Taking a breath: a Bridging the Gap synchroblog
Same gender attraction and Christianity.
It’s kind of a big deal, isn’t it?
A big, complex, multi-faceted and often scary deal.
After only learning this morning about this big synchroblog effort tied in with New Direction's Bridging The Gap project I've written up a little something that may be my first really thought-through blog entry here on my Posterous. And I'm glad they let me join their "club" for this (blogs include Brian McLaren's and Donald Miller's!).
Current conventional wisdom (at least in a few of the circles I’ve been reading) recommends breaking down a big, menacing deal into a number of smaller, more manageable deals (I’m paraphrasing a whole lot here, and clearly not citing any sources), so here’s what I suggest is an attainable Step 1. Maybe not even 1, maybe it’s Step 0.5. And it’s as simple as breathing.
In fact, it is breathing.
So we hear about another legislation about gay marriage, or someone confesses a friend’s (or their own) struggle with sexual identity...
And one of our gut reactions… is to wince.
And we’re not talking about just a facial expression: I see it played out in an extreme, instantaneous facial expression, and the very next breath we take in is audible, and shrill, and quite honestly, often heartbreaking.
Why we wince is a whole big, complex, multi-faceted deal within the big, complex, multi-faceted deal we’re already dealing with, having a lot to do with engrained learning so many of us grew up with (and many still grow up with) in our churches.
I wonder: what if we slow down that first breath?
I used to read about a 10-second rule, that if you’re inclined to respond with full frontal rage, to count to 10 before reacting harshly. Maybe this kind of thing has fallen out of favour, maybe it didn’t really work (was 10 not enough, maybe?...), but I do think that slowing down is, at times, the beginning of wisdom. As is taking a deep, intentional, life-giving breath: connecting a few dots here, I was reminded in a PodCast from The Meeting House that the Greek word pneuma (pronounced NOOMA… yes, that Nooma) describes both 'wind' or 'breath'… and the Holy Spirit.
I honestly don’t know how much we can, or should, control that automatic reaction but I see some pluses in a world where the church is seen less as the people who freak out about morals, more as the people who embrace, love & accept people with differences, like Jesus did, because we draw on the resources that He did (or rather, breathe in THE Resource).
New Direction is taking a stand in a battle that could very well define us as a church. They do so with tons of grace and wisdom, as I witnessed from taking their Sexual Identity & The Local Church seminar. It’s an important part of the even bigger, complexer, multi-faceteder and often scarier deal of our collective identity as Christ’s followers. I believe that if wince less and “breathe the right stuff” with more intentionality in these instances, it will help us take good, proper breaths in all instances.
Please check out the other blogs (I really liked Beth’s) at:
www.btgproject.blogspot.com
Comments (2)
Interesting: my sense is that in Canada, you'd get the look but probably not the verbal rhetoric. And I'm not sure whether it's better to know with certainty that that is the viewpoint, or to just guess that it might be.
We all have a lot to learn, on both "sides" as Wendy had blogged on the "home" site.
Thank you for your thoughtful, honest feedback.
I pray you keep conveying the hope of Christ's love to all those you encounter.
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Yeah, I remember this reaction. I remember when I told a lady from my church that I was writing "gay poetry" when I was sixteen. She moved away from me on the seat and looked at me with that LOOK, and my heart sank. She told me to burn all my poems and ask God to cleanse me of that sin with the fire. I had to wonder, even then, what was so sinful about thinking thoughts and writing poems. Of course, I burned them like she told me to, but it didn't really cleanse me of anything. All these years and prayers and tears later, and I'm still just as sinful as I've ever been. I don't ever want to give anyone else that heartbreak, that expression, and that flinching reaction. I don't want anyone else to lose hope like I did, because that can take you to some dark places. I'm trying instead to give hope as much as I can.