I'm pro choice

There are some things that can't be avoided.  Yet there are many situations where the choice is ours to make.   
I had intended to start this post out with a quote by a famous 20th Century poet.  The quote itself is excellent and to the point, but the poet and her life is a different story entirely.  I like words, almost as much as I like music.  Words are powerful.  It may not be true that the pen is mightier than the sword, but for certain they both can be just as effective. 

Adrienne Rich, now a renown lesbian movement phenom, had many choices to make.  According to an Internet biography, she is the daughter of Arnold Rice Rich who was a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins Medical School.  Born around the 1930's, her feminism had many obstacles to overcome before it became full swing.  For one, her father was hoping to groom her to be a pathologist or something similar to his own profession.  Her second "obstacle",was her family's Christian values and beliefs concerning matters of the home.  Which (according to her own words) led her to believe that she needed to marry to become a more acceptable and successful woman in the world.
"I married in part because I knew no better way to disconnect from my first family [...] I wanted what I saw as a full woman's life, whatever was possible."
 Marrying didn't hold her back much from her mission of self discovery and pushing the limits of society through her written words.  In the meantime, she gave birth three times to boys.  But the mother of three sons kept digging and chipping away through any means that she could muster.  Adrienne was said to be an extremist in the anti-war effort during Vietnam.  Her home was used as a gathering place for many Black Panther meetings.  While she fought all these grand battles against "The Man" and the system, her husband was losing his mind,; believing that she had lost hers already.  Alfred Conrad finally was divorced from her in the 70's, which became his final trigger to take his own life soon after. 
Adrienne continues her life and sexual exploration seemingly not mourning her late husband as any form of loss.  Her success continues to this day through her many published works.

This story makes me sick to my stomach.  Not because she's a lesbian now, or because she was a pillar in the feminism movement; but for her lack of concern for anyone around her.  I understand that some people will read about her life and become inspired to break free of their own chains that hold them back, but I see something different. 
I see myself. 

I've never seen the movie Brokeback Mountain, but I have been tempted to - just from curiosity.   From what I've heard of the movie and seen in the trailers, these two men who find love in their eyes for each other, both have wives waiting at home for them...trusting them to be the faithful men that they promised to be.  To me, that doesn't make for an entertaining movie.
The whole idea of branching out and "finding yourself" is very popular today, and for good reason.  It's powerful.  It's self indulgent nature, to run away as far as you need to go and to push as hard as you need to push and trample down the ones who deserve to be trampled because they got in your way of finding your happily ever after, is very appealing.    It's compelling and attractive ....until you open your eyes and become resensitized to the lives that you've hurt in the name of "I".   

I visited another church this past Sunday.  It was a small congregation full of younger attractive men and women.  There was only one person that came to say "hello".  When she introduced herself, I was preoccupied thinking about my sticky hands from my kids donuts that they had grabbed before the service, that I didn't hear her name.  It was a casual conversation and I honestly didn't feel much about it, even after realizing how beautiful the woman was sitting next to me.  Everyone has a "type" and she fit the description for mine; I knew it and brushed it aside.  Before I excused myself to the bathroom to wash off the mess still on my fingers, I thought to ask for her name again.  I hesitated because for a split second, I was unsure of "why" I wanted to know.  So I walked away...  Later that morning, she was in my line of sight again, and I experienced what men would refer to as a "turn on" or in the world of Wayne (aka Wayne's World), a "shwing".  This happens a lot when I'm around attractive ladies, and I feel awkward and ashamed every time.  I cannot deny that I like feeling that way though.  That kind of physical stimuli is important to me.  Is it important enough to act on it and leave my family in the dust just to experience more?  Absolutely not!  
But that is MY choice.

I was thinking....

It's been awhile since I stepped in front of a car ...I think I should write a new one.  I'll be typing it up tomorrow morning.  So check back on your lunch break.

Perfectly Imperfect and proud of it

I have observed the power of the watermelon seed.  It has the power of drawing from the ground and through itself 200,000 times its weight.  When you can tell me how it takes this material and out of it colors an outside surface beyond the imitation of art and then forms inside of it a white rind and within that again a red heart, thickly inlaid with black seeds each one of which in turn is capable of drawing through itself 200,000 times its weight - when you can explain to me the mystery of a watermelon, you can ask me to explain the mystery of God.     ~William Jennings Bryan

We are all created perfectly imperfect.  God thinks I'm useful, but I feel like the biggest screw-up that has walked the earth.  I remember that Paul who wrote the majority of the New Testament in the Bible,  characterized himself in a similar way.  So do we all think we are the worst of the worst? 

"It seems that my greatest argument is denial."
One of the readers wrote back to me asking what exactly I was denying?  I prefaced my answer by saying that what I meant by "denial" was more like living in the state of, rather than just denying one thing or another.  More to the point, I live within my own set of expectations that I place upon myself, and assume that those beliefs about me are equal to God's. 
How is it even possible that I would expect more from me than God, Himself? 

I have believed that the show of my life should look spotless with my obedience to God and His will.   When I fall short, I beat myself down; not just for my "sin" but because of my imperfection.  My imperfect nature causes me constant frustration and self-ridicule.  I don't mean to argue with God about anything, but when I consider myself only created to fail, that's exactly what I'm doing. 
I'm still fighting off the ghosts of my past.  I know that reprogramming takes time.  I am beginning to realize how unnecessary it is to hate myself over that, when my expectations in God and myself are not met.


If God tells me to "Jump" or if He tells me to "Stay" in my troubled marriage or if He says "Keep on living" when I feel like giving up because I failed again....I need to remember that He is God and He will have His way, whether I argue with Him or not.
 
God, understanding this imperfect nature and my impulses to do things the wrong way, still chooses me for His work.  He still wants me, to love ....and then to love Him.