It would be intolerable if someone argued that people of different races could not love one another. Attempting to normalize the same bigotry against queer people is pure hypocrisy for Christians.
Appreciate your transparency, honesty, and vulnerability, friend. Loving our neighbor as ourselves would seem to be a very direct & easy thing to do if we would like to follow the one who made that statement. To love ourselves is to love exactly how we are made - wonderfully created, loved, affirmed, and wanted. We love others, in my opinion, as we are released from our fears and hurts by the softening love of God in our lives.
For me, extending my understanding of love and extending my love for my neighbors has been a journey of unwinding and releasing from my religious cant and bonds. I have been raised in the white Evangelical tradition, and I know a lot of words because of that. W.E. is very good at teaching & repeating the texts of the Christian Scriptures. I listened to that for 50+ years.
And I wish I had understood them better because I did not understand my lack of love for my siblings who are from the Global South until they became a part of my life fifteen years ago. I did not understand my lack of love for my queer siblings until I had people in my life who expressed their queerness to me. I was locked into a limited understanding of love to mean "polite distance and indifference."
But love, I think, is not something that enables us to stand apart from others. Love does not seek to make us disconnected from our siblings. Love, in my opinion, not only empowers us to understand, to see, to connect, but also _moves_ us to connect, to see, to understand.
I learned about these words of love from White Evangelicalism. I'm grateful for the education about the topic. It took me a long time for me to understand, for myself, what the directive words of Jesus meant to _me_, outside of "love" in the context of "ministry."
We have but years on this planet to live. What we choose to do with those years is entirely up to us, but I believe that we can live a more enriched, bountiful life when we let go of what keeps us afraid and alone, and we let love help us reach out to our siblings and become community with them.
Thanks again for sharing your very self in your writings. What you do matters, friend. Your words are healing and encouraging.
Appreciate your transparency, honesty, and vulnerability, friend. Loving our neighbor as ourselves would seem to be a very direct & easy thing to do if we would like to follow the one who made that statement. To love ourselves is to love exactly how we are made - wonderfully created, loved, affirmed, and wanted. We love others, in my opinion, as we are released from our fears and hurts by the softening love of God in our lives.
For me, extending my understanding of love and extending my love for my neighbors has been a journey of unwinding and releasing from my religious cant and bonds. I have been raised in the white Evangelical tradition, and I know a lot of words because of that. W.E. is very good at teaching & repeating the texts of the Christian Scriptures. I listened to that for 50+ years.
And I wish I had understood them better because I did not understand my lack of love for my siblings who are from the Global South until they became a part of my life fifteen years ago. I did not understand my lack of love for my queer siblings until I had people in my life who expressed their queerness to me. I was locked into a limited understanding of love to mean "polite distance and indifference."
But love, I think, is not something that enables us to stand apart from others. Love does not seek to make us disconnected from our siblings. Love, in my opinion, not only empowers us to understand, to see, to connect, but also _moves_ us to connect, to see, to understand.
I learned about these words of love from White Evangelicalism. I'm grateful for the education about the topic. It took me a long time for me to understand, for myself, what the directive words of Jesus meant to _me_, outside of "love" in the context of "ministry."
We have but years on this planet to live. What we choose to do with those years is entirely up to us, but I believe that we can live a more enriched, bountiful life when we let go of what keeps us afraid and alone, and we let love help us reach out to our siblings and become community with them.
Thanks again for sharing your very self in your writings. What you do matters, friend. Your words are healing and encouraging.
👏 💓