love is the answer, and it starts with me.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction ... The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

I've been trying to find the way to fit the words together in the proper way to talk about "the situation" that seems to be engulfing America right now (and no, I'm not talking about the election). I've been trying to figure out where I stand on the race war, the racial situation. I've been seeking to understand. This post is the result of these efforts. It's probably going to come out messy, I'm most likely going to say something the wrong way- but I've avoided discussing the issue for far too long, and I'm trusting that God and others will forgive me for anything that goes misunderstood. Grace not perfection.

I'm beginning to realize that the answer to all of this is love. It's about loving our neighbor as if he (or she) was ourself. In Matthew, Jesus was asked what the greatest, what the most important commandment of them all was- his answer was simple and it summed up the ten commandments quite succinctly. First, you should love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind (basically- all of your everything). Secondly, you should love your neighbor as you love yourself (as if we were in their shoes, as if they were us/we were them, we were on their side of the situation).

This makes me think of something that my Mom used to always tell me: You can only control your own actions. I only have power over myself and what I do in a given situation. I cannot control all of the evil out there in the world- honestly, there is enough evil within myself and it's hard enough for me to control that. I don't have to take on the world- I can't take on the world- I can only be responsible for myself. Change starts here, in the small place inside of ourselves, and when we live it out, it can (eventually) change the world. A giant fire starts with a single spark. A journey to the top of the highest mountain begins with a single step (yes, I'm quoting motivational posters here- you get the idea?).

I think its clear to anyone that reads the news these days that there is evil in the world. There is darkness, hate, violence. The thing about all of these things is that they seem to build on each other. An act of hatred happens (racial shooting), an act of violence occurs in response (riots and looting at a protest), which results in mistrust of a community (police), which can cause darkness (retaliation against the police community as a whole, not just the racist that started the cycle), which results in fear, which results in more acts of hatred and violence and mistrust and darkness and fear as the cycle repeats itself over and over again.

So, how can we stop the cycle? To be totally and completely honest, I haven't figured out a magical perfect answer yet. But, I can make a baby step. I can take a tiny step in the right direction to stopping the cycle by controlling what I do as a part of the cycle. I can choose to not partake in the actions that add to the cycle. I can choose to love my neighbor (even though all my neighbors are Middle Eastern and not African American, I still feel like this is an okay step in moving towards colorblindness). I can choose not to fear a situation just because the color of someone's skin. I can try and be aware of what I am doing and how it may affect others (even if it wasn't my intent to cause harm/hatred/provoke fear). I can try my hardest to raise my daughter to not immediately identify her friends as "black" or "hispanic", but rather as "This is my friend. She likes dinosaurs."

There will always be people out there that are evil and want to do harm to others- that is the world we live in. Way back in the days of Adam and Eve, sin entered the world and things were never the same. Things will not be the same, the world will not be without death and dying and evil and hate until the Day of the Lord. I cannot force others to love their neighbors. But, I can start with evaluating my actions, and maybe, just maybe, it will be enough to spread to the people that I encounter in my life, maybe it will be enough to slow the cycle, maybe it will be enough to see just a small change in somebody's world.

"I'm Offended"

"I'm offended."

I'm tired of hearing that phrase come out of people's mouths. I'm tired of people being offended that they aren't always 1110% fairly treated. I'm tired of people claiming that they deserve something or that a certain debt is owed to them by society. I'm tired of this season where political correctness is all that I see, all that I hear about. Why do we have race quotas? Why do we have gender quotas? Why am I "required" by society to to accept a person's sexuality, when it is something that based on freedom of religion, I should be allowed to disagree with? 

I'm tired of the lies. I'm tired of people saying that all police are brutal, or that only "black lives matter"- in my mind, ALL lives matter, including the wee ones that have no voice that are growing in their mommies wombs. I'm tired of people claiming that women are just the same as men- we aren't, we have different parts (and if you want to argue about that, I recommend you go back to middle school biology or ask your parents). I'm tired of constantly having my beliefs degraded, discarded, and not considered. I am willing to debate. I am willing to have a constructive, respectful discussion on topics that I might not agree with a person on. I am not going to give in though, just because you call me a racist, a bigot, a woman-hater, or- my personal favorite- a conservative. 

I don't understand how I'm the intolerant one. I'm not trying to tell you that you are less than human because you believe that women should work outside the home. I'm not trying to make you feel less than a person because you are a different race, and I'm kind of race-blind, so I don't really understand what the issue is. I'm not trying to make you feel unloved because I feel that homosexuality is a sin- you are a person, you have certain unalienable rights, in the society we live in you can be "married"- but I'm not going to go out celebrating and condoning your sin. I'm not going to say it's right- just like I wouldn't tell an adulterer that what he was doing was right. 

Since you keep throwing it in my face that I'm the intolerant one- let me take a minute to tell you the ways that YOU, that society, has been intolerant of me.

Let me tell you the story of how my faith and my religious beliefs were tolerated at the religious institution of higher learning that I attended. There's so many instances, it's hard to decide which story to tell.

Oh, HC. I don't miss you. Nope, I don't miss you one itsy-bitsy bit.

• I could tell you about the once a month GYT (Get Yourself Tested) days in the dining hall. I mean, when I go to lunch, the first thing I always want to think is, "Oh yes. Got to remember to get myself tested this month. I'll do that while I eat my chicken sandwich".
• I could tell you of the time that Res Life decided to do a dorm social called "Sex on the Shore"- that's an interesting story. I couldn't leave my dorm room that night for fear of being exposed to unknown debauchery on the hall. I mean, why wouldn't I want to watch Jersey Shore, while eating pizza, and passing out boxes of condoms??!
• There was that time that ResLife wouldn't tell my roommate that her boyfriend couldn't spend the night and shower in our dorm room- and they were trying to get ME kicked out of the room for disagreeing. (They had sex in my bed and admitted it- I feel like I had a right to complain)
• Or there was the fact that Planned Parenthood visited campus for meetings- and I never once heard of the college working with various pro-life organizations based in the city, that were supported by churches in the area, and the denomination that gave us funding. 

Or, my personal favorite, that time when a professor marked me down a letter grade on a presentation/paper on Biblical Womanhood because he said I took a heretical, unChristlike, unbiblical point of view by-get this-saying that I personally believed:

• that a woman's role was to be submissive to her husband (based on mutual respect and the example of Jesus).
• that I was called to be a wife and a mother first- and that I was convicted that when the time came that I should not work outside the home.
• that I would not be able to attend a church with a female as the senior pastor. I didn't say that the Bible said it was wrong- I simply stated that it was a personal conviction and that I did not want to attend a church led by a woman. I didn't say that women could not serve as associate pastors, or that women could not be senior pastors- just that I had a personal conviction on the issue.

I didn't shame women that chose other paths. I didn't claim to have all of the answers. It was an opinion based assignment. But, because I took a conservative view at a liberal arts college- I had points deducted from my grade, which let to me receiving a lower grade in the class. I also had many other professors that enjoyed the discussions and debate, that respected my views on the issues, and allowed me to maintain my beliefs and dignity- as long as I had evidence to back it up- but there was a reason that I was known as a woman-hater in my classes, even if it was jokingly.

Let me put it this way- my faith was more respected at public universities that I attended in the state than the United Methodist private school that I received my degree at.

But yet, I'm the intolerant one. 

I'm the one that is "offensive".

Here's an open call for discussion. If you want to respectfully discuss an issue, let's chat. Let's meet up for coffee and talk about life and how we feel on different issues and just agree that we're probably going to disagree. But, if you want to just put me down and degrade me and call me names because I'm not going to bend and break and give in and agree with you- I'm not interested. You aren't really wanting change- you're like a toddler that's throwing a fit and stomping their feet- and I'm not interested in that nonsense. 

If you just want to go on a hunger strike and call it my fault that you're effectively committing suicide because you aren't getting your way, and your way exactly- I don't think I'm the one that is being intolerant- I think that you need to have a good look in the mirror for that one.

"hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that"

I feel like any time a racial issue comes up in the news (i.e. Ferguson, Baltimore, Charleston), people are quick to bring up the issue of removing confederate flags from all aspects of society. With the events that unfolded in Charleston this week (where a horrible, despicable act was committed against people because of their race--a racist act, a hate crime, a terrorist attack--I'm not here to argue and bicker about what you want to call it), people began calling for the confederate flag that is flown at the South Carolina state house to be taken down. I get it. I do. You think it will make everything better and not encourage the racism even more if we just try to stuff it away in a box in the back of the hypothetical closet and pretend like it never happened...but here's the thing: IT DID. And the civil war was not just about race, regardless of what you are reading in your common core history books these days.

Here's the thing: I have no problem with them flying the confederate flag at the South Carolina statehouse, for one reason and one reason alone--it's at a confederate memorial at the statehouse. It's not South Carolina still trying to cling onto the confederacy and dreams of secession. It's about remembering the men that gave their lives to fight for freedom- even if they were on the "wrong side". Not every white man in the South owned slaves. Many of the boys and men that fought in the Civil War fought because they thought that they were fighting for states' rights, for pursuit of "life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness". They were fighting for their independence. Many of them fought because it was "the thing to do". Was slavery wrong? YES. A million times yes. Is slavery today still wrong? YES. A million times yes. But, we cannot go back and erase the past. We cannot purge the events of the civil war from our country's history. We cannot continue to go down the path of political correctness, affirmative action, and pretending like our actions today can somehow erase what was done all of those years ago.

This is my great-great grandfather. He was one of the last surviving civil war/ confederate veterans alive- he lived until the ripe old age of 109 (technically, that's all fairly debatable and it's a huge controversy in Florida, where he has a memorial at a courthouse or something- census records indicate he might have been five at the time of the civil war, but for the sake of argument- he was super old). When I see the confederate battle flag, I think of this man. Obviously, he died WAY WAY WAY before I was born, and he did have a bit of hatred of Yankees- but that was it. There's nothing in the history of Uncle Bill that indicated that he hated "the black man"- just that he really really wished he had shot the Yankees when they were crossing some bridge and he had the change. Do I know the whole story? No. I don't claim to. There could be more to the story than I know- but to me- the confederate flag represents a memorial, a remembrance of this man- not a symbol of hatred. Uncle Bill fought for freedom and independence and states' rights. And hey- sixty something years after his death- he's the great-great grandpa to my youngest brother. Can't you see the resemblance? :)

Yes- at the same time that I have a great-great grandfather that fought for the Confederacy, I also have a little brother that is black. I have a little brother who has grown up in Alabama and had to hear endless, relentless jokes about "fried chicken, koolaid, and watermelon". At a young age, my baby brother associated the confederate flag as being a symbol of people that hate him, of people that think he has no worth or value, simply because of the color of his skin. Here in Alabama, racism is alive and well. 

Here's the thing: We can't afford to forget what happened- from either point of view.  

We can't forget the boys and men that fought for independence and freedom. Our nation was founded on some of these very same principles. The leaders of the confederacy felt like the federal government was infringing on their states' rights- much like we do today when a Supreme Court issues a ruling that declares a state law limiting abortions or banning gay marriage "unconstitutional". There is a times and a place for remembering the sacrifices that they made- some with the ultimate cost of their lives- thus, I am not against flying a confederate flag at a memorial marker or cemetery. 

We also shouldn't hide the "dirty" parts of our past and stick them in a basket in the back of the closet. We have to learn from our past so that we do not continue to make the same mistakes in the future. Racism is a horrible monster that has attacked America in various ways, shapes, and forms. Slavery, segregation, and now we are separate because we are trying so so hard to forget that all of that happened. We are trying so so hard to ensure that nobody is ever offended, that everyone is given an equal opportunity- even if it means we give certain, less qualified people a leg up so that we can meet our racial quotas. (Please note: I'm not against giving everyone a fair and equal shot- I just don't think people should be discriminated against of ANY race) The civil war was an important part of our nation's history, and it would do us well to not forget that. We CAN'T erase the things that our ancestors have done, but we can act differently today. Taking down all of the confederate flags, pretending that everything has always been awesome, and pretending that some people are "owed" more because of the travesties against their ancestors is NOT the answer. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote these words:

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction ... The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.

The solution to the problem of racism is not suppression and hiding and forgetting- that just multiplies the resentment and bitterness and hate. Confederate flags didn't cause the Charleston shooting- hate did. We don't fix racism by giving people a reason to be racist. We fix the problem one person at a time, by showing love to ALL of our brothers and sisters. We love them like Christ loves us, his bride, the church. We love them. We love them. We love them. We can't fix racism by adding more hate to the equation- that is why I love the response that some of the relatives from the Charleston shooting told to the accused murderer- they told him that they forgave him, they encouraged him to repent and come to Christ- they didn't try to damn his soul- they loved him. Let us follow in their example. Rather than doing silly, meaningless things like take down flags from courthouses, why don't we watch our words? Why don't we be extra careful that we aren't saying something that degrades another human being, another child of God? Why don't we reach out and be a light to our communities. If someone needs food, give them food. If someone is thirsty, let them drink. If someone needs shelter or a family or a home, let us give them that. Let us be the very hands and feet of Jesus, a light shining in the darkness, a city on a hill, for darkness does not drive out darkness- love does.