On Love and Voting

“You just have to vote YES to marriage equality on May 22nd. You just have to. If you're gay it's obviously your right, if you're straight it doesn't effect you anyway. Just vote yes and if you're going to vote no then please delete me from your friend list on fb. I don't want people in my life who deny others their basic human rights. I feel very strongly about this.

 I apologise to all the gay people of Ireland that their right to equailty is up for debate. 

You have such patience and grace to withstand the ignorance in this country.”

This facebook post on a beautiful woman’s page caught me as I think it was supposed to catch me. Her message was clear. Her passion is evident. My message is clear. My passion is evident. My response is here.

It’s a meagre sort of tolerance that only wants tolerance for its own. 

What sort of democracy indulges in coercion? 

What sort of fight for freedom employs bullying tactics to judge and despise?

What sort of search for equality threatens to wipe out friendship and connection with anyone who holds a different perspective, a different experience, a different understanding? 

What sort of tolerance ridicules difference? 

What sort of love refuses to stand with those they find difficult to love?

I believe in a love that loves you no matter what you vote. I believe in friendship that goes deeper than political leanings and life meanings.

I am shocked that someone would want me out of their life because I am different to them. 

There is a certain irony in this being preached under a banner of equality, justice and freedom. I am disheartened that someone would choose to see the way I vote as the sum total of who I am. We are all on a journey, we are all on a way. If we cannot speak to each other authentically from where we genuinely are then where is the hope for unity? 

At the first sign of diversity, is the response to be one of closing down and shutting out?

I thought the yes campaign was all about love and equality? Aren’t they the tasty buzz words of conviction: “Make Gra the Law.”

“I don't want people in my life who deny others their basic human rights.”

I take human rights very seriously. I believe every human being is equal in value though clearly our world is jam-pack full of diversity and individuality and difference.

Is marriage a basic human right? Is freedom of choice in a democratic referendum a basic human right? Is it a basic human right to hold your own opinions, beliefs, commitments and convictions and to exercise your democratic right accordingly?

If both marriage and voting are basic human rights, then it seems to be unjust to judge those who choose to use their basic human right to vote in good conscience on their understanding of the definition of marriage.

Isn’t this referendum supposed to be about a journey towards inclusion? 

What sort of inclusion makes demands to exclude?

I have decided that I don’t like the atmosphere of exclusion and coercion mounting in my country around this referendum. I have decided that my vote will be my decision because people at some point decided my vote was worth fighting for. I have decided that a vote bullied out of me would not be a real democratic vote for freedom, equality or justice. I have decided those are things worth voting for. I have decided that anyone who really and truly believes in the innate value of every human being to be absolutely free would want to include me in that freedom.

There is a lot of talk around love in this referendum. 

Is love a basic human right? I take human rights very seriously. I believe every human being is wired for love - to love and to be loved. So, contrary to the message of this facebook post, I do want people in my life who deny others their basic human rights. I don’t want to exclude, “un-friend” or “un-love” anyone because my weakness causes me to fear or despise difference. 

When I love and am loved I want it to be without condition. Isn’t that our only hope for a world more full of love? For laws more full of love? 

It’s easy to love those who think the same as you. It’s easy to love those who vote the same as you. I want to love others regardless of their voting choices.

“If you're gay it's obviously your right”

This statement presumes a person’s democratic vote is based on their sexuality rather than their freedom to choose because they have a right to their say in this democracy. It also unfortunately stereotypes and pigeonholes everyone who identifies themselves as gay into one box and one voting agenda. From my personal experience it's a lot more complex than that. In terms of respecting individuality, originality and diversity I struggle with such an assumption. 

If your are about to whip our the homophobe card at me then first read what Keith Mills has to say in his article in the Sunday Independent (01/02/2015) where he describes himself as an “agnostic gay man supporting a 'No' vote in May.” Keith shares my concern about the bullying tactics and culture of fear to speak out that surrounds this referendum:

“While I have little doubt that most of the 'out' gay community are probably in favour of a 'Yes' vote, I know that I am far from a lone voice calling for rejection, but I am one of the few willing to raise their heads above the parapet.” 

Keith like many others in this country, who are probably too petrified to say so, don’t see a re-definition of marriage as providing an obvious right to same-sex couples. In fact he actually says "it upsets me when those promoting same-sex marriage try to portray civil partnerships as a "second class marriage". That is most certainly not how I and most people I know view them."

Keith actually sees civil partnerships as better expression of his rights, saying;

"I believe that civil partnerships are a better way of reflecting the reality of most same-sex unions and the idea that a civil marriage 'one size fits all' method of legally recognising all unions fails to address the fact that the relationship that a man forms with another man is intrinsically different from the relationship that a man forms with a woman.”

He writes "that civil partnerships are a better way of legally recognising same-sex relationships and providing all the rights and entitlements that come with civil marriage and are a better way of expressing diversity.”

“...if you're straight it doesn't effect you anyway.”

Another statement narrowly based on sexual identity rather than all the other elements that make up an individual and influence their voting decisions.

There are many questions raised here that perhaps have not been considered by those who choose to only surround themselves with like-minded friends.

What if I’m a minister of religion whose duty and right by law includes performing rites of marriage to those entitled under law to marry? Should I be sent to prison for my convictions, worldview and beliefs around marriage?

If I end up in prison because my freedom of conscience is over-ruled by those claiming “equality” where is the tolerance and love for me in that?

I am straight, or so my society labels me because of my sexual orientation, and I am married in the eyes of the Christian church and the eyes of the Irish state. 

I feel very deeply that the outcome of this referendum will in fact effect me. No matter how hard I try to convince myself otherwise, I honestly feel that it will and I am filled with disappointment and sorrow at the thought of that change occurring. 

Article 41.3.1 states: “The State pledges to guard with special care the institution of marriage, on which the family is founded, and to protect it against attack.” In seeking to change the constitutional definition of marriage the State is breaking the very promise to protect the institution of marriage as it is currently defined.

I feel betrayed by the State that gave me a marriage certificate based on a definition of marriage that I signed up to under Irish law. A change to that definition of marriage does of course effect me as a married person in this country. It does not change my personal marriage but it does change the definition of how the state views my marriage. It changes what any of my future children will learn in school about marriage. It re-writes a marriage narrative that has been read in my country and culture for millennia. It does of course effect me. It is naive and insensitive to believe otherwise. 

How heterophobic has my country become? That it would label any such expression of dismay at the potential change of my country’s definition of marriage as “bigoted”, “hatred”, “inequality”… labels I have consistently heard on social and national media. 

Since when does disagreement with someone mean you hate them?

Perhaps the ferocity I am witnessing within the yes campaign is a backlash from years of homophobic, horrifically alienating and un-loving culture both in church and state. But more hate speech, such as the facebook post that prompted this blog, won’t bring the love and equality we crave.

Marriage in itself will never be a ticket to equality. Some things will never equal one another. If this referendum is passed marriage inequality will still exist. I will still not be entitled to marry a twelve year old, even if we are deeply in love and committed to one another. I will still not be entitled to marry my brother, even if all we want is to make gra the law. I will still not be equal enough to be allowed to marry my beloved who is deemed mentally unfit to make their commitment to me.

How is marriage a “basic human right” when some humans are clearly excluded completely apart from gender or sexual orientation?

People have never and will never be entitled to marry just because they are in a loving relationship. 

So skip all the emotional blackmail please, skip all the vote for this person and that person,  spare me the vote for false notions of love and equality, vote for yourself, that’s what a democratic vote is for.

But if, for some strange reason, you are looking for someone else to vote for on May 22nd, then Vote No, for me.

Vote No for my marriage 

Vote No for a marriage that is two becoming one flesh 

Vote No for a marriage that is bonded by the blood of a covenant

Vote No for the genes of my husband’s and my ancestors who will grow together when we conceive a child 

Vote No for a genuine equality that respects the differences between relationships that are physiologically and biologically different

Vote No because you know there is something different between my marriage and a same-sex relationship

Vote No out of respect and love for that diversity, for that difference. And don’t be afraid of it. 

The Secondhand Story

Charity shops in Ireland. Op shops in New Zealand. Thrift stores in America. 

I don't remember when I started shopping secondhand. I do remember when I committed to stop shopping firsthand. It was a realisation which I credit, unashamed of the cliched associations, with my time away travelling in other parts of the world. 

Of course, the charity shop joy had already been instilled in me long before I took off travelling. My family and friends knew of my penchant for all things thrifty and secondhand. I knew of the intense joy of scouring the rails and scoring a find. More of that in due course.

What had not been instilled in me was the full weight of injustice lining my wardrobe. I had not before been in the same city at the same time as those who make my clothes were being gunned down while they went on strike for fair wages. These sort of happenings don't seem to make it from the streets of Phnom Penh to RTE news, yet the clothes still make it to the rails of M&S Grafton Street.

Suddenly buying secondhand took on a new incentive and meaning for me, and for others.

It seemed like a wonderful solution to the clothing justice issue. I could feel rather smug about my charity shop buys, and my lack of support for the unjust garment factory systems. Not only am I avoiding buying unjustly made garments, I am also giving my money to charities! When the slightly worn label reads Made In Cambodia, I feel thankful I wasn't the one who bought this brand new. In my satisfaction for all things secondhand I avoid driving the unjust clothing market forward with one more new buy.

But somebody else did buy it new. And somebody else still made the garment. I wouldn't be buying it if it had not already been made and bought. The question remains: Was it fairly made and bought?

My secondhand shopping is really secondhand support of the injustice I condemn. I am threading my own little ethical loophole to massage my materialistic ego and cleanse my conscience at the same time.

I am living off the excess of my materialistic society. I love it. Hence the smugness.

But I have to loathe it as well as I admit that it is not the solution to the injustice engrained in the hearts of greed which feed the unfair systems.

My own heart included. I naturally want more and I want it for less.

When did more become best?
I return to the lessons of my travelling time. When I didn't have the same social situations to attend to I didn't mind so much if I wore the same outfit repeatedly. When my back and shoulders ached after walking from the bus stop into the village to find a bed for the night I suddenly felt very keen to own fewer clothes. When my sandal strap broke in India I realised the joy of renewal when ten minutes and twenty cents later a man had fixed them with some needle and thread. I realised my skin did not disintegrate or my state of contentedness decline with owning fewer clothes.

When I came home I felt shock at the bags and boxes of clothes I had completely forgotten ever owning. Many made it (back) out to the charity shop. But oh how quickly I returned to the desire for more. If I had to carry the contents of my wardrobe on my back today I would be bent in shame at my undeniable material excess. Albeit at least 80% secondhand.

Since returning home to Ireland over ten months ago I have only bought one long sleeved black top in Penneys, and this was only after searching for one in so many secondhand shops until I ran out of time and needed it for an interview the next day! And underwear, I have bought underwear. Even though the Salvation Army in NZ does stock some great Bridget Jones' knickers, I do draw the secondhand line at underwear. All of my other clothes shopping has been secondhand. 

ALL of my other clothes. 

How much of that buying has actually been needed? How much of it is fuelled by my desire for "new" things, even if they are secondhand? Yes, it is good that the money is going to charity, but am I adding fuel to the materialistic excess of society by supporting the very system of excess itself? I am continuously amazed at the great finds I get in secondhand shops in Ireland. It brings me great joy when I get to grab what others throwaway, sometimes even with the labels and packaging still on - brand new secondhand!

But it brings me sorrow to consider the undercurrent of greed and thoughtlessness to the secondhand industry. Why does so much stuff get given away to charity shops in the first place? Why do we make and buy more than we need? Why do we get tired of clothes before they get tired of us?

I will continue to shop secondhand. Not just for clothing but for anything else that I can support in a second life. But I will confess that it is not simply out of virtue that I shop secondhand. I succumb to the powerful pull of the buying buzz and in doing so contribute to a cycle of material excess in my first-world society. 

I need to work on knowing the first story of my clothes, and knowing that it is a good one. I need to remember the families in Phnom Penh who grieve the loss of their loved ones who died because they asked to be paid fairly for making the clothes my society sells as fashion. Even knowing this, I confess that, after years of secondhand shopping, I find it too difficult to fork out fair trade prices for ethically made clothing that isn't even exactly what I want or need. But that's another story.

All I have in my wardrobe now is secondhand stories, and I know these second stories are good.

I know that my brown leather jacket was one I had been admiring for years but could never justify buying until it came to me in Vincent's, Greystones. I know every time I bake my pastry blind for a quiche my ceramic baking beans were someone's unopened castaway left for me in Enable Ireland, George's Street. I know my grey Nike tracksuit bottoms (Enable Ireland, two euro fifty) cheered me up, after months of searching, when I happened upon them while taking an unwanted trip to Bray to sort out a broken ring. I know the trip with my mum to that recycling centre in the summer scored a whole bag full of great clothes for me and my husband - totally free! 

My wardrobe is full of the emotion of personal finds; the people I was with, the place I was going, the unpredictability of the search and the joy of the find. My clothes are rooted in a time and place with which I can forge a personal connection and investment. That has become far more appealing to me than choosing my size off a rack of the same brand-new-freshly-shipped-from-Bangladesh.

And when my secondhand clothes get tired of me, I'll bring them back to the charity shop, and the story will continue...

This time last year...

In the last couple of months I've been enjoying a nostalgic little habit of changing the desktop picture on my laptop to correspond with somewhere I was this time last year.

This time last year I was busy being a happy tramp, travelling, and abandoning this blog to my wonderings and wanderings at www.twohappytramps.wordpress.com (if you are the curious sort).

Call it processing/settling/naval-gazing...whatever. I have been finding great satisfaction in creating a purpose to trawl through my travelling photos every couple of weeks in search of a new and timely photo that grabs me.

I wanted to share this current one from a rainy day arrival in Kuala Lumpur, around this time last November. Maybe after my first week of wet feet back in Dublin, this one feels meaningful.

I love the colours; the spotlit hanging bananas, the red bucket haplessly 'collecting' rain and all the other reds in the picture... the lanterns swinging, the red on the scooter, on the umbrella, on the building ahead. Did I notice there was so much red at the time? This photo makes me remember the buzz of exploring a new city coupled with the annoyance of feeling hungry and wet, walking up and down flooded, slippery tiled streets feeling confused about where to eat.

I never can tell exactly why I'll choose a particular photo from my past, but it always seems to bring into focus my present place. Often it will be a photo I don't even remember taking, until it catches my attention again, and I remember something beyond the picture itself.

So far, it has not been famous landmarks or tourist sites that make the desktop. It has been that sugarcane train I caught on camera in dusky light as it snaked passed our van in North-eastern Australia. It was that out-of-focus side-selfie shot I took of us on a spontaneous beach walk by that campsite near Byron Bay. It was that bend in the great ocean road (we don't even recall who took the photo) with the signpost and the puddle reflecting a sky that had just cleared of rain.

Choosing these photos makes me think about time. It makes me think about the time I have now and the things I will remember in time to come. The trains passing, the bends in the road, the walks on beaches whose names we don't remember. It makes me wonder at the things that seem meaningful and then wonder again at the things that really are meaningful.

Hope

Some thoughts on hope... These words were originally penned in my journal on 20th February 2013, on a long and unexpected journey home, a journey in Hope...

Hope is not based on the outcome of our circumstances, but on our ability to believe that there is hope in all circumstances.

Hope is not a settling for whatever happens, but an agreement to reach higher than we ever thought we could, and fall lower than we ever thought we would.

Hope does not always feel good.

Hope doesn't ignore the depth and reality of painful darkness, but Hope is what holds that darkness rather than allowing the darkness to consume us.

We are not without Hope.

Wherever there is life, there is Hope.

Dust and Resurrection

A resurrected blog on the theme of resurrection... Most of this was written one Sunday afternoon in a hostel common room in Malaysia... Amazingly I chose this very evening exactly one year to the day later to log back in and find this draft. In my new anti-perfectionist resolution to resurrect this blog I have only tweaked it a little since it's original outpouring at that hostel computer! 

How do you feel when the testimony is about a golden handshake - "all glory to God"? How do you feel when the woman says she made 7 million in one day for her real estate company, "all glory to Jesus"?

How do you feel when she tells of her daughter's straight A passing of exams, "all Glory to God", of course?

Are these the successes that are testified to in the name of giving glory to God?
It's not impressive. It's embarrassing. Becoming a Christian is not an invitation into middle class, first world, good health and education.

Is this what we are to glory in? Is this what the church is to testify to?

Pity me as a Christ-follower if that is the case. I don't want to live a Faith that breathes out "Glory to God" in such painful tones.

Painful it must feel to the man who just lost the job he has loved and poured himself into for many years. "Where is the testimony of the blessing of God in my life?" this man may ask, after hearing these gold-leaf testimonies of financial gains and career-ladder climbs breeze out over the church.

Painful it must feel to the woman whose son with dyslexia is really struggling through certain subjects in school. Would she be welcome to give testimony and glory to God for her son?

Communion time comes and the man tells us Jesus died to defeat failure and sickness. If we have any of these things in our life we can get rid of them now as we partake of the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Painful it must feel for the man with MS who can feel his muscles failing him more and more, week by week, prayer by prayer.

Painful it must feel for the man who buried his wife three months ago after a ten year battle fought joyfully and painfully with the disease that ate up her energy but not her beauty in Christ. Can he stand up the front also, his face lit up by the theatrical lights, and give Glory to God?

Becoming a Christian is not drinking an elixir to guard from all sickness and death. There is none of this sickly sweet success-juice in the recipe for resurrection. In the narrative I know, there is a cross and a death before a resurrection.

Pain can be beautiful.

She was the most beautiful I had seen her two weeks before she died. She knew she was dying. She was radiant, her face was glowing. The doctors thought she was in denial because she didn't show signs of fear or sorrow at the cancer overtaking her body. "I am getting a new body", she reassured them. 

They thought she needed counselling. She knew resurrection.

Pain is grotesque and messy.

His body was bloated and dried blood congealed around the dialysis lines in his neck. The tube feeding him air was sticking to his lips, causing bruising and sores. His eyes were wide open but not seeing. Standing at his bedside, reminded me of Mary and Martha at their brother's tomb saying "Jesus, you are too late". 

Thankfully, I knew what happened after their disgruntled greeting of Jesus.

There is no resurrection without death.

Thankfully, I could draw on that evidence to fan flickers of hope in the face of pain and fear. 

I believed in God's power to heal. 

But that is not the only cause for testimony.

He will die some other way, some day. I will weep then like Jesus wept at the graveside of Lazarus.

Yet then too, there will be testimony of God's goodness and glory.

He miraculously lives now, yet lives with pain and trauma.

The church is sick to think all is well.

I watched her coffin being lowered into a grave the day after my wedding. 

I got the call to tell me she had died while I was decorating the church, using lace she gave me from material used in making her wedding dress.

We followers of Christ are glorious, believe it or not. We are the radiant Bride of Jesus Christ as described in Revelation, but we are not there yet. We hold the invitation to the Feast but we have not arrived at the wedding just yet. We are and we are not yet.

Can we hold this tension?

Can we glory in achievements, skills, financial gain but even more so in God's presence and love found in the midst of pain and failure?

This sublime beauty in the midst of a thousand stabbing knives of pain tells us things are not as they ought to be. We ought not to be standing at this graveside. This doesn't feel right. And in that there is hope for something that ought to be different. Jesus was right to cry. Jesus knew there was something wrong.

But why did he weep if he knew he was about to conquer death?

Why did he not just call forth Lazarus and, as the man walked out of the tomb, give a flashy testimony about his followers overcoming all sickness and death (and making lots of money in the process)?

Jesus knew that there is no resurrection without death yet he called himself the resurrection.

"I am the resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die." 

God in flesh calling forth his own death. God of the Universe breathing life into us dust creatures.

Dust to dust... and Life!

This glorious paradox; read at Christian funerals as the coffin is carried in, shoulders born down with grief and sorrow literally bearing the weight of death and loss. It's the disbelieving look on faces as the coffin is born down into the ground. We are haunted by the image of eternity imprinted upon us by our Maker.

This is not how we wanted it to end... not now, not yet...

I believe this is the Kingdom of God now on earth...

Now, and not yet.

The church can and needs to be an antiseptic in a world full of puss and grimy infection. The church does not need to be a sickly sweet antidote to pain and failure but a genuine anticipation of healing to come and a reflection of the healing that has come in Christ.

It has come, and it is still to come

It is now, but it's not yet

It is a beautiful mess

I am a follower of Christ in this Kingdom come...

Mark Driscoll's School of Manliness*

Applicant Number: 4055649

 

A great start. Clearly, a manly man. A full bottle of Extra Hot Tabasco downed in 5 seconds.

Showing serious potential. This guy is an animal. What you don't see: seconds later this dude swallowed the toilet roll whole.

Manly men take note. This is the stuff we're looking for. True masculinity displayed in this act of rock-chomping.

Owch. This guy was doing so well. His manly performance here is compromised by an air of femininity. The wearing of pink, seen here in the applicant's slippers ruins what would otherwise have been a beefy display of strength. If this brother doesn't wise up and man up he won't make the cut. 

Oh dang. The dude's been chickified. This is a real let down. I didn't think a man of this calibre would ever exhibit such symptoms of feminization. This is the toe-jam of masculinity. 

Grade: FAIL

Additional Comments: This man is anatomically male but he is showing symptoms of an effeminate nature. Influence of sisification detected. Immediate intervention and disciplinary action advised. 

* This is a fictional rendering of a fictional School Test. Mark Driscoll's School of Manliness may not actually exist. The content of this blog may not actually express words spoken or views held by Mark Driscoll. But the author regrets that it could be a frighteningly accurate rendering of the same.

Preaching Pictures

Lost Souls

Remnant

Sin

Sacred Ground