I keep finding dog hair everywhere...

Today I feel driven to write and instead of making it to work on time, I sat myself down to do just that.

I keep finding dog hair on my clothes - a phrase that came to mind as I dressed because I keep finding my Dougie's hairs everywhere and it's been over a week since I saw him last.
The thought arose that that's how sin is. You can't get away with dabbling in sinful acts without finding a few "hairs" left behind even once you've repented and been washed by the blood of the Lamb. Siempre quedan rastros.

I was also thinking of the whole gay thing. Dear Christian people who I believe are riddled with guilt and to get rid of that guilt of they reason that their nature must not be wrong. God must have made them this way. I remember having that thought when my mind was consumed by dark gothic images and even a growing desire to "go to the dark side". I came to the same conclusion after agonizing over the wrongness of what seemed to be my nature. It wasn't something I consciously developed or even seemed to have a choice in. Yet, somehow, so many years later, I feel actually delivered from that. It even seems trivial now. How arrogant of me to trivialize past trials. It demeans the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.

I wonder if homosexual tendencies are the same. I'm not trivializing them - though, I admit it's not my own struggle. I remember a few months ago I overheard someone speaking of a close friend, "And then one day, she fell in love with a woman and moved back east." She was so shocked at the revelation that her friend would do that. She'd never had such tendencies. She'd had several satisfying relationships with men. She'd enjoyed heterosexual sex. And one day, "she fell in love with a woman". Does that make her a lesbian? Does that make her bi-sexual? Was it her nature all along and she never acknowledged it till that One came into her life? Was it her choice?

The issue is deep and honestly it takes me way out of my zone of comfort and understanding. Many Christians tie it up in a neat little bundle of "it's an abomination". I've been in that camp. I'm realizing that doesn't help anyone. It creates divides. I don't think Jesus would call them an abomination. I think Jesus would love them. I think Jesus wants to satisfy us. I think Jesus wants to teach us his truth about love.

I want to learn.

New Determination - Messy Genuineness

"Testimony books, as you know, are complete stories, usually tidied up and made as coherent as possible for the benefit of the reader. They have their place, but they do not meet the need of ordinary struggling Christians to understand that they can be part of the glory of God's work in this world despite the fact that their faith and their feeling are untidy and inconsistent and will probably remain like that until the grave." -Adrian Plass

For a while now, I have wanted to write, be a writer, express myself through the written word, etc. However, nothing I've written, aside from class assignments, can really be classified as a certain kind of genre. A couple of years ago, I began writing a book about my first experience "in love". I've yet to finish it because it's not conclusive. I've yet to pinpoint the resolution of the whole dastardly, heart-breaking experience. It's not "tidy" in the telling and it's too humiliating to put the thorough truth down on paper. The intended honesty reeks of pious bitterness rather than vulnerability. I admit, I was waiting for my feelings to settle on the whole matter to be able to wrap up the whole affair in a tidy little package as a life lesson of use to others.

The same is true of other things I have attempted to write. I begin, but then get bogged down in trying to conform my writings to a form others would find familiar. This never rings true of myself, but like so many other areas of my life, I didn't know I had the choice or option to differ from the norm.

Then, I picked up Adrian Plass's book "Jesus: Safe, Tender, Extreme" and read the quote above which broke away the imaginary shackles to which I clung.

Adrian Plass has been a favorite since I read the line "take your sword and battle through the thicket of the things I have become" in his poem Creed from the album City of Gold.

Today, I have a new determination to be more fearless in my writing, to be genuine no matter how messy. Like Mr. Plass, I have "no interest in writing one of those unremittingly positive treatises that fails to deal with life as it is actually lived."