If you have or know someone who suffers from depression, you probably know that no matter how much their antidepressants work, there will still be blue days, or just a case of the blahs. If you have plans to do something, you can’t muster the energy to actually follow through. You don’t want to talk to anyone, and you probably don’t want to get off the couch all day, that is if you got out of bed at all.
Yesterday was one of those days for me. The most I could get myself to do was to lay on the couch and binge watch Only Murders in the Building. I made some soup for lunch, but that’s as energetic as it gets. I received some lovely comments on yesterday’s post that I wanted to respond to, but it was not a good day to try to communicate. (Don’t worry, I’ll respond later today.) When I’m like this, I find it hard to communicate with anyone, no matter the mode of communication.
I’m feeling better. Days like yesterday usually don’t last more than about 24 hours or so. I’m not tip top this morning, but I’m at least more functional.
For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.
Jeremiah 29:11
Each day, WordPress offers a prompt for blog posts. Most days, I ignore them, but when the one below popped up, I thought I’d answer it for my Sunday post.
What change, big or small, would you like your blog to make in the world?
When I began writing my Sunday posts, I wanted a weekly post that allowed me to do three things:
I wanted to provide a place for other LGBTQ+ members of the Churches of Christ to be able to find people like them. There are not as many members of the Churches of Christ as other denominations, and while many denominations have LGBTQ+ support groups, both sanctioned and not, I found it hard to find other members of the church who were like me.
I also wanted to advocate for my fellow members of the Churches of Christ to show that being gay was compatible with what the Bible actually says, not the mistranslations people often use to justify their hate. I wanted to advocate my belief that LGBTQ+ Christians are completely compatible with the Churches of Christ and should be embraced by the church.
I wanted a place where I could study and grow in my faith. I wanted that place to help others to also study and grow, to be able to think about what it means to be a Christian, and to inspire myself and my readers to be better Christians.
I wanted to be and advocate for the Jesus I believe in: the Jesus of the Bible who was accepting and loving, who was nonjudgmental, and who wanted to make the world a better place. Too often in this world, Christians do not follow what the Bible actually says, but instead, they pick and choose what verses they want to follow and disregard the ones that don’t follow their politics and prejudices.
Back in 2011, a friend of mine sent me two articles from the New York Times about homosexuality and religion. These articles were published in print in the Sunday Magazine (pg. MM30) on June 19, 2011. These articles made me think back on the struggles that I faced (and to some extent still did at that time) about my own faith and sexuality. It also inspired me to find other LGBTQ+ members of the Churches of Christ. I found very little. There was a defunct newsletter that had been published decades ago, a magazine published by Harding University (a university affiliated with the Churches of Christ) students, and a debate about sexuality and the Churches of Christ organized at Pepperdine University (another Churches of Christ university). So, I decided to first look at my own faith and second to create a space for LGBTQ+ members of the Churches of Christ. My discussion of those New York Times articles led me to write seven posts about my views on LGBTQ+ Christians. Here are links to the full series in order:
I have not gone back and read these posts in a while, and I suspect my style of writing and level of editing is quite a bit different from it is today. However, it is what began these Sunday devotionals.
Second, I wanted to stay true to the hermeneutic approach that the Churches of Christ claim they believe in, but often do not follow anymore. I wanted to use the historical-grammatical method of studying the Bible. This is a modern Christian hermeneutical method that strives to discover the biblical authors’ original intended meaning in the text. To study the Bible this way, you have to strive to understand the word used by the original writers of the Bible, not modern interpretations that have been highly influenced by politics. I believed that through study, I could show that the Churches of Christ should be the greatest champion for LGBTQ+ Christians. I wanted LGBTQ+ members of the Churches of Christ to know that they were not alone and should not feel shame over their sexuality.
Third, I no longer attend church. I find it hard to find a Church of Christ that I think fully follows the Bible. Also, I have never felt comfortable in other denominations, and I hated going to church by myself. Therefore, I wanted my blog to be place where I could worship, study the Bible, and spread the words of Christ. These Sunday devotionals became my personal bible study, and a place where I could grow my faith and help others to do the same.
Lastly, I wanted to spread the faith that I have in a loving and forgiving Jesus. I wanted to help the world to be a better place. I wanted to spread that love and to remind myself to guard against my own worst demons. We all have metaphorical demons inside us who think unkindly of others, judge others, and basically, have unchristian thoughts. I wanted to inspire myself and others to know those metaphorical demons and to in some show that just because we think it does not mean we have to act on on these thoughts.
Over the years, my blog has grown beyond my original intent of sharing LGBTQ+ history and culture. It has come to include my struggle with my migraines and other health issues. It has also been a place where I could show my love for the beauty of the male body and to express my sexuality. It has become a place where I have a wider group of friends. Some of you I will never know in person and will likely never know your real name. It doesn’t mean that I don’t consider you a friend. Others, I have become great friends with, Susan is an example of this. She has become one of my closest friends and confidants. I have met others along the way, some of who are no longer with us. There are those who seem to have stopped reading and moved on, and some who have passed away. This blog has shown the ups and downs in my life, but it has also been a place where I could grow my faith and make myself a better Christian.
So, these are the changes, big and small, I would like my blog to make in the world. I don’t know if I succeed in doing any of this, but I will keep trying to make the world a better place.
I’m so happy it’s Friday. It wasn’t that it’s been a particularly difficult week, because it hasn’t. However, I’m looking forward to dinner with a friend tonight. Sometimes, it’s just nice to put on a nice outfit and go out. Plus, we are going to one of my favorite restaurants, Waterworks. It’s always been my opinion that Vermont doesn’t have many outstanding restaurants, but this one is nice. Waterworks is in an old textile mill overlooking the Winooski River. Not only does it have a great view but also a great atmosphere. I can’t wait.
Nothing is quite as elegant as a black cat, especially my beautiful Isabella. However, black cats and kittens are often overlooked by people looking to adopt a cat and can be at animal shelter much longer than they should be. So why is this?
Interestingly, cats in ancient Egypt were highly revered, partly due to their ability to combat vermin such as mice. Cats of royalty were known to be dressed in golden jewelry and were allowed to eat right off their owners’ plates. The goddess of warfare was a woman with the head of a cat named Bastet.
These days, however, black cats are often seen as unlucky or mischievous, but not everyone knows why that is. In Celtic mythology, it was believed that fairies could take the form of black cats, and therefore their arrival to a home or village was seen as sign of good luck.
Unfortunately, the Pilgrims that came after them were devoutly religious and fearful of anything remotely related to the pagan beliefs of their ancestors, and it was because of this fear that black cats went from being seen as the vessels of fairies to the vessels of witches and demons. At that time it became common practice to severely punish those who kept black cats as pets, and even kill the animals themselves.
Although these days nobody really believes black cats are witches or demons in disguise anymore, they are still often seen as signs of bad luck by many people in the West.
You can celebrate National Black Cat Appreciation Day in several ways. If you are looking to adopt a cat or kitten, consider adopting a beautiful black cat or kitten. If you are allergic to cats, make a donation to a local shelter to help them feed their cats, especially those beautiful black cats that people neglect to adopt. Of course, I’ll be taking a third opinion: I will be showing some extra love to my beautiful Isabella.
Do you ever have an unsettling dream, not necessarily a bad dream, but not a good one either, and you wake up and can’t fall back to sleep because you can’t get the dream out of your head? I woke up sometime between 2:00 am and 2:30 am, and for once it wasn’t because of Isabella. This time is was one of those unsettling dreams. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t shut my brain back off and return to sleep. I was awake for over an hour before I felt like I might be able to fall asleep again. Luckily, I did fall back to sleep, but waking up with my alarm (and Isabella) at 5:00 am was pretty difficult and I still feel really groggy. It looks like it might be a long day at work. I’d actually call in sick and go back to bed if it wasn’t that for much of today, I’ll be the only person at the museum.
So, you might be wondering what this dream was. I dreamed that I was sitting in church when the minister began to quote the Bible verses that are used to condemn gay people and then rant about the evils of homosexuality. In the dream, I stood up and began to explain how wrong he was, why he was ignorant of the Bible’s history and interpretation of translations, and that he was preaching hate and unchristian beliefs. The minister then turns to the congregation and says in a sarcastic manner, “Here we go people” in the manner of someone who is already mocking the person talking in an effort to discredit them before they begin presenting their case. That’s when I woke up, and all I could think about was all the things I’d like to say to this hateful preacher and show why he was a hypocrite who was preaching the opposite of what Christ taught.
The thoughts running through my head used to keep me up at night on a regular basis. I just wouldn’t be able to shut off my mind and fall asleep. However, I rarely wake up remembering my dreams, let alone allow an unsettling dream like last night keep me awake. I’ve had other dreams that woke me up, but they were usually more of an erotic nature. I usually have to try to take care of a very different type of “hard issues” before I can fall back to sleep.
Joe
The Closet Professor 