My Adventures in Oddity

Actor or SM?

Do I want to be an actor or a stage manager??!?! AHHH I don’t like not knowing what I’m going to do with my life…

hurumph….

I’ve just made a realization (thanks in part to my mom), I need to do what I love. I need to stop worrying about having my future all planned out, I need to stop worrying about having a cushy life, I need to stop worrying about what’s ‘respectable’ and do what I love and what I’m called to do….and that is THEATRE!

I love theatre, I am a theatre geek if there ever was one! And I can’t imagine my life without theatre.

I love theatre because it’s about something deeper. It’s about humanity, it’s about our pain, anxiety, joy, fear, and everything else!! Theatre (good theatre) calls people back from the hustle and bustle of the modern world and look at humanity! The world needs this. The world needs to remember what it means to be human.

Theologian Frederick Buechner said:

“The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need most to do and (b) that the world most needs to have done….The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

I think I’ve finally found that.

31st May 2012 | 3 notes

Most of our life is unimportant, filled with trivial things from morning till night. But when it is transformed by love it is of interest even to the angels

—Dorothy Day

30th May 2012

Turning Inward

I recently finished reading a book by the AMAZING Christian (Episcopalian) author Diana Butler Bass called Strength For the Journey. It’s all about her time in various Episcopal parishes and how they informed and molded her, and how they themselves grew. It’s a prequel to her best seller, Christianity for the Rest of Us which documents the practices that are causing various mainline parishes to grow!

In reading these two books (among others written by Bass and others), it struck me that the key to growth isn’t programs and contemporary worship at all; indeed, the key to a revival in our parishes and Churches lies in turning our focus inward.

The Churches that were thriving in Bass’ books all had a strong ‘inward look,’ by this I mean that they knew what their mission was and they were intent on carrying it out! When they did this, when they were focused on their mission, they grew.

Thinking about my own denomination, the Episcopal Church, I can see that this is our problem. We don’t have a clear, unified THEOLOGICAL mission that parishes can get behind. We’re far to concerned with social justice and other political causes, and often fail to tie them to the message of the Gospel. Among other things, we seem to be worried about offending people. But the Gospel offends!!

I really believe that if we, as a church, were to set and state a mission and follow that mission with all our heart, soul, and mind we wouldn’t have enough room for the people flocking to our pews!!

Just some food for thought!!

30th May 2012 | 3 notes

Until you’re ready to look foolish, you’ll never have the possibility of being great.

—

Cher

I love her…

28th May 2012 | 31 notes

Gay men and lesbians are being made to pay the price of our society’s moral incoherence not only about sex, but about most of our moral convictions. As a society we have no general agreement about what constitutes marriage and/or what goods marriage ought to serve. We allegedly live in a monogamous culture, but in fact we are at best serially polygamous. We are confused about sex, why and with whom we have it, and about our reasons for having children.

This moral confusion leads to a need for the illusion of certainty. If nothing is wrong with homosexuality then it seems everything is up for grabs. Of course, everything is already up for grabs, but the condemnation of gays hides that fact from our lives. So the moral “no” to gays becomes the necessary symbolic commitment to show that we really do believe in soemthing.

—Stanley Hauerwas in “Why Gays (as a Group) Are Morally Superior to Christians (as a Group)” (1993)

(Source: books.google.com, via honor-not-honors)

28th May 2012 | 4 notes

Hurt & Sad

So today in Church (the evangelical church my family attends) the pastor spoke on Same-Sex Marriage and homosexuality.

Listening to it nearly brought me to tears. I’m not some gay person that gets offended because you (or anyone else) hold conservative/traditional views of sexuality and marriage. I know a lot of people like that and we get on just fine! Do you know why? Because they still make me feel like a human being.

The way the pastor spoke (and I know he meant it well) crushed me. Gays were called ‘perverts,’ confused, and sinners. They were lustful and depraved. Really? All gays? EVERY SINGLE ONE? Even the ones who repress themselves for their God? Even the ones who struggle night and day trying to do what’s right and holy according to God? Even the ones who would rather kill themselves than face the reality of living a ‘gay’ lifestyle?

If you aren’t ‘pro-gay,’ that’s fine! But please remember that gay people are people too. We hurt, just like the ‘straights.’

Please stop telling me I’m perverted. Please stop telling me that I’m sinning. Please stop telling me that I’ve turned from God. I’ve asked God to show me his will and his truth. I’ve asked him to change me. I’ve pleaded for him to take away my homosexuality. And he hasn’t. I think this means God is affirming me in my sexuality, others say no. To be honest, I’m not sure…I get caught up i all the arguments.

I’m so sad :( But I know God loves me…I’ll cling to that.