Apathy and Ellen Page

Like so much of the queer world, I freaked the fuck out when Ellen Page came out this past Friday.  And not because I was in any way surprised that Ellen Page is gay.  I wasn't.  Like so many other people, gay or straight (or anywhere else on any spectrum), I was about 99.999% sure that Ellen Page is gay.  And yet, as much as there may be a decent sized list of people who the queer community (especially the online queer feminist community to which I belong) "knows" is queer, every single time one of them actually takes their own affirmative steps to come out of their closets, to declare their own truths, we all cheer and freak out so loud and for so long that we start to forget there was ever a time when that person actually wasn't out.

For days after I saw the internet explode with Ellen Page's announcement, I carried on my life with a huge, probably incredibly goofy-looking grin on my face.  And at first I couldn't figure out why this one person's coming out was making me so incredibly happy.  I mean, I cheered and celebrated when Raven-Symone and Michelle Rodriguez came out last year.  I was happy.  But neither Raven's gay marriage celebrating tweet nor M-Rod's bisexual rumour confirming interview made me this ecstatic for days on end.  At first I thought it was just because of how much I love Ellen Page's movies or how much I crush on her, but, let's be honest, Michelle Rodriguez definitely falls more into the latter category for me than Ellen Page does.

And then I thought maybe it's because Raven and Michelle Rodriguez both have histories of awkwardly, defensively, and at times destructively denying rumours of their respective queerness.  And Ellen Page just avoided the subject (or even tongue-in-cheek poked fun at in that 2008 SNL skit).  Or it could be because Ellen Page is still a huge, and likely still rising star, while M-Rod has a long-term and at times messy career of always playing the same bad-ass type of character and Raven's claim to fame rises mostly out her career as a kid on the "Cosby Show" and a teen in Disney's "That's So Raven."

But I think the real reason behind my joyous reaction to Ellen Page coming out is simply because of the way that she came out.  As the icon of gay Ellens would put it, she owned her own truth.  Ellen Page got on that stage and didn't just say, "hey world, I'm gay, now explode!" (even though that's pretty much all that got reported/tweeted in the immediate aftermath).  Instead, she stood up there and slowly built up to her announcement through an exposition of Hollywood culture and societal pressure, both on gender presentation and sexuality.  And, yeah, Ellen Page said those three words "I am gay," and those may forever be the most memorable words from her speech (and after those seemingly simple words, you could see her entire body sigh).  But I truly hope that those words are not the only ones remembered from her speech on Friday.  Because that wasn't the pinnacle of her speech, not by a long shot.  Instead, she went on to explain her own coming out (and why she hadn't until this point), acknowledged her own privilege in being able to come out in such an accepting setting, and ended by saying "thank you" to everyone who enables young people to find the strength to claim their own truth.

Now, while most of the response to Ellen Page coming out was positive and supportive, and I honestly didn't see much hateful or negative backlash, I did see way too many dismissive comments, as Riese over at Autostraddle so beautifully dissects:

Ellen Page said she’d been scared to reveal her truth, and in response way too many people responded with, ”In other news, the sky is blue.” The fact that so many felt comfortable being that rude to someone who’d just publicly shared a private struggle speaks volumes about how important they consider the issues of gay women to be. We should be wary of these people. People like them are why so many believe this country is post-racial or post-feminist when this country is racist as fuck and hates women. This country loves to pass a few laws and then declare everything officially fixed forever. This country has a short memory.

When people respond to a high profile celebrity coming out with some variation of "so what?" or "well duh! who cares?" they perpetuate the notion that the fight is over.  That gay youth don't still face rejection, homelessness, drug addictions, depression, and suicide at exponentially higher rates than non-queer youth.  And the vast majority of these issues stem from familial or communal rejection of them once they come out or are outed.

It can be soul-crushing for a queer person who is struggling with the possibility of coming out of the closet to less than supportive family and friends to see those types of responses to the beautifully eloquent coming out of someone like Ellen Page.  When you are sitting in the darkness of your own closet, having just felt a little bit of warmth and light shine on you because of the encouragement of Ellen Page, and then you see so many self-proclaimed "allies" shun the idea that there is any bravery at all (or even any point for that matter) in someone like Ellen Page ever publicly declaring her label, her truth, you want to slam yourself so tightly back into that closet, nearly forgetting to take note of the incredible support that Ellen Page and her true supporters and community have to offer.

I know what it's like to live for years in a closet.  I've been there.  I spent so much of my life refusing to even let myself face my own truth, the reality of my own attractions and desires.  I wouldn't even acknowledge it in my head because I knew (or thought I knew) that as long as I never faced it myself, I would never have to face even the slightest possibility of sharing that truth with anyone around me.  And I had the vast majority of these frightened and denial-ridden conversations with myself while attending American University, a place so imbued with support and pride for LGBT issues that Westboro Baptist Church (ahem...cult, not church) came to protest us.  And while I felt (and still feel) so much pride at how incredible my school was at embracing and encouraging queers, I still engaged in this circular, internalized-homophobic thought process.  I didn't come out to myself until a good year after I left American.  And, yes, there are many other personal reasons behind the timing of my own journey, but what I know is this: having an immediately supportive community doesn't make it somehow magically easy to come out of the closet.  Sure, on some surface level, would it have been easier for me to face my own truth, to come out as queer, while still at AU?  Of course, without a doubt.  But I also know that if I had come out publicly while at AU, chances are I never would've moved home, never would've put in the work, the sweat and tears, to rebuild my relationship with my family.  Instead, I waited until my family and I were on solid ground for the first time in years before I felt I could even face my own truth for myself.  And then I came out to my family.  And then to the rest of my world.  Now, from a distance, this might seem like I waited until my family and I were on solid ground only to rip the metaphorical rug out from under us by coming out.  I've had people, family members even, say this very thing to me.  But what I know is that I put far too much blood, sweat, and tears into rebuilding my relationship with my parents to allow even a portion of that relationship to be built on the lie that I was perpetuating, by omission if nothing else, that I was straight.  I needed to rebuild that relationship, and then I had to reveal my whole truth, before we could ever be on truly solid ground.  That's my journey.  That's my story.

So when people try to make the argument that coming out in front of an overwhelmingly supportive community like the Human Rights Campaign isn't brave at all, they are flat out wrong.  Because coming out, declaring the truth of your queerness, involves so much more than just needing an immediate pat on the back by those in close proximity to you.  Coming out is a process of finally facing yourself, acknowledging your own truth, and then figuring out where that leaves you in the many different worlds that you navigate.

Some people think that, because they aren't actively spewing hate at a gay person, they don't pull the trigger when a black person makes them nervous (or do but justify it by claiming stand-your-ground), and they don't intentionally try to treat the women in their workplace as less important/intelligent/etc. than their male colleagues, they are not in any way perpetuating the institutions of homophobia, racism, and sexism, respectively.  But for anyone who really takes the time to dig into any of these issues, they have to at some point come to the realization that these oppressive institutions are still very much alive and well.  And once you reach that conclusion, but look around and don't see public lynchings, anti-sodomy laws, or lack of women's suffrage, at some point you also have to realize that it's not just the faceless, nameless "other" that perpetuates these institutions.  It's us.  It's you and me.  Every day we let our own apathy lull us into contentment, every time we let ourselves believe that we don't play a role in perpetuating these oppressive institutions, we are, by that very act of apathy, perpetuating them.

 For the past couple months I've been wrestling with the idea of how to fight against the pull of my own apathy, to truly fight for the things for which my heart breaks.  There's this poem, "Etiquette Leash," by the amazing queer spoken word artist and activist, Andrea Gibson, that has opened my eyes and challenged me so much that I find myself repeating it to myself over and over again each day.  As I was editing this post, I kept trying to figure out which section of the poem I wanted to include, but I don't think it carries nearly the same weight in snippets.  So here's the whole thing:

I want a good heart

I want it to be made of good stuff

I want the stain glass window builder to be my drinking buddy

I want to drink only the punch

of a million genderqueer school kids

taking free martial arts lessons to survive recess

I stopped calling myself a pacifist

when I heard Gandhi told women

they should not physically fight of their rapists

I believe there is such a think as a non-violent fist

I believe the earth is a woman muzzled

beaten, tied to the coal slinging tracks

I believe the muzzled have every right

to rip of the Bible Belt and take it to the patriarchy's ass

I know these words are going to get me in trouble

It is never polite to throw back the tear gas

Just like it's never polite to bring enough life rafts

They crowd the balcony where the wealthy shine their jewels

But sometimes love

sometimes real love

is fucking rude

It's interrupting a wedding mid-vow

just as the congregation is about to cry

to stand up your pew to say

"Is everyone here clear on how diamonds are mined?"

Hallelujah 

to every drag queen at Stonewall

who made weapons out of her stiletto shoes

Hallelujah 

to the Blues keeping the neighbourhood awake

To the activist standing in the snow outside of the circus

holding a ten foot photograph of a baby elephant in chains

when it's probably some little kid's birthday

Hallelujah 

to making everyone uncomfortable

To the terrible manners of truth

To refusing to clean the blood off the plate

Bend this spine into a bow

I can pull across the cello of my "Speak up!"

Love readies its heart's teeth

Chews through the etiquette leash

Takes down the cellphone tower

after millions of people die in wars in the Congo

fighting for the minerals that make our cellphones

Love blows up the dam

Chains itself to the redwood tree, to the Capitol building

when a trailer of Mexican immigrants 

are found dead on a south Texas roadside

Love insists well-intentioned white people

officially, stop calling themselves colour-blind

Insists hope lace its fucking boots

Always calls out the misogynist, racist, homophobic joke

refuses to be a welcome mate where hate wipes its feet

Love asks questions at the most inappropriate times

Overturns the Defense of Marriage Act

then walks the Pride Parade 

asking when the plight of poor, single mothers

will ignite our hearts into action like that

Love is not polite

deadlocks rush hour traffic 

with a hundred stubborn, screaming bikes

Hallelujah

to every suffrage movement hunger strike

Hallelujah

to insisting they get your pronouns right

Hallelujah

to tact never winning our spines

To taking our power all the way back

to that first glacier that had to learn how to swim

To never turning our heads from a single ugly truth

To knowing we live in a time when beauty

recruits its models outside the doors of eating disorder clinics

That is not a metaphor

This is not a line to a poem

An Indian farmer walks into a crowd of people 

and stabs himself in the chest

to protest the poisoning of his lands

A Buddhist monk burns himself alive 

on the crowded streets of Saigon

A U.S. soldier hangs himself

with his enemy's dog tags around his holy neck

May my heart be as heavy as a tuba

in the front row of the Mardi Gras parade five months after Katrina

May it weigh the weight of the world

so it might anchor the sun

so it might hold me to my own light

till I am willing to sweat as much as I cry

till I am willing to press into the clay of our precious lives

A window

Might our grace riot the walls down

May the drought howl us awake

May we rush into the streets

to do the work of opening each other's eyes

May our good hearts forever be too loud

to let the neighbours sleep

It's so very easy for me to rest in my own privileged apathy, to not do that hard work of opening the eyes of those around me.  To know and feel the pain and the heartache caused by so many different problems in the world, but to justify my own silence, my own lack of action by claiming that I'm not actively perpetuating any of these institutions (at least not purposefully).  But this shuffling of blame and responsibility is precisely what allows these institutions to remain so active.

Every time a celebrity comes our or there's a story of a young gay kid committing suicide, and so many self-proclaimed "allies" respond with "so what?" to the former and "I would never bully a gay kid" to the latter, the institution of homophobia rolls on.  Every time we see stories of black boys like Trayvon Martin and Jordan Davis being killed and either refuse to acknowledge the role racism plays in their deaths or separate ourselves from it by saying that we don't shoot every black kid we see walking down the street in a hoodie, we are turning our eyes from the overwhelming racism that is ravaging this supposedly great nation.

How do we not see that I, a cisgender, upper class, well-educated white woman, will never have to justify wearing a hoodie, listening to headphones and walking home alone at night to the man with a gun.  That man with a gun isn't going to assume that I'm casing every house I walk by trying to figure out which one I should break into.  But if I were a young black man walking home alone with my hood up and my headphones in, that's what people assume.  That's what George Zimmerman assumed.

I drive around in my economy car blaring my music, mostly alternative but sometimes hip hop, and even at gas stations, sometimes I'll let it blare while I run inside to grab a snack.  I have never once had to worry that if I don't turn my music down when someone asks, that person may pull a gun on me because my music in combination with my skin tone made him "justifiably" afraid.  But that's exactly what happened when Michael Dunn saw Jordan Davis blaring his music at a gas station.  I'll never have to face that.

My parents have never once had to instruct me on how to act when I'm around a police officer.  They've never had to tell me to be constantly aware of how fast my hands move to my pocket for ID in connection with how quickly the cop's hand can move to unbuckle his gun holster.  I've never had those conversations.  I never will.  Because I am white.

My criminal procedure professor from last semester told us that her African-American husband, an Ivy-educated, powerful attorney, would never feel comfortable saying "no" to a cop who asks to search his car.  Not because of the law.  This man knows the law and knows he has every right to deny a consent-search.  But because his skin colour immediately makes most cops suspicious.  It doesn't matter that this man drives a really nice car, is well-educated, articulate and upper class.  His skin is black, so he does not feel safe exercising his full Constitutional rights.

That is the world that we live in.  That is a society that we perpetuate.

For years, I've wanted to be a prosecutor.  I still do.  I clerk at a local State's Attorney's Office and I'm earning my Criminal Litigation certificate along with my J.D.  But increasingly I find myself wondering how I'm going to operate within the modern criminal justice system when I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the modern criminal justice system operates as a new slave system, a modern Jim Crow.  Is it my own apathy towards these heart-wrenching truths that keeps me on this path?  Or am I simply allowing myself to prioritize the feminist struggle over the anti-racist struggle?  Is that prioritization in itself a form of apathy?

These are my digressions, my internal struggles.  And I will likely wrestle with these issues for years to come.  Finding intersectional answers to the intertwining problems of this worlds is never easy.  But what I do know is that I refuse to remain silent about these issues.  I won't stand by and let people claim that Ellen Page's courage doesn't matter.  I won't stand still when I hear those around me, subtly or otherwise, perpetuating racism and sexism.  I have to speak up.  I have to give voice to the screams inside my chest.

Right before Ellen Page uttered those simple words "I'm here today because I am gay," those words that shattered the internet for a little while, she said that she drew on the "strength and support" of the people at the conference.  Likewise, people like me and other queer youth, whether out or still in the closet, draw on the strength of high profile and courageous people like Ellen Page.  And like Ellen Page, "maybe I can make a difference.  To help others have an easier and more hopeful time.  Regardless, for me, I feel a personal obligation and a social responsibility."  This blog is a part of that speaking up and fighting back.  But I know that I have to do more.  I'm constantly learning and trying to figure out how to keep fighting, to figure out the balance.  What I've realized over the last couple years though, what has become increasingly clear to me, is that I cannot afford, this world cannot afford, for me or anyone else to remain politely silent, waiting our turn to speak or holding our tongues to allow those around us to remain apathetic and comfortable.  We must speak up.  We must fight back.  We must do the work to make each other see, to not rest, to not be afraid.

To end, I will quote Andrea Gibson once more:

I don't believe we're hateful
I think mostly we're just asleep
But the math adds up the same
You can't call up the dead and say,
"Sorry, we were looking the other way."

There are names and faces behind our apathy
eulogies beneath our choices
There are voices deep as roots
thundering unquestionable truth
through the white noise that pacifies our ears.
Don't tell me we don't hear
Don't tell me we don't hear
When the moon is slain
when the constellations disperse like shrapnel
don't you think it's time
something changed?

Deeper Faith or Sacrilege?

For my whole life, I was taught and (to a certain extent) believed that fostering a growing, dynamic Christian faith had to look a certain way.  I'm not talking about the way you are supposed to live your outward (to use the "Christian-ese" term) horizontal faith -- i.e. how  you express your faith through words and actions.  I'm talking about the more introspective, inward, "vertical" aspects of faith.  No matter where I stood with God or my changing belief system or calling, I have always thought that, to be a truly mature, growing Christian, I had to have at least a certain minimum of (relatively) structured prayer and Bible reading time and I absolutely had to be involved in a Church community (though the latter didn't need to be anything near traditional).  And there have been times in my life when each of these components have been crucial, not just to my spiritual well-being, but my mental and emotional well-being too.  When I struggled most heavily with depression, suicide, and cutting, I can honestly say that being able to cry out to God in prayer, no matter the dark or angry content of my thoughts, helped keep me alive.  When I was struggling with figuring out who God is, who I am, and/or how to reconcile the two, reading the Bible and being a part of a relatively traditional faith community were essential to that process.  I know that without having spent long hours digging into the Bible to figure out who God is, I would not have the stable foundation on which to build the rest of my life and beliefs.

But here's the thing: when I was in those times of digging into the Word to figure out who God is to help build that foundation, I, without fail, always felt so challenged by what I read.  I would dig into traditional expository commentaries and look online for historical contexts for passages and read dozens of both conservative and liberal interpretations of passages.  I never ceased to be challenged.

 A month or so ago, I figured I should really try to get back into that habit.  I love feeling challenged and stretched  and pushed to grow in my understanding of who God is, of the way I look at the world.  I love seeing, for the first time, a new and beautiful aspect of broken humanity that makes me love it all the more.  And yet, when I tried to dig into a passage the past several attempts, I never felt any of those things.

Now this isn't me bitching and complaining about a spiritual dry spell.  That's not it all.  Because recently I've been reading so many different things and engaging in an amazing community and feeling so very challenged in my understanding of the world and of people and, yes, of my faith.

But because of the way I was raised and this belief system that I've always had about what a growing internal faith life is "supposed" to look like, it honestly never even dawned on my that the things I have been reading are challenging and growing my faith.

Because I've always looked at faith as this two-dimensional foundation upon which I am supposed to view every other belief that I hold or thing that I learn.  Mostly, I've always viewed my faith as something just relating to religious beliefs.

But my faith is so much bigger than a set of beliefs regarding who or what deity I believe in and then coming to an understanding of the finite ways that that set of beliefs regarding that deity is supposed to affect the way I think and live.

At its core, my faith is a belief that God called me to love my fellow humans and serve them and fight for justice for them.  But that calling, that faith, is so much bigger than just religious beliefs. 

It's who I am.

Yes, my specifically "religious" beliefs explain why I believe certain things and even act or think certain ways.  But my religion falls far short of being able to explain my whole belief system and every thing that I think about the world, about humanity, and about my place as an agent of change in each.  Yeah, my religious beliefs, those things that I've learned from my more "traditional" faith-related activities, definitely inform many parts of my belief system and my desired role in the world's conversation and economy.  But those things I learned in Christian schools and in church and even in traditional Biblical study fail miserably to adequately explain so many crucial parts of who I am and of what I believe.

I've said for years that I believe that God gave us rational minds to help us figure out the world.  I've also frequently said that God gave us the ability to create art in so many diverse forms, and far be it from us to arbitrarily name certain pieces or aspects of art and culture as sufficiently "Christian" to be able to teach us faith-related lessons.  I've never believed that God recorded every aspect of truth and insight necessary to navigate the world exclusively in the Bible.  To me, it's simply a ludicrous thought to believe that a book written by human hands thousands of years ago (no matter your belief about the extent or degree of its Divine origin)  could help a 21st century adult navigate something as (seemingly) benign as social media.  I believe that in so many different aspects of life, God wants us to become well-rounded, well informed, rational people who live by the beliefs that come from that well-rounded and informed rational thought.  There are so many issues and problems we face today that a human Jesus simply could not have grasped and, as much as Jesus being God may have granted this extra knowledge and understanding, the vocabulary and culture Jesus was confined to couldn't have allowed the adequate expression of so many things that are crucial to understanding and living in this world today.

But as much as I believed all of these things, when it dawned on me recently that my faith is being challenged and stretched and grown the most recently by the things I'm reading in queer and feminist media, literature, and law journals, and by engaging in these same communities, I felt like this was somehow sacrilegious.  Like this couldn't possibly be what God wants my faith life to consist of, can it?

Like, if the Bible contained an entire book on recognizing your own privilege, another on having compassion for others who are (for possibly the first time) forced to confront their privilege, and still another on the best way to form coalitions around intersectional systems of oppression and privilege, that's where I'd be digging in my teeth in an intense Bible study right now.  Because my capacity to understand the world and humanity and to learn to love more deeply are so being stretched right now by digging into these issues.  And I honestly can't think of a more faith-related exercise than learning to better love and serve and seek justice for my fellow humans.  So how could expanding my understanding and ability in these areas be sacrilegious?

I know that the reason why I struggle with the thought that calling these activities "faith" is sacrilege, though, isn't just because studying feminist and queer issues doesn't "look" like religion.  It's also because I'm realizing that, for me, what I describe as my "faith" is something so much bigger than just religion.  It's about my entire outlook on life, on the world, and on myself.  Yes, there is certainly a traditionally religious aspect to it.  But it's so much more than that, too.  When I say "faith," I know for certain that I'm no longer referring to the strictly Webster's (or AWANA club's, for that matter) definition about believing in something without fully understanding it.  It's not about taking a "leap of faith."  I think what I mean when I use the term "faith" is something more akin to the terms "worldview" and "calling" put together.  So, yeah, perhaps I should think of a better word for it, but the fact is that the reason why I consider these things to be part of my faith is because they are all inextricably linked to what I believe about God, about the world, about people, and about my place  within and among all of these things.

So I'm going to continue to open my eyes and mind to the beautiful and challenging insights around me.  I'm not trying to say that I'm completely forsaking the Bible.  I'm still a Christian, and as much as I'm re-thinking what I believe an active and growing internal faith life looks like, I'm not saying that I'm turning in my Bible in exchange for Autostraddle.com (although the latter is my browser homepage).

Part of growing up, if you were raised in a traditional Christian home, is about re-examining every aspect of your beliefs, faith system, and worldview.  So many of these things have changed so drastically for me over the past decade of my life; I doubt I would even recognize the pre-teen girl blasting Rebecca St. James in her room 24/7, dreaming of joining the Aussie singer and abstinence-only activist on tour.

I have learned so many amazingly complex and beautiful things since then about God, about the world, about myself, and about humanity.  I've learned to love and see so much beauty in all of the brokenness; I've cried for the suffering and pain and felt paralyzed by the guilt of my own privilege and the depth of my own compassion; I've become a feminist activist and I've come out as queer.  I've perpetually been drawn to stories and lives of brokenness, suffering, and beauty.  I've felt and given myself over to an inescapable calling to spend my life seeking and fighting for justice and equality.

I could sit here and try to list every single way that my faith has influenced me through each of these times of change and trial and pain and growth and beauty and love.  But that list could never be any where near completion, because, as I said, my faith is who I am.  Who I believe God to be, the Jesus that I have fallen in love with, has governed each of these phases of my life, has been the deciding factor in every one of my belief systems.

So when I feel close to God after reading a call to feminist action, when I feel challenged to lookdeeper at my own privilege, when I read a post that pleads compassion for those who cannot see the injustice in their beliefs, when I research and write a paper formulating a plan of action to end a pandemic of violence against an entire class of people, even when I begin to grasp both the depth of the beautyand the scope of the problems in the media that I consume, how could these things not be pushing my faith deeper?  How could I not have a better understanding of God and of humanity?  How could the preparation for and pursuit of the calling that God has laid before me be anything other than an action of my faith?  How could calling any of these things part of my faith be sacrilege?

The Real Reason

I just got a new tattoo, and I know that throughout my life people will ask for an explanation to these pain-stricken words: “I’m standing on the mouth of hell and it’s going to swallow me whole.  And it’ll choke on me.”

When people ask this question I know what I will tell them.  I’ll say that fighting for justice for survivors of sex crimes will place me square on the mouth of hell.  But I will beat it back.  I will stand firm.  And hell will choke on me.

And all of that’s true.  But to be honest, that’s the kosher answer.  That’s the one fit for public consumption.

I know that I won’t go into the details of the hell I stand on every day, the hell that is so much more personal.  It’s a hell that I keep hidden from all but a few.

My hell involves living every day with the knowledge that my limits will be stretched,and beaten down, and broken.  Until there’s nothing left.  Whether it’s the physical pain that I’ve dealt with every fucking day for nearly two years now; the perpetual desire to lose myself in the nothingness and numbness of self-injury, depression, and suicide; or the completely hidden parts of myself that I’m still afraid to show to all but a few.

These things are my hell.  And all of these things threaten to swallow me every fucking day.  And every day I must beat them back.  Every day I must force hell to choke on me.

And I’m not that strong.  But I do have faith.  I do know that one day I will break free.

 So I have these words perpetually etched onto my body.  Because I will stay in this fight.  I will stand firm.  And whether it’s the public battle against sex crime that will consume the rest of my life or the private wars that threaten me every day, I will triumph.  And hell will choke.

Is Imago Dei Enough?

I think I finally realized something...

Over the past several months, I've been pondering and complaining about the fact that I'm reaching my limits.  I feel like I'm being stretched, and broken down, and utterly swallowed by all of the shit flying my way.

For the longest time, it was mostly just my legs that were perpetually plagued by unsufferable bouts of nerve pain.  And I knew that God was stretching and testing my long-standing fear of paralysis.  He was definitely also testing my endurance and my overall faith, but a large part of it has just been Him asking me if I'm truly willing to give up my physical mobility for Him.  And, as painful on so many levels as it has been, I have kept saying to Him, "Here I am. Send me."  That and telling Him that I'm "All in."

As scary as all of that has been, I'm currently dealing with something that terrifies me far more than the loss of my functioning legs.  I am writer.  It's how I process the world around me and everything that I'm struggling with (hence, this blog).  Furthermore, I'm an academic.  I'm just finishing my last week of classes for my first semester of law school, and I start finals in a week and a half.  I have three 4+ hour long type-written exams.  Because I've missed so much school due to medical issues, I have a ton of reading, notes, and outlining to do to get ready for these finals.

And it's all I can do to type a half-hour worth of notes during a review session.  Taking notes on or highlighting my reading is out of the question.  I can only work on my outlines, on paper or my laptop, for maybe a half hour at a time.

I've been working on this one goddamn blog post off an on for days now.  Not because of writer's block or anything like that, but simply because typing for any length of time is excruciatingly painful.

Every flinch of every joint and muscle throughout both of my hands aches and screams in pain.  Just touching an elevator button shoots daggers up my arm.  Driving, my only real escape other than writing, is painful, and I'm getting to the point where I'm questioning the safety of me being behind the wheel when it kills to grip the steering wheel.

My entire fucking life is resting on my successful completion of this semester.  It's not like I can just delay my exams.  The day after my final exam, I go into the hospital to start the month long process to take care of these ridiculous medical issues relatively permanently (in theory).

So I just have to get through.  If I don't, how can I pursue my passion, chase my calling, and fulfill my life's mission to help bring justice and compassion to survivors of sex crimes?

Without the simple use of my hands, it could all fall apart.

And as much as I'm trying to trust and have faith and believe that it will all work out, that somehow God will pull me through this, my mind still races through the possibilities...the what ifs.

So I've been asking myself, who am I without my passion and goals?  Why would I want to remain here, on this horribly painful earth, if I literally and physically can't fight back.  If I can't stay in this fight, if I can't pursue my passion for justice, for compassion, what then?  What use am I to this world?  And, far more painful a question, who am I without this fight?

I know that, no matter what, I am imago Dei.  I am made in the very image of God, and there is no doubt intrinsic value in that fact.  But my imago Dei, the way Christ lives out through me, is in this fight!  My raison d'etre, my reason for being, my very identity rests entirely in my passion, in my life's goals, in the fight that has already consumed my heart and mind and will consume my very life.

Or is it?  Is there more to me, my identity, my imago Dei than this fight?

Is the simple intrinsic value of me, as a human, enough of a reason to keep me from giving in to the desires inside of me, perpetually bubbling just under the surface, to end my life?

In the very first post on this blog, one of the questions that served as a catalyst for these musings of mine was the idea from my philosophy class that it is morally justifiable for a person with no capacity to act in furtherance of their own life and desires to take that life (the context here was a person in a vegetative coma, or a situation similar to Million Dollar Baby).  I mused at the time that, because my value comes not from myself but from my desire to live for Christ, I would never want anyone to pull the plug on me.  I am still imago Dei and my God can and does perform miracles.

I still logically believe that same thing.  But it's a very different question when facing the possibility of total loss of functionality in all of your limbs.  When your life's work and desires, your mission from God himself rests on a certain degree of manual mobility.  Then that question of the value of life and when it is understandable to end it becomes so much more complex and painful.

On a small scale, I've realized that, even without the mobility needed to pursue all of these things, I am still loyal and compassionate.  And people need me.  And I need them.  And, for now at least, that's keeping me going.  That and the tiny scrap of faith and idea of hope that I'm still desperately clinging to.

I long to get back the conviction, drive, and utter courage in these words: "I'm standing on the mouth of hell and it's gonna swallow me whole.  And it'll choke on me."

Questioning in the Shadow

As I sat in my room doing one last read-through of my senior capstone, my final paper in my undergraduate career, there was a young man across town, a 17 year old boy whose life should have just been starting, walking into his basement, picking up his father's hunting rifle and contemplating ending it all.

Austin Hills was a boy who I wouldn't have even recognized if he passed me on the street, and yet I know him. Not just just because his mom was my A.W.A.N.A. Olympic Games coach, his dad helped re-roof my house, and I shared countless picnics with him and dozens of other church members in his backyard.  I know him because four years ago, this same time of year, I wrestled with those very same thoughts, I struggled with that very same choice.

My weapon of choice was a bottle of pills and a razor blade.  And I struggled with it day in and day out the majority of my senior year of high school.  I took that blade to my wrist more times than I can count (although God healed all but three of my scars).  I stared at that bottle of narcotics hidden in my mother's nightstand (leftover from her ankle surgery), or that bottle of tylenol in plain view on the kitchen table, trying desperately to see a way out of the black hole beyond that knife and those bottles.

I remember it like it was yesterday.  That moment, sitting in sixth period, Concert Choir practice.  We were rehearsing a Latin song praising God for his magnificent mysteriousness.  That was the moment that I gave up on God.  I didn't believe that he could see me in this hole.  Or perhaps more accurately, I believed he saw, but just didn't care.  I knew and believed that he was all-knowing and all-powerful, so I couldn't for the life (or death) of me figure out why he wasn't doing anything to show me that he cared.

It was that same night, over at a friend's house, that I wrote a letter for my parents telling them about my struggle, and above all, insisting that I needed help.  Not help in the form of a hug and a prayer, thinking that that will make everything better, but professional help.

I didn't write that letter on my own.  In fact, I had no desire or intention to write that letter. It was by far the hardest thing that I have ever written in my life (and this coming from someone who just finished a 40 page Honors Capstone), and I wrote it practically kicking and screaming (though far more accurately, moaning and sobbing).  The single reason why I penned that letter was because my best friend sat me down, told me that I needed help, that she couldn't give it to me, and that I had to tell my parents so that they could get it for me.

Minutes after I heard the news about Austin Hills suicide, I texted my best friend, thanking her for forcing me to do the hardest thing in my life, insisting that I could not leave, I could not do a single thing else until I wrote that letter.

The entire reason I am writing all of this is because at 12 noon CST today, I will be attending the funeral of Austin Hills, and I know that one of the hardest things that I will be struggling with is asking God why He didn't put someone in Austin's life who would do that one specific thing (whatever it might have been) that would have kept Austin alive.

I know for a fact that the only reason that I am alive today is because of my best friend forcing me to write that letter.  A year and a half earlier, a barely would have said "hello" to her in the halls.  Yet God practically forced us to become friends, two people who couldn't be more dissimilar, somehow finding ourselves to be kindred spirits in some of the most desperate times in both of our lives.  A time in our lives when neither of us had any one else to turn to.  So God forced us together, and I am alive today because of it.

I am alive; I will officially be a college graduate one week from today; I will be graduating in 2015 from the Chicago-Kent College of Law with my Juris Doctor; and while I still struggle with undulating bouts of depression, because of God forcing my best friend into my life, I can now be entirely confident in the knowledge of every family member and friend who loves and cares for me and will continually fight to make sure I'm aware of everything I have to live for.  Furthermore, they will make sure that if (and when) I get to that incredibly low place of contemplating specific suicidal plans again, they will (once again) force me to get help.

So why, four years from now, won't Austin Hills be able to say all of those same things from the preceding paragraph about his life (with obvious variations in lifestyle and college/career choices)?  That same question that I wrestled with four years ago in that choir room still nags me today: Why, when God is so almighty and so omniscient, didn't he do something?!?

Now I'm not close enough to Austin or the Hills family to know the specifics of what was happening in his life, so all I can do tomorrow is love and pray for and show my support for Austin's family and friends.  I can't answer any of the inevitable questions that the aforementioned individuals will have.  I simply can't know.  Not just because I don't know those specifics.  But because some of those answer just can't be known (this side of the after-life, at least).  But that won't stop me or anyone else from asking them, so I can only beg of God, once again, to show Himself powerful, to show Himself wise.  To do something.

Five months ago, I got a new tattoo on my left thigh depicting the verse that inspires the title of this blog:

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.  He will cover you with his feathers and under his wings you will find refuge.

The tattoo depicts a young woman (representing me) being sheltered from the world by a large, angelic figure (representing God) with magnificent and powerful wings.

This tattoo is private, just for me.  It serves as a constant reminder that no matter what this world or anything else can throw at me, I am always protected by God's powerful wingspan.  Even if I can't always see it or feel it, He is always there.

I share this personal information, about a tattoo that I don't really want to publicize, because in times of tragedy and grief, I'm not the only one that needs that reminder.  I needed to be told that in that choir room, and Austin needed to be told that in that basement.  Neither of us were, and though the outcomes turned out differently, I do know that everyone else touched by this tragedy (or any other) needs to be told that same promise.

God is ever-present, all-knowing, and all-powerful.  And while you may not always be able to feel it, he will always protect you and give your refuge from the storm.

Missing out on Triumph

I only have a few weeks left in this city that I've come to love so much. And I have even less, if any time to actually enjoy it. I have three more weeks of classes, then finals, and then I'll be done with this crazy adventure known as an undergraduate education (more or less). This semester hasn't been anywhere near what I expected (to put it mildly).

As the year started, I promised myself and God and everyone around me that I was going to throw myself into this semester and make the most of every moment. I wanted to throw myself into Chi Alpha and really connect with this community that had been so good to me, even though I knew that would make it all the more difficult to leave. I wanted to do amazingly well academically, as my schedule held such promise with classes and responsibilities that I felt I could excel in. I wanted to savour every last moment at my church that I love so much. I wanted to embrace God and finally begin to wrestle with what my salvation means for my outward life.

But then so many things got in the way. I began to majorly struggle with depression. My many medical issues began to flare up and I got sicker than I've been in as long as I can remember.

I'd like to say that despite all of this I still made a gallant effort and stayed as connected, involved, and committed as possible. I'd like to say that I never doubted or wallowed in self pity or gave up.

I'd like to say all of these things. It'd be nice to think that after everything else that I've been through I was still able to hold on to the truth through all the hurt and pain and doubt. It'd be a nice story of triumph through trial and testing of faith.

But I could never claim to be that neat. My life has never been able to be wrapped in some nice little bow.

Instead of staying focused on the truth and the hope and prize that comes with it, I doubted, wallowed and failed so many times. And I gave up. So much more than once. I returned to old bad habits and picked up a few new ones. I hid myself from all but my closest friends and family, not feeling like I could face the community that God has placed me in in my current state of doubt and pain and dysfunction.

I like being the strong one, the one with so much faith and love and passion. I've never claimed to be perfect, but honestly, over the past three and half years, I've found such strength in that declaration. I've found freedom and opportunity to just be myself and discover what God's love and calling means within my life. I don't have it all together, and for me that was one of the strongest and most faith-filled things that I could admit.

Yet in my time of trial and pain, and at the very depths of my not having it all together, I hid from the world, and perhaps far more importantly, I hid from myself. I got lost in television and movies and my own self-doubt and self-loathing.

But throughout it all, through every falter and failing, through my every calculated choice or conscious omission to not rely on God's amazing love and power and strength, God has never left my side. Every time that I've broken down to the point of giving up, God has pulled me back to me feet and given me so much love and tenderness and space and love and rest. So much rest.

I've had it so wrong. I've been wallowing in my own muck and mire hoping that somehow the strength from my past and from my faith would pull me through. What I've failed to realize is that that strength was never my own to use. I've wanted to get through this by the power of myself.

Oh, how arrogantly ignorant I have been!!

This was never supposed to be a story of my own triumph through temptation and tests and trials. I can have no triumph on my own! Yeah, I can get aid from modern medicine and from distractions and stress-relievers, but none of these things can help me succeed. This semester should've been one of the greatest of my undergraduate career. But instead of relying on the strength of God which he has allowed to build up in me over the past three and half years, I've tried to rely on my own strength, arrogantly thinking that the two were somehow one and the same.

I'm going to try to let go and allow God to redeem what is left of this semester. But oh how little time we have left!

But even though the time frame is short, I have seen God's power. I know what He can do, so I'm not going to balk at the thought of His redemption being possible just because of the short time span.

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

The Tangibility of Hope

Over the summer, I came to love the show Criminal Minds.  The main characters are all fascinating, and they work so well together; the storylines are always new and horrifying (in a good way; it's a show about serial killers...).  But one of the lines that they have repeated throughout the show's 6+ season run really struck me: "Hope can be paralyzing."  Now, I get where they are coming from.  For a parent of an abducted child to keep hoping, after years and years without a lead, that their child is still alive can have a paralyzing affect on that parent.  But I don't think that it's hope itself that is paralyzing.  It's letting yourself become obsessed with, and yes paralyzed by, the notion that what you want could come true.  And it's believing that, somehow, you standing still and just agonizing over this possibility is going to bring your desires to fruition.  If that is what you call hope, then, yes, hope is paralyzing.

But I'm coming to realize something entirely apart from that notion: hope isn't a feeling, it's not a thought or a want or a desire.  Instead, hope is tangible.  Hope springs from faith, from trust, and from a true knowledge and understanding of who Jesus Christ is and what that means for you.  This kind of hope could never be paralyzing. It can only be freeing.

I honestly believe this.  But that doesn't mean that I'm there yet.  I don't yet have this tangible thing called hope.  I'm not yet free.  On a daily basis, I'm struggling with depression and with feeling like there's no hope.  I want so badly to get there, to not just know but also feel this hope.

The Last Night

by Skillet

You come to me with scars on your wrist

You tell me this will be the last night 

Feeling like this

I just came to say goodbye

Didn't want you to see me cry

I'm fine but I know it's a lie

This is the last night you'll spend alone

Look me in the eyes so I know you know

I'm everything you need me to be

Your parents say everything is your fault

But they don't know you like I know you

They don't know you at all

I'm so sick of when they say

It's just a phase, you'll be okay, you're fine

But I know it's a lie

This is the last night you'll spend alone

Look me in the eyes so I know you know

I'm everywhere you want me to be

The last night you'll spend alone

I'll wrap you in my arms and I won't let you

I'm everything you need me to be

The last night away from me

The night is so long when everything's wrong

If you give me your hand, I will help you hold on

Tonight, tonight

This is the last night you'll spend alone

Look me in the eyes so I know you know

I'm everywhere you want me to be

The last night you'll spend alone

I'll wrap you in my arms and I won't let go

I'm everything you need me to be

I won't let you say goodbye

And I'll be your reason why

The last night away from me, away from me

Where do I go from here?

I'm not sure how I got here. And I definitely don't know how to get out.  But I do know that I am here, back in this place, back in this darkness.

My depression from over three years ago is back.  And while I can't and won't hide from it, I don't know how to go through it.

People have been asking me, "why?", "what caused it?", and essentially, "why can't you just snap out of it?"  And while I usually retort with some variation of "I wish I knew," the truth is that I know all to well the truth.  It's just not an easy truth to comprehend or explain.

Depression (real, biological depression) isn't really caused by much of anything.  Don't get me wrong, it can be influenced and exacerbated by environmental causes, but it's not caused by them.  I could give out a laundry list of the things that exacerbate my depression, but what's the point?  Doing that just obscures the truth of the matter: depression is a disease, an illness that is caused by biology, not environment.

Over the past three years, I thought that, if I ever faced a serious case of depression again, I would see it coming and be able to do something to, essentially, "snap out of it."  But I was just kidding myself.

So here we go again.

You know, back in March, I wrote a blog post declaring to myself, to the world, and to God that I am, in fact, "All in."  I'm here with Him, not letting, not giving up, no matter what happens.  I wrote that post and made that decision in anticipation of a horrendous bout of medical uncertainties, tests, and procedures.  And I meant it.  I even meant it after my Grandfather died.  And I even mean it now, though I'm not sure what that means.

I don't know what it means to still know and feel that I love my Jesus and would do anything for him, but at the same time feeling the desire on nearly a daily basis to take the nearest knife and carve another round of scars on my arms, to jump in front of the nearest car or train, or to swallow the nearest bottle of pills.  Or maybe some combination of the above.

I once wrote on this blog that I would never fully give in to suicidal feelings again because I know, believe and claim that, while death is gain, I am still called by Christ to stay here, and to live for Him, to live in His place, and to do His work.  I still feel those same things.  I still desperately want the words, "To live is Christ" and "To die is gain" tattooed as mirror images on the insides of my ankles.  So how do I know and believe that same truth when something in the makeup of my brain is telling me to kill myself?  Because, as much as I would like to believe it, it's not nearly as simple as just clinging to what I know to be true and somehow finding victory over what the depression is telling me is true.  Because it's not like they are two easily separate-able parts of me.  They are intertwined and muddled and confused.  Because "death is gain."  I know that, and I believe that, and I cling to it.  And it gives my solace when I contemplate that knife, that train, or those pills.  Because I don't fear death.  I rejoice in the idea of spending an eternity with the one person who can give me true joy, true purpose, true passion, true love...  I want to be with my Jesus.

So where do I go from here?

The Ethics of Living

My life is getting busier, and I am finding taking the time to actually sit down, and just think, process, and write to be nearly impossible. Beyond my own busyness, the free moments that I do have are filled with pointless exercises in mindlessness and numbness. I add more and more TV shows and online activities to my schedule, possibly in an attempt to avoid the very thing that I long to find the time to do. I mourn my loss of creativity and my ever lessening attention span. For at least a decade of my life, I spent hours upon hours on end just reading and absorbing as much written information as I could. Now, the very notion of reading a book for fun seems exhausting. I also used to find such clarity and fulfillment putting pen to paper (or cursor to screen, as the case may be) and muddling through the convolution that is my brain. Beyond the clarity that came from my writing, I also used to have such creativity, such beauty, such poetry. I long to rediscover that part of my voice. As I have spent the past fifteen years developing and perfecting my academic voice, my creative voice has become stifled and halting due to lack of use.

There are so many questions swarming around my head. So many life decisions to ponder, so much philosophy to work through. Many of my classes right now focus on major issues like the meaning of life or the theories of punishment or the idea of deviance. Nearly every time I leave these classes I tell myself that I should take the time to really meditate on these questions, to truly figure out my own thoughts. So maybe this is my beginning attempt at that. Maybe this is just me rambling (which is probably more accurate).

My thoughts are rarely coherent or well developed. I process my thoughts as they come to me, not before, so I will make no apologies for this stream-of-conscious production. I make no promises about my insight or poetry or genius. My thoughts are what they are. They are scarred and broken and tainted and faltering. But they are mine and they are important.

One of the biggest questions that has been disturbing me recently is the attempts in my philosophy class at defining the value of life. As an opening premise, my professor dismissed the idea of afterlife based upon religious faith as a reason for living, as that can never be universally proven or accepted and is thus irrelevant to an intelligent academic conversation. While I can accept this notion in theory, when it really comes down to defining life’s importance, I cannot shake my belief system for the sake of academic discussion.

When discussed in this purely academic setting, the conclusion which everyone seemed to settle upon is that human life is valued as the ability to autonomously act and contribute to one’s own life. A “good life" is defined by the individual and dependent upon whether or not that individual feels that their life has value and significance.

As these thoughts and ideas where swirling around the room, I instinctively and repetitively scrawled the words that define the reason why I am still alive: “To live is Christ, to die is gain.” Having been to a place where I did not feel that my life had significance on its own , the only thing that pulled me back, that stopped that knife, that threw away those pills was the knowledge that my purpose on this earth is not my own ability to feel value and significance in this mystery called living. Instead, I remain on this earth because of one basic fact: “To live is Christ.” This is a conundrum that I still don’t fully understand. The second half of Philippians 1:21 comes easily to me. The concept of death as gain resonates inside. The latter portion of Paul's maxim calls to me in the uncertainty, in the questions, in the darkness. It is a continuous fight to accept the former.

Now, I am nowhere near the depressive suicide risk that I was three years ago. But I honestly don’t believe that I will ever be in a place where, without Christ, I would believe that life is gain. This world is harsh and broken and contains so many unanswered questions and so very much suffering. This life is not gain. But, oh, how much gain is to be had in living and dying for my lover, my Saviour.

Every day I must deny my own selfish desires to end my life in order to achieve the immeasurably great gain of everlasting life. I stave off this desire for no other reason than the commission of my Lord. I choose to remain alive solely because my God calls me to this life. I do not live because of some gain that I can find for myself, in myself. Even if I lose all my capacities, my family, my friends, my functioning mind, my very body, I will still choose to go on living because of this one basic truth: “To live is Christ.”