hollow.

i am currently going through a sickeningly introspective view of myself. i say sickening because i feel physically ill at times thinking about it. i am having a really hard time dealing with self and making sense of who i am. it is such a strange feeling, because lately i have felt more secure in erin warde than i have ever felt in my entire life, and just as soon as i feel so secure, something shifts and i am unsure. i guess my fault begins in that i believed i could ever be fully comfortable with self.

there is something innately about me that desires something i don't have. something i don't feel i've ever had. something that, because of recent surveys of past and self, i believe i may have pushed away while saying i desperately wanted. i can't decide if i have actively ruined this, or that something about me ruined this. it is a hard concept to deal with, either way.

i can come up with a ridiculous amount of things i should be and am thankful for, yet when darkness comes and i have no distractions, i am still on the verge of tears and hollow.

cosmic dance.

a while ago i went to the peanut festival, and my friend ryan and i struck a deal. we would each write sonnets about fireworks, and we would present them to someone to judge. while i do not necessarily like this poem, it's the only work i've done with our little deal. we'll see how it is received. :) comments/criticism welcomed. (ryan, this is the best i can do RIGHT NOW. and don't take any of my ideas, EITHER :P)

----

Cosmic Dance

Fire screamed across the sky,
Green, gold, red, and blue.
Fireworks gave iridescence to the air.
Late on a Saturday night,
We closed our eyes, and still the sky
Appeared a cosmic dance of fire and movement.
Even through eyelids, we saw fire shoot;
Clear and brazen across the usual black.
The red held tight to the blue,
A curtsy was given to each other hue,
And together – they each danced,
Quickly, effortlessly, gliding across.
That night, the Light was seen and heard.
Stars, moon, sky – jealous, silent, lost.

confirmation.

it took a while for me to post this to my blog, but it's official --





i'm confirmed into the episcopal church. :) thanks be to God!

srsly?

"It's proof-texting, which is using the scripture to fit their opinion," said Hepp. "They are using the idea of love as the foundation of Christianity, instead of sin and God's will."

.......

now do you see why sometimes i don't want to claim Christianity?
sometimes it is easier to say "episcopalian," because at least then people will know my beliefs are probably out-of-the-box.
lol, oh well. in the fullness of time there will hopefully be resolution. and loving kindness. and no divisions. and people who love.

until then, i will say my prayers. and i will try to love everyone, with God's help.
(and those last 3 words are the most important, srsly.)

thankful.

lately i've been given the opportunity to be a friend to some people, outside of just hanging out and laughing. i've been invited into these people's lives in the sense that they've needed guidance, someone to listen, and mostly i think just someone to look back at them and say "hey, you're not insane for feeling the way you feel."

i often need to have friends like that, and it has meant so much to me to be that sort of friend. it is ridiculously flattering to be invited into a person's problems, simply because a person has to humble themselves to a degree in order to ask for that sort of help, and be able to the person their speaking to immensely in order to talk about whatever it is that bothers them.

i'm thankful for the people who have trusted me lately. i hope i can always be that sort of person. :)

frustration.

i hate jealousy.

it sows anger where i want to reap love.

i wish i could love the people i can't stand.

on being gay & Christian.

truthfully, this dilemma is not something i face, though i would say i understand the issue to a degree in that i have to watch people very close to me battle with what they should do when they feel that they are both gay and Christian. (i preface this blog with that to stress the fact that i am not trying to say that i fully understand the issue, because i really don't, but that i would like to stress some thoughts i have based on my interaction with Christians in the LGBTQQ community.)

right now i have a very close friend who is trying to figure out how to feel about themselves because this person is Christian yet has recently come to terms with their homosexuality. we've talked a good bit lately and it's gotten me thinking a lot on the topic.

some gay Christians i've known have struggled at the outset of dealing with their sexuality due to something profoundly detrimental to them -- the thought that they cannot be both things, because the faith community they've always associated with has told them (either explicitly or subliminally) that they cannot be gay and Christian simultaneously.

what i believe Christians who are not all inclusive may not realize is that when this attitude is fed to people who battle over their sexuality, it leads them to have identity issues. i imagine some gay Christians feel like they have to reevaluate not only who they are as a person, but who they can be in Christ. this issue can't be written off as not a big deal. a person can't say, "oh well the bible says this is wrong so they just need to stop feeling the way they feel." to say this about a person is ridiculously insensitive, and certainly isn't "loving others," which is what the bible explicitly asks of people who follow Christ.

my problem is this -- if someone wants to take the bible literally, they can take the bible literally. i am not going to try to tell anyone their faith is "wrong" because of that (though i will disagree with the lens through which they view scripture). but, if a person is going to be a bible literalist, be a bible literalist.

think about matthew 22 when it reads, "'Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?' Jesus replied: 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.'" [emphasis mine.]

if someone insists on literalism, shouldn't they take that literally? ALL the law and prophets hang on these two commandments -- to love God and to love people. if a person believes that all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments, then when it comes down to a battle between whether the law was meant to be used to condemn or love, the answer would be love. when it comes down to the lens we view scripture with, it should be a lens focused around loving God and loving people. when it comes down to how we (as a Christian community) should react to homosexuality, we have to base our reaction in love. to do anything else would seem to go against what the Christian community has so plainly and directly been asked to do -- base all of our laws, prophets (which i read to believe our judgments and our conclusions and our understanding of how to interact as a faith community with our world) on the ideal that we should love God and love people.

what i think some people do not understand about their negative attitude towards homosexuality is that if you push the thought on someone that they can either be gay or Christian, not both things simultaneously, what happens when they cannot shake their homosexual desires? what happens if they decide that, because of consistently being told they are "wrong" and "sinful creatures," they leave their Christian communities all together and have deep, spiritual issues? the Christian community, i think, often does this to homosexuals and leaves them feeling alone, which is a state of being that the Body of Christ is supposed to be ending in the world, not creating. how can we say that we are "sticking up for righteousness" and "just trying to uphold morality" when the end result is that people may leave the very community we strive to create? there's nothing righteous and moral about pushing people away.

i won't fight someone on how they interpret scripture, because a ridiculous amount of people (if they heard all of my religious views) probably think i am a heretic for my interpretations, but it shames me to think that as a Christian community, we fail so hardcore at doing what jesus refers to as the two most important lessons we should learn from everything ever taught in the biblical gospel narratives. let me also add that i am writing this after reading the bible through a "literalist" lens, which is something i rarely do, so i am even trying to find some common ground between my usual way to interpret scripture and a form of interpretation that i don't often practice.

i also write this, as a heterosexual, because i think people often hear members of the LGBTQQ community say these things, and the overwhelming thought is, "of course they believe a, b, and c.... they're trying to justify their actions." i want to say these things as a heterosexual to show that it is not always a person trying to justify their own lifestyle, because being gay and Christian isn't something i've had to deal with, yet i still hold many of the same beliefs in regard to it as those who are gay.

you're welcome to have your own interpretations of things, but i am able to have mine too. i write this not to force this idea on anyone, but simply because i am having a disconnect in understanding how some "Christian" ideals have become "Christian," because of the points i see being made scripturally.

ps -- this blog was almost solely written to try to encourage that close friend of mine who is struggling with their identity in Christ. to them, i hope this helps you in your pursuit of self.

skin.

she rises out of a lukewarm bath
her skin goosepimpled and shaking
when cold air hits her warm, wet
cleansed skin

hands clinging to her arms
her hair mats over her face
releasing a new shower of cold drops on her
scared skin

she hates the early morning
the shock of cold to her body
because like every day before she steps in
to new skin

election 2008.

i would never tell you how to vote, because people doing that make me sick. i will also never tell you which of the candidates is the "Christian" choice, because the thought that God (in God's infinity) is boxed up and finds identity in some meager election for a governmental system that is human made is ludicrous. but, i will encourage you to vote (if you feel led, and have discerned a specific candidate you prefer) and i will support the candidate i've already voted for.

peanut festival.

a few pictures to post regarding the peanut festival :)

for starters, i had an amazing time. i enjoyed laughing and being silly and feeling like a kid again. i hadn't gone to anything like this since maybe sophomore year of high school...

so, to explain --


i went with some of my best friends.



i got to ride this thing, making me a total baller.



we saw fun fireworks, and laughed a whole heck of a lot.



and the night ended with lesley and i getting pwned by the most insane ride ever. I HAVE BRUISES. (ding)

needless to say, wonderful weekend. will store this away in my college memories brainfolder, too. :)

i had a happy halloween, did you?

i was hera, queen of the greek gods. notable feminist, and a big fan of peacocks. i ruled the party with my grecian pimp cane, and never stopped keeping it real.

but in all seriousness, i had a wonderful halloween. another good memory to store away in my "great things i did before i graduated from troy" category....

coming soon -- picture from the peanut festival :)