I Am So Glad I Found Your Blog Because MAN So Many Other Lgbtq+ Christian Related Things Tend To Be Buried

What's your opinion on homosexuality?

(If you don’t wanna read all those words, just skip to the bottom where it says “Moral of the story”)Jesus said that the most important commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength (okay, cool, makes sense) BUUUTTT….the SECOND most important commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:37-39; Mark 12:29-31) And there are entire chapters of the bible devoted entirely to the importance of loving people (1 Corinthians 13) So! Here are the facts: Fact Number 1: Jesus loves you. Like, He really, REALLY loves you. Deeply, passionately, intimately, overwhelmingly. He loves you enough to die for you. He loves you so much that He DESPERATELY wants to have a personal relationship with you - to talk to you, to hear your thoughts and to walk with you through this life. Fact Number 2: I love you. I think that every single person in the world deserves to be loved and deserves to be respected simply due to the fact that you are a person and God made you and loves you. Okay, so now we’ve established that Jesus loves you and I love you, for no other reason than the fact that you’re alive, and no matter what. That cannot be altered, edited, ignored, abated, cancelled out, destroyed or denied. Moving on…I cannot confidently give you an opinion on Nature vs Nurture. If science has yet to confirm the varying influences of these conflicting forces, I will not presume to attempt to do so. I have a basic knowledge of the bible (as in, I’ve read it and journaled about it lol) and limited knowledge of the research behind the genetic role in homosexuality. Therefore, I am not qualified to give you my opinion in that area.  Interestingly, I recently read a novel for my English course called Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson, which is both her debut novel and an autobiographical novel (while not actually being an autobiography). It’s about a girl who grows up in a Pentecostal household (which happens to be my denomination) in northern England in the 60s and turns out to be a lesbian. Which, I’m sure you can guess, causes all sorts of conflict in her family and in her church community. The religious characters in the novel condemned her, saying that it was a malicious act of will on her part. They said stuff like “You made an immoral proposition that cannot be countenanced.” and “Never trust a sinner.” Those quotes made me pretty angry because they demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of God and sin. About halfway through the novel, in the margin of the page, I penciled the words “Byes don’t know the bible.” (I’m from Newfoundland. We say byes.) Because EVERYONE’S A SINNER! And the very nature or sin has nothing to do with willpower. You can’t magically wish yourself holy. You know? The people in the book seem to think that if one wants to be a ‘good’ person, to be perfect and righteous, you just have to choose to do so. Which is crap! People are not good. We are physically incapable of being good, by nature of the fact that we are born in to sin and we suffer from what is called “the human condition” (which just means being mortal and making mistakes). I’m not sure how that relates to homosexuality, but I hope that gives you some insight into my view of humanity and perfection in general. Finally, like I said in my last answer, I think that EVERYBODY NEEDS JESUS! As aforementioned, Jesus loves you and desperately wants a relationship with you. And I personally believe that you would benefit greatly from a relationship with Him. Everybody. Heterosexual, Homosexual, Transsexual, Bisexual, Asexual! EVERYBODY, no matter who you are, what you look like, where you come from, what you’ve done, where you’ve been, what you’ve been through. He loves you RIGHT HERE RIGHT NOW! And He wants to have a relationship with you exactly how you are right here right now. To wrap this up, if Jesus thinks there’s something in your life you need to change…whether it be pride, laziness, gossip, lust, whatever….He’ll tell you. And I will try to focus on what He’s trying to tell ME! And I’ll keep trying to work on my issues and not presume to discern what He wants to tell you. Moral of the story: My job is to love, not judge.  

Peace and love!-Katherine  

Thoughts in the aftermath of the Paris attacks

I question how we could have gotten to this point. When was there such a breakdown in humanity that we are capable of committing such atrocities? Was it imperialism and colonialism? Was it the tower of Babel? Was it when Eve ate the apple? And more worryingly, I question how I became desensitized to it. I’m not gonna lie, the first thought I had when I heard about Paris was “I’m not even surprised.” And the more I think about it, the more horrifying that is. I can’t fathom how someone could hold so much hatred in their heart that they would commit such evil against their fellow human beings. 

But here’s the thing: I’ve seen more widespread and more insidious hatred on social media in the past three days than in Paris on Friday. I am dismayed at the tragedies in Paris and Lebanon, and I am disgusted and many people’s reactions. 

ISIS seeks to divide us along fabricated lines of religion, and to sow fear and hatred. When someone says that this is the reason we shouldn’t be letting refugees into Canada, they are dividing us along the fabricated lines of ethnicity, and they are sowing fear and hatred. It reveals extreme xenophobia, and profound racial prejudice, and - quite frankly - willful stupidity (otherwise known as ignorance). When I see inane posts about closing Canadian borders being propagated on social media, I honestly judge those people for being shallow and stupid. If you think critically about the reasons people seek refuge in Canada, you would know that to attempt to deny them that refuge because you’re scared of terrorism is absolutely absurd. 

Not only that, but we are so horrified by ISIS because they presume to make themselves masters of others fate. They take the power of life and death into their hands, and judge other human beings. Do you realize that to let children die at sea is the same thing? Just because we didn’t pull the trigger doesn’t mean that our hatred didn’t kill them. 

Did you know that the bible says that anyone who hates a brother or sister is a murderer? (1 John 3:15) Refugees are your brothers and sisters. Your hatred for them is both metaphorically and literally their death sentence. 

If you dare to say that we should deny refugees entrance into Canada because of your racial prejudice, you are just as bad as ISIS. 

You Are Beautiful - Mike Young

Do not say to me "it's all about the fetus" with that bitterness in your tone!

Abortion is not about who we like more - the mother or the fetus! This is an issue of quality of life vs. sanctity of life. And as I've said before, no one can prove at what point between conception and birth that clump of cells becomes a human. But we all agree that once it pops out of the birth canal, it is a person, and THEN it's wrong to kill it. So here's my big issue. For me, sanctity of life ALWAYS trumps quality of life. I'm not going to justify killing an unborn person just for the comfort of someone who's ALREADY been born. IF (that's a big IF) one believes that a fetus is a person, then an abortion is a murder for the sake of sparing someone inconvenience. I know I know I know there are so many reasons why someone might get an abortion. What you're saying there is that in some circumstances the fetus is not a person. Unless you don't believe a fetus is ever a person, then whatever. But you have to take a stance. If you think abortion is only justified in some circumstances, then you have some gaps in your understanding of personhood. Because you're basically saying there that only when the mother decides she wants the baby does the baby indeed become human. I'm not asking you to agree with me. I am asking you to really think about why you believe what you believe. Don't say "it's all about he fetus" as if we were choosing the fetus over the mother because if you say that to me, I will respond "yes! In this instance, it is about the fetus for me because the fetus is the one who might die!" Think about what you say. Think about what you think. This is a brutally complicated topic and we all run the risk of oversimplifying it sometimes, which is exactly what the titular statement does.

Terrorism is terrorism is terrorism is terrorism. Hate is hate is hate. There is no variation in form of terrorism or hate. They exist as independent phenomena - free floating entities. They are darkness and evil and depravity. They cannot have any religious affiliation, because no religion deals in hate. Anyone who truly believes in a higher power also believes in love and grace and compassion and altruism. Terrorists and hate groups worship the powers of hell, not of heaven. So whether it’s Hitler, the KKK, the Westboro Baptist Church, or ISIS, they are not religious organizations. They are hate groups. They are terrorist groups. But never religious organizations.

I share the same respect for Kim, Paris and Snooky as we all should, but they are famous because, well Kim and Paris posted their sex tapes and snooky... is snooky. Are people being imprudent by knowing their weight, bra size and who they slept with or is society just following for their game? On the topic of celebrity gossip, look up: The Sociology of Gossip: Elaine Lui at TEDxVancouver... Food for thought?

Haha I actually watched that video about a month ago and very much enjoyed it! And I can see her point. For those of you who haven’t watched the video, Elaine Liu studies the trends in celerity gossip and can therefore surmise a lot of information about society’s attitudes towards things like gender role and rape culture. I will concede that it’s a very interesting branch of social science, but that’s just one benefit of celerity gossip. It’s not a reason to partake in celebrity gossip. Because there are also many disadvantages to celebrity gossip. As I said, there’s the violation of privacy. There’s also its effects on us to be considered.

I strongly believe that celebrity gossip erodes our empathy. Elaine said that what we gossip about reveals our attitudes. But the fact that we gossip at all also reveals something about our character. As I said, we treat these people like a commodity for our consumption. That’s damaging to us. As soon as we can mentally distance ourselves from any other human being, we lose a bit of that compassion that connects us all. Empathy means feeling someone else’s pain. But it also means that every single other person in the world deserves kindness because they’re just like you. And as soon as we see someone as a product instead of a person, we lose a bit of humanity.

So when you say stuff like “following for their game” or “Snooki…is Snooki”, I get the feeling that you mean that these celebrities are not being hurt by our gossip because it’s what they want. Again, I would ask you to look in the metaphorical mirror and pause for some introspection. How have we even made it possible for Snooki to make a living by “being Snooki”, which I imagine means being outrageous in all aspects of life? Like, if someone has a great voice or sick musical talent, I’ll support that. If someone is a good actor and I enjoy their work, I’ll reward that by watching their movies. That’s talent, and that’s their job. But I can’t help but feel like my brain cells are dying when I watch Jersey Shore. I don’t want to be a part of an industry that exploits the sex, drugs and drinking of someone’s real, every day life. I don’t want to play their game. I don’t like their rules. So yeah, there’s my take on it. It’s an aspect that I didn’t even mention in the post itself, but I think it’s equally important. :P 

Have a great day! Peace and love! -Katherine

Insecurity  Four-part Rant of the Day Part 3

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. 

Looove me some spoken work poetry. So many goosebumps.