lari's Journal

Fiddler wrote something to the effect that maybe even the idea of original sin might be harmful in that it might contribute to low self-worth in people....

I think there is something to that...

Life and communication--the attempt to put words around things in a way that will let us share them--is tricky business. Language (and maybe religion) can both free and constrain. Zajonc gave a talk once years ago where he mentioned that by referring to "evil" (e.g., the evil axis), our language directs us to behave differently than if we'd called it "trouble" or a "problem." A problem is something we seek to solve, evil is something we don't solve, we seek to destroy it and stamp it out.

When i was a lot newer in recovery from my eating dx, i served on a panel. One of the other panelists was offended by the idea of "powerlessness" that AA, OA and other 12-step programs seek to instill in people in the very firs step: "Admitted I was powerless over my addiction and that my life had become unmanagable." The panelist thought that the idea of powerlessness was harmful, b/c people (esp women with eating dx) need to be empowered, not disempowered. I thought about that and could see her point. However, the idea of powerlessness was something personally instrumental to my own recovery. I had previously found it very puzzling and scary that i could do what i did with my addiction -- not just wastefully bingeing and purging and damaging my body, but also lying and stealing and treating others not-so-well if they interferred with my food (binge) plan. I couldnt figure out why i made such choices. When i woke up in the hospital though, and realized that i was safe from myself and from the harm i might do that day, I felt so utterly relieved that it convinced me that--maybe i wasnt wanting to be that crazy addicted person after all. If i was choosing that path, i should have felt frustrated to find myself in the hospital. Instead i felt free of it and safe from it and utterly relieved. That was how I learned that, to some extent at least, I had been powerless to stop my addiction. And that gave me back some self-respect...some hope that i wasnt as bad as i thought and that there really was something bigger and badder than myself that was helping me to be so....icky (for lack of a better word) in my addiction.

I wonder if the concept of original sin is similar. Freeing to some, and constraining to others. Helping some to realize--"hey, we all are sinners, you arent the only one. No one is perfect." But causing others to feel deeply flawed instead of freed. 

I'm convinced that our words--tho they are all we have--are not always effective at expressing what we are trying to say and get across. And language can be a source of power too, that we wield. I refer to "God" in my life in part, out of defiance to anyone who would claim that they have God and I do not. I also call myself Christian, using the language to lay claim to the part of my experience that *I* feel is most importantly in common with other Christians (and Christ), and won't let them reject me (ie, i will not stop calling myself that--even if they deny me) just because we differ on what *THEY* think is so important.

Funny...I'd not really thought about how my language is both an act of joining with other Christians *and* defying them.

To bring this back to the original topic tho--the idea that Christianity has traditionally taught that being gay is BAD with a capital B and tried to speak for God and say that God condemns same gender sexual behavior (ie, including expressions of authentic mutual love that could foster life-long bonding and commitment through a variety of both physiologial and psychological pathways)--well, I think that idea sucks. And I think it is untrue and harmful. In fact, sometimes I do feel the urge to separate from Christianity b/c of all that it (or factions of it) seems to contain that I dont believe in.

But--I actually think that I'm Christian at my heart--at the heart of it (IMO) is the idea of loving God (goodness, truth) with all your heart, and your neighbor too...even unto death. I've not achieved that, but i'm in favor of it. So instead i hang out and much to the annoyance of some Christians, I say: Yeah, I differ from you and dont believe as you do--but I AM Christian. I guess I'm rejecting that Christianity is as they define it for me, and laying claim to my right to define it as I think it is correctly defined for me.  

Thanks for the conversation Brian (and others).  It was a nice distraction. It is raining, my hubby is out of town, and I picked at my own emotional scab today--causing it to come off before its time, and causing a bunch of achy icky feelings again. Some of it centers around language too. And how much my language has failed me when i've tried to express hurts without hurting others. OTOH...even sadder to me is that maybe that isnt the point. Maybe most people just really need to avoid pain for its own sake. Not for the things causing it, but truly for it's own sake. In their language Pain = something bad to be avoided. Whereas I come from it as Pain = something to investigate thoroughly, to hopefully understand what is wrong, and fix if at all possible. The difference in these views bums me out...and makes me feel powerless (but *not* in a good freeing way).

OK i'm full circle, now i finally stop.

Below is my comment on Fiddler's recent journal entry... I'm putting it here b/c I have a feeling I will want to think about it more later :)

I wrote to Fiddler: 

.....Wow...thought-provoking. Hmmm...I think Ive been somewhere similar....I find that I cant let things alone when they are both important to me and yet unreconciled....Its like a pressure I feel to reconcile it b/c "it" is important to me for whatever reason. And then i struggle to make sense of the contradictions too. My problem being that I believe both sides of the contradiction, but dont believe both can be true...(this is likely why I struggled so long over the rejection by my friend....she loves me? she rejected me? both are true?)

Musing.....With regard to god in particular, I have to admit that I couldn't survive spiritually on most of the conceptions of God that I've felt portrayed in the few Christian religions I've been exposed to. It's funny, I feel very deeply that, on the one hand, I dont believe in THAT vision of God (i.e., any God that is "human-like" enough that it would even make sense to call an asshole....I mean...you only call people names...or beings that you believe are making choices and puppeteering in some way....me? I dont believe in a god like that). On the other hand, I do believe that this "sense of a God" that has been present generation after generation and that I've felt too--Is "real" in some way (beyond my understanding). I mean, I've felt it...felt the "transcendent"...felt part of sthing bigger than me...felt awe...  I tend to name that experience "God" b/c I think it is probably the same experience that others who believe in God are having...even if others believe God has more human-like qualities than I do...what we have in common (and what I think I have in common with Jesus) is/are those experiences.

Still, I have faith that just b/c things are beyond my understanding doesnt mean they dont make sense. Maybe to me, God isnt so much a human like being so much as an entirely different thing. I dont know what God is. I've considered tho that God might be a state of being in which everything finally makes sense. Believing that things at some level can and will make sense if we keep working in that direction -- that is faith. And if God is that state of being...I seek God.

(Yes, I realize I could be rejected by Christians everywhere, and told that I'm not really Christian. But right now, based on my current limited understanding, I truly don't think I'm saying anything to contradict what Christ was trying to get across to us...As usual, I guess I'll just focus on whether Christ would think I was Christian :)  )

Thanks for bringing the topic up Brian...I love thinking about this stuff.... My childhood was sooooo torn apart by religious turmoil...I can't help but be interested in this topic.

Yesterday, in addition to being "national coming out day" was my bday :o)

It always strikes me as ironic that my bday is on coming out day, since I'm pretty much not very "out." On the "outness continuum" I might be at 25% if you weight people close to me more heavily than those not close to me. It just doesnt seem to matter too much whether I'm out about my bisexuality or not, since I'm married and my hubby and I agree on wanting monogamy as part of our marriage.

Or does it?

Actually--I think maybe it does matter. I think I worry more about what people would think about me given that I am married. I told one close friend and she said: "Sooo....are you going to find a girlfirend in addition to your hubby?" I wasnt offended, b/c I think probably that is a question a lot of people might ask--only most people wont be close enough to me to ask me outright and give me a chance to answer. Instead, they might make their own presumptions. I think sometimes that by not being more "out", I do a disservice to myself and the GLBT community b/c people might use fewer GLBT stereotypes if they knew more people who were GLBT....and I don't actually fit many of the stereotypes. I dont even play softball ;o)  (tho I do like Home Depot :oD ).

Recently, I've had more opportunities to be involved in GLBT things than I have previously. The committee for GLBT concerns at my university now meets when i can attend, so i try to go to that. I submitted and art piece to the GLBT art show for history month. I went to the banquet kicking off GLBT history month. Tonight my hubby and I will go to a dinner and discussion held by a local pastor that is about spirituality and being GLBT. Also, a reading group just formed in my dept to try to become more educated about GLBT stuff, and I joined that. Oh, and by some miracle, I found a counselor I can go see who is, like me, Bi and married to a man. I'm sort of amazed that all these things are happening at once--and am glad that I told my parents a year or two ago, so I dont need to explain now why I'm involving myself in these groups. All of the groups are open to both GLBTs and straight people, so even involving myself in them may not totally "give me away"...but... it does seem like progress toward being more "out" and less ...(ashamed-acting??)...of my orientation.

A totally separate aside:

Yesterday my 8yr old and I laughed our guts out as he wanted to be held like I used to hold him when he was a baby -- he is still light enough to pick up and cradle (tho he wont be for much longer!) so i did that while tickling him. He and I need more of that. He's at a phase in his life when I'm very difficult for him, b/c i'm impatient with his many boy noises/activities (one of his favorites is to drive his sister insane) and his lack of concentration etc...It was happy for he and I to have some more intense positive emotion between us...I need to find ways of doing more of that with him instead of just the nagging I do to try to get him to do his chores, homework, and to try to get him to stop torturing his sister.