There. I said it.

A bit ago, I read this line in one of my very old journals:

"Please don't let me become one of those love-is-all-that-matters Christians."

It was a prayer.

Woah.




I can't imagine, now, how valuing love alone could possibly be a bad thing. For out of love flows justice, faithfulness, selflessness, insert-any-positive-personal-characteristic-here. It's the greatest (and second greatest) commandment and strong enough to instruct me in any dilemma.


Why, then, did I not want to become that? I think it was for the same reason that any person judges anything: fear. We learn rules and we follow them. They make our life make sense. They give us a system to live within. That's very nice.

Back then, Christianity had given me a very neatly defined idea of what it meant to be a human. My politics, sexuality, family, morality, everything was outlined Sunday after Sunday. (I didn't notice then how the rules seemed to conveniently fit the lives those making them.)

Then there were those people who said pieces of that outline may not necessarily be part of God's plan. They suggested that there was room for people to be different from one another.

That was no good. They obviously had some kind of personal agenda. Only people who had ungodly agendas broke the rules. Further more, if that outline was flawed, how, then, was I supposed to live?

Nope. Couldn't happen.


One of the problems with this system, though, even then, was that it's difficult to explain to thoughtful, rational, loving people who are living outside of it.

For example:

Thoughtful, rational, loving person: "Why would a loving God make women with the talent, ambition, and desire to speak and lead if God meant for women to not participate in leadership?"

Back Then Katie: ""

You see? There are too many questions like that. Fear and anxiety abound.


It's worse than this, though. Fear, unchecked, becomes hatred, and hatred becomes violence. This has been one of the great downfalls of the church. In defending our outlines of what it means to be human, we have become fearful and then hateful and then violent. And the violence we've perpetrated has hurt us as much as it's hurt anyone else. Like holding the blade of a knife - the tighter we squeeze, the more deeply we are wounded.

Healing can only come once we let go.

The Kingdom of God is a wonderful, upside-down place. It lives because God lives. That makes it tricky, but when in doubt, we can follow those nifty, greatest commandments.

There. I said it. Love is all that matters.

Sorry, Back Then Katie.

This post was written as a part of a blogging game. The players are The Creative Collective and the topic is Hatred. See what the others are saying. 

i almost waxed indignant while eating triscuits and swiss

okay. i'm having an issue here because the only thing that i really want to write about is my job, but i can't really bring myself to do it. isn't that a cardinal rule of something? don't blog about your job! i'm pretty confident that no one in authority over me cares enough to find my blog and read it (if they did, i might have less to write), but still, i am nervous.

so, here it is: the blog i began to write but then couldn't tell how far was too far and so decided to quit while i was ahead.

sorry it's not complete, maybe i'll finish it one day.

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it's impossible for me to gauge how much of what i have said about my job without going back and reading old posts, and i'd much rather just not know.

no job is perfect, i'm pretty sure of that. i know that some people absolutely love their jobs, but even then, i don't think they'd call them perfect. i don't blame the jobs - we humans are pretty fickle beings who don't like being told what to do, even by ourselves. so, we are left in a state of trying to discern whether or not the good outweighs the bad. unfortunately, for many of us, the big, heavy scale-tipper on the "good" side is that staying at the job we have means that we don't have to get another one. we become snared by a combination of laziness and fear of the unknown.

i have been working at this discernment/balancing act for some time now. i've been at my job about a year and a half and have wavered between enthusiasm and disdain. i am fickle, this i know. sometimes i find this cute and charming about myself, as i'm sure does everyone else, but not when it comes to my job. the pure frustration of being satisfied one day and fighting tears the next makes it difficult to find any sort of peace.

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there you have it, or, don't have it. if you, for some reason, are unbearably intrigued, feel free to email me or something and i'm sure i'll have too much more to say on the topic.