can't

I came across this picture the other day. It's a long story how I saw it, and it has to do with me wasting away my time looking at Adam Lambert's twitter. Don't judge. :)

So he posted this, with the caption "*sigh* God doesn't hate" and it has struck a nerve with me since. Who ARE these people, how did they come to a place of thinking that they were obeying and honoring God by behaving in this fashion? It makes me wonder if there is any hope for those of us who desperately seek Him, who desire to fill the world with the LOVE that we know comes only from Him. Will anyone ever believe us? Maybe some "fags hate God", but I bet it's only because of the sorry light in which we've painted Him. It's not God they hate, it's religion masquerading around like an annoying know-it-all.

The God I know is wrapping his mighty arms around these people, loving them and protecting even when they do wrong, and I'm talking about the people in the picture here. I don't claim to know the mind of God when it comes to homosexuality, I believe there is a reason he asks us not to indulge in it, but I think it's so much more out of a desire to protect us than a desire to hinder us and create boundaries and rules. I'm not even sure where I wanted to go in writing this, treading in such a deep and dangerous water, except to say, more for myself than for you, that for me, for my journey and for the children who will grow up in my care, this will be the law in which we abide:

"Let love and faithfulness never leave you;
bind them around your neck,
write them on the tablet of your heart.
Then you will win favor and a good name
in the sight of God and man."

Showing love. Living mercifully. Opening our arms, our homes, our hearts to the hurting, the confused, those who are fundamentally different from us...THAT is true Christianity. And that is what I hope to live. God! Help me to have the strength, show me how.

Mary Oliver

I heard about this poet here and can't get enough of her.

The Summer Day

Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

I will enjoy it. And lap it up in thirsty mouthfuls, even on days I never leave the house, or the laundry is piling or my children are grumpy. There is something to be treasured everyday and I will skip along in the hunt to find it.