For Payton

Dear Payton,

I know you're going to see this because we're going to be exchanging Christmas gifts tomorrow and if you don't see this before then, I have led you to see this now. Here's why I decided to blog about/for you... I felt like going public (as public as potentially literally anyone in the whole world reading this) about how I feel about you. I could write you another poem out on paper, and I will always do that, but I feel like letting everyone in on how amazing I think you are and how much I love you. I hope someone stumbles across this and remembers that love is real and amazing and magical and everything they've ever dreamed of as a lovely human, just like we have. So without further ado, here is my love for you.
Wow... where do I start? What do I feel like I can actually say? I can fathom a lot of imaginative ways to express the simple and bold love that I feel for you, but I want you to hear (and/or read it) honestly, straight from my heart. Like a profession or a confession or something.
Love... You make me so so so so very happy. I feel like I can feel my heart smiling every time I think of you. I hear it speaking of all the wonderful things about you as a human, as the most creatively awesome person I know, a complete talent, an amazing man, a loving boyfriend all wrapped up in words that my heart cherishes, like "my baby" and "sweetie" and "love" or "lovey." You make my heart gush like a little girl and all that little girls want is for their hearts to gush. You found the key to my heart and unlocked the dam that was keeping my rivers of love from overflowing, and now they're overflowing for you (and moreso for other people too now). You are so entirely precious to me in the least girly sense. You are precious to me in the sense that I completely care about your heart and desires and dreams and 1000% want to be there to support you in all that you do and do those things with you, just like you're there for me and care about me. I FREAKING CARE ABOUT YOU! A lot! A whole lot! I love getting to know you, too. I absolutely love hearing your heart for the world because it's beautiful and always reminds me that the world is a beautiful place. You are passionate and loving and caring for every single person that you meet. And you are entirely fun when you speak love. It's just such a pure expression...sometimes I try to think about your expressions too much, like how they can be the way they are in such passion...but then I realize that YOU'RE JUST LOVE! AND SO MUCH OF IT! How can you ask love how it loves? It just does! And there's just literally nothing you can do to change it. Wow, that's good, haha. And there you go again...teaching me things about things and Papa all over again. Man! I CANNOT WAIT TO MARRY YOU! It's gonna be the absolute best and it's crazy and it's like my dreams are coming true and it's amazing and makes me feel like a girl all giddy and excited and I just love it all, okay??? ;) I just love you!!! And I just want the whole stinking world to know it! I would do anything to just be there for and with you, and I perfectly intend to do that forever with you, baby. You are my everything in a way that my heart has always longed to love a boy in this way...it rules finally meeting the passionate treasure of a boy that your heart has waited so long to know. And I'm so freaking glad it's you, Payton. I'm so freaking glad and so stinking happy and passionate about you! You are the best and I am beyond stoked to tell you that every single day, even before we marry. You are just every good thing incarnate and I love that you love me and that I love you and that our love is changing the world as we speak. We're going to do AMAAAAAAZZZZIIIIINNNNGGG things together, love, and I can't wait to see what happens when the love bombs go off and you take off flying. You are my hero, baby. You are perfect and I LOVE YOU. SO FREAKING MUCH. Ughhhhhhh! Haha ;)

Love,
Martina, your adoring girlfriend ;)

Opinions

I'll be honest--I'm a bit ticked right now.
I'm tired of seeing the opinion-based spewings of hardcore kids all over Facebook comment sections. Hiding behind good rhetoric is not gonna help anyone but will only make you feel better about yourself because let's face it, that kind of pompous language is an attempt to sound clever and witty and no one freaking cares unless you're hardcore. And isn't hardcore always about proving yourself to some group or someone? Isn't it always about hazing and bulljunk like that?
I've just about had it with the hardcore scene. It sucks. There's been very little good come out of it recently I feel like.
But here's my point...even this opinion that I have I don't hold on to in fear of being wrong. I just don't take myself seriously enough and try to cleave to a value system and defend it with my whole mind and fists that it matters enough. Constructive thoughts are wonderful, but I've just had it with the loaded academic rhetoric bull. What's the point? To be pompous? That's just plain dumb. Get a life.
Or really, friend, just realize that you're already good. There's nothing deficient with you. You needn't try to prove that anymore. Be yourself and love yourself and life. Jesus does about you, hardcore kids. He really does. You've got nothing left to prove. I promise.

Beliefs Aren't A Salve

Beliefs aren't a salve and doctrine can't be applied to solve life's problems.
Jesus did it all already.
To rest is truly the best.

Awkward

Have you ever just had those moments where something you've avoided for a long time suddenly pops up out of nowhere and you're pretty surprised about it? Just had one of those.
Healing is such a long and tough process, but it's necessary.
Don't ever give up on it. Don't let it become you and let communication happen where it's needed.
Friendship is important and it's important to remember that.

That was my frustration all along.

Looking to return to this topic again in the near future with vulnerability and shame, guilt, and fear as points of address. Excited!

Tradition: The Most Valuable Source? A Valuable Source At All?

I've been thinking lately about the source of tradition in use of theology. Theologians claim four sources for doing theology: Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. You've already heard me rip apart and book back together Scripture and now I'm thinking about tradition.
I've noticed lately the inclination that some people have towards listening too intently to others, throughout history and in the here and now/modern age. By listening too intently I mean listening to gain something from them selfishly. To gain some truth, some knowledge, some hope that you're not wrong or some secret about God. I see people studying the church fathers and modern pastors and every single thing in life too intently, so much so that, as much as they claim they don't, they begin to listen to rely on them for affirmation. They are looking for some outlet to agree with, to argue their point-of-view, to do something other than just listen. There always seems to be an agenda, doesn't there? I even have heard people say that we should listen, and then they turn around and say that's what being a good Christian is about. Even pleasing God is an agenda, as if He isn't already pleased. I know it's good to be a good listener, but not because it's what good Christians do and certainly not to gain something/some nugget of wisdom from someone so selfishly. No shame, but that's just selfish.
To me, I see every single human being as a gift. I see that everyone around me is learning about life in some way or another. Religiously and unreligiously (hopefully the latter). Seeing everyone as a gift, I long to JUST live in community with each person, living and yes, learning from them, but just because I'm friends with them. To learn from them is not a goal, but I know it is a natural bi-product and that rules. I simply long to share in intimacy, vulnerability, and to ask people if they're feeling loved; I long to love and that is IT. I don't wish to glean something from anybody, I just want to hear them out because that's how I love them because I WANT to, not because it's my Christian duty to. As for the church fathers, I just want to hear them out, that's all. I want to consider their thoughts in such a way that honors them as human beings just figuring life out, not to craft my own belief system off their thoughts. Not to leech off them. Not to make a new doctrine. Not to argue something. Just to rest and put my arm around my friend from the past and love them for who they were.
I'm sick of all the debates, I'm sick of all the tradition having actual "say" in our lives. Let love inform you, that's all you need, I promise.
Thank ya!

Everyone and Their Lives

Today, I've been pondering what important beliefs I have about life, apart from Christianity/religious ideal. I ask myself this question every so often and it's been coming up a lot recently. I always seem to come back to knowing love in wholeness and community, encouraging and holding one another up and enjoying, adventuring, living in wonder and awe of ourselves and this world (and the Creator of it!). To me, Jesus is the final say about the goodness of humanity and serves as a reminder that we can't mess this thing up, this being human thing, because He forgave our troubled minds (as we asked Him to). He's so beautiful! That's who I want everyone to know in total and utter intimacy. That's literally all I want in life.
I've also been thinking about the implications of this in my life and "ministry." If I'm supposedly going into an exclusively Christian context, how does my views on  Scripture and sin affect that? Can I get a job? Will people still want me if I disagree with their major doctrines, but offer helpful alternatives and everything is MORESO rooted in love? I plan on taking some time off from Christian culture, at least predominantly, after college, so I'm not worried about a job immediately afterwards, but what about later down the line? I'm thinking a dry church is where I want to start, because at least change can happen there (quoting another author here...of The Art of Curating Worship, can't remember his name). I just want people to know that they're loved and they're not alone at all in this thing, that vulnerability is OKAY, and love is all we have and need. And I know the power of this played out in real life...I've seen it. It's sooo powerful and beautiful! Our Papa is such a good One! Haha! :) I just love Him! Goodnessssss! Hehahahaha :D
Oh, also with worship... what if the question isn't "How can I get Christians connected to God/the story of God/the drama of redemption?" but "How can I connect humanity with love active (the very God)?" What if God has multiple names? What if He's revealing Himself all over the place and Christians have tried to claim Him all for themselves? What if He's Yahweh and Elohim and Jesus but also some other names that sound so blasphemous to our Christian ears? What if? What does that say for worship and who we worship? I would hope nothing inherently bad but I'm afraid the implications are such, at least in a Christian context.
...I just feel so torn. What do I need to believe but love, and to let love show me what is beneficial to believe? I'll let my heart do the talking and I'll keep on walking without the shame and guilt and fear trips. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming swimming. What do we do, we swim!
Children got the deal doooooowwwnnn.

The Doctrine of Sin Is Basically a Joke

Now that I've said what I feel plainly, I want to explain.
First of all, here's the backstory...
In my theology class, we've been discussing various parts of the traditional "doctrines" like God and who He is, His attributes, etc. We just finished on the image of God and are now moving on to sin in a few days here. I have had quite a lot of trouble trying to fully explain myself because of this here doctrine. I thought my problem was going to be with the doctrine of Christ/atonement, but that's only part of it. To be honest, I'm sort of dreading talking about sin for the next however many long weeks, 4 days a week. I read up on what our textbooks have to say and I'm pretty sure we're just going to stay within those. To be honest, it doesn't seem to me like anyone has yet to believe that sin isn't this big issue or a part of our nature.
What brought about this musing is how I felt today. I had this nagging almost depressing feeling come over me and, as I've been trained to do, I started thinking about the music I've been listening to, the people I've been hanging around on my own, and the teachers I've been following because I resonate with them in my heart. I began by coming against my very self and that's when I knew...something isn't right here. I feel as if my environment is always looking inward, too, attaching every single mistake they've ever done to themselves as a pattern of life. And not only to themselves but all of humanity! I find this entirely disconcerting!
I've been thinking about what some of the thoughts I was reading are about sin, and how I feel my professor might go about it. One in particular that did stick out to me was that sin involves community, and the tearing up of it. Knowing my professor to be big on community, I assume he will probably lean more towards this understanding (not that he will enforce it on us, but I assume he will favor it). Part of me likes that because at least it's not AS focused on our own shame, but then I suppose it is. I assume it means something like one of us messes up and everyone feels it so we should guilt ourselves into never messing up and guilt ourselves into confession and repentance and guilt ourselves into feeling what other people feel and guilt ourselves into forgiveness.
I hate guilt. I hate shame even more. I hate fear. Don't you?
So why do we sympathize with it so dang much? Why do we attach it to our identities? Because the Bible seems to say so? Gag! Why should any book be an external authority by which we dictate our lives? Does not Scripture itself even say that God writes the law on our hearts (our sense of morality/ethics/just being ourselves really in relation to God and others)? Doesn't Jesus come to "fulfill" the law...or better yet, to show that He IS the law? Loving people that aren't getting loved and yet loving the self-righteous, too? God is love and since when did He ever stop loving us? Since when did He ever change His mind about us as "very good"? Why do we think we MUST conceive of a God that reigns down justice in the name of love? Because the Bible seems to say so? Circular reasoning. How do we know what love is? Because the Bible tells us so? No, because we EXPERIENCE it. No book can ever tell you what love is in its entirety. No words can. Maybe there are words...maybe they sound like...Y...H...W...H...Jesus...God...Father/Papa...Mother/Mama...Brother/Sister...Grandfather/Ancient of Days...Fountain of Youth...Elohim...Creator... Maybe love has nothing to do with Scripture. Maybe it speaks of it but we all know in our hearts that love cannot be summed up like that.
And with our hearts...my main point here to be stated is that I really, really, really don't think our hearts are bad, or evil and wicked beyond all measure. I can EASILY see how that is one man's idea of how he made a mistake and now all of a sudden it's attached to his identity. That seems like the big life question we've all pondered...who am I? Am I good? Of course! Who told you otherwise? Maybe Adam got too close to his feelings of loneliness and instead of learning from his mistake, humanity picked up on it and said "hey! that's how i feel too! we must all have something about us that is this way! at least i'm not alone in that!" How sad, that humanity feels they can only relate to each other based on their problems. We long for more, do we not? We long to know that the whole earth loves us. We long to live in fullness of community. And I argue that sin does not separate us from that, but only in our minds. What if, like I've said, we just romanticized those feelings of guilt and superimposed these pagan ideas of how gods are angry and all onto the real God, forcing Him to relate to us through sacrifice--which, later on we find out He hates! (I argue not because our hearts are evil, but because we refuse to just rest and trust in Papa to show us Himself and therefore us)--and murdered our very image because we'd gotten soooo far out of hand with our mistaken beliefs? What if that mistake wasn't a big deal, originally at least, and it just escalated sooo out of proportion that God planned Christ to come? Maybe He knew we'd sacrifice Him, maybe He didn't...I don't know. But does it really matter? It doesn't change "my faith"...does it yours, I mean really? Maybe He did know but worked with us where we were, trying to change our minds, and when we wouldn't, He offered Himself up and said "look...here, at what I just accomplished...you just killed both Me and yourself...and yet I forgive you ("Father, forgive them for they know not what they do..."). there is absolutely nothing that can or will EVER separate us...I prayed for our oneness to be realized between You and me and in community with the whole earth...you never lost it...you only thought you did...I did to bring healing to your troubled mind that was never set to wander...you only thought it was and I give you so much freedom to learn and create worlds for yourself...I'd like you to rest in the one I made and to let me show you how to be yourself because you are Me...we are Gods/gods...I wanted to share in this divine nature with you...I love you my child...beloved..."
So,
Since when has sin EVER been a problem for Papa? Since when have we EVER been disgusting to Him? Since when?
If you're reading this, I would ABSOLUTELY LOVE to discuss this with you. I'm not afraid if you're not afraid. Thank you.