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| Picture copied from Ten Famous Paintings With Hidden Codes |
I am grateful we do not follow the many many many many verses in the Bible that would have us kill people as punishment for their sins as well as banish people for being unclean, for example, lepers. How is it that our human wisdom directs us NOT to follow those directives?
It is interesting to me that many of us rely upon our OWN inspired wisdom to believe that life begins at conception. The literal interpretation of Biblical verses implies that life begins when we breathe on our own and we die when we stop breathing. But we use our own inspired wisdom to go beyond what is available in the Bible to cherish our unborn children and to cherish life in general.
So, can we also begin to rely upon our own inspired wisdom to recognize there are “things” in God’s creation that we do not understand, for example, that ten percent of the population have a sexual orientation that is different from the other ninety percent? Why did God do that? Is God a trickster? I, for one, do not think so, and I think in this contemporary time of some level of “tolerance,” God wants us to learn from gay people and gay couples something about our own sexuality and our relationships.
The gay men with whom I associate and work with in my practice, offer a gentleness and a kindness that I just do not see in straight men, and definitely not in homophobic straight men. When I work with gay couples, it is inspiring to observe them negotiating the relationship beyond the stereotypes that the straight world brings to relationships, and most of the conflicts in marriage center around these stereotypes, some of them hard fast justified by fundamentalist “Christians” who use the Bible to justify male egocentricity and domination.
I realize there are many many many issues here, again issues that are difficult to resolve. For example, I wonder how it works for a child raised in a gay family without that “compliment” of a mom and dad. But perhaps the issue is no more or no less a concern than the zillions of children raised in a family with a mom and a dad who never address their gender wounds which they bring to their family from their own history and inflict these wounds upon their children in so many destructive and painful ways.
To be honest, I don’t know what to think about “gay marriage,” except that I know the gay couples with whom I work in my practice are genuinely committed to each other and love each other and can be and are as much a sign of God’s love for God’s people as heterosexual couple can be and are.
We have yet, as a species, come to know what it looks like to love. We are getting there, and there are many concrete examples of love in our world today, and some of you demonstrate love in your daily life as well as in your relationships in many outstanding ways. But in general, we still have a long way to go. We will know we have arrived when killing people for whatever reason is no longer an option in our world, and we use all the other powers God has given us to stop those who continue to kill.
“Gay marriage,” is not a concept or an idea. It is about people who love each other and we may not understand it, but that is not a reason to condemn it and be afraid of it, And, even if you insist upon condemning gay marriage, see if there is something else on which to spend your energy, like inviting someone you don’t like over for dinner. And yes, I know I will get a lot of invites after this post!!
I posted the picture of the laughing Jesus because I think sometimes, Jesus doesn’t know what to do with us, but laugh!
Pinterest link for this picture
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