Organizing Documented Change
Sorting through old photos and memorabilia – organizing my junque so the movers don’t think I’m disorganized or a hoarder, I see many changes documented with my humble cameras.
Even more can change in just a year.
This time last year on the cover of Vanity Fair – Bruce Jenner was re-introduced as Caitlyn Jenner. Twelve short months later, the city council of Mesquite Texas removed restrictions on access to lavatories and locker rooms in all public facilities, and more controversy looms.
It feels like common sense and conventional wisdom are as discombobulated as my boxes of stuff. We are pushing the boundaries of what is definable, what our biological sex is, for what is amorphous – how we feel about who we are.
When we want to be something other than our true authentic selves, that is self-hate . . . We cry out about the horrors of female genital mutilation, yet we allow the practice in our backyard. . . We are playing a dangerous game. . . We should be teaching a message of self-acceptance instead of buying into the latest surgeries or believing we’re born in the wrong body. (Nuridden Knight )
We are going along with the latest trend without testing its wisdom with the Bible. I get that many Americans avoid Scripture – it startles me when a churchman misrepresents it. Desmond Tutu declared he’s rather go to hell than spend eternity with a homophobic God. (BBC World News -Africa)
Seriously.
When we tell our kids NO, is it because we are phobic, or protective?
When God says NO, to our obsessions, plans, and predilections what’s He afraid of?
God hates some things – He’s not afraid of them. (Proverbs 6:16-19) He died to free us from each one of the things He hates, too. And He gives us the power to overcome or come through our trials. (Ephesians 1:19-20) Moreover, loving and serving those who are still bound up in the chains they keep forging with their choices is not the same thing as affirming the choices.
I can love a proud, boastful liar – or even a murderer or manipulator with the same compassion Christ shows me . . . but I can’t affirm, pretend, that defying God is wise, safe or loving.
Teach me, Lord, to see people as You do—bearing Your image, being worthy of Your love, and needing Your care. May Your great love find in my heart a vessel through which that love can be displayed. (from Our Daily Bread, June 9)
You might remember: Do You See a Buck-Naked Emperor