Since this is a blog it's one of the few written forms that I think gives me the right to be temporary and evolving. Today I want to name where I am but also embrace that everything in me can be assumed to be evolving. . . thank God!
This weekend I read a book called "I loved a girl" by a Christian missionary to Africa named Walter Trobisch AND I watched the movie Saving Face. (Sundance film... Chinese lesbian romance). I love how totally opposite these two things are in their assumed--would the right word be ethic--something like that. How can I like them both? A missionary advising a young African man how to be as a Christian man in relationship from the 1960's. And a modern day movie with nothing of Christian faith in it. This is me. Totally BOTH/AND. This is a glimpse of what I was able to name because of the incongruency.
I really liked the movie Saving Face. And realized I do not want to pretend or flee from feelings of attraction just because they are towards a woman. I have done this. I do not want to bury, kill, silence: sexuality, being female, the part of me that has a crush... I have done this for years.
Reading Trobisch I realized I really do want to value, respect, never objectify... whoever I have a crush on. Most of what I had heard about homosexuality before did not have this ethic of Christian relationship/sexuality. The other, which theologian Martin Buber calls "the thou" is never an object, or someone to make me feel good, or to please me. I like the selfless piece of christianity where I am called to serve and love others in general, but especially whoever I might someday commit to as Christ loved the Church. As someone I potentially would be with for the rest of my life. Can I keep all this? Hmmm.
I like the Christian ideals in traditional marriage of faithfulness, commitment, monogamy. I really like them. I do not go so far as my brother who wouldn't even kiss his finance until they got married in an effort to respect her, respect marriage etc. But I still think marriage, long-term partnership, etc. are not only what I want, but are what's healthiest for me. The gender of the "thou" I might commit to someday shouldn't take this away from me. Or at least I keep hoping it won't.
Walter Trobisch talked about sexuality as a tiger. I like his way seeing sexuality as a tiger who I live with. Sexuality and sex does seem a bit wild to me. Not something that would ever be fully tamed. Something, due to my total inexperience, that I think it's healthy for me to respect as wild. I used to fear this tiger. I was raised to view it as bad, dirty, and to be caged. No longer!
I like that in his analogy he invites the tiger in, living with the tiger, keeping eye contact with it, not fearing it or thinking it dirty or evil or a creature to be killed--like many Christians seem to. And yet knowing it's not really a weakling. It's a wild entity. I don't want it to become a pet or a cat. I don't want it domesticated. I live with it, but am not going to just disrespect it's power.
It's a part of me. But above all, it is not all of me. My "real self " my core self needs to be in charge. Or to throw yet another analogy into all of this. If I am a bus, the child part of me cannot drive the bus. The tiger also cannot drive the bus. :)
2 comments:
curious... why are you so quick to say that a movie about Chinese lovers has nothing of Christian faith in it? I'm not sure, but are we able to separate Christian faith from anything or anyone in the world? That is, if we see God as having created all of creation and if we see Christ as God... how then do we dismember the Creator from the Created? I just don't think it's possible. How we reconcile the Creator with beauty, love, sharing, fidelity and generosity should not be too difficult. Did you witness any of these in the movie? Or was it strictly about selfish taking, lust, individualism - things that humans were not created to be/do? Not that I understand where the line is, I just think it's more complicated than we realize...
This is why I blog! To hear people say, "wait a minute, think about this." I do not desire to dismember the creator from the created. And I did see beauty, love, sharing and in the end I saw fidelity and generosity... and maybe even grace. (Is that too much of a stretch to say I saw grace in such a film? In spite of the Chinese shame part (which is so similar to Christian shaming in some ways) in the end love did prevail. Of course it is a movie but. . .
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