Tag Archives: relationships

Aren’t We Forgetting Something?

Posted by Amy in Sexuality and tagged with ,

Whenever we have “Biblical” or “Christian” discussions about sexuality, there are inevitably some people who are left out:

1. People in relationships with someone of the same sex.

I understand that this can be tricky in non-affirming churches.  Even so, the message is essentially limited to, “Don’t do that.”  I honestly can’t imagine what it would be like to hear a three-week sermon series on Biblical sex which doesn’t resemble my own experiences, and on the rare occasion that it’s supposed to, it still doesn’t.  Ethical sexuality doesn’t have to be so specific to twenty-first century American male-female relationships.  At the very least, we ought to be expanding our discussions around the topic.

2. People who don’t have typical gender roles in their relationships or are non-gender-conforming.

We make this assumption when we say, “Men are like…and women are like…”  I’ve heard it excused by saying, “But most people relate to this analogy!”  Yep, and most people is not the same as all people.  It’s offensive when it is done regarding race or ethnicity, why isn’t it the same when it comes to gender roles?  I had a friend tell me that she is the “man” in her marriage because she enjoys sex more often than her husband.  No, honey, you’re not.  You’re a confident, sexy woman who appreciates her body and enjoys sex.  Nothin’ wrong with that at all.  Standing up in front of the congregation and giving men a list of things they should do to make their wives happy isn’t a good idea.  The reverse is also true.  Why doesn’t anyone ever just say, “Find out what your spouse likes and make the effort to grow together?”  It seems like that would eliminate nearly all of the issues.

3. People who are transgender.

Yep, I’m going there.  I don’t know what that would be like, but I’ve seen how transgender folks are treated by clergy (I posted about it before).  I don’t have anything productive to say about it, just that having at least some awareness around the issue might be helpful.  A basic understanding of biology and genetics would be good, too.

4. People with different cultural backgrounds.

That might be surprising, but it’s true.  When I was in training as a health educator, we talked about how much of health education assumes a white, male, American-born perspective.  The problem is that there are underlying cultural norms within other communities which affect the lens through which people see.  What works in one situation (a predominantly white middle-class suburb) would not work in another (fill in the blank).  A blanket statement about “what the Bible says” isn’t necessarily helpful because it doesn’t eliminate those cultural overlays.

When I mentioned all of this to my husband, he said that one place to start might be a simple change in phrasing.  Instead of saying, “Men are…women are…” we could say, “In my relationship…”  Making it specific to ourselves allows people to put themselves in our places.  For example, if a pastor says, “Men, bring your wives flowers for no reason,” he could change it to, “My wife loves when I bring her flowers for no reason.”  My husband knows there is little I dislike more than 1. surprises and 2. flowers.  But hearing how our pastor and his wife show each other love creates space for us to say, “What would it take for me to show love to you?”  It creates conversation rather than missives.

I believe the same applies in sexual ethics.  By putting ourselves in the story, we can help others put themselves in their own stories.  I think it might help when it comes to questions of purity, too.  Instead of listing the twenty reasons to abstain, why not tell us your own story?  Let us use our creative minds to understand how you felt, what you went through, and what the outcome was.  Tell us how it affected you.  Use Scripture, certainly, but show us how your faith and your understanding of Scripture affected you.  Then let us place ourselves in the narrative.  It’s a stretch.  But as Carl Rogers said, “What is most personal is most general.“  That which we feel and think deeply, our own experiences, resonate much more than attempting to speak to the middle, generalizing to the greatest number of people.

Microwave Meals for One

Posted by Amy in Sexuality, Women and tagged with ,

Here’s another great video from Amplify Your Voice:

I don’t know about other women, but I am done with hearing about what men and women are like…from men. Gentlemen, listen up, because I think you may have a thing or two to learn about women.

You know that whole microwave-crock pot crap? Throw it out the window. I just know that was a metaphor conceived by a man. (I could be really mean here, but I will restrain myself.) Chalk this up to the Mars and Venus phenomenon. Remember when that was all the rage? Although it went a long way toward helping men and women understand each other, I think we’ve made too much of it.

Aside from the fact that I don’t like to be compared to a kitchen appliance, I dislike the analogy on several fronts. First, it displays a clear misunderstanding of female sexual arousal. There’s an underlying assumption that women won’t be interested unless they’ve had flowers, chocolate, and wine first. I’m guessing that a lot of men have no idea how many of their wives get hot from peeking at them in the shower…Second, it assumes men wouldn’t want anything to do with romance or foreplay and would prefer five minutes of fun and a nap. That’s super, but they can achieve that on their own. There’s a reason they choose to be with someone else that I’m willing to bet goes beyond mere getting off. Third, it’s not very helpful in cultivating a healthy physical relationship between married couples. Besides reminding us that we’re different and that we have to “understand” each other, exactly what does it do to promote that understanding? I’ve only ever heard that analogy used by men to justify why they need their wives to “put out,” like the microwave is going to get cranky if you use the stove. Yeah, that’s a metaphor that can be taken too far.

I’m going to propose a few things that I think might put us on the right track:

1. Put down the kitchen appliance and back away slowly. If you are a pastor and you really, truly feel compelled to give a sermon about sex, just skip this analogy, please. In fact, I would like it if you just stayed out of our bedrooms entirely. I secretly throw up a little in my mouth every time I hear a sermon on “Biblical sex” anyway.

2. Specifically, keep Pastor Mark Driscoll out of our bedrooms. Couples: Do yourselves a favor and skip the books that talk about having healthy intimacy. If you need a book, get a nice how-to.

3. Better yet, skip all of that and just talk to each other about it.

4. Nobody likes microwave dinners unless you’re alone. (And yes, you can read into that whatever you like.)

Keepin’ It Fake

Posted by Amy in Relationships and tagged with , ,

Why is it that we often feel the need to cover up things in our lives?  I don’t just mean things we’ve done wrong.  I mean parts of our personalities, things about who we are.

Far too many people have told me recently that they can’t be authentic in their interactions with others.  They’ve been judged and found lacking.  Those people I’ve talked to have come from inside the church, though I imagine it must happen elsewhere too.  What keeps us from being ourselves and, more importantly, from letting others be who they are?

Last Sunday, our pastor made an offhand comment in his message about being open and transparent with people “strategically.”  That struck me as strange.  I don’t think this is exactly what he meant (at least I hope not), but it sounded like putting on a mask except when it will accomplish a goal to remove it.  Talk about living an artificial life!

Mostly, it seems like we hide the parts of ourselves that don’t conform to some invisible standard.  When we don’t meet (or believe we don’t meet) those expectations, we try to hide it.  At the very least, we make sure that our public persona reflects what people want to see.  I know I do it.  I like to hope I’m a bit more open on my blog, and I’m certainly open with my closest friends.  But there are a lot of people who don’t know what’s under the surface.

Case in point: Got a compliment from someone at church last Sunday.  It was very nice that the person thinks I’m a fine, upstanding member.  He’s apparently unaware of certain…affiliations I have outside of church.  I doubt very much that he’d approve.  Anyway, even though I would like to simply accept the compliment and move on, I can’t.  And actually, for all I know, he has things he’s hiding because he believes others might condemn him.  It makes me uncomfortable to think that even though I’m very active in the church, others don’t really know me.  (The good news is, the ones who count do know me.  This wasn’t someone who knows me well, just recognizes me because I’m fairly visible at church.)

So why, if so many of us are lamenting the fact that we feel a bit plastic at church, do we still insist on faking it?  I’m willing to bet that this is where a lot of judgmentalism strikes.  We judge others before they can get to us.  If we blast them for things we perceive as being different or unacceptable, then maybe they won’t see what’s really inside our hearts.

What if we stopped judging and started being more honest?  I don’t mean that we should tell complete strangers our life stories or vomit our drama all over everyone all the time.  Obviously those aren’t brilliant plans.  What I’m talking about is simply being who we are, without apology.  We shouldn’t be made to feel ashamed because we belong to a certain political party or because we parent our children differently.  We shouldn’t judge each other because of the books we read, movies we enjoy, or our recreational activities.  We certainly shouldn’t have to change our personalities because we don’t meet an unattainable standard.

Admittedly, I have no idea how to start that.  Maybe I’m making it too complicated, sort of that “strategic” transparency thing.  I don’t want it to turn into some kind of formula or business model.  How about if I just start with being real with my closest friends?  That might just work.  Hey, if they can’t handle me, then maybe we don’t belong together after all.

Listening, Heart Wide Open

Posted by Amy in Faith, LGBT Issues, Outreach, Questions, Salvation, Sin and tagged with , ,

We need to hear people’s stories. Not just the ones we want to hear, the triumph-of-grace-over-sin, feel-good, happy-ending tales of a life turned to Christ. Not just the kind that make the people cheer in victory, that another soul has been rescued from the clutches of Satan.  We need to hear the stories that make us squirm. The ones that cause us to lie awake nights, asking the deeper questions about sin, salvation, and grace.

Here are a couple of links to just such stories: Life Abundant, a guest post on Andrew Marin’s blog; and this one, the most recent post on Ryan Nix’s blog, Queer as Faith.  (Nix’s posts are much less about being the “gay Christian dude” and more about drawing us back to the heart of the Father.  Incredibly inspiring and often convicting, the posts are very well-written; it’s worth checking out some of the others as well.)

Often, we might say that we ought to get to know real-life LGBT people. But the subtle underlying message we hear or sometimes speak is, “So that they come to know Christ and give up their lifestyle of rampant sin.”  The fault in that is two-fold. First, it’s incorrect to assume anything about someone’s faith (as seen in the links above). Second, it’s never a good idea to enter a friendship with an agenda.

Most of you know where my heart is.  If we’ve talked, then chances are I know where yours is.  No one is being asked to jump immediately on board the train and change their thinking, certainly not overnight. But we do need to hear what people different from ourselves have to say. It’s not a matter of listening with an open mind but an open heart.  When we do this kind of open-hearted listening, we are offering ourselves to G-d to work through us and in us.

Who will you listen to today?

Hurt and Angry

Posted by Amy in Relationships and tagged with ,

Forgive me, as I type this I am at the end of my rope.  It’s been one hell of a week.  Too much has happened in a short period of time.

I’m not normally very open about my feelings when something serious is going on.  Part of that is the irrational belief I have that whatever I experience pales in comparison to what my friends have to endure.  And I don’t want to be specific, as I feel it would be unproductive, bordering on public gossip, and could cause irreparable damage to a fragile relationship.

All that said, I’m angry and hurt beyond what I’ve experienced in recent years.  However it happened, I’ve become a doormat in one of my relationships.  The hard part is, I want to be forgiving and loving.  I want things to work out for the best.  I don’t want to hurt anyone else, even unintentionally.  I find myself walking that fine line between accepting another person, warts and all, and allowing myself to be used.

I called someone else on her behavior.  My hope was not to make her feel bad, but to improve a situation that had been brewing for some time.  Instead, she became defensive and made accusations back at me.  It hurt.  Not because I believe I am perfect, or even that what she said is untrue (at least, some of it).  It was just a flat-out denial that she has any responsibility or that there is any need to change.  She seems content to believe the lies she tells herself, making sure that the rest of us know that we are the problem.

What is left is a broken relationship that I am not sure can be mended.  Right now, it doesn’t feel like there is any way to move beyond the place we have found ourselves.  Too much is at stake.  I want to give up, but that doesn’t seem right either.  The “fix-it girl” in me wants to rewind, take the blame, and say, “Yes, you’re right.”  But in my heart, I know that can’t, and shouldn’t, happen.

My heart is grieving the loss that seems inevitable.