My Soapbox

It can be difficult to realize and accept that sometimes your own way is not the only way, and may not even be the right way. We simplify our lives by compartmentalizing our world and classifying our opinions. In order to be convicted about an issue or feel compelled to respond in one way or another, having some understanding of your choice being the "right" choice is necessary. However, I think there is a delicate and necessary balance between taking a stand and remaining open to new ideas, more questions, and to the possibility that you could be wrong.

None of us like to be wrong. It stings your pride and reminds you of your infallibility. Not fun. But there are times when you know you are right about something, you know it down to your bones. There is practically nothing that could ever convince you otherwise. Of course, this can be an issue when someone on the other side of the issue feels just as "right" as you do.

I found myself in this type of situation this past weekend. I went to Lifest, which is a huge Christian music festival in Wisconsin. I love music. It is an integral part of my life, and it acts as a therapy for me in so many ways. I also love some Christian music, but only some. Sappy, cliche, bubble-gum Christian music makes me want to throw up. Music has the capability to still the soul, to ignite fire in your spirit, or to convey emotions words cannot capture. When Christian music ignores all that and tries to bottle an incomprehensible and awe-some God into poorly written lyrics and three power-chord guitar riffs, it makes me physically nauseous to think about. That aside, some Christian artists are absolutely fantastic and they use their gifts and talents to inspire and use music to reach others on new and deeper levels. So, I went to the music festival skeptical, but optimistic, and I came out pleasantly surprised. But this specific situation I found myself in didn't really revolve around any of the music itself.

At events such as this one, there are lots of merchandise booths. People selling band t-shirts and CDs, jewelry, punk rock beanies and skateboards, clothing...lots of items to continue feeding our consumerist culture. Awesome.

One of the clothing booths caught my attention as I was walking around. I had seen some people walking around the festival with these dark colored shirts with very bright neon bold print that caught your eye. If the color itself didn't catch your attention, the message on the shirt most likely would. This booth was obviously where these shirts were bought.

Before I go on, I want to say that when it comes to matters of faith and "religion" stuff, I don't have much background knowledge. I haven't been doing this for very long, and I still have so much to learn and explore. But one of the reasons why I came to faith in the first place was figuring out that all this, everything we believe in, it all goes back to love. Real, sacrificial love, where you put others before yourself. To me, that is the framework and the lens through which everything else should be approached. And realizing that we do not deserve the grace and mercy we have been bestowed. There is nothing we could ever do to earn it. It is by grace alone. We all screw up, we all sin, we all hurt ourselves and hurt others with our actions and our words. That means that we are no better than anyone else. Instead, we are called to be humble and through God's love have the capability to place ourselves as servants for others instead of only serving our own interests.

So, back to the merchandise booths. As I was walking around, my eye caught a display of very bright, very loud shirts over to my right. I approached the stand, and many other people were crowded around as well. When I finally moved to get a clear look at the shirts I was shocked. Truly shocked. What I saw before me blew me away. At this stand people were selling shirts with catch phrases like "Pornography is for posers", "I'd rather be a prude than live with genital warts", and my personal favorite, "Abortion is selfish". 3 for $25.

Are you KIDDING me?

These types of messages are some of the reasons I stayed away from Christianity for so long! In my relatively short life I have made some decisions I am not proud of and felt for a very long time that if I could barely forgive myself for my actions, how could God ever forgive me? I couldn't see how a perfectly good God would want to love such a messed up girl like myself. Those t-shirts do not deliver a message of love, of acceptance, of forgiveness. Instead they tell you from 30 feet away that if you fit into the group of people the shirt is referring to, you are categorized, you are labeled, and you are wrong. Judgment has already been passed. If I was a woman who had chosen to have an abortion and I saw someone wearing a shirt that said "Abortion is selfish", I would feel ostracized and judged by that person without them taking any time and effort to get to know me, to get to know my story, or even barely skim the surface of the complexity behind that decision. I would feel the complete opposite of love.

How can we love on others if we're pushing them away before they're even close enough to see our faces?

As I was looking at these shirts, I must have had an interesting look on my face because one of the guys working the stand came up to me and asked me what I thought of the shirt messages, and asked me if I would wear any of them. I told him I would not wear those shirts, especially not the one about abortion and cited a much shorter version of my venting above as my reasoning. He said that he understood, but the shirts are meant to spark conversation and that hopefully the person wearing the shirt is ready and willing to carry a conversation about the shirts' topic with anyone who was curious about it. I told him that those intentions were fine, but it didn't change the fact that people could read it from afar and as a result not feel comfortable approaching that person because of the implied message of judgment. I also told him that I felt the shirts were targeting and ostracizing groups of people who were broken and more in need of unconditional love than even we knew, but if others felt that wearing those shirts helped them reach out and make a difference, I wasn't going to stop them. And that was the end of our conversation.

The conversation passed by quickly, and the guy I was talking to didn't seem particularly convicted either way about the shirts, so I began to wonder if it was his job to ask people what they thought of the shirts but not necessarily care about the answer. Regardless, I said my piece, it was accepted with a polite smile and nod, I gave my polite smile and nod in return, and we went our separate ways. I appreciate the "agree to disagree" mentality on small, arguable issues that unnecessarily divide churches and split denominations. There are just some things we don't know and we're all trying to figure out in somewhat different ways. But looking back at this conversation and remembering this display of t-shirts, I wish I had said something more. I wish I had pushed the guy at the t-shirt stand to give me more than prepackaged responses. I wish I hadn't given him the lip service at the end about "not stopping" others from wearing the shirts. I wish I had gone up to one of the many teens I saw running around with those shirts and asking them if they knew the implications of the message they were advertising on their chest, if they were ready to tackle those tough topics in conversation, or if they were just trying to win points with their Christian buddies by giving credence to their "purity" through so clearly defining what (and who) they were not. If I could go back, I would do all of those things. Because in this case, I feel right about this. Down to my bones. So much so that even though this post seems like I'm on a soapbox of sorts and preaching down to other believers, I'm kind of okay with that.

Accepting my soapbox though is almost as dangerous as the soapbox of the t-shirts. What good can come of all of us who are so completely sure of something standing a few inches above the ground and proclaiming our knowledge, "gifting" it to those listening? Because none of us are fit to be any height off of the ground. We are all on equal footing as believers, and then we are supposed to take that level and lower it still in order to serve. Sure, some are called to teach or preach or pastor or lead, but that is supposed to happen on that level. Through conversation and dialog and accepting and loving, and learning just as much if not more than teaching. None of us are in a position to claim superiority over others, whether that be in knowledge or actions or abilities.

Regardless, we all have our opinions, and we all think we're right. Imperfect humans will interact imperfectly. So, I confess that my opinions on this issue with the shirts is my soapbox. It is one of many, and it won't be the last.

We're supposed to love on others, not judge them. There's a story behind each addiction, each decision, each broken individual. That story belongs to a person, a member of this human existence, a real person that is just as deep and complex and lost as the rest of us, and that person is being completely written off and un-loved by a couple neon words on a t-shirt.

That is why I have this soapbox.



Galatians 5:13-15

Connecting back

I have just started reading Sex God by Rob Bell. It is downright fantastic. And I'm only 50 pages in.

I'm a fan of Rob Bell in general, so I know I was predisposed to like this book from the beginning. I loved his last book, Velvet Elvis. He writes with such a thought provoking clarity I wish I was capable of. It's a clarity that forces me to stop and question. Truly fantastic.
Sex God catches attention because of the title, of course. The subtitle is "Exploring the endless connections between sexuality and spirituality". Although some people might declare that connecting sexuality and spirituality is dangerous and blasphemous, I would disagree wholeheartedly. I have been looking for a book like this for quite awhile. (And since Bell's endnotes are so great I already have a list of others to look into.)


For me, part of spirituality is dealing with and becoming more of who you were made to be. We were all made human. We were all made beautiful. But we are quickly and easily tarnished, broken, and disconnected. The Beautiful is lost. Spirituality is a journey back to the real humanity, the new humanity.

Sexuality is part of being human. It can be abused, misused, and exploited, just like any other aspect of our existence. And because it is so, so, SO intertwined with who we are and our own identity, its damage can go deeper than we realize. But it is still part of our humanity, part of the Beautiful we are meant to be. And it is connected, incredibly so, to spirituality. I am extremely thankful that someone as gifted and thoughtful as Rob Bell has taken on this controversial topic. (This isn't to say that others have not, I just haven't come across their work personally.)

I am already challenged by this book in some very needed ways. This is an excerpt that, I believe, speaks for itself:

"You can't be connected with God until you're at peace with you who are. If you're still upset that God gave you this body or this life or this family or these circumstances, you will never be able to connect with God in a healthy, thriving, sustainable sort of way. You'll be at odds with your maker. And if you can't come to terms with who you are and the life you've been given, you'll never be able to accept others and how they were made and the lives they've been given. And until you're at peace with God and those around you, you will continue to struggle with your role on the planet, your part to play in the ongoing creation of the universe. You will continue to struggle and resist and fail to connect.

The other day my five-year-old son asked my wife, 'Mom, what does sexy mean?'

She thought about it for a second, and then replied, 'Sexy is when it feels good to be in your own skin. Your own body feels right, it feels comfortable. Sexy is when you love being you.'

Because it all starts with being sexy on the inside." (46)


Much of what I've written on this blog so far deals with my struggles regarding where my life might be headed after this upcoming school year. On figuring "me" out, finding my calling, my vocation. Frankly, I'm worried that I won't get it right. Reading this forces me to face the fact that I have been avoiding and denying the possibility that my past, my experiences, and "these circumstances" I have been placed in may have quite a bit to do with my future. Really, they have everything to do with my future. What I am meant to do is greatly dependent on who I am, and who I am is greatly dependent on what has shaped me. I may not like that, but it doesn't make it any less true. If I am to find where I'm headed, I have to be at peace with who I am now, and (more importantly for me) who I have been.

Easier said than done, but knowing where to start is the only way to begin.

"Scene"

Loneliness is a strange thing. It can creep up, silently building despite the company around you or the activities keeping you occupied. For me, it begins as a dull ache in that unknown place where unarticulated longing and wants originate. I never know exactly what it is when it first comes, but looking back I always wonder how I didn't recognize that all too familiar feeling sooner.

I am an introvert at heart, and that becomes painfully obvious whenever I am feeling "off" in some way. Instead of seeking out the comfort and presence of others, I retreat farther into myself, digging myself into a dark hole that no one can seem to reach into.

Even on normal days I stretch myself to act according to social norms. Frankly, I could care less about what happened during that one lunch about a year ago or why so-and-so is doing whatever-it-is-now and how it is oh-so-important to your world. I live in the Natalie world, I recognize that, and Natalie is not happier after talking about stuff. I pretend to, and I'm fairly good at pretending. I have to be. Most people my age group expect everyone to be an extrovert of some sort, otherwise you aren't "fun" and "cool".

Sometimes I hate people my own age.

This game (yes, I think it's a game) exhausts me. It truly does. After my day, I usually retreat to my room and have "Me Time", when I can recharge by not being around anyone at all. When actors are rehearsing or performing scenes or monologues, they call "scene" to mark the end of the piece. When I walk through my door, I call "scene". Then my performance stops. However, when this loneliness sets in, I lose the ability to play along.

This loneliness, I have learned, can only be cured by spending time with my closest and dearest friends. We can actually talk to each other and listen in return. Not just wait for our turn to speak. They light up my world in a way few things can, and I am so blessed to have them in my life. Around them I don't feel pressured to be anything I am not, and that is such a relief. So much of life is a charade, being around them is a breath of fresh air.

This summer has taught me how dependent I am on that air. That worries me to some extent because a year from now I may be leaving C. Springs for quite some time. Maybe forever. I don't know. I need to learn how to live on my own, but not alone. In this day and age, friends are never more than a phone call or email away (unless they are in a foreign country), but nothing can substitute for their physical presence. Thanks to technology, I will never be fully alone, I know that. But I will be on my own, and that is something I have to get used to. Because this hole, this place of loneliness I have created for myself, it isn't a fun place to be.

It is true that no one can reach into this place to pull me out. But Someone was already there, in the dark, and is lovingly ready and willing to provide a footstool. As long as you are looking for it.

Sometimes I forget to look.


Psalm 139:7-12