This one’s going to be short, but it seems important.

I was driving from Santa Clara to Santa Rosa last week, and I noticed that the same sign was posted several times. It was something along the lines of: “Share the Road. Look out for the motorcyclists.” It hit me that that’s not just true on the road: we need to Share the Road in Life. There’s room for all of us, and we can be magnanimous enough to let the other guy have some space, too. And, looking out for the motorcyclists? Look out for the little guy. Keep your awareness keen enough to take in the people who may not otherwise be given much credence or help.

In life, more so sometimes than on the road, there is room for us all–if we just “move over” a little bit and give the other guy a little “elbow room.” We may not all be going to the same place, but we have to travel the same road a lot of times to get where we’re going. So, take in those around you, and especially the people who are hard to see, because of their size or their meaning to you. Take them in and SHARE. It’s not just about you, ever! We’re on the planet together. Peace.

I think I can ask for things and not be a loud-mouth. I think I can ask for things and be a calm respectful person. Whew! That is hard to say!

This is a statement that came out of my therapy. I worked today on what it was like to publish U.M. See! Pt. 2. I revealed a lot of personal stuff in Part 2, and it’s hard to think about what people will think of me. But I’m going to leave the post up, because I’m hoping to learn stuff about myself. I can’t really check with people, if they think less of me for saying anything. And, I wrote it as an exercise, to show what I think Jesus thinks about the subject of sexuality, not just what my own personal feelings about my sexuality are. That’s important, right? I’ve had a couple of nieces who have recently revealed things about themselves. I don’t think less of them for doing it. I think they are strong for bringing the things up. Thanks, you-know-who-you-are!!!

As for the first paragraph in this post–I’ll have to say more about that in another post. Praise Jesus, that He doesn’t judge us for who we are. I had a license plate holder (which I should replace) a little while ago that said, “I *Heart* Peace / Embrace Diversity). What would it be if we were all alike. We stretch and grow each other with our differences, if we let the differences stretch and grow us! Right? That’s enough for today. The featured image for this post is a sideways shot of a necklace I’ve entitled Black Rainbow. Peace out!

 

How do I feel about how Jesus feels about LGBTQIA? I think Jesus is about non-exclusion, to use a double negative! He loves EVERYBODY, and wants us to tolerate and include EVERYBODY! Nowhere in the Bible does he say, “Don’t accept homosexuals or transgender or anybody whose sexuality is different from yours or whose sexuality makes you feel uncomfortable”! He does say, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” He does show himself, time and again, bringing in the outcast, including the lepers, the prostitutes, the dirty (in terms of Jewish law). He tells his disciples to bring the little children to him–there was an oppressed group of people, especially in his day and age. Some things haven’t gotten much better for some children today.

But let me tell you a little bit about my own experiences:  I grew up in a time and place when homosexuality wasn’t very prevalent, transgender was totally unheard of, and all the other specifications that are with us today, I still have yet to decipher myself! My twin sister took violin lessons from Michel Gibson (such a great name), in Appleton. He lived with a man, which, at the time, I thought nothing of. But my mom explained, probably when I was in eighth grade or so–and she was kind of embarrassed about it–that Mr. Gibson and his roommate were homosexuals. That is, a man loved another man instead of a woman.

Skip forward to my college years, when I was hospitalized several times for Bipolar. One of the times, I was the roommate of a woman who explained that she was “trying out” a lesbian relationship. She and I grew very close. She was an intense person, and loved to protect me. After a while, she told me that she told her partner she thought she was in love with me. This didn’t shock me or make me feel bad. In fact, I was honored to be the object of such strong and wonderful feelings. My mother was chagrined. And, looking back on it now, I wonder if a graduate school friend of my mom’s didn’t tell her the same thing at some point.

I’ve always appreciated the female body. The curves, the ins, the outs. Taking Life Drawing was wonderful in college. Over time, I’ve learned that I am bisexual. Probably a little more heterosexual than homosexual, on the spectrum line of homo to hetero.

But, given the right circumstances, I could see myself getting into a lesbian relationship. However, right now, I am in a committed relationship, and have been for almost 21 years! So, the question is moot. The important thing is that I would be open to a homosexual relationship, under the right circumstances.

I have met a few transgender males. I don’t feel like I can judge them for who they are. They’re probably so glad to be living a life that’s more true to who they feel they are inside.

My niece has been explaining that she feels she is some form of asexual. Like I said, there are many aspects of LGBTQIA that I have yet to encounter or understand. Bottom line, Jesus accepts everyone, so why shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t you?

In the CGI Disney cartoon, Frozen, when the troll tells Elsa and her parents that there is great beauty in her gift and also great danger, Elsa and her parents get stuck on the danger part. He (the troll) says, “Fear is [Elsa’s] enemy.” What does that mean? I think Elsa’s parents misinterpreted what he meant, which is made clear at the end of the movie. Because they quickly make fear their friend. They coax it into a relationship, saying yes to the troll’s suggestion that Anna be essentially cut out of Elsa’s life. Elsa’s mom and dad keep her behind closed doors, and at an age when they should be showing her the beauty of love, they give her gloves to hide her magical hands, and tell her to keep it in. “Hide it; don’t feel it.” The troll tells them Elsa must learn to control her power, but he doesn’t tell her how. And the king says Elsa can most certainly learn to control it. But look at the help the king and queen give her! Oh, dear!

So when she runs away to the mountains after her coronation, she’s confused and vulnerable. She’s already missing a glove–one of the things that helps her “keep it in.” And she finally gets it. It’s okay to let it out. Let her power go–and see what she can do. And what she can do is pretty fantastic. Imbed a giant snowflake in the ground and build an ice castle on top if it! Build a staircase with no supports, across a crevasse. Quite the infrastructure!

The song she sings has such a happy lilting chorus, speaking of her inner, glorious power. But then when Anna and Kristoff show up, she resorts to fear again. She chases Anna away, and freezes her heart, without even knowing that she’s done it! It’s not till Anna steps between Elsa and Anna’s ex-fiance’s sword and hears the words, “True love will melt a frozen heart,” that she understands:  it’s love that melts a cold, cold winter. Love is the opposite of fear, in so many ways. Love allows Elsa to let it go and not have to hide it/don’t show it.

What an incredible lesson! I need to hear that, with the help of love, I can let my creative power, my healing power, go! I can build fantastic things, because I can LET. IT. GO!

This one may take more than one blog post. I have to explain, then I have to do. That may not make sense now, but hopefully it will when I start writing.

I am not a very political person. I find it hard to follow conversations sometimes, because they deal with things I’m not altogether up on. That’s certainly the case with the latest in the UMC happenings. But I’m going to forge ahead anyway, and try to explain what’s going on in the UMC (“I have to explain”), and then I’m going to try to put down how I feel about the situation and how I think about it myself (“then I have to do”).

Recently, the UMC had a special General Conference. Normally, this is a yearly meeting of the church worldwide(?) to decide things that might change things pertinent to the denomination. This year, one of the things that came up was whether or not to change the wording in the Book of Discipline (like it sounds–it contains matters of protocol for the church). The Book of Discipline states that marriages can only be between one man and one woman. The Book of Discipline states that only heterosexual people can become ordained. And, the Book of Discipline states that clergy may not perform marriages between any but heterosexual couples.

This year, one of the things on the docket for the General Conference was to decide whether to change the language as it now stands to include LGBTQIA constituents. So, marriages could take place between other than just one man and one woman, as is now the law in the United States. Anybody could seek ordination, regardless of sexuality. And, clergy could perform marriages between other than just one man and one woman. The decision was voted down.

There are many churches and individuals who are chagrined by this vote. Post-General Conference Episcopal visits have been taking place since the special-called General Conference voted down the possible changes. I attended one of these “Episcopal visits” back in March. My impression was that the churches who are pro-LGBTQIA are not interested in going anywhere, i.e., leaving the denomination. Rather, they want to work to sway the majority to see sexuality in a different light when it comes to Christianity, and specifically Methodism.

One of the things that I heard from what people said at the March meeting I attended, was that we have to speak our truth–our experience of our own Christianity, as it pertains to our experience with LGBTQIA humans. This said, I would like to end this part of the blog, and continue on with my own statement.

To a Squirrel

 

Hey little buster why do you sit

All furry and wet munching a nut on a rock?

Why aren’t you home where it’s safe and it’s warm

And there isn’t a storm, oh, so black?

 

It must be the meat of that nut that you chew

Which[that] keeps you so steadfastly there.

For it’s such a fine treat, that nut that you chew

It must be quite lusciously rare.

 

Or maybe it’s that you cannot go back

And be with your family just yet;

For here you can set and try to forget

The cares of that nest that is yours.

 

Or maybe you spy from the edge of your eye

Someone you’d like to see.

It may be a dog; it can’t be a frog —

But maybe, just maybe, it’s me!

 

[I wrote this in 1981, when I was at college. I saw a squirrel sitting on a huge rock. It was rainy and I was tired after class, and the poem mostly just came to me. (Speaking of Serendipity.) I’ve never tried to get it published, but maybe I should.]

Copyright–Barb Orbison Hansen

 

What do I write about today? What t-shirt do I put on? Large or small, when I have more than one thing to choose between, decisions need to be made, and sometimes that can be baffling. Using a childhood decision-making tool can be the very thing, but with a slight twist.

For example, figuring out which t-shirt to put on can go something like this:

I have three t-shirts I’m choosing between. I don’t know if I want to wear my green one, a peach one or a grey one. If I use eenie-meanie-minie-moe (E-M-M-M), I can figure out which one to wear. If I say E-M-M-M, and it lands on the peach one, and I have nothing more to say about it–that is, I feel that it’s fine to spend the day in the peach one, I’m done. But, what if E-M-M-M lands on the peach t-shirt, and I feel myself go, “Eww, I would really rather wear the green one or the grey one instead”? Then, I put the peach shirt aside and start over, because I know that I have decided (remember, this is a decision-making tool), I don’t like the peach that much after all. It just wasn’t clear to me to begin with.

This time, when I do E-M-M-M, it ends up on the grey shirt. I then go through the same process that I went through with the peach t-shirt, except that if I object to the grey t-shirt, then I just know I was meant to spend the day in my green t-shirt.

What starts out as a fuzzy line–“I don’t know which t-shirt I prefer to wear today”–gets narrowed down and determined through a simple finger-pointing game.

BTW, if you start to figure out where your finger is going to land, because you use E-M-M-M so often, try mixing it up when you’re pointing. Do double-time pointing for a little bit, so that you don’t know where you’re going to land when you stop. Can you tell that I use this decision-making method a lot? I just wish it would have been okay to do it this way when I was a kid. Having the hard and fast rule of where you land is where you stay sometimes wasn’t much fun!

I love it when things just come to me. It’s like my mind and heart have had the chance to process, percolate and peace-ify, so that thoughts just come. YAY!

Several years ago I got three of my favorite affirmations that way.

1. It may (or may not) be true
2. I may be able to handle this
3. It may be good enough

Qualifications for each one of them, because, sometimes it seems like an absolute affirmation is too hard to swallow.

1. It may (or may not) be true: When someone pays you a compliment, it’s easy to dismiss it out of hand, forthright. But maybe, just maybe, it’s true. Likewise, when someone insults you, maybe what they say is not true.
2. This one’s just hoping the best for oneself and
3. This one’s learning to be content with what one has.

These affirmations came as a package, bundled together—all pretty and ready for wear. Nice.

The latest one that occurred to me, thanks to a conversation I was having with my psychiatrist is: “Life takes finesse”! Amen to that. Amen.