Practicum

It was going to happen sooner or later.  I had no idea how I was going to respond to it and I'm finding it harder than I thought.  I'm talking about same-sex marriage.  So this is an attempt to sort my own thoughts.  As always, it's raw, so tune out now if you're going to be offended.

By way of background, I do not ascribe to any ideas that confuse politics with sexuality or faith.  I believe that people are free to make choices.  Some choices are good for us, others aren't.  Some are right, others aren't.  Regarding homosexuality, I frankly don't want to hear about your orientation any more than I want to hear about your latest sexual exploits.  I don't define people by what they do with their *&@$#.  That extends to any acts.

But I am not blind.  It is obviously a mark of identity for some people.  I have personal friends on both sides of this line (out and proud, and discreet).  But it is only one aspect of their personality.  I don't define my friendships based on who is honest at work, who has been divorced, who has had sex outside of marriage, who is habitually confrontational, or who does *&^@ with %$^&.  Get my point here?

But as a Christian, I do not believe it is a good choice or a healthy choice.  Though, it's no different to me than cheating on a test or eating junk food.  So I'm not in your face about it, ask me and I'll tell you.  Otherwise, it's not an issue.  (aside: some will say it is not a choice.  I know the argument and don't agree for many well-thought out reasons that I don't want to go into for sake of space.  I've blogged about them before, so look them up if that's your beef.)

So that said, now I am being forced to recognize it in a way I am not comfortable with.  Where you were previously just Joe and Tom.  Now you're Tom's husband Joe.  Somehow to me, this terminology seems I am being forced to be complicit with a wrong, like Daniel being forbidden to pray to anyone but Darius.  I wouldn't introduce you to my drug-addict friend Eddy or my stripper friend Pixie.  That may be who they are, but I'm not defining them by it.  Do you see what I mean here?

I don't even truly have a problem with same-sex people cohabitating and receiving benefits given to married couples.  But to call it marriage is the problem.  I'd have rather seen them take the civil part out of marriage.  Abolish it before the law in favor of civil unions for all.  Then marriage remains a religious or social institution that I can recognize or not as my faith and liking allow.  But now the law of the land says I have to call it marriage.  I can refuse and could lose a job, friendships, or worse in the future.  But is this worth it?  Is this the line in the sand that I go to the lions for?

Many Christians may avoid this problem by simply avoiding and cutting off any such ties.  This seems the monastery approach.  Just pull away from society.  The other option is to go with the culture and moralize around it.  But if this is something I have no Godly wiggle room on, then by doing so I am one of the lukewarm, the goats amongst the sheep, the Israelites who continually turned to foreign gods.  I'd love to do one or the other, since it would save a lot of headache for me, but that's just not how I work.

So now the choice is immanent before me.  For the first time, two people walked into a group that I operate and introduced themselves as wives.  Ok, so what?  Just ignore it and treat them like anyone else.  I did, and will.  I will always be respectful.  But this creates a potential problem for me since I have people in that group who sit on both sides of the issue.  I lead it, so I set the tone for how it works.  I plan to simply not make it a thing, remain officially silent on it.  But what do I do if I set up an event at one party's premises and the other party shows up?  Recipe for disaster with me as the main blamed ingredient.

So I can grow a set and take the heat from whichever side or both.  But I have to know where I stand to do that, even if my stance is a third one from the perceived dichotomy.  I just don't know what it IS yet.  And that's the problem.

All in all, I trust it will work out.  I just need to walk in faith that the resolution is already planned, I just haven't gotten there yet.  Thankfully, this is a relatively easy test case, since it will be far harder when, say, an employee has a same-sex spouse.  Then it really hits the fan.  Since I work in government, I don't have the same choices private businesses do.  Do I stand my ground at that point and trust I'm acting rightly?  Or do I not have to do that?  What is acting rightly, even?  I simply don't want to call a man the husband of another man or a woman the wife of another woman.  That's all it is really.  But this is no different than Daniel.  Couldn't he have just prayed silently with no outward signs for a month?  It's a shading of the line in both directions.  Many early Christians were said to have lost their faith when they made the customary respectful gestures to the Roman god statues in a store.  This seems the same thing.

I really don't know what to do yet.  In my heart, I don't want to hurt anyone or drive them away from God.  My life has been built on helping the unhelped.  Living what I believe.  Seeking the one lost sheep.  Is the controversy I perceive a function of my legalistic upbringing or is there more to it?  Is this issue going to be something that forces me into a much larger boldness in that it will force me to label myself far sooner?  I've favored erring toward grace and letting my actions define me.  How do I do that here?  How do I teach my kid to do?

I respectfully refused to pray at Japanese temples, and I wouldn't build a mikoshi (portable shrine) as asked to do because it is believed to house a god.  If it was simply a parade float with religious origins, that would be different.  But when I asked, the first thing anyone mentioned was about the god.  So I'm out.  How do I bow out this time?  Do I even need to?  It's got me twisted up.  It really has.

Heat

I have a passion, a fire.  My temperament is this way.  I control it well and don't lose my temper often, but I am excitable and quickly heat up about things, good and bad.  I have a hard time letting an injustice go unaddressed.

I have in the past been quite angry...not in the uncontrolled anger management sense, but in the seething beneath the surface, fiery oratory sort of sense.  I have been called a match: quick to fire up at the least abrasion, but short lived and relatively harmless.  I would quickly pop off on people.  Tell them what I thought.  Call them out.  Politely, but directly.  In nicer times, I could frame it as a joke and lay some low with pointed humor that accomplished the same thing as the angry version, but with less direct confrontation.  It has served me well and I took it as a gift.

Of course any gift can be perverted, and so I took my tendency to pop off or become quickly agitated.  I even thought this heat inside was to be used to call crusade for good.  To call out injustice and wrongness.  I wouldn't stand for it and everyone needed to know that they couldn't get away with that junk around me because I'd call it right out in front of everyone.

But lately, I've begun to wonder if this is not such a gift.  I'm not sure.  Really.  I have just begun to see that maybe there is virtue in quietly handling the wrongs, perhaps even letting people go their own way.  Perhaps not always...there may well be a time to stand up and call it out.  But maybe there is a time for noticing without mentioning.

Previously I viewed this as tolerating what shouldn't be tolerated.  As a disservice to the one I refrained from speaking to.  After all, Truth must shine forth, and we have a duty and calling to hack away at the darkness.

Don't get me wrong, I've never attacked people like many legalists do.  My crusades are about grace and forgiveness.  But fuelled with a blazing angry passion.

The thing is, it's really hard to win.  I took this as confirmation that the world was corrupt.  As in the Mission, I was DeNiro's reformed conquistador, ready to shed blood, even my own in defense of what was right.  I'd rather stand up and take a blow to the face for speaking out than sit by and let a wrong go.  It was not my job to win...just to fight.

But now, I'm seeing a lovely grace, an almost asian-master sort of goodness, in letting things flow.  Perhaps speaking boldly out is not always the way to go.  Perhaps there is collateral damage that could be spared.  Perhaps there is something to a more pacific attitude.  Perhaps this is not over-tolerance, a moopy spine.  Certainly it could be, just as my passion could be perverted to plain anger and hate.  But maybe this is a time for me to learn how to be meek in the truest sense.

Jesus did speak boldly.  He did enrage and agitate and even physically overturn.  But he also nurtured and helped and loved in a soft and tender way.

Perhaps the Greystokian animalistic nobility, the chivalric gentle warrior, is not God's ideal.  Perhaps it is far less inspiring.  Far more suffering (in the old sense).  Far more humble (in the old sense of lowly).

Please teach me the answer, Jesus.  What am I to learn from you in this yoke?  Help me to be pliable and open to you.  I fear I will lose my strength, my identity, and I don't know how else to be.  But I must lose mine to gain yours and I will be what you make me.