airclean33
Well-Known Member
As you can see Rita TG-- It has ended in choice as I said. You have posted what you believe . And how you want to walk .I can say very little then but , so be it.
An article "The church is killing its gay kids"
- Thread starter RitaTG
- Start date
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RitaTG
Well-Known Member
Yes airclean .... yes I have made my choices...
I chose to accept the gift
I chose to be grateful
I chose to treat the gift reverently and with great respect as the precious thing deserves.
I chose to live openly, wholesomely, and unashamed of the gift I have been given.
I chose life.
I chose love.
revsdd
Well-Known Member
I don't, of course, claim any understanding of what it's like to deal with the trauma of facing that type of rejection from a community that is supposed to be like family. All I can say, Rita, is that I'm glad you were able to resolve it, and I'm glad you're with us here. I have learned a great deal from you and I appreciate your patience with those of us who are sincerely trying to understand something we know deep down we can't fully understand.
RitaTG
Well-Known Member
HUGS ..... gentle gentle heartfelt hugs of gratitude
Hopefully what I say next will lift a burden regarding this from your shoulders and also from the shoulders of others.
I do not need you to understand nor do I expect you to.
I live this and my understanding is feeble at best.
All I need from you is for you to believe me ..... that's it .......
When a person shares something so deep and profound ..... simply believe them....
..............
Again ..... HUGS .... and thank you
... some happy tears here....What really do human oids understand ... but the authoritarian portion believe they know eternally ... a misconception due to anon humble position ... bottom line ... or a foundation to fall over?
Then there are the inhuman ... an impossibility within human confines? The brute force of the Great Escape from reality as it manifests itself not ... or so it appears as it isn't! One has to upend the dame thing to see intuit!
So the mind as psyche has a female genre ... which isn't quite gender as that is physical ... an impossibility in the metaphysical domains as it goes along parallel ...
Like Relativity Theory ... few can see it ...
Then there are the inhuman ... an impossibility within human confines? The brute force of the Great Escape from reality as it manifests itself not ... or so it appears as it isn't! One has to upend the dame thing to see intuit!
So the mind as psyche has a female genre ... which isn't quite gender as that is physical ... an impossibility in the metaphysical domains as it goes along parallel ...
Like Relativity Theory ... few can see it ...
Not a member of Westboro but personally I do not think of Franklin Graham as mainstream. To me he is evangelical and that is by definition not mainstream. I suppose that could be considered a matter of opinion on my part though.
Mendalla
Happy headbanging ape!!
- Pronouns
- He/Him/His
I meant mainstream evangelical, not necessarily mainstream Christianity or mainstream society.
We in the Church are to incarnate Christ since we are his body, and the visible representation of God's Kingdom on earth. So, yeah.
revjohn
Well-Known Member
Coming as late to the party as I am I almost hesitate to weigh in.
To be frank I didn't much care for the article. I found it to lean towards dishonest.
First of all the operant definition of shame it provides is an invention more than it is an actual definition. Consider something like a dictionary and you see shame in a vastly different light from the author's presentation. Is she beginning a shaming process of her own? One that will influence the receptivity of the audience to other inventions she might attempt to share?
Hard to say.
That said, the Church does need to take a long hard look at how it may or may not be contributing to the stats presented (which we can, for the sake of argument, accept as being accurate).
What is it about we as parents that makes it difficult for a child to disclose information that we may find upsetting or distasteful? Forget sexual orientation what about the dent in the fender, a failing grade or a trashed house? What have we done to instill a such sense of fear in our children that they would hide the truth from us?
What is it about our collective theologies of sin that completely gloss over God's response of grace and revelling in the smitey bits of scripture?
Years ago a friend was in a Christian bookstore, they saw a picture that reminded them of me and did not read the message on the poster. When they presented me with this gift I immediately looked past the picture to the message. It touched a very deep spot in me.
The picture is of a young man standing on a bridge in the midst of a very lush forest. At the time I was the wilderness director at Camp Ryerson and I had a bright red jacket adorned with momentos from various scouting events I had attended. The image of a man wearing a bright red jacket in the middle of a vast expanse of green reminded my friend of me at work. It was a compliment.
The message on the poster was as follows, "I considered the world and begged God for justice. Then I thought of myself and asked God for mercy.
Whenever I am tempted to look at a problem as if it is something separate from me I fight the urge to adopt the first form of prayer. To demand, not justice but vengeance. To demand that somebody must pay for the offences I have endured or simply imagined. And yet when I start with myself and through my Calvinist lense start from the position that I have sinned and fallen well short of the glory of God, that the only thing my deeds have earned is death well, then my prayers are more motivated by a hope in grace.
As a parent that is a tough line to walk.
Child does X (X being something with potentially destructive outcomes for example) what I really want is to swoop down and protect my little chicks with strong wings and I will turn beak and talon against anyone who dare threaten their safety. And yet for some reason it plays out with me blowing my stack and shouting, "What the hell were you thinking? If you indeed were thinking at all"
There is a fundamental disconnect between what I wanted to do and what I ended up doing. I'm ashamed and embarrassed to admit it. I'm also ashamed and embarrassed that many parents won't admit they have the same problem.
Of course some of us are cool about some things that will cause other heads to explode.
I remember when my daughter came to me and revealed that she thought she might be bisexual. My response was "and?" After a long pause she asked what we were having for dinner. I still, to this day do not know if she was expecting her revelation to affect what I had planned to make for supper.
In other homes that story ends very, very differently Chicks hoping for protective wings are suddenly confronted with angry beak and talons. I've seen it happen for every possible reason and sometimes because of a child revealing something about their orientation and attractions. It is not simply a failure of religious parents or institutions it is a failure of parenting period. When that happens correcting the religious values will not change how horrible the parent is at parenting.
And if we really want to step away from shame as a tool in the parental tool belt we should find a better tool to offer in its place. Shaming a parent for shaming their child is not a correction it is reinforcing a behaviour we want corrected.
To be frank I didn't much care for the article. I found it to lean towards dishonest.
First of all the operant definition of shame it provides is an invention more than it is an actual definition. Consider something like a dictionary and you see shame in a vastly different light from the author's presentation. Is she beginning a shaming process of her own? One that will influence the receptivity of the audience to other inventions she might attempt to share?
Hard to say.
That said, the Church does need to take a long hard look at how it may or may not be contributing to the stats presented (which we can, for the sake of argument, accept as being accurate).
What is it about we as parents that makes it difficult for a child to disclose information that we may find upsetting or distasteful? Forget sexual orientation what about the dent in the fender, a failing grade or a trashed house? What have we done to instill a such sense of fear in our children that they would hide the truth from us?
What is it about our collective theologies of sin that completely gloss over God's response of grace and revelling in the smitey bits of scripture?
Years ago a friend was in a Christian bookstore, they saw a picture that reminded them of me and did not read the message on the poster. When they presented me with this gift I immediately looked past the picture to the message. It touched a very deep spot in me.
The picture is of a young man standing on a bridge in the midst of a very lush forest. At the time I was the wilderness director at Camp Ryerson and I had a bright red jacket adorned with momentos from various scouting events I had attended. The image of a man wearing a bright red jacket in the middle of a vast expanse of green reminded my friend of me at work. It was a compliment.
The message on the poster was as follows, "I considered the world and begged God for justice. Then I thought of myself and asked God for mercy.
Whenever I am tempted to look at a problem as if it is something separate from me I fight the urge to adopt the first form of prayer. To demand, not justice but vengeance. To demand that somebody must pay for the offences I have endured or simply imagined. And yet when I start with myself and through my Calvinist lense start from the position that I have sinned and fallen well short of the glory of God, that the only thing my deeds have earned is death well, then my prayers are more motivated by a hope in grace.
As a parent that is a tough line to walk.
Child does X (X being something with potentially destructive outcomes for example) what I really want is to swoop down and protect my little chicks with strong wings and I will turn beak and talon against anyone who dare threaten their safety. And yet for some reason it plays out with me blowing my stack and shouting, "What the hell were you thinking? If you indeed were thinking at all"
There is a fundamental disconnect between what I wanted to do and what I ended up doing. I'm ashamed and embarrassed to admit it. I'm also ashamed and embarrassed that many parents won't admit they have the same problem.
Of course some of us are cool about some things that will cause other heads to explode.
I remember when my daughter came to me and revealed that she thought she might be bisexual. My response was "and?" After a long pause she asked what we were having for dinner. I still, to this day do not know if she was expecting her revelation to affect what I had planned to make for supper.
In other homes that story ends very, very differently Chicks hoping for protective wings are suddenly confronted with angry beak and talons. I've seen it happen for every possible reason and sometimes because of a child revealing something about their orientation and attractions. It is not simply a failure of religious parents or institutions it is a failure of parenting period. When that happens correcting the religious values will not change how horrible the parent is at parenting.
And if we really want to step away from shame as a tool in the parental tool belt we should find a better tool to offer in its place. Shaming a parent for shaming their child is not a correction it is reinforcing a behaviour we want corrected.
Pontifex Geronimo 13
#walkaway
The website www.purepassion.us has over 100 testimonies of people, often suicidal, who actually found acceptance in church, and more importantly eternal life through faith in Jesus.
Thus they were gone too ... nothing to concern themselves with when others took over their worrying ... the dearly departed from potential wisdom ... leaving the blame without others as God ... the great scape goat? Thus the knowledge therewith is beyond us ... metaphorically a myth and thus one should dig around in myths to see what supports them ...
RitaTG
Well-Known Member
As if I am going to trust a site like this....
I will offer the Exodus International example as a sober reminder of the truth.
RitaTG
Well-Known Member
revjohn ...... what better tool would you suggest to address the behaviour problem?
my experience ... even locally seems to require an urgent solution or at least a direction to explore.
I don't expect you to have "the answer" but perhaps you could suggest a direction and an approach.
I would so very much appreciate any insight you could offer.
my experience ... even locally seems to require an urgent solution or at least a direction to explore.
I don't expect you to have "the answer" but perhaps you could suggest a direction and an approach.
I would so very much appreciate any insight you could offer.
airclean33
Well-Known Member
-Hi RitaTG-- I had looked at this site but only had a few min. Could you explain why you didn't like it?It seemed to be ok.
RitaTG
Well-Known Member
of course it seemed ok to you airclean.... of course..
This is all the same professionally debunked junk that is usually thrown out there that is supposed to show LGBT persons they are wrong and confused.
Look at the title for the section for us....
This is exactly the kind of poison that kills.
Exodus International used to have the very same sort of junk....
This is all the same professionally debunked junk that is usually thrown out there that is supposed to show LGBT persons they are wrong and confused.
Look at the title for the section for us....
This is exactly the kind of poison that kills.
Exodus International used to have the very same sort of junk....