Thursday, October 25, 2012

Why we need to love

A few months ago there was a post that was getting shared a lot, and that I found very moving and well-written:
Basically, it is about a gay man who is married to a woman, and how that works for them. I had concerns about it, like that people would read and think, well, anyone can do it, and he is pretty clear that is not the case, or that people would look down on him for his choice, which has certainly happened, but ultimately I found it really heartfelt and interesting, and I am glad they have a relationship that works for them, because that’s not easy to come by, for anyone.
There was one thing that struck me most, and I’m not sure how much it was noticed by others, but that’s what I’m going to focus on here, so I am quoting:
“My parents were incredibly loving and supportive, which is part of why I believe I’m so well adjusted today. They deserve serious props for being so loving and accepting—I never felt judged or unwanted or that they wished to change anything about me. That’s part of why I have never been ashamed about this part of myself… I’ve never been shameful about who I am, or about this feature of me as a critical part of my person, which it is in the same way that sexuality is a critical part of any person.”
It’s not that he didn’t face any prejudice, as he definitely faced some abuse in school, but his parents always fully accepted him and loved him. His wife, who started out as his friend from way back, loved and accepted him.
I guess for the past year I have been gaining a growing appreciation for exactly how difficult growing up is, and becoming a person that you can accept and feel good about. Some of the posts in May and June especially relate to that. It starts out hard, and gets harder if there is anything different about you, like being fat, or having a handicap or a lot of other things, and yes, like being gay.
We know what the bullying situation is, and the suicide rates and the runaway rates for gay teens. It would not be easy being gay regardless, and also being Mormon, and in Utah, that would be really hard. (He does not mention how much moving to Oregon helped, but I would still guess it remained hard.) And yet, here he is, having a rewarding family life, and career, and a creative outlet, and he sounds really happy, and I think we have to give a lot of credit to his parents for that, because they just loved and accepted him.
Do you think he would be as well-adjusted if they had tried to “beat the gay out” of him? I would hope he would find a way to overcome it, but why take a life that is hard and then make it harder? Actually, a lot of my political beliefs come from this.
(And I am not aware of any relation to Pastor Sean Harris, but it’s not impossible. Listening to him made me physically ill, but I’m not sure if that makes it more or less likely.)
Now, it is totally true that being loving and accepting may have resulted in them getting a son-in-law instead of a daughter-in-law. There could have been many different results, and part of love is that you have to mean it; saying “I love you” and mentally adding “as long as” is not good enough.
And that’s going to be true with many different things. Children whose parents taught them not to use drugs or have sex or steal will sometimes still do these things, and sometimes children who were not taught very well will end up defying expectations. There are unique individuals here, and there is a limit to how much you can mold them, which is actually a really cool thing.
This is a place where belief in Christ should uniquely prepare us to deal with all of these challenges and fears, because that plan allows for sin. We come here, and we make choices, and at least some of those choices, probably quite a few, end up being wrong, and yet you can learn from these things, and change, in ways that you never could without choice, so we have God sending His Son to pay for those sins, and it works out. There is forgiveness, there is healing, and there is comfort, on a grander scale than this life, and we can have some trust in Him, but that trust includes allowing other people to make choices that we don’t like.
We really need to believe this. For a lot of non-believers the issue (besides the difficulty of faith in the unseen) is that God allows such terrible things to happen. If those of us who believe in God can’t accept that people are allowed to sin, and do awful things that hurt others and themselves, how can they look at us and not see our belief as idiotic? We owe the world better than that, and we owe God better than that. And we certainly owe children better than that.
Many years ago I saw an episode of Maury Povich where it was makeovers for drag queens. I think they had seven, but there was just one that stuck out to me because looking at him in both his drag person and his off-stage personality, I don’t know how to describe it, but it’s like everything about him was screaming “Look at me! But don’t see me!” No one should grow up feeling like that.
There is so much beauty and ability inside each of us, and I want to focus on nurturing that. Yes, if we love people, they will sin. You know what, if we don’t love them, they will still sin, and then we’re sinning too, and we’re making lives harder, and the world uglier. In my experience, all of the beautiful things come from loving.

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