You Are Beautiful - Mike Young

where do you shop?

Shop like clothes? Or shop like in general? ....if it were in general, it would undoubtedly be Dominion, the grocery store where I work because it you look at my bank statement it's just all Dominion. I guess I buy a lot of food. Go figure :P Well, I also buy stuff like makeup and shampoo and books and movies and sometimes clothes there :P But mostly food. 

I'm pretty darn sure you meant clothes though, which is unfortunate because I'm not a very good person to answer that question. My closet is home to everything from WalMart to Bench and everything in between (much to my shame because I'm like 99.9999% sure that the vast majority of my clothes were made in sweatshops, wehh :( ) Ummm...one of my friends gives me her clothes when she grows out of them and my mom sometimes buys me clothes for no reason because she knows that I have no discernible sense of style and because I don't really wanna spend money on clothes anyway. I always get the most compliments on the stuff she buys me, cause she has way better taste than me. If I really need to buy like a specific article of clothing, I'll just go to one of the two malls in St. John's and wander around til I find it :P

If I were shopping online, it'd be a different story. I bought a wackload of stuff on shop.thehungersite.com a little while back, and I looooove threadless.com and their super fantabulous graphic tees, and metowestyle.com. I bought my last purse at this super cool fair trade fair at my school, and my preferred footwear is TOMS (or BOBS), although I'm beginning to have niggling fears that they are not doing quite as much good as I would like to believe. :( 

Anyway, yeah. Sorry I couldn't really give you a proper answer hahaPeace and love! -Katherine 

The Law and The One Who Made The Law

On Sunday, I was helping out with the kiddies program in the morning church service. I LOVE being with the kids, but this morning I felt that there was something wrong. The lesson was about sin, and I think that the message the kids were supposed to take home was "Don't Sin." We told them stories about people who did drugs and stole stuff and ran away from homes and discussed the various mistakes these people made, and defined sin and then told them that the people in the stories met Jesus and cleaned up their lives and went on to do a whole bunch of really great things for God. 

I'm sure it sounds like a very positive message at first glance, but something really unsettled me about it: 

It's all well and good to tell the kids to obey their parents and tell the truth and share and don't do drugs and stay in school. However, why are we so focused on all these rules for how we should behave and not on The One who made the rules? 

Cause see, the gospel is not a behaviour-control program. The church does not exist to make sure that everyone is following the rules. And Jesus didn't die so that we would have to be perfect. 

What I'm trying to say is that instead of telling these kids what they can and cannot do, we should introduce them to Jesus, and tell them about his amazy-crazy, upside-down inside-out, spin-you-all-around LOVE. I think that we should tell them that Jesus knows them better than anyone else in the world and that He loves them more than anyone else in the world does. I think we should tell them that they are His precious treasure, His beloved son/daughter, the apple of His eye. I think we should tell them that He has an awesome plan for their life and that He's gonna do great things in them and through them. Finally, I think we should tell them that He loves them so much that He died for them, so that their sins would be repaid and they could go to heaven. Don't you think that such a message would be far more effective than "Don't do this. Don't do that." I feel like if they knew the one who made them and loves them, they would be naturally less inclined to seek fulfillment in thrills, drugs, alcohol and sex ANYWAY, and we wouldn't have to try and hammer it into their skulls so much. 

Don't get me wrong, we do tell the kids all the stuff I said up there. We tell it to them all the time. My church is not remiss in informing the children of their infinite value to their creator. I just think that if Sunday morning's service was the only one a child had ever been to, they would think that church was just a list of Do's and Don'ts. So I believe that instead of just talking about sin, we need to prevent a more holistic view of the relationship between God and humans. I think we need to present the gospel to these kids in BIG BOLD ITALIC CAPS every single time we see them, because knowing the love of Christ is infinitely more important than knowing the rules. 

That's all.  Peace and love!  -Katherine

On the nature of love.

You know how people say that love is powerful? I'm not sure if this is gonna sound really hippy-ish but I wanna talk about love. Love is absolutely, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the most powerful force in existence. This is real love I'm talking about now. Love that *chooses* to be committed to someone despite circumstances, despite emotions, despite personal desires, and despite any mistakes that someone might have made, and any flaws that someone might have. Love that means putting someone else before yourself. I saw the movie Frozen, and *spoiler alert*, the central conflict was thawing Anna's frozen heart, a feat which only true love can accomplish. I greatly appreciated the fact that Anna's heart was thawed not by "true love's kiss" but by her own self sacrifice to save her sister's life. THAT, my friends, is an accurate portrayal of true love. Love is the force that conquers hate and conquers fear and conquers apathy. It is the force that connects and binds all of humankind to one another. It is the force that heals the broken and saves the lost. Love offers truth even when it's hard and grace even when it's harder. Love will never ever ever ever ever ever give up. Love is divine. Love is the closest that humans can get to Godliness. Because God Himself is Love. His essence is entirely love. All love is from Him and is of Him. Any person who has the ability to love someone else can only do so by the power of God and the spirit and soul that God has placed within us. Your love is a piece of God in your life. As long as you know love, you know God. God is great and mighty and all-powerful and vast and crazy amazing and the human mind cannot possible fathom Him, BUT the closest you will ever get to understanding Him is simply to love. Therefore, love is NOT simply warm fuzzy feelings and cute romcoms and sad country music. It's not even an emotion or a relationship. It is a supernatural force. It is the essence of God! Never underestimate the power of God's love for you. It is fierce and it is all-consuming and it is all-encompassing and it conquers every single other thing in all of existence. Never forget that. Never underestimate the power of your love for the people around you. The best thing you can do for this world is to love yourself and to love others, because when we each begin to do that, then this world will know true peace and true joy.

The strength of your faith is so awesome. I might not understand it, or have the same beliefs as you but i think it's SO cool that you can fully trust in your God and have no doubts about his love. Personally i'm not a religious person, i guess i'm somewhat spiritual but i don't consider it a big part of my life. But in certain situations i feel a compulsion to pray, because if i don't and the outcome is bad i'm always going to wonder "what if i had prayed?". Is that wrong?

No, I don’t think it’s wrong.

I feel like you believe that God exists in a vague, nebulous entity kinda way, and of course when one has even a faint idea that such a divine being exists, of course one would be curious and slightly awed. Especially in situations that feel overwhelming or impossible, it only makes perfect sense to turn to someone greater than ourselves. 

Furthermore, God is straight-up thrilled when you pray. The bible emphasizes repeatedly that God is attentive to His children. He hears your prayers and heeds them. In fact, He LOVES to hear your voice! His day is made when He hears that little voice go, “God? It’s me.” Just picture this: 

A very stressed-out looking angel is holding a clipboard and saying “God, we really need to deal with the Holy fountain of eternal chocolate in quadrant 6.” And God’s like “Wait wait wait wait. Shhhhh. Hear that? That’s Lauren! Listen! That’s my daughter Lauren talking to me!” And then He flings out His arms and yells, “QUIET EVERYONE!” The hustle of activity stops and everyone stares at Him. “Lauren’s talking!” He says. So all of heaven comes to a standstill to listen to Lauren talk to God. 

I just picked Lauren as a random name, but insert your own in that little story. Obviously, that’s hyperbole because although I dearly hope so, there might not actually be a holy fountain of eternal chocolate in heaven. That story was, however, a pretty accurate representation of how highly God thinks of you and your prayers. 

I just want to let you know that as big and humongous and powerful God is, He is still a very personal God. He knows you inside out and He delights in you. He thinks you’re the most amazing and fantastic thing in the world. And He wants to have a real relationship with you. Nothing would please Him more than to listen to you tell Him about your day every day. So it doesn’t have to be certain situations. It can be whenever, for any reason. 

So I’ll end this off by saying that your attitude is completely normal, and it’s not wrong. But I would encourage you to explore praying more, because it’s good for us, and it will help you understand God a bit better, and the two of you will be closer because of it, which, of course, is pretty frickin awesome :)

Peace and love! -Katherine 

Warning signs of a potentially unhealthy relationship 

You don't need a label to believe that everyone is equal and should be treated equally. We should not have special words for that. I don't know why this is such a difficult concept. It should not require pontificating or self-importance or theatrics. It should not require broad sweeping statements about a certain group of people. It requires simply the belief that all people are equal and the enactment of that belief in every situation. Is that an oversimplification? Yes. And I am oversimply unapologetic. Because almost every single problem in our world today stems from the fact that sometime, somewhere, there was a breakdown in equality. 

Is masturbation a sin?

Oi. Okay, um…I won’t say that this is a “complicated” question, per se, but I will say that it’s going to be hard to clearly explain my thoughts on the subject. So just bear with me. 

Disclaimer: because you used the word sin, I’m assuming you want a Christian perspective, which is really the only perspective I give anyway :P So that’s what this will be. 

From a biblical perspective, I think that the act itself of masturbation is not a sin, but the reasons we do it can be sinful. 

A few years ago, I wondered this very thing and I went in search of answers but couldn’t find anything conclusive. There are too many different interpretations of the bible, too many different pastors with different opinions. Since then I’ve matured (a tiny bit) and I’ve come to my own conclusions. And here they are: 

Sexual health professionals say that masturbation is healthy and, of course, they’re right. It’s necessary, in fact. Especially for guys. Male bodies are producing sperm and semen from a pretty young age, waaaaayy before they’re ready to get married and/or have sex. It needs to be ejaculated. You can’t just ignore that. So masturbation is necessary and healthy. Okay, cool. 

Also, the bible, which mentions many other sexual sins and perversions in lurid detail, does not mention masturbation once. NOT ONCE. NOT A SINGLE TIME. Isn’t that odd? Every single other sin is mentioned in the bible, but masturbation is not. Hmm…must be cause masturbation is not a sin! 

But here’s why people might try to convince you it’s a sin, and why you’re wondering whether or not it’s a sin. The bible does mention lust. It compares lust to adultery (Matthew 5:28), it repeatedly tells us to flee from sexual immorality, it speaks of covenant eyes (Job 31:1) so we can safely assume that lust is not a good thing. The catholics even put it in their seven deadly sins! 

And we have a problem because lust is a thing of the heart and the mind, and masturbation is a thing of the body, but the heart and mind are inextricable linked to the body. Therefore, masturbation is *almost* always connected to a sin, because it is accompanied by sexual fantasies about the girl/guy in our english class, or that model; or because it’s accompanied by porn. [Sidenote: porn is definitely sinful. That absolutely falls into the lust category. Also, porn is highly addictive. Like, family-ruining, job-losing addictive. And before you know it, you’re being treated for depression and ADHD when all that was really wrong with you was a porn addiction. See here.] So because we may be struggling in our hearts with lust, we will also be struggling in our bodies with masturbation. I found this quote on this website that I thought explained it rather well: 

“Specifically, if the act is done merely as a hedge against temptation and as thebody requires then there is no need for the above sinful “crutches”. This is hardly exciting, and a rote act of keeping the body in submission. It cannot be done often, as the body is not that demanding if left alone by a perverted imagination.”

So in conclusion, masturbation is not the sickness, but it can be a symptom. I rarely say stuff like this, because I’m not really an authority on…well, anything. However, I want to say it in this situation: IF you (you meaning anyone) feel like you’re struggling with masturbation, here are some things I want to tell you:

1. Bear in mind that masturbation is not the sin. You are probably suffering from some “soul-sickness”. And getting better is not about trying to go as long as you can without masturbating. Trying to go more than 24 hours without masturbating, or trying to go two days, or a week…that’s not dealing with the real issue. That’s just frustrating for you. Getting better is dealing with what’s really going on - your heart and mind are out of line. It might be a porn addiction. It might be frequent fantasizing, or staring a bit too long at that person. Whatever it is, if you deal with that, the masturbating thing will take care of itself. 

2. Don’t be ashamed. Sometimes, the church puts this stigma on sexual sins and we can’t talk about it and it’s all so hush-hush. But it’s better to talk about it than to try to deal with it on your own. That being said, talk to someone you can trust. Someone who loves you. Someone who will be discreet and sensitive and actually try to help. 

3. PRAY PRAY PRAY PRAY! We are not capable of turning off lustful thoughts at the flip of a switch. We do not have that much control over our own thoughts. We need a lot of help. And read your bible, because having your head filled with God’s word is a good way to keep impure thoughts out. 

4. Remember that God loves you and I love you no matter what. :)

Thanks for the question :) I hope that what I said made sense at least, and at best was somewhat helpful. :) Peace and love! -Katherine 

I am lying here thinking about how I literally cannot fathom that we live in a world that actually makes people feel bad about who they are. Like, this actually boggles my mind. That with 7 billion humans on this planet, some humans tell other humans that they’re being a human wrong. There is no wrong way to be a human. Sometimes, when I take a moment to come up for air, and I have this brief shining clarity, I am overwhelmed with outrage. Because how is it possibly acceptable for someone to feel inferior due to the traits that make them unique? Someone please try and explain this to me. I dare you to try and make this make sense. Out of all the glorious diversity of human life, some traits were labelled “right” and some were labelled “wrong”, and due to these completely arbitrary and 100% fake standards, humans give themselves the right to discriminate against other humans. Are you hearing this? Are you understanding the sheer absurdity of the world we live in? The worst part is that it’s not even anything these people have a choice about. It’s not like they did someone really shitty to deserve some kind of negative reaction. No no, this is literally how they were born and they have no control over it. And our world now somehow works in such a way that they are made to feel that that’s bad somehow?! Stuff like skin colour or gender or sexual orientation? That stuff is the stuff that condemns you?! All things that - really - at the end of the day, don’t matter. Things that are used to divide people because we’ve created these false barriers between one another. This is literally insane! This is complete and utter madness! This makes zero sense at all! The world is so messed up! How the heck did we manage to created a world wherein people actually feel like they cannot be who they truly are? What have we done?! WE MESSED UP! Oh my gosh I hate this world so much.

It seems strange that I haven’t written anything about Ferguson here, given the degree to which race has occupied my mind since Michael Brown was shot by Darren Wilson three and a half months ago. I guess it is because I felt like what I had to say wasn’t that well thought through; that my role in…

This is more of an issue directed towards the Catholic church than towards you, but i feel like your insight might be able to clear it up for me, at least somewhat. So. Why is it that homosexuality is such a prevalent issue now, and why is it still so strongly enforced that it is wrong and a sin when there were SO many other things in the bible like eating pork or talking to a woman who was menstruating which were equally as wrong. Times have changed, why is the church denying human rights?

I’m so sorry it’s taken me so long to answer you! I have been…how shall I put it? Emotionally unstable as of late, teehee ;) And as a general rule, I try not to do anything of much importance during times of emotional instability. :P If I can help it. And your questions are very important to me.

I’m also flattered that you value my insight so highly, and will do my best to give you some clarity.

First off, I beg of you to appreciate how difficult this issue is for Orthodox Christians. That is, Christians who believe the whole bible. I am one of those. And when I try to sort out the homosexuality issue in my head, I end up with a sort of temporary split-personality disorder.

Katherine 1 says that obviously, you can’t blame someone for something they can’t help.

Katherine 2 wonders why the bible would say it’s wrong if it can’t be helped.

Katherine 3 says to shut up both of you, because there’s no condemnation for sin anyway through the blood of Jesus Christ.

Katherine 3 always wins and that’s usually the end of the discussion. But you see, some people ONLY have a Katherine 2. Now even with that as our starting point, we’ve still got flawed logic because there’s all this other crap, like you mentioned, such as eating pork and talking to women who are menstruating.

On a sidenote, avoiding women who are menstruating is not only an Old Testament law, it’s also just good sense!

Anyway…the point is that those things are Old Testament laws. They’re the kind of stuff you would find in Leviticus, where it also says stuff like “don’t sit on a beaver while wearing red horizontal stripes on the third Tuesday of the month if it’s raining…because aliens don’t wear hats.” That is, obviously, hyperbole meant to illustrate the sheer ludicrousness of some of the laws in the OT. They had all these random laws because that was back before Jesus died so they legitimately had to be perfect. And if they messed up, they had to sacrifice animals to pay for their sins. This whole cosmic consequences thing is no joke. Our actions have earthly and spiritual repercussions, and we owe a blood debt. Thankfully, Jesus paid that debt. But before that, they had to kill firstborn lambs and crap like that. So that’s where the pork and period stuff comes from. All that stuff became obsolete after Jesus died. The old laws don’t hold us captive anymore because the blood of Christ covers all our sins.

UNFORTUNATELY, homosexuality is also mentioned in the New Testament, by Paul, who lived years after Jesus’ death. He also says it’s wrong. So now we’re back to square one.

The way I see it, there are at least three reasons why the church sees itself as capable of condemning homosexuality:

They can distance themselves from it. All other sins, cheating, sexual deviance, drugs, lying, pride, have all infiltrated our pews and made themselves at home. We can’t judge any of those sins because we commit them. So we preach forgiveness, redemption and freedom for all those sins, but not for homosexuality. You know, sometimes I think that the church just wants a way to make themselves feel better, like they’re not as bad as everybody else. I dunno, I might be making that up. Bottom line is that we forget that all sin is equal.

The church is very fond of behavior modification. Obviously, the bottom line is a relationship with Jesus. That is the number one most basic, most primary need of every human being. But on top of that, the church likes to fix people and work out strategies to get them to stop doing the “sin” instead of focussing on what really matters: the incredible saving grace of the gospel. And homosexuality…cannot be modified. Gay people don’t want our “help”. They don’t want to change, and can’t even if they wanted to. In a way, I think that infuriates us.

The government and structures of society, until recently, have supported our intolerance. It only started not so long ago that amendments were being made to legislature to allow gay people to marry. Being supported by the law can make anyone feel secure in a position of hate. I read Huck Finn last year, and the poor confused boy thought he was going to hell for freeing a slave, because that was what he had been taught. Church and government have often been hand in hand, and racism seemed to have been condoned by Christians at one point too. Which is just as atrocious as our current predicament. You would think we would learn that people are people, loved by God no matter what!

Finally, it’s such a prevalent issue NOW because it’s relevant now. When racism was abundant and black people were confined to separate bathrooms, busses and hospitals, I wouldn’t be a tad bit surprised if there weren’t churchgoers protesting the eradication of colour segregation. All one has to do is read The Help by Kathryn Stockett to get a good picture of that. But that’s history and now it seems foolish that black people and white people were ever separated at all.

That being said, the bible doesn’t say that being black is wrong. And yeah, times have changed, but whether you think it should or not, the bible doesn’t change. I’m not going to compromise my beliefs to be relevant, but I sure as heck am not gonna judge or condemn someone for being gay. Neither will I deny them basic human rights. I believe that gay people should have the right to marry each other. Who are we straight people to say what they can and cannot do? That’s just foolish. We are all people, equal, and worthy of love and respect. And, I might add, all needing Jesus.

Look, I don’t mean to bash on the institution of organized religion. The church is meant to be a body of believers, Christ’s bride. I love the church. I love the family, the community, and, despite my sarcastic comments, the genuine love and acceptance. We’re not all bad. Some of us get confused. Katherine 1 and 2 may never settle their differences, and I just have to live with my split personality. And from confusion can stem misguidedness, good intentions, and mistakes. We are still learning, and trying our very best to make sense of conflicting information from the world and the bible.

This post was just an analysis of the attitude of the modern church. And it’s just my opinion. I could have made all this stuff up. I’m not saying that all Christians think and act like the ones I described in my 3 reasons for condemnation. And I’m not saying that kind of behaviour is right. I’m just saying.

But I do believe that we’ll get better. We will get more tolerant. There’s a bright future for the church and homosexuality, I’m sure of it. God’s love is a powerful, all-consuming force. And his love for all His children is fierce. He’s reminding us of that right now. Keep your hopes up. :)

Peace and love! -Katherine