Ten Thousand Angels

…the disciples came to him and said, “This is a remote place, and it’s already getting late. Send the crowds away, so they can go to the villages and buy themselves some food.”

16 Jesus replied, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.”

17 “We have here only five loaves of bread and two fish,” they answered.

18 “Bring them here to me,” he said. 19 And he directed the people to sit down on the grass. Taking the five loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke the loaves. Then he gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the people. 20 They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 21 The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children. Mathew 14: 15-21

 

I’m overwhelmed. This morning as I was scrolling through Twitter, I cam across a tweet stating that last week 10,000 sponsorships were dropped at World Vision.

Wait, let me stop using shiny language: 10,000 kids weren’t going to get their next meal, or school day’s education, or clean water because  evangelical “Christians” didn’t like a policy change. Ten thousand. Let that sink in for a second. A news story goes out, and in less than 48 hours is reversed, because 10,000 kids weren’t going to get fed. As a former-evangelical-Christian I want to ask…where was the prayer? I mean, I grew up praying over almost every decision (not quite like “God should I buy this prom dress?” but close), and so I want to fucking know:

WHY DIDN’T THOSE DUMBASSES FUCKING PRAY FOR FIVE MINUTES ABOUT WHETHER THEY SHOULD FEED A STARVING CHILD OR GO ON SOME POLITICAL POWER TRIP?

Whoa, sorry, got carried away there for a second.

But seriously.

In the passage above, Jesus is out, doing his thing and some people get hungry. You know what he does? He feeds them. 5,000 of them (just the men, clearly more with children and women). Last week the evangelical ‘disciples’ turned away TWICE AS MANY legitimately hungry children because of a political agenda. Jesus didn’t ask questions, he just fed them. The disciples wanted the families to buy their own damn dinner, but Jesus didn’t turn them away, and somehow multiplied a small amount of food into enough to feed all of them.

I’m angry.

Part of me feels relief that I no longer subscribe to evangelicalism, that I’m one of the ones who has left (escaped?). But another part of me is sad that the reason I don’t is because of how shittily their doing this whole Christlike thing. Because there was a time, and I miss it greatly, where I sat in the pews with good people and felt love and peace and a longing to follow and belong forever. I’m not in that place anymore, but have resonated with blogs like this on those who stay in the church.

I hope those children got their sponsorships back, and that they didn’t go hungry. I hope those people who pulled their sponsorships can face themselves in the mirror each morning.  I hope that I can figure out how to be more than just angry about this whole mess.

 

 

Coming Out in Light of the World Vision Kerfuffle

With my students I talk a lot about how we, I think as a culture, tend to define our things but what we are not, or what we don’t like. We might say things like, “I’m a Democrat,” but it feels more strongly like “I’m not a Republican, and therefore I have chosen the other box, default Democrat.”

But today, in light of the shitty week I had with the roller coaster of World Vision emotions (that you can read about how it started here and ended up here and some cool thoughts about it here), I thought I’d break a rule and tell you all:

I’m not straight.

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I fully recognize that I live in a world with a hetero normative story line. I am presumed straight by those who meet me, and ‘lie by omission’ when I don’t ‘set the record straight.” Because I am married to a man, I am assumed to be straight. Just like because I don’t have a wheelchair, or guide dog, I am assumed to be able-bodied (rather than looking at the invisible disability of chronic mental illness). This idea of ‘passing,’ is something I am familiar with on a daily basis, and get the privilege of choosing if, and when, and to whom I come out, if I do at all.

So last week I had drinks with a friend, and as we were discussing the World Vision drama, and all my frustration behind the big flip-flop, I said…

“I was telling Boof this, that people don’t realize. I have his protection in church. I am accepted and loved and welcomed with open arms because of him. They see me the way they want to see me, as a straight, married woman with a child. I am the walking white woman stereotype, in their minds. But without my husband, if I was on my own, and openly dating, or was married to a woman they would think very very differently of me. So this decision of theirs, it could affect me. I could not be hired because of who I am. “

And his response:

“Are you a lesbian?”

It wasn’t a question with judgment attached. He had been tracking my conversation and, since he’s in a relationship with a woman who identified as lesbian, seemed to be trying to understand. And that’s when I got quiet. Because no, I know I’m not a lesbian. I know that like I know I’m not black. But the question brought back memories, of being in high school, or after college with no boyfriend or ‘marriage prospects,’ and my sister saying to me ‘mom and dad think you’re a lesbian.” It brought back memories of being called ‘Sir’ when I had short hair and was shopping in the mall, or gasp, even wearing a bikini. I said, “no, I’m not a lesbian, but I’m not straight.”

My parents are deeply religious fundamentalists, and were probably part of the group of evangelicals that would take their money away from starving African children to prove a point. They will probably never know me beyond what they see on the surface. But I balk at the labels, because straight doesn’t fit, and lesbian doesn’t fit, and bisexual doesn’t fit either. A student once asked me if I was pansexual and I said I don’t know, because I’ve never been attracted to someone who’s trans. It’s not that I don’t like labels because they feel too labelly, it’s that I haven’t yet figured out what label actually fits. It’s like shopping for jeans, do any of them REALLY make my butt look good? I mean, for realz yo…

But what I do know, is that I’m not straight.

That’s the closest I can get to a label. NotStraight. Unless I tell you about energy. And how I am attracted to energies that complement my own, and that often means women. And sometimes men. And sometimes I’m not attracted to anyone at all (except of course my husband, right?). I’m married, to a man. If I weren’t married to him, I might be married to a woman. Or I might not be married at all. I might date a man, or a woman, or nobody. I don’t know. I don’t plan who I’m attracted to, or who ends up clicking with, and it goes beyond genitals, though those are fun aren’t they?

People who know me intimately will not be surprised by this news. It might give some an ‘aha’ to explain the previously unexplained. Some already know, like my graduate school peeps and some coworkers who I share openly with because it’s come up in conversation. This isn’t some big coming out manifesto, as I don’t even know what I would be coming out to or for, other than the fact that the World Vision kerfuffle affected me deeply. I’m tired of it. I’m tired of feeling like without Boof I would be less of a person in Christian circles.