The title to this post is strange. Hang with me, and I think everything will become clearer. Today, when I got up, I found an amazing number of things to blog about. Let me list them, in a sort of "Quick Links" format:
- My own dear Pittsburgh Presbytery is putting Rev. Janet Edwards on trial for officiating at a lesbian wedding. We all know my position (beginning at Deb 1) on this, after decades of struggle. I'd obviously stand by Rev. Edwards.
- A little more hopeful is the MSNBC article about Rev. Joe Beam, who's saying married Christians aren't having enough hot sex with their spouses. We'll skip the inability of some Christians to be married, or his position on sex at certain times of the month and just be grateful that he's adding some greatly needed sanity to the discussion.
- Today's "Dear Prudence," in it's first letter, gives an example of the other extreme. The couple waited for marriage, and the woman decided to just keep waiting. Now, this isn't necessarily a result of the "Just Say No To Any Physical Contact Before Marriage" crowd. I Am Not A Psychologist, but I'd be asking some serious questions about this woman's upbringing, focusing on possible abuse. The thing is, though, a lot of Christians who wait do wind up struggling with the idea that sex is bad, even in marriage. I've joked about my own fear a year or two ago when my father-in-law found out Nancy and I were having sex.1 Yet, when given a chance last year to teach Christians on antidepressants how to cope with the sexual side effects, I chickened out. I didn't want to wind up crucified. Some part of my brain thinks sex is bad. Thank God I mostly ignore it.
- The whole "sex is bad" thing came up recently over at Dubious Wonder's discussion about "Slut." I don't like the word, simply because the same actions by a man tend to be approved while by a woman they get labeled. But there's also this whole "sex is bad" thing again. And if enjoying sex, being good at it, and experimenting with different things is "slutty," well, someone just insulted my wife, who studied very hard for her Human Sexuality class. I don't take well to my wife being insulted. 2
- I should not have deleted the comment on this blog where someone objected to Nancy and I having sex because we were supposed to be "mature Christians." Ridiculing mercilessly the person who wrote that would have been fun, although I'm trying to be better than that. Same with the post objecting to Nancy and I holding hands and kissing before marriage. Apparently, we should have just always said "No."
- Speaking of ridicule, anyone know where I can get my hands on a burka and someone willing to model it? I've got a great idea for a poster [warning: PDF] similar to the one at Pure Freedom.
Ok, so where's this tirade going?
Last night, we handed out contact information to the kids in our chatroom. Mine used my gmail address, which is a mess and happens to include my paramedic con-ed number. Like I said, a mess. Not something easy to remember. I realized I dare not mention my blog to my 7th and 8th graders.
I'm not hiding it because of the copious amounts of profanity on this blog, or all the photos of sexual organs (some of those insect shots had to include sexual organs). For crying out loud, kids in this age group have seen harder pornography than I have. Given that I regularly do medical searches, that frightens me. But that's not why I dare not mention this blog.
I am afraid a parent or someone at the church will find this blog. See, I say what I believe. Ok, so maybe I'll soften it a bit and put some spin on it or explain it in subtle ways to get past watchful dragons. But I say things that are the truth, even if they will get me in trouble. 3
The church I go to is mostly conservative. In the 2004 election, the whole "Christians vote for Bush, because we're selling our soul to the Republican Party" schtick got on my nerves. I'm actually not the most liberal person in the church. But can you imagine what happens to the head of the youth group if someone goes screaming to the head minister with the URL for this blog?
I'm not Hugo Schwyzer. God bless him. It's his youth group; if he wants to get screamed at by the parents, that's his choice. The parents apparently don't; they realize they'd be hard pressed to find someone better than Hugo.
I am not the head of my youth group. Someone else is, someone who is a God-fearing, amazing man whom I admire. I'm just one of the "Adult Leaders," and the term "Leader" is rather misleading. I lead the kids based on what the youth group head tells us to.
Honestly, I should either give up this blog or give up working with the kids. Already, they don't have enough Adult Leaders. If I bail on them, there's that much less influence in the kids lives. For some reason, God has given me a heart to work with these children. Given what's going on lately in our own extended family, I think you can appreciate that I'm not willing to give up on these kids.
I've tried to keep this blog non-controversial. It doesn't work. I can't sit by and let injustice go unchallenged. I mouth off. I should give up UnSpace, maybe come back with some blog that can't possibly be connected to me (like that would work) or just stop blogging altogether.
There is one assumption, though. I'm assuming someone I know will read this blog. I can't even get my wife to read it. Floyd tries to read it occasionally, but he gets too depressed and gives up. Based on my referal logs, I'm not even sure I have any regular readers: mostly it's people looking for spoilers for the Illusionist, the Wicker Man (?!), Inside Man (most popular post ever, bar none!) or black and yellow spiders.
Maybe there's something to be said for being a crawly amphibian. If a blog falls in the blogoverse and no one hears it, does it affect the real world?
Well, I know for a fact you have at least one regular reader, so don’t sell yourself short.
I don’t agree with you on all of your viewpoints, but you do at least challenge me to re-evaluate my thinking on those issues. I think you even have caused a change of camps on an occasion or two. And you’ve even caused cries of, “Right on, brutha!”
You raise some great questions and I will respond eventually, but for now, just a hearty “amen, brother, keep at it!”
“Honestly, I should either give up this blog or give up working with the kids.”
Or the third option, keep the blog and just defend your right to have your own valid (and usually quite well informed) opinions on matters of state, church, and all that’s in between, if it ever comes up in non-interweb circles.
Obviously you get something out of having this, more than just posting pornographic photos of bees and spiders mating, what is it? (you never did answer my “why do you blog” question, so do it now!)
I’m with Jim though, being a regular reader - although I am a heathen and don’t always have time to comment, I think you cover a pretty good gamut of info and interesting stuff here. If you have a vote, I say keep it up.
If the church expects all those who teach children to be perfect, they’re in trouble. Real human beings have some warts and don’t always fall 100% in line with doctrine. I think it’s more important that kids encounter real people who are respectful (and can thus teach them to be the same), than that they encounter cardboard people.
If your church agrees with me, your blog is nothing to worry about. If it doesn’t, your blog is the least of their worries. So either way, I’d leave it alone.
(FYI, I’ve been forced to sometimes use Bloglines and dynamic DNS to read your entries, so not all of my hits come from where you expect them to. True, I don’t click through to every post, but I read more than you’re probably guessing from your logs.)
This was said better than I could have. For my part, I remember being a 12 and 13 year old in the youth group. The one leader who had a profound influence on me was the one who was real. She wasn’t perfect, but she was honest, and she admitted to struggling to swim against the tide sometimes. I’m not sure if those conversations would have been approved of by our priest, but they helped shape me.
So what if someone finds this blog? And that’s an” if” also. I was terrified a former coworker had found mine until I realized it didn’t matter anyway. I think we blog for ourselves and if others respond, that’s the icing on the cake. And I recommend ignoring the site traffic- it just gave me a headache to watch mine! (This good advice was from Paperback Writer, so I”m passing it on!)
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