructor for the Non-Fiction workshop where I spent the majority of the weekend. Before I met her, I had the chance to talk to her on the phone, and I knew almost immediately I would love her. Imagine my delight when I heard the voice of a woman born at the same time as my grandparents say the following:

"Emily, real writers write because they want their words read by other people. They get off on it. The first time I saw my words in print I had an orgasm."

If I had been drinking something I would have spit it out.

She was just as cantankerous, loud, bold, to-the-point, and unsympathetic as I hoped. I was shocked, truly shocked, that she didn't make the sweet Midwestern housewife in our group cry, when she kept yelling at her for being too soft spoken. Or that she didn't give the nice, older accountant gentleman a heart attack when she tore apart his manuscript 15 minutes after we started. Not that she wasn't an excellent instructor; the advice and encouragement I received from her and the other students in the workshop was invaluable to me and my craft. But.

One thing she did not like was being interrupted. The classroom where our workshop met was conveniently at the front of the conference center. The good part of that was that we were right by the front doors, so she could escape for a smoke break. The bad part of that was that we were one of the first classrooms that people came across, and it was in a spot easily mistaken for one that was further down the hall.

"OK, on page 3, chapter one, we're going to discu-" The door swung open. Everyone in the workshop stopped reading and looked up. The mother and her young son apologized and shut the door. "Alright, let's get back to it, who was reading? Cydni? We're on the part where Har-" Again the door is yanked open, this time by a group of three kids who looked surprised to see old people sitting around the table. They quickly shut the door. "For crying out loud!" For every page we read, this repeated about four times. Each time our instructor got more and more annoyed. "No, this is not your classroom! This isn't it!" She moved towards the door to close it as she spoke, and the little girl standing in the doorway with her hand on the handle, looked like she was frozen for a few seconds before she scampered away.

Someone from our workshop figured out that there was a class originally scheduled for our room, that was moved down the hall, so they got a sign and put a note on the door that said, "This is not your classroom, the class previously here has moved to room 1077." Not long after that, we locked the door, only to have people continue trying to open it, some even knocking.

One time, upon opening the door and finding a mom and her two sons standing there, the instructor, quite annoyed, said, "Can you read? Did you see the sign on the door? This is not your room. Your room is down the hall." The mom scrunched her face up and dropped her mouth open to angrily say, "Excuse me." Then she stormed away. This exchange happened a few more times, until the barrage of children subsided. After three critiques we got a bathroom break, and on my way down the hall I happened to glance back and notice a sign that hadn't been there when our class first got started. It was right in front of our door, with a small arrow pointing down to another classroom.

It said, "Youth Reading Enrichment Program - Room 1077."

Oh hell. Could you imagine being that parent? You open a door expecting someone who will patiently and gently aid your child with their word comprehension, and instead you get the older female version of the Soup Nazi berating you and your kid for not knowing how to read. What are the odds. I can't even make this stuff up.

I know this much - I'm signing up for the next workshop!

Opposites Attract - Not Just A Saying - Science!

2011-08-03T09:19:00.002-04:00

The first time I met my friend Katy, I thought she was a total weirdo. She had earrings made out of soda can toppers, a T-Shirt with the name of some band I had never heard of, and pants that looked like they were from Goodwill (because they were.) I was a snotty kid from the 'burbs who was about as offbeat and original as a romantic comedy starring Jennifer Aniston, and I was upset that we were picked to be bed-mates at the Christian weekend retreat we were attending. It took me about two days and four conversations before I realized she was one of the coolest people I had ever met. Early into our friendship she vowed that before long, I'd be as weird as her. Sure enough, I had those soda can topper earrings for years, adopted her favorite band as my own, and when I gave the Maid of Honor toast at her wedding, I happily accepted defeat.

It didn't take me long to figure out that nearly every good friend I've ever had has not started out that way. My high school best friend and I hated each other when we first met in elementary school, because we both were in love with the same boy. After we both realized that was fruitless (we both still love him - and his boyfriend) we became incredibly close. Another friend of mine pissed me off right off the bat by, get this, being too nice to me before she knew me. I thought she was weird because she invited me to hang out with her and her friends when I was new to the church and didn't know anyone, because that wasn't something I would do. Eventually we got so close that I had keys to her place. Even Ryan, my current best friend and boyfriend, had to work really hard at first to get me to like him. I thought he was cute enough when we first met, but kept him at arms length for months, because he was so different from me (thank God.)

Probably though the person that I am closest to that I have the least in common with is my sister Stephanie. First, there's the physical differences - she's taller, tanner, and about a million pounds lighter than me. Then there's the personality differences - she listens more than she talks, avoids conflict at any cost, and works out about as often as I stare longingly at the Cheetos in the vending machine at work. Don't even get me started on her baking business, and the fact that I once ruined a batch of cookies by confusing salt and flour. As far as our spiritual differences, a joke I frequently have made, when first talking to people about my desire to build a bridge between the gay community and the church, is that I wish God had given me an "easier" drama free ministry to pursue - preferably something involving orphans.

Ironically, feeding, educating, and housing orphans is exactly what my sister has felt called to recently do. She's already found an organization to get involved with, set up a donation site, held a fundraiser at a restaurant, and started planning a poker night with proceeds benefiting the cause. In the mean time, I've looked up good gay clubs in a town I want to visit, read lots of articles online, and occasionally texted my gay friends to let them know I'm too busy to hang out with them. She doesn't just make me look fatter - she makes me look eviler too.

I really don't believe in coincidences, and think that there is a reason for the less-than-conventional start to all my relationships.

God knows me, because God created me, and God knows that my greatest strength is also my greatest flaw. See, I'm incredibly bold and fearless when it comes to speaking my mind - whether it's about politics, religion, or my personal opinion about what someone should do in a certain situation. On the flip side, I have very little tact, frequently hurt people's feelings, and far too easily fall into the trap that tells me I am smart enough, funny enough, and strong enough to handle whatever comes my way - without God's help.

That's why it makes sense that every significant person in my life (not to mention every great thing that's ever happened to me - but that's for another post) has been someone that I at first wrote off. I, being the wise, all knowing, wisdom never failing superhuman that I ridiculously sometimes act like, would never, ever make the wrong judgment call about someone, right? HA! God, in His infinite wisdom, subtly and slowly showed me that if I just looked back long enough to see it, HE, not I, was the better judge of character when it came to my friends. That the people he was bringing into my life were just that - not people I myself chose to be close to (I never would have picked a sister that much thinner than me) but the people that He knew would teach me, better me, and help me to grow - shows how clueless I really was. And am. I love so many people that are in my life, and most of them wouldn't be if everything had been up to me.

There are times when I am fighting with my sister (like tonight) where I get angry that we're not more alike. It can be frustrating being related to someone so different from myself, because it takes extra effort to figure out what motivates her to do what she does. However, when I take the time to really think about it, I can't help but wonder at how, even though we're so incredibly different, we still love each other. Usually.

God easily amazes me when I take the chance to notice his physical wonders, like the mountains and valleys in the Earth; but with a little effort, I can be just as amazed at his smaller wonders - like the time and dedication he took when he created us as unique and individual beings. It's crazy that what starts as a fight in the kitchen with my sister, can four hours later turn into a spiritual revelation about the nature of God and how He works in my life.

But if she asks, don't tell Stephanie she had anything to do with this post. For crying out loud, the last thing that girl needs is another confirmation that she's awesome. I should tell her that the cookies she made tonight were terrible and made me sick.

It'd work if I was as good a liar as she is...

Family - Not a Four Letter Word (But Does Start With "F")

2011-07-26T11:39:00.002-04:00

Every time I fly I think about the movie Fight Club. I always wonder if the person next to me will be a "single serving friend", I snicker to myself when the flight attendant breaks out the emergency information packet with the glassy faced passengers, and above all, I always wish that the creepy guy next to me will magically turn into Brad Pitt. Or Edward Norton. Same thing really (see what I did there?!) If you're not familiar here's part of the scene I am talking about (couldn't find the one where he explains single serving friends.)

This past weekend I flew to North Carolina to see my grandparents. Unfortunately, instead of Brad Pitt, my first seat mate of four flights was a creepy man in his late forties/early fifties who smelled like stale beer and told me twice how "beautiful" I was. Thankfully, after deflecting his flattery for 20 minutes, he finally got the hint and he moved to the back of the plane where he hit on a stewardess for the remainder of the flight. He didn't even come back to his seat for landing. Come to think of it, maybe he saw the tweet I was typing about the creepy guy next to me on the plane and was too embarrassed to return. Awesome.

Despite my encounter with Mr. Coors Light, I had a really good weekend. I finished a 550 piece puzzle with my Grandma, rode around town talking about family with my Grandpa, went white water kayaking with my step-cousins (which I will never ever do ever again) and had a perfect weekend balanced between relaxation and excitement. By some miracle of miracles, my Grandfather and I never talked about politics, even though we got close a couple times. He never put on Fox News, and neither he nor my Uncle, who are both very conservative, ever made any kind of leading or antagonizing comments about my political beliefs. I was incredibly surprised (and elated) by this lack of political conversation.

Truthfully though, what I was worried about more than fighting with my Grandfather, was seeing my step- Aunt who I hadn't spoken to or seen in almost a year, due to some very heated (and publicly discussed) disagreements. I still had sour feelings towards her, and was prepared to be polite, but not friendly, when I saw her. I expected to have to fight anger and bitterness, and really work at not being mad the whole time I was around her.

Much to my surprise, when I saw her, I did not feel any anger at all. I actually felt bad for some of the things I had said about her on my blog. She was very nice to me, even paid for my kayaking trip and lunch, and never made any mention or indication of the past. Her daughters, one whom I had previously met and really liked, and another who I met for the first time, were incredibly kind and friendly to me, and I ended up having a wonderful afternoon with my extended family.

As weird as it may sound, this is kind of hard for me to deal with. Like most of you know, I'm working on a book, and the title of that book is "E-mails From Hell: My Year of Defending My Faith." The book is going to be part spiritual memoir, and part guide for people embarking down a difficult, controversial ministry path.

I had planned on spending a good portion of the book talking about my family, their reactions, and how angry and hurt they made me feel. I had even planned on including excerpts from certain e-mails in the book (sender blurred or course.) Unfortunately, I'm realizing now that I had planned on doing all of that out of bitterness and anger, and a desire for revenge. I wanted to publish something that said, "Look! See, I was right! And you were wrong, and now everyone knows it!!"

Granted, I still think I'm right, but I'm now heavily second guessing my motivations to scream that in 22 type font. I can't imagine turning around after that great weekend and then writing a big "F you" to the people that I love and care about, who happen love me too.

So, as frustrating as it is, I think I am going to have to re-think the title of my book, and some of it's direction. I'm very relieved that of the near 10,000 words I've already written, most have nothing to do with my family, so I won't have to scrap anything. I'll still talk about the conflict a ministry to the gay community creates, and I'll probably even mention how my family reacted to me. However, now there's a big difference to how I am going to approach this topic - out of love for the gay community AND my family. I hate that I needed to be reminded how important it is to love your family, flaws and all, but sadly, I had forgotten. This is good though, and I am not discouraged by the new turn of events. Because really, what kind of Christian writer would I be if I wrote a book about faith that was partly motivated by anger and bitterness?

It just blows me away to think how much God can change someone's heart in just one weekend, when they weren't even looking for a change to occur. It's a great reminder for why I am even wanting to write a book in the first place - not for fame, or money, or notoriety (although that would be nice) but as a tool that can help Christians with gay loved ones, and gay Christians themselves, who are struggling with feeling totally alone, and abandoned by God. And the way for me to do that - obviously - is with a motivation of love, not anger.

So in the end, despite the $50 in bag fees, the tiny seats, and the awkwardness of deflecting a hungover middle aged man's advances, I'd say my trip was well worth it. Just look at my Grandparents, I mean, who could stay mad at them?

Third Time's a Charm!

2011-07-20T11:13:00.000-04:00

After much editing and updating, I submitted a version of my last blog(s) to Burnside, which they published. If you're not totally sick of reading what I think about marriage, then check it out.

CEO of the Living Room

Now, since I promised my next post would be about kittens, here's a cat:

Addendum To My Previous Post

2011-07-17T23:44:00.003-04:00

This is a first for me. While in the past there have been plenty of posts I've written that people have disagreed with, or gotten upset with me for, I've never gone back and deleted said post, or tried to back track and clarify myself to avoid more conflict. Usually I love conflict, and feel like making people mad means I'm doing something right. However, that is not the case with this particular post.

Someone I care a great deal amount, who I respect and admire, wrote me last night to express some concerns with my post. She felt that I was saying that women who choose (or find themselves) in the role of stay-at-home mom were somehow "less" than women who choose to work. She thought that I was saying women who spend the majority of their days doing "homemaker" duties are not capable of being Ezer's, and that they are weaker and not reaching their full capabilities by doing that. She also thought I was saying that all stay-at-home Mom's do nothing but cook, clean, and shop, and have no other pursuits.

That was not, at all, the point I was trying to drive home, or the message I was trying to send in my post. Firstly, as someone who was raised by a stay-at-home Mom, I think choosing to sacrifice a career for your children is one of the most loving and self-less things a woman can do. There's a reason I said "stay-at-home-wife" in my posts- there is a big difference between a 22 year old woman with no children who is staying home not to be a mom, but to clean and go shopping, and a woman who stays home to love, nurture, and raise her children. But that's not the point, the point is, I should not be condemning anyone and telling them that they are wrong, just for making a life choice that I wouldn't. I didn't write the post to do that. I wrote it to condemn, and proclaim wrong, the attitude and lie that all a woman COULD and SHOULD do, is be a full-time stay at home wife or Mom, and that in order for her to truly "submit" to her husband, she cannot work, or desire to be anything other than a wife or mother. Some women don't become wives and mothers until they've lived for 30 or 40 years, and some never do. For that reason alone, it's important to state that every woman was not just created to be a stay-at-home wife or mother.

It's not that I think a woman can't be completely fulfilled by being a stay-at-home Mom, or fulfill her Ezer role through that, it's that I think a woman should be given the right to choose that option, and not be told that this was the only thing for which she was created. Honestly? My personal dream is to get married, move to a great city, have a kid or two, and stay home with them while I write books and articles part or full time. I have no problem with women choosing to stay at home, because I see that as a valid option a woman can choose, just like they could choose not to stay at home, and continue a career, finding fulfillment there.

The reason I broke my "never explain yourself or apologize in your writing" rule is not because I'm trying to make everyone happy (that's impossible for writers to do) but because I do think that I could have been a little bit more clear and gentler with that post, and perhaps said my point better. I don't want any of my friends who are stay-at-home mom's to think that I look down on them, or was trying to shame them. I promise you, that was not my intention. So I apologize. There, I broke both rules.

Now as far as the John Piper quote goes.....I linked to the video, and what I said he said he did.....so you're not getting an apology from me on that.

My next post is going to be on kittens.

It's Wedding Season! Part Two (Labels Facing OUT!!)

2011-07-16T12:05:00.001-04:00

Part two of a two part series on weddings, marriage, and gender. I decided against three parts, because I'm lazy.
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One of my friends, Holly, recently had a daughter. Holly and her husband Josh are a wonderful young couple who have been through a lot in their three short decades on Earth, and seeing the strength with which they've faced unbelievable heartache has really moved and inspired me. Despite being 100% childless, and no where near the time in my life where I'm even thinking about having kids, I decided to accept an invitation to a baby "welcoming" party for her newest addition to the family. It was a nice party, with the obligatory cute tiny cookies, fruit plates, and little people running around spilling food. It was not a totally typical baby shower at all though, for the fact that towards the end, Holly got up and went around introducing everyone who was there, and saying why each person was special to her.
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When she got to me, I was curious about what she would say, as we were closer to very friendly acquaintances than good friends. She told a really sweet story about me that actually made me tear up, but before she did, she went on a little bit of a tangent that, while not surprising, was a bit unnerving. Basically, she started by saying, "I know some people might not know what to think about Emily, in fact, I've actually had a couple of people tell me, when I mentioned that she was a friend, that they weren't sure about her, but that's why I always tell them this story. Yes Emily can be very blunt, and in your face, and if she has an opinion she will say it, but that's not all there is to her. For example, this one time..."
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I guess I always kind of hoped I was exaggerating it when I said that I was kind of rough around the edges?
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Anyways, I was thinking about what she said a few weeks ago, after this exchange I had with some girls I had just met at a bridal shower:
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Girl I don't know with ridiculously perfect hair: (talking to friend) "Yeah, I get so bored sometimes, I feel like I go to Publix everyday, and I clean, and sit around a lot and just wait for him to get home."
Her friend, with good, but not as perfect hair: (Laughing) "I know! I need to find some better ways to spend the time."
Me, with terribly frizzy, not washed in two days hair: (turns my head and looks at them) "Wait. You don't work? Aren't you like, 22?"
Perfect hair: (Looking at me like I am an evil feminist) "Well, I am going to go back to school eventually. I'm just waiting on that."
Me: Oh, OK good
Them: (Death stares)
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No, no, not exaggerating it. I am definitely rough around the edges. I feel kind of bad for not just keeping my mouth shut, and doing a mental eye roll, but there is something inside of me that just screams when I meet girls like that, who are 22, and want nothing more than to be this patriarchal, non-Biblical ideal of what they think a "wife" should be. Yes, I said non-Biblical.
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Like I said in my previous post, it's not the institution of marriage that worries me, it's the traditions surrounding it. In the same manner, it's not the Biblical role of a wife that I have problems with, it's the cultural, especially Christian cultural, expectations of what that role entails.
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Let's look at a few "Christian" quotes on marriage, and being a good wife, shall we?

Rev. Daniel L. Akin, president of the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Wake Forest, N.C.:

"She is not lazy or a busybody, nor is she distracted by outside pursuits and responsibilities that eat up her precious time and attention," he said. "This woman is not seduced by the sirens of modernity who tell her she is wasting her time and talent as a homemaker, and that it is the career woman who has purpose and is truly satisfied."

John Piper says, (in regards to domestic abuse):

“If it’s not requiring her to sin but simply hurting her, then I think she endures verbal abuse for a season, and she endures perhaps being smacked one night, and then she seeks help from the church.”

R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary,
"It would be hypocritical of me to suggest that I would be perfectly happy to have Christian young women believe that being Vice President of the United States is more important than being a wife and mother,"

Wow. Remind me to thank my parents for not raising me Southern Baptist. This kind of idea of a woman's "role" or "place" - namely the kitchen, is so ridiculously not what God created us for that it's almost laughable. Here's a newsflash for the men and women who think that a good, Godly wife should be a subservient maid and cook that a husband gets to have sex with - the Hebrew word for what a woman was created to be is "Ezer", which is translated to "warrior."

From Grace Women's Ministry:

In Genesis 2:18, God saw it was not good for man to be alone and determined to make a “helper suitable” for him, or in the original Hebrew an “ezer-kenegdo”. As a female image bearer, a woman’s core calling is as an ezer, or essential counterpart. However, the idea that woman was created as a helper has taken on a negative connotation over the years, one that denotes weakness or inferiority. Yet, the word ezer (pronounced Eh’-zair) is far from a weak word. It is used twenty-one times in Old Testament Scripture: twice in the creation story, three times as a military term, and sixteen times God refers to himself as our Ezer."

This might seem like semantics, but it's far from it. Something that bothers me most about the Christian culture, is the blind acceptance by many of the status-quo interpretation of what certain verses in scripture say. So many Christians just puppet and mimic the understanding of the current culture of what the Bible says on something, and never investigate it themselves. I am 26 years old, and never, ever, had I been told (until my kick-ass mom told me a year ago) what "Ezer" actually means. No one had ever told me that the word used for woman in creation was the same word that was used as a military term. That is huge to me. And it should be to other women.

Here's the deal: I know myself, and my personality, and what I want out of life, and what I most definitely don't want, is to be a perfect haired 1950's powerless housewife. I'd rather be single forever. For the longest time though, I thought that the Bible told me that if I ever wanted to get married, and honor him, that was exactly what I had to be. I thought that the word "submit" meant "keep quiet", "has no valid opinion", and essentially boiled down to "not equal because women are not as good as men."
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That completely wrong cultural interpretation of scripture seriously damaged my view of God for a long time, because I questioned not just why I'd ever want to get married, but how I could worship and love a God who created me only to be a servant. I knew in my heart that's not what I was created for. And I was right.
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Tim Keller, who is quickly becoming my favorite authority on scripture and the Bible, so wonderfully puts it like this:
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"In marriage, wives are told to give headship to their husbands (Ephesians 5:21 ff.) This does not mean that the man simply can make all the decisions nor does it mean that he gets his way whenever there is a difference of opinion. Why? A "head" may never overrule his spouse simply to get his way or please himself (Romans.15:2-3). A head sacrifices his wants and needs to please and build up his partner (Ephesians 5:2ff.)...Well, since this is also true of the wife (Ephesians 5:21 -"submit to one another," then what is the difference?... In a marriage, where there are only two "votes", now will the stalemate be broken in cases where there is not just a difference in taste or preference, but in cases where both parties believe the other is seriously mistaken? There can be no unity unless one person has the right to cast the deciding "vote". That person knows that, along with this "right' comes the greatest accountability and responsibility...The Bible directs that a wife, when she marries, give that "right/responsibility" freely to her husband. The husband realizes that ordinarily, his authority does not take the form of "over-ruling''—in fact, the servant-model directs the "head" to usually put aside his own tastes and preferences in deference to pleasing his spouse. But when there is a "hung jury", and it is critical for one person to take both leadership and responsibility, the “head's” service takes the form of initiation."

OK, I can get behind that. If you read further on that link, you see that according to Keller's interpretation, and in my opinion, the actual Biblical model, a woman only "submits" because a woman's role in marriage is modeled after Christ himself, in his relationship to God, who he submits to. Is God "better" than Christ? No. Really, they are the same in terms of power. But Christ was created to love through submission, as hard as it was. Submission to God, as well as the disciples (washing their feet.) Was he a leader, and a King? Absolutely. But remember again why the Jews had such a hard time accepting him as the Messiah? Because the way Christ led was not through violence, but submission.
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It is amazing how much different life can be for Christians when they actually look to scriptures for themselves. When the Bible is used as a tool of oppression, it has the power to make people feel worthless and subjected. But that's not what it was intended for. It was intended as a tool to bring freedom. What is hard for me to accept, is that for some women, there is freedom in marrying a man that they can submit to for every wish, desire, choice, and direction in life. Some women want nothing more than to cook, and clean, and have kids, and stay at home loving their husbands through these acts of service. My struggle is in accepting that, and not judging them (like I did the girls at the bridal shower.)
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However, for women like myself, there is immense joy and freedom in knowing that if and when we do get married, the Bible does not tell us that the only way for us to "submit" is by being homemakers who do nothing more but cook and clean. Our role as "helper" is not one defined by helping to do "woman's" work, but one defined by helping our husband in battle, because, he can't do it alone.
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So in conclusion, do I have a problem with marriage? Only when it's defined by people who don't truly understand scripture. Yes, there are parts of the Bible that I struggle with, and wish were easier and more simple, but that doesn't mean I am going to ignore scripture. It's a battle within myself. It just means I need to make sure that when I do get married, I marry someone who is willing to fight the battle right along side me.

It's Wedding Season! Part One (Pass the Crab Puffs)

2011-07-06T16:56:00.003-04:00

Part one of a two part series on weddings, marriage, and gender. Maybe three parts. Meh, it's my blog, I can do what I want.

Last night, after working out together at the gym, my sister and I decided to stop at Panera for dinner. While eating our salads, we started to talk about the topic that seems most often discussed among twenty something women. Marriage.

I am so sick of talking about marriage. Before dating Ryan, (who I think I will eventually marry) I was sick of marriage altogether. Now that I am a hypocrite in love, I am no longer sick of the institution of marriage (I look forward to it actually.) What I AM sick of, is talking about it. Talking about why I'm not married yet, when I am going to get married, what kind of wedding I want to have when I do get married, and so on and so forth. Much like other things that involve the Bible and gender, this whole marriage and wedding thing is rife with ideas that make me uncomfortable. That's not to say I won't do them (like I said, I'm a hypocrite) but that I might not be as happy about it as are all my Facebook friends whose wedding pictures I secretly judge. Speaking of hypocrisy, what better place to lay out all my concerns about marriage, than a two (three?) part blog post that opens with how sick I am of talking about marriage. Logic fail ahoy!

Before I start, a disclaimer: I know that my friends read my blog, and that some of you might think that I am trying to slyly insult you for your choices at your wedding, but I am not. First off, that wouldn't be very sly, and secondly, I fully believe that everyone is different, and that it's wrong for me to judge someone for choosing something I wouldn't (unless that thing is a father-daughter dance to "Butterfly Kisses" at your wedding. Worst song ever.)

Since we're on the topic of fathers and weddings, we can start there. I love my dad. He and I are about as close as two stubborn, anti-social, opinionated, type A people both trying to publish books can be. I love talking to him about God and theology, and despite how often we butt heads, I enjoy being around him and miss him when he's not. But honestly? I really don't see why he should walk me down the aisle when I get married.

Surprisingly, and awesomely, my dad feels the same way I do. To us, the whole "walking down the aisle" thing is, while sweet, a tradition that doesn't make a lot of sense in today's day and age. The symbolism is pretty clear; the man that is "responsible" for the woman up until her wedding day escorts her to the new man that is now, "responsible" for her. It implies that a woman cannot (figuratively and literally) walk on her own, or be without a man to guide her. She goes from a father who guards, nurtures, and loves her, to a husband who does the same, only with sex. Electra complexes aside, this tradition doesn't make sense to me when I, and most of my friends, are financially, physically, psychologically, and emotionally independent women. I don't live at home, and haven't for some time. I pay all of my own bills, using paychecks that I get from my very own job, and I make every decision on my life on my own. While my father loves me, and I love him, the idea that he needs to "guide me" into a marriage is patronizing at best, and downright patriarchal at worst. The only reason I am even considering not walking down the aisle myself on my wedding day is if my dad has a change of heart and decides he really wants to accompany me, or if it becomes something that would be so "uncommon" that it would provide a major distraction.

As far as the man standing up there at the alter once I get down the aisle, when that time comes, I will be choosing to marry him all by myself. Which is why the practice of "giving away" really baffles me. When the pastor/priest/boat captain asks, "Who gives this woman away to be married?" I always secretly want the girl standing next to her father to say, "Me!" That never happens though. Honestly, this is the part that bothers me the most. "Gives away?" What is that all about? I'm pretty sure that ever since the 13th Amendment people aren't legally allowed to be traded like commodities. That's not to say that I think my friends who have gotten married are pro-slavery, or are married to someone that believes they are property. I just think that this little piece of "tradition" is a piece I am 100% uncomfortable having anything to do with.

Tradition is really the word that I think most applies to my concerns with weddings and marriage. I don't like tradition. Tradition to me implies something that is stodgy, old-fashioned, and most likely subjugated. The problem lies in the fact that most weddings, and, here's the clincher, religious attitudes/ceremonies, are rooted in tradition. As a bonafied Christian woman, what am I supposed to do with my desire to honor God, and someday a husband/family, and my simultaneous desire to not blindly follow traditions that I think are oppressive or silly? I have no idea. But that's why the important thing is finding someone who is willing to go on that journey with me (hint: Ryan is.)

I think it's also important to re-iterate that it's wrong for me to judge friends of mine who value tradition. There really isn't anything wrong with wanting to include something in your wedding that your mother, mother's mother, and her mother have all had at their weddings, for that and that reason alone. I don't believe that any of my friends who included these traditions in their weddings did so because they believe in the motivations that started them. Just because those motivations matter to me, and not them, that doesn't make me "better" than anyone. Also, as I am not engaged, and have not yet been married, some people might think that my opinion on the subject is rather moot. But hey, the internet is based on people sharing opinions on things they have no understanding of, so imma gonna keep talking.

Other than the ridiculousness of the cost and industry of weddings, I've pretty much covered the things that concern me the most. I'm not yet going to get into the whole, "submitting" thing, as I'll save that for part two (or three) of this post. Nor will I talk about the practice of woman changing their names, as I've already covered it in a post last year.

In closing, if you can believe it, even though I'm a Feminist, I still do want to get married, and fully believe in marriage. I even (mostly) enjoy going to weddings, and I almost always tear up when I see the groom's face the first time he sees his bride. It's not marriage and weddings that cause me to hesitate, it's the traditions revolving them. There is one tradition I can get behind though, that has stemmed since Jesus's time, and I am going to almost certainly incorporate in my someday future wedding.

Free booze!! See? There's always an exception.

Stay tuned for the next part in the series, when I tackle the dreaded "S" word: "Submit."

It's Their Musical Taste That is Most Frightening.

2011-06-28T17:31:00.001-04:00

Last night I had one of the worst nightmares I've ever had in my life. I'm a frequent dreamer, but I'm one of those people who, for whatever reason, rarely has nightmares. My regular dreams are pretty banal, usually it's just me doing stuff I do in normal life, only I might have gills and be underwater, or my mother has been replaced with Lucille Bluth - you know- nothing that strange. I can probably list on one hand the few nightmares I've had that were so frightening they lingered and made me scared to fall back to sleep.

I can only remember when it got scary, but in my dream I was with a few friends, sitting in a park or public place, and we were talking about God. Not arguing or proselytizing, just having a mellow discussion centered around faith. A cute little boy walked over to us (about 10 or 11) with a sweet blonde bowl cut and a nice polo shirt, and asked us what we were talking about. One of the friends I was with told him, and asked him if he went to church, and he smiled and said yes he did. She asked him a couple of other questions, and he kept nodding and answering yes, yes, yes. Then I looked over at him, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood straight up and my heart started pounding out of my chest and my blood started to feel like fire, and I raised my hand and started screaming at him, "Demon! Depart from us! In the name of Jesus Christ leave!" My friends backed away from me and looked at me like I was crazy, at the same time that the boy's smile changed into a sick twisted grimace, his eyes turned into slits, he opened his mouth and hissed, and his face started to transform from that of a cute child, to that of a terrifying demon.

I instantly awoke at that point. My heart was pounding, I was out of breath, and my eyes flew open, like they do when people in movies wake up from nightmares. It usually takes me a good 5 minutes to come out of sleep, so this was jarring and a very unusual way for me to wake up. I fought the urge to turn on the light, and calmed myself down by just saying Jesus name over and over again, (like my Mom taught me to do when I was little and scared.) I prayed that the dream wouldn't start again when I fell back asleep. Thankfully it didn't.

This was the first "spiritual" dream I've ever had. As a member of a non-denominational/borderline Pentecostal (weird, right?) church, I've always embraced the former and struggled with the latter. I grew up Presbyterian (PCA - not the cool kind that have gay ministers) and for 1/2 of my childhood church to clap their hands during worship was a big deal. I have no idea what they would think of my current church's practice of keeping flags in the back for people who like to wave them during worship. I personally like my worship (and Jesus experience) to be more rational than radical, and I'll admit to not being very open minded to people who say they connect to God in "outside the box" ways. That's why, when people from my church have talked about the power of spiritual dreams, and how God can speak to us through them, I've often internally (or externally) rolled my eyes at them, and not given it a second thought.

It's funny how people can have such a strong opinion on something, and be so sure of themselves, mainly because the thing in question has never happened to them. I have never before had a spiritual dream, so it seemed totally illogical to me that God would speak to people through dream. Why should I believe in something that I had never experienced? My sudden 180 turn from "no way" to "maybe?" on spiritual dreams made me think about the other issues I am decidedly "sure" how I feel about. I'm more pro-life than most people on the side of the political spectrum where I reside, but I wonder how "sure" I would be if I was raped and got pregnant as a result, or if I was happily pregnant, and found out in the second trimester that the baby wouldn't survive past birth. Something like that is much more jarring than a bad dream, yet my surety of my correctness on the opinions on both was about the same. I love to be a black and white kind of thinking person, yet, most of life deals with shades of grey.

The way that I've so suddenly opened up to the idea of (but not totally changed my mind on) "spiritual dreams" has given me compassion for an unlikely group. If one dream can make me question my belief on a spiritual matter, what would it take for another Christian who is 100% sure on a different, albeit more controversial spiritual matter, to question their beliefs? Specifically, I'm talking about Christians who have not yet opened up to the idea of welcoming and loving people in the gay community, where they are at, without strings attached. Maybe it's not a dream that would affect them, but a friendship, or a conversation, or just being shown love by someone who disagrees so vehemently with them. I've spent the past three years living and loving within the gay community, so it's easy for me to forget how black and white I thought the issue was before my first friendship with a gay person formed.

The whole experience made me remember that what works for changing the hearts and minds of people is not long winded back and forth arguments that leave both parties frustrated, but new relationships that cause people to put faces to issues. Arguing about homosexuality gets you no where, but reaching out to people in the gay community, and encouraging your friends who disagree with you to do the same, has the power to change hearts.

I wouldn't say that my mind is totally changed on whether or not God speaks to us through dreams, but I will say, that in this one instance, in a totally roundabout way, He did.