Saying it out loud

Author’s Note: I have another blog, well, two others if you also include my cake decorating blog, but the one that matters is the other one that I haven’t publicized to almost anyone who knows me face to to face.  It’s a long story why that’s the way it is. If you ask, I may tell you.  I may decline. Don’t take it personally. But that’s also currently beside the point.

The point is that I published this post on the other blog back at the beginning of October.  It made me feel better to have said what was on my heart, but after reading I'm Christian, unless you're gay and the follow-up post on Single Dad Laughing, I realized that I still had not done what I needed to do.  This needs to be said as publicly as I can, no matter what responses may come, no matter what opinion other people might expect or want me to express, and perhaps most importantly because I once was a youth pastor in a small town baptist church, and I wish I’d known then what I know now. 

This is what I believe.

Hatred and fear are never the truth.

In the end, Love does win, because Grace is all that matters.

Karen

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Churches Need Rainbows!

"But, they say I can't be that."

"They say I can't be both a Christian and a gay man."

"There's nowhere that I fit. I'm too conservative for the liberals and too liberal for the conservatives."

"I almost decided to end everything."

"If I'm going to be alone, I might as well be really alone."

"My mother said I deserved to die of AIDS."

Those were just some of the words I heard as I sat with a dear friend during my vacation. It took us a long time to get to those words. They were hard words for him to speak. There was such pain behind them, such fear that once again he would be condemned for being who he is.

I knew when we reconnected a few weeks before my trip that something was wrong. That's why I made a detour in a rather packed schedule, driving an hour and a half each way so that we could spend time face to face.

As I listened and heard my friend's pain, I wanted to cry. I wanted to hold him close and tell him that somehow it was going to be alright. I wanted to tell him that he wasn't alone, that the whole church wasn't that judgmental and stupid. I was angry too. I wanted to lash out at the people who had hurt my friend this much. I wanted to be able to take away all of the hurt and self-doubt and self-hatred that others had dumped on his head and heart. No matter how much I might wish it, I can't make the words and actions that have caused such pain go away. The damage has already been done. My friend bears the scars of hatred, fear and prejudice. And I know he's not the only one.

I did what I could, though it didn't seem enough. I listened. I told him he wasn't alone; I was there and I knew another dear friend of ours felt the same way. I told him that while some pastors and churches would condemn him, they were wrong and I knew that not every one felt that way; I'd talked to a pastor just like that earlier in the week. I reminded him that the world needs him. That there's a reason why he's here and that I adore the person he is. I told him that "they" are wrong … even when "they" was his mother. I sat with him. I laughed with him. I was silent with him. In every way, I knew how I reminded him of his inherent value, just because he is who he is. I tried to make sure he knew how special he was and how much the people who love him need him in our lives. But one afternoon is so short a time in contrast to a lifetime of being judged simply for being honest about who he loves.

On the drive home, I cried. For his pain. I raged. About a church that could be so hateful to any of God's creation. I felt impotent. What could I possibly do? I can't change the behaviour of the whole "Christian" community. But I can stand up for what I believe in. I can choose to set an example.

I used to think it was okay for each church and each pastor to decide for themselves how they should handle issues like homosexuality and gay marriage. I remember being proud of myself for standing up and saying just that at a denominational meeting. I'd listened to a group of people spew hatred under the mask of drawing a line in the theological sand. We were baptists and generally baptists don't even have statements of faith. So why did we need to make a statement about homosexuality and marriage? The majority of what I heard and saw during those meetings angered and saddened me. Theology should be based on an understanding of who God is, not on our fear and prejudice. So I stood and told them that God was big enough for us to hold different views and still fellowship together.

But I realized something on the drive back to my hotel in the quiet of the evening. That was still the wrong attitude. It's not enough to leave issues like this up to an individual's or community's conscience. We get it wrong far too often. The damage we cause can't be undone and it's inexcusable.

I'm not a theological expert. I did go to seminary and studied theology, but I'll admit that was never a favourite part of my studies. I liked the practical part. I'm not going to try to argue theology or the exegesis of Scripture with anyone. I do know that I've been very willing to declare culturally irrelevant the prohibitions seeming to deny leadership roles to women in the church. You have to if you want to be a female youth pastor. I used to tell people who wanted to argue the point that all I knew was that I had to be faithful to my understanding of God's calling on my life. I was a woman and, back then, I knew that God had called me to full-time ministry. The theology wasn't important. The theology of whether you think homosexuality is wrong or right is equally unimportant. The only thing that matters is the character of God.

The theology doesn’t mean squat to me. But watching my friend, seeing the hurt and self-loathing and betrayal in his eyes as he talked about how people who call themselves Christians have treated him and made him feel, that made me ashamed to call myself a Christian.

Here's what I know. If you believe in a loving God who is willing to die in order to redeem all of creation. If you believe in a God who loves even those society finds most unlovable. If you believe in a God who is defined by his love and his grace. If you believe in a God who can call an adulterer and murderer a man after his own heart. If you believe in a God who gets himself into trouble with the religious people for hanging out with all the people they despise. Even if you most believe in a God who is holy and just. You cannot treat any person or group of people in such a way that they are made to feel like they have no worth and that God couldn't possibly accept them as they are. It is abhorrent and contrary to the very character of God that we have treated any part of his creation with such hatred, fear and disrespect.

I cannot believe that is what God intended for any of his creation.  When we treat any person as being less worthy, less human, less … just less than … because of who they are at the most fundamental level of being human, we are denying the fact that they are created and loved by the creator of the universe.  We are, in fact, saying that God screwed up by allowing them to exist.  That is wrong on so many levels.  I want no part of that kind of church.  That’s not the God I believe in.  That’s not how people called by his name should act.

There are a bunch of reasons why I don't attend church at this point in my life. I expect that at some point, I may find myself choosing to worship in community again. Where or when that will be is entirely unknown, but I do know that if and when I choose to find a church to call home, it will be a church that is both welcoming and affirming of all people no matter what might appear to divide us.  That is what best reflects the character of the God I choose to believe.

When did our language change meaning?

I’m trying to figure something out.  When did our world become so confused that we consider a play that challenges us to see a real, live, human being instead of a faceless monster known as a terrorist as a play that “glorifies terrorism”?

I’m not a political or news junkie who follows every twist and turn, who ponders every potential nuanced meaning to what a politician says or doesn’t say.  I get bored with listening to the rhetoric and the spin doctors make me feel more cynical than I ever want to be.  But I’m pretty sure that a phrase like glorifying terrorism implies that the person or thing doing that thinks terrorism is a good thing …. shudder … or that, at the very least, that it might at some point be the right course of action.

But looking past the stereotype that has been created for us and seeing that there is a real person behind the label?  That doesn’t mean the person made the right choice or even that they shouldn’t receive a just punishment if found guilty in a court of law.  That’s not glorifying terrorism, that’s reminding us that all those people we’ve been carefully taught to hate and fear are human and not so very different from us when we look beyond the surface.

I’m also not a theatre critic.  I know what I enjoy and what I don’t.  Catherine Frid’s play Homegrown falls somewhere in between. The play caused much controversy last summer before it had even been seen when it was produced at Summerworks in Toronto. It seemed so hard to fathom that it really had nothing to do with Summerworks’ exclusion from federal funding this year, that theatre companies across the country banded together to stage public readings as fundraisers in something like 11 locations on July 15, 2011. I had the privilege of attending the reading in Vancouver.

At points, it made me uncomfortable.  I didn’t want to feel sympathy for a man who was eventually convicted as a terrorist for his part in the Toronto 18.  It certainly didn’t ever imply or make me think that his choices to participate in planning terrorist acts were the right decision.  It would have been easier to watch if the author had let me hold onto the stereotypes that make it seem okay for our “justice” system to treat a “monster” with less care than we would demand an animal receive as a bare minimum necessity. 

Only the characters based on the author and the man eventually convicted as a terrorist seemed fully developed.  The others seemed wooden and one dimensional.  I suspect that was the result of an inexperienced playwright, but even if it was a conscious choice to ensure that the audience only connected with the main characters, I felt the author’s sense of betrayal as she realized that this man whom she championed had some significant responsibility for the terrorist acts being planned.  He wasn’t just an innocent bystander who was duped or entrapped or misled. He may have been all of those things as well, but he chose not to report what he knew. Yes, he may have tried to mitigate the damage that might be caused, but he could have made the choice to stand firmly against that kind of violence. 

But does his culpability mean that he shouldn’t still be seen as a person  worthy of being treated with dignity and respect? Do we really think it’s okay to leave someone in solitary confinement for more than a year?  Does that help us stop terrorism or does it actually inspire more virulent hatred? Would our world be so prone to violent acts if we stopped demonizing those with whom we disagree?

That’s the thing, art is supposed to expand our world, not narrow it.  It should cause us to take a step back and wonder how we can make the world a better place. It’s good when it makes us uncomfortable and makes us question the beliefs we now accept as indisputable fact.

If we want to move beyond stereotyping people and even countries or religious groups based on their ideology or skin color, we need to see those groups of people as individuals. Human beings who are more like us than we sometimes care to admit. Human beings who are passionate about their beliefs. Human beings who are tired of being trampled on and racially profiled based on the actions of a smaller group of human beings with whom they share some commonality. Human beings who may at some level have made poor or even horrendous choices about how to make sure their view is heard. But still, human beings, in all their marvellous imperfection.

If we started seeing people who are different from us as human beings with intrinsic value simply because they are human, maybe they wouldn't feel the need to express themselves in such violent ways to ensure their voices are heard.

Call me crazy but I always thought "pro-terrorism" meant supporting killing people and blowing things up as a way to make your point.  I’m pretty certain it is something entirely different than that, when a piece of art reminds us the monsters we fear most are not really so different from the people we see in the mirror everyday.  I could be wrong, but it seems to me that a play that challenges us to be a better society is exactly the kind of art I’m proud to see our country support with federal grants.  It’s a shame our federal government doesn’t seem to feel that way any more.

I am a Writer

I am a writer. I have words inside that want to be shared. Words that deserve to be allowed outside in the fresh air. Words that should exist as something at least a little separate from their author, though they will still always be part of me even after they develop a life of their own.

I am a writer and one person's lack of care and respect for the words I had entrusted to them does not mean that everyone else on the planet will trample the pieces of my heart that are exposed in the words I write. I know that the words I write have the ability to change the world into a better place, whether they are read by many or only a few, or even if I am the only person who ever sees them on the page. I know this to be true because writing them down rather than holding those same words hostage inside me changes me for the better. The process of writing allows me to more fully be who I was created to be and transforms me word by word into the person I long to be.

Being a writer does not mean that I must earn my living from my words. I am still a writer even when I spend my daytime hours in cubicle land. I am still a writer if no one ever reads a word that I write. I am still a writer whether I write free flowing, stumbling, non-rhyming poetry or speculative fiction or children's stories or personal essays or even just in my journal that no one else sees.

I am a writer. It's not just what I do in my spare time, when the urge hits. It is an integral part of what makes me who I am. Writing brings me joy and peace and contentment in ways I can't find words to express. Even when writing makes me cry because the process has exposed those tender, damaged places I keep hidden from others and, most of the time, from my conscious self, I am a writer and I am stronger and braver and more whole after the words have been created on the page in front of me.

Other interests and passions may ebb and flow, but somewhere inside the need to put pen to paper ... or fingers, and lately thumbs, to keyboard ... is a constant in my life. I am a writer because that is who I am. While it feels nice ... Okay a lot better than nice, try fabulous ... when others, strangers or those I hold dear, acknowledge that I have words worth sharing and call me a writer, it doesn't actually make a difference in whether or not I am a writer. I am a writer even if I am the only one who knows that to be true.

Whether I write long hand using pen and paper in a bedraggled notebook carried every where I go, or whether words follow more smoothly typing on my netbook, or even if I’ve gone mobile and discovered that my smartphone keyboard is, for me, a perfect balance of the two at this moment in time, I am a writer.  The method, or the subject matter, or the style, or the size of audience … all of these things may make it harder or easier on ay given day for me to see myself as a writer, but none of these external things change the one simple, straightforward fact.  My name is Karen and I am a writer.

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Two extra bits …

Thanks Pace & Kyeli!  You were right.  I needed to say that out loud. 

I tried this last night but it got all "I should be a poem. That would be the RIGHT thing to be, if you’re really a writer." Foolishly, I listened. Then, the words got all tied up in trying to be what they thought they should be rather than what I needed to write for myself. While I got words on paper that may have been some of the "write" words, they weren't really what was in my heart. I didn’t throw them out, maybe there is a poem hiding in them somewhere, but they need some space to think. Once they’re willing to behave, and not try to be something they’re not, I’ll let them out of the corner and take a look. I’ll keep you posted if anything interesting happens…

A Deer Feeder?

I may know why the deer was so obliging the other morning when I stopped to take its picture.  It appears we may have been unknowingly feeding it for several weeks.

We got a new bird feeder a few weeks back, and the seeds have been disappearing but we’ve never actually seen any birds around it.

We stopped our TV viewing tonight to watch as a deer wandered across the front lawn, but imagine our surprise when we realized the deer had stopped to feed, not on the hosta garden which regularly gets a few nibbles but at the bird feeder! The feeder might be squirrel-proof, but apparently it’s not deer-proof. 

There was a lot of laughter as we imagined what my Grandma would have said.  As much as she loved animals of all sorts, she used to get really annoyed by the squirrels when they would eat from her bird feeder.  They’d scare away the birds she loved to watch, but more importantly, they'd dig up her tulip bulbs and eat them, or plant them in the middle of the grass in the neighbour’s yard. While I don’t think Grandma would have gone with the method a fellow blogger with a similar dislike for squirrels chose, she might have if she found the product. She did happily have Grandpa set up a squirrel relocation program more than once with squirrels moved to more forest-like locations she was sure they would like better than her yard.  I used to tease her all the time about the poor, displaced squirrels who must be missing their families.  Somewhere I have a postcard that I sent her from university with a photo of a grey squirrel and a story about his missing family.

Grandma had no patience with squirrels at her bird feeder, but I think she’d have made an exception for a deer … as long as they didn’t start snacking on her garden. Good thing Grandpa didn’t have to figure out how to relocate a deer.

Deer in the city

There’s something pretty amazing about living in a city where deer wander around and are practically tame.

I'd been busy sticking my earbuds in my ear and fiddling with my mp3 player, only keeping half paying attention to whether there were any cars on the dead end street off a dead end street where I live. I looked up and there was a doe standing in a neighbour's driveway, quiet and still as could be, just staring at me.

I stopped in my tracks and stared back, enjoying the moment. As I pulled out my phone, I actually said out loud, "Can I take your picture?" Okay, maybe that was a little silly, but somehow it seemed polite and I guess the answer was yes since she stayed perfectly still. I took my picture and started to walk on. She turned her head to follow me with her eyes and as long as I could still see her she was still watching.

It made me wonder what would happen if she followed me to the bus stop. I don't think they'd let her on the bus, and she definitely wouldn't like it downtown. But it did make a fun picture for my morning, the deer commuter. Or maybe ... "Hey boss, look what followed me to work. Can we keep it?"

World Changing Writing Workshop

Dear Heartfull Karen-
Do you want to write and share what's in your heart?

I'd barely opened my email before my heart shouted a resounding YES! The words opened an email from SARK about a new online workshop that she was teaching in. I've had the privilege of listening to SARK speak before and it truly was inspiring but that wasn't actually what made me jump at those words. It went deeper and broader than that.

I investigated the link and felt myself getting excited in a way that has only happened a few times in my life. Times when the thing I was encountering was so just perfectly me that I dared not turn away.

The thing was it scared me a little. I've never felt that in regards to my writing. Writing is a very personal journey for me and as much as I'd love to have my voice heard, it's really pretty rare that I'm willing to share what I've written with even my closest friends...notice how sparse and generally far between posts in this blog tend to be. The choice to create Karen's Cake Adventures was a conscious choice to stop being intimidated and write about something I enjoy doing. The reality is that for the most part, it's still a very safe choice. Yes, a lot of who I am goes into every cake I design, but really it's safe to talk about the funny and silly stuff that happens when I make a cake and the things I learn during the process. It's things I learn about stuff I do not really about who I am as a person. But even there I haven't written all that often or consistently.

Don't get me wrong. Decorating cakes is actually important to me. It's definitely an expression of my creativity. I'm not great at creating visual art with a pen and paper, but I can say with pride that the things I create with cake, buttercream and fondant are beautiful. And beauty in anything does make the world a better place.

I have a love-hate relationship with writing. I love the physical experience of putting pen to paper and watching words flow into life. But at the same time the vulnerability of that process can terrify me into silence, procrastination and self-sabotage so I don't have to face the fear and take the risk.

Writing is like taking a little piece of your soul and leaving it out there for someone to stomp on or ridicule. I've been in that place and cried more tears than the person who did the stomping was worth but that experience leaves a mark and makes me want to avoid the possibility of it happening ever again.

I'm a glass half full kind of person and in most areas of my life that's exactly how I choose to live my life. Very rarely have I made that same choice recently in regards to what I write. But I know that there are more words that I need to write and that at some point they need to move beyond just being words on a page for me. So I've made a conscious choice and signing up for the World Changing Writing Workshop is part of that. It's time to take that step of faith and remember that while I've had that piece stomped on, others pieces have been put out there and been valued and have made the world a better place. It's time to focus on those pieces and remember that the stomping is part of what has made me who I am today and that's stronger than I was back then. Sometimes growth hurts but it doesn't mean you stop growing.

As another traveler on the journey to world changing writing described it, it's time to stop letting those "personal historical snaggles ... grab my ankles as I run by." It's time for me to determine how I live my life and share my words. I'm not going to make any sweeping promises about how much or how often I'm going to post here because that's more likely to cause me to sabotage myself rather than motivate me. Instead I'm going to use M-P-Q for exactly the reason I originally created it, as a place to post things that make me wonder and think. I'm just not going to avoid posting things here or decide that things have to be more important or profound or whatever other excuse I've told myself so that I'd stay silent and safe.

As it said on the Starbucks cup wrappers all winter …

Rembering and Celebrating

I was trying to figure out what to put as my status on Facebook this morning.  Many of my friends have something about the fact it's Remembrance Day.  There's no question that's important.  My Dad's brother was killed in Italy during World War II. The thing is, it's also my brother's birthday.  We may not always, or even often, see eye to eye on many things, but it's still his birthday and that's worth celebrating. 

The two things always seem to stand in stark contrast. 

My birthday is close to Christmas and, though I'm forty ... at least for another month ... people still ask me if I dislike having my birthday close to Christmas.  Our family Christmas tree still doesn't usually go up until after my birthday, so the two celebrations remain separate. 

That can't really happen for my brother's birthday.  It's the same day.  The day of somber remembrance for those who have been willing to pay the ultimate price to make peace a reality in our world, that day is also his birthday, a day to celebrate life. 

Maybe they're not really such opposite things.  Yes, we need to remember the sacrifices that have been made on our behalf, but our actions also need to show we value those sacrifices by not forgetting to celebrating the life and freedom we have.

I guess that decides it.  Remember and Celebrating, that's what I'm doing today.