This is from a journal entry dated 2/28/09 that I just re-discovered. Felt like I needed to put my thoughts out there…for my own sake and sanity.
Sometimes I think that I want to push buttons in the Christian sub-culture – be like Jesus was with the religious people. He DID NOT like them – they did not represent his Father’s heart AT ALL. He called them a brood of vipers – poisionous like snakes. I think it would be like calling someone today a Mo’Fo’! (Or “Mutha Ucka” as Jemaine and Bret (from Flight of the Concords) would say) But even the thought of that seems soo “unloving.” Like I have the dual devil/angel on each shoulder and the angel is saying, “Now be nice Christy – don’t judge – we are to love one another unconditionally. Just remember – what would Jesus do?” And then I have this devil on the other side saying, “I’ll tell you what Jesus would do – he’d tell those Mo’Fo’s to shut their religious traps up and then go heal someone on the Sabbath! That’s what he’d do!”
Man, I totally see how getting too deep into religion can make you bi-polar. And I now understand even more why so many people I know who’ve been to seminary are so messed up. And even writing about this feels so blasphemous (which I attribute to the Pharisaical thoughts that swirl in my head at all times or maybe it’s conviction – who knows!)
What sparked these thoughts was a conversation with a friend this morning about putting yourself and your art or creativity out there for the world to either love or critisize out the wazoo. And how we so want to control what happens either way, which is, as we all know, an impossibility. She shared how she’s weighs her words so carefully, even when she writes, so as to not offend. It’s like having that little “angel” give you the WWJD guilt trip all the time. But the reality is that no matter how nice you try to be in life and love, you’re always gonna trip someone up – ALWAYS. Which leads me to believe that if you are doing what you’re supposed to be doing – as far as what God has talented you with – created in you to do – and you’re NOT offending people on some level or pissing them off – ESPECIALLY uber religious folks – then maybe – just maybe you’re about 2 degrees off the exact course that you need to be on. That somehow, you’re missing your full potential and in essence putting some big duck tape over Jesus’ mouth in order to keep him quiet.
This is not to say that offending people should be your primary motivating factor in life. As I recently heard musician Derek Webb say, “Not everyone listens to music to be agitated” and so our primary motive can’t always be to want to agitate. I would venture to guess that 99% of the time, Jesus said what he said, did what he did and lived the way he lived, compelled by the motive of love. But maybe when he called the Pharisees a “brood of vipers”, he wasn’t weighing his words carefully, reasoning through guilt and the “Should I or shouldn’t I say this” kind of analyzation. I kinda think that in that moment – he was just plain ol’ pissed off and called a spade a spade – and in essence, in that moment, his primary motive WAS to offend and agitate.
I wonder if it can be a balance of both – equally giving consideration to what you say and how you say it, in order to be as objective as possible and at the same time just say what you think and feel, shooting from the hip, no matter who gets peeved in the process. How can you fully be you, with all your ideas and opinions, without worrying about either of the above. Maybe it just boils down to faithfulness. If you are being faithful to say and do what you feel you need to say, do or create, without that filter of “oh geez, will this offend someone??” then is that what really matters in the end – is this what is means to really be like Jesus?
I love talking about all this kinds of stuff, which is what really scares me. Because the LAST thing I want to do is work or be involved in the Christian sub-culture – I don’t think I could work in it without being labeled 1) a loud –mouth (or foul mouthed as I might cuss every once and a while) 2) a rebel 3) a bi-polar lunatic 4) obnoxious, mean and ugly and 5) “unChrist like – whatever that means. I hate cynism and that’s the last thing that I would want to mark my life. So how did Jesus do it – how was he so loving and kind and compassionate and yet so vehemently passionate and willing to turn over tables and become enraged at the same time? This all seems so contradictory to the ideal of what’s been taught to me about what it means to be a loving Christian – or a Christian woman. Well the truth is that’s just not who I am – I can’t be that kind of woman and that scares me as well because it seems that the sweet, kind woman is what most of the men I’m attracted to want or what some of the people I meet would like for me to be. It’s a complicated mix – a tension to live with.
