Redefining Male - A Christian's Journey of Gender Dysphoria

This article has been a long time coming. I've known for a while that I'd write about my struggle with gender dysphoria some day, and I guess it's just that time. I'm sharing my journey out of a desire to bring understanding to those that do not relate to gender issues, along with hope and clarity for those who do understand. This article is specifically written with a Christian audience in mind, because I think they're some of the people who need it most, but I hope everyone can find it valuable. (I use gender and sexuality somewhat broadly so don't get too hung up on those words in this article.) My story is just one of countless unique stories out there, so do with it what you will. A lot of self harm and suicidal thoughts have been part of my past, especially in regards to the issues mentioned here, so it's very fulfilling to have my story given meaning by being able to share it with others.

Transparency has never been difficult for me, and to this day I don't know why. I try and use it as a strength. More often I'm fearful that I'm overwhelming people by being open, but as for the sharing itself I don't often care what people know about me if it's true. In terms of this article, it's not difficult sharing this information in itself, but my fear is someone didn't want to know certain details. To alleviate this fear for myself, I'll just let you know now: Some of the information in this article is sexual (and awkward) due to the nature of the topic of gender. If you are okay with a few awkward details, you are definitely welcome to join me on my journey.

Psychology
I'm basically autobiographically psychoanalyzing myself as a sort of case study, and then explaining the processes I went through to understand and deal with the experiences, and finally some lessons that I learned. I think of psychology and people's stories much like Jung did of symbolism and dreams. He said "Learn everything you can about symbolism, and then forget it all when interpreting your dreams." I think what we need is much more the lessons for our intuition that come from hearing stories than we do a technical/scholastic guidebook or rules. The patterns are there, but they are much more organic and can vary dramatically from person to person. I'm going to lay out the many variables/experiences that my brain seemed to link together to make the conclusions it did. Then we’ll move to the discovery of it all, my resolving of it, and some other lessons to be learned.

I do think that, in regards to gender identity and insecurities, we see a common theme of negative experiences, and our mind churning to do what it naturally does: it tries to understand and explain them. Especially with the painful ones, we do what we can to find satisfying answers, and these answers often seem absolutely insane or silly to the people around us, but to us they are very real. Often times we aren't aware that these internal rules and dialogues are going on in our subconscious. Keep in mind: much of my story is written from the perspectives of my insecurities and feelings. These things are not what I necessarily believe, but belief and feelings don't always match, and my beliefs have also changed. This is the power of experience, the main way by which we learn and live.

Beginnings
In terms of our generally accepted sexual norms, I'm straight, meaning I'm romantically and sexually attracted to women. I've basically had no doubt for much of my life that I wasn't as normal as normal could be in regards to sexuality and gender. If anything, I was almost too straight, as I found men unattractive to the point that I pitied women for having to engage sexually with us. I knew rationally this was a little strange, but I had experiences occasionally that verified these feelings. (I sometimes call myself polyamorous, in that intimacy and love do not feel as restricted to categories as they do for other people, but that’s not as relevant to this discussion.)

As the story typically begins, I always was a bit different (I expect most everyone has felt this way), and a lot of the imagery I saw of male and masculine around me I just didn't fit. I cried really easily, and was often embarrassed by it at school when teachers made me cry. I snuck a few times and watched a "girly" anime early on Saturday mornings. I had a really tough time with any sort of physical pain, such as when guys would punch each other in the shoulders to be cool (and the dreaded phrase was "dead arm"). I was very into my emotions, I loved the giving and receiving of affection in all forms, and didn't like sports in any form. When I would dance, my body just naturally wanted to move a lot like how I had seen women dance, with emphasis on the hips. I also saw things associated with males I didn't want to be associated with, like seeing them be violent, jealous, competitive, sexually unsafe, or unsafe in general. I had a fear that people saw me as unsafe because I was male, that I would hurt them or abuse them or their kids. Masculinity meant destructive power, and I didn't want it. (These are some typical explanations of gender issues, and a common theme in people's stories, but only one piece out of many for my personal struggle.)

Another important element was my young looks. (This, in itself, is another case study of our brain struggling to interpret our experiences.) When I was young, I thought I was really ugly, and that's why girls didn't associate with me. I saw them talking to other guys at church, at school, and it felt like I didn't exist. Without exaggeration, girls my age had almost zero contact with me outside of needing something like a pencil from me. One day, I opened up to a friend, and he said "Shea, you're not ugly, but 16 year old girls don't talk to guys it looks like they'd babysit, even if the guy is 17." It hit me that day that he was right, my experience was just a natural consequence of looking so young. Yet, I've still struggled with self image issues until the last couple years because of that early "answer" from my brain, even after rationally disproving it many times. In its place (or in addition to it), I developed an anger towards my young looks, and was angry at God that he had made me so that I would naturally be alone. Thankfully, a summer camp I helped at right before attending Multnomah University was also very influential on my acceptance of my young looks and glorifying God for them. Yet, the damage had been done, the loneliness and self doubt had been introduced, and the effects would ripple outward in more than just pain.

Also, an experience I revisited later and realized was formative for me occurred around 6th grade. There was a girl who had a crush on me, and wrote me a love poem I found in some Valentines after going home. I did not reciprocate the feelings, and was somewhat creeped out about it. There was also a girl I had a crush on, and my sister and mom made fun of me for it, and so I was very embarrassed and denied it for many years after. In my revisiting this set of experiences, I realized I developed an idea that any sort of "feelings" for someone would disgust them unless it was mutual, and so I began a pattern of avoiding any initiation of interactions with women for fear of them interpreting anything as me "liking" them.

You can see the mess beginning. I'm a person who, by nature, does not quite fit the definitions of a category ("male") he is supposed to belong to, relating more with the opposite ("female”). But rather than being able to be around the opposite gender as a way to cope, I lacked the skills developed normally to engage with females at all, and had a tremendous amount of fear. Both the external factor of my looks kept women away, and my own fears multiplied this effect. I was incredibly desperate for a romantic relationship, and incapable of acting out that despair in any way other than crying myself to sleep most nights.

Discoveries
When I began college at Multnomah University at 19 years old (looking about 15, of course), I started to have women actually approach me and treat me as a potential friend. It sounds silly to be so excited about, but for me it was mind blowing. I had an epiphany moment, that the aching loneliness for female intimacy wasn't necessarily a need for a "girlfriend," but for girl friends. However, the lingering "lessons" from past experiences added their opinions to the situation, and I started acting out in "non-masculine" ways (by, of course, my internal definition). The despair was still there, now just shifted to an idea of female friendships. I was also discovering that I was a physical touch person, that it was a basic way I needed for my value to be affirmed and to feel close to people. I realized this touch need, and the lack of its fulfillment, had likely added a lot to the painful feelings of loneliness. (This journey of learning about physical touch is another journey I'd like to tell about some day.)

Again, a lot of this subconscious reasoning a person doesn't realize at the time is happening, but they discover the underlying thinking in retrospect. So at this point, what was going on in my head was completely unknown to me until a couple years later. Basically, I saw that women seemed to associate very comfortably with each other, including being very affectionate and platonically physical, and then I saw them cautious around men (along with men not being affectionate with each other), and the idea set in of fitting in with the girls by being feminine so I could engage with them as a comfortable friend, so I could have an experience I desired but saw I was disqualified from due to my gender. I joked that I should just pretend I'm gay. I recall working at another summer camp, and three of my female friends were planning a girl's sushi night, and then they invited me. I was awestruck that I was welcome into their inner circle event and that I was regarded as safe enough to be invited. Of course, to them it was not such a big deal, but to me it was monumental.

At this point, though, I was still sure I was "heteronormative," with all my sexuality and gender feelings on the "default" setting. Then I took a class on abnormal psychology, and had a profound moment of empathy with a man in a video explaining his transgender journey. He spoke of sneaking into his mom's room and dressing in her clothes, which I had never done, but I could directly relate when he talked about how it made him feel safe. I had sympathy for homosexual men, but I couldn't relate to their desires at all. Yet a flood of empathy washed over me as I heard the man's story of transgender struggles. When I imagined sneaking and wearing girl’s clothes, it made me feel safe and comfortable. I went to lunch dazed and confused. I wasn't as "normal" as I thought I was.

Over the next couple years, I dove into the feelings. I recalled how I'd "jokingly" wore women's clothing in the past, and then when someone would say "you actually look kind of good in that" it would make me feel so fulfilled. I didn't think I'd actually look good dressed up as a woman, but I was realizing how appealing it would be to actually be one, and when I had looked attractive while coming close, it was extremely appealing. A gay friend of mine, after hearing about my discoveries, called me a "lesbian," and I again had that strange feeling of fulfillment. As I said, I considered just saying I was gay, and I realized later I had a portrayal of myself as "female" or "child" or even "feline" in order to make women comfortable being friends with me, as a way of dodging the perceived threat of maleness.

Now we get a bit awkward. Like most men (and many women), I've struggled with pornography. At times, I was into weirder stuff. Two types in particular stand out for this discussion, though, and that was women with male genitalia, and lesbians. I was often drawn to these features in pornography, and dealt with a lot of shame over it (along with pornography as a whole), but understanding the desire is very important in understanding the causes and the healing process. In regards to lesbians, I didn't like a lot of the mainstream pornography that was very "male oriented", but had to find lesbian pornography for lesbians, which was much more relational.

As I wondered why I was so fascinated by these elements in pornography, I realized that I had associated the giving and receiving of love and pleasure with types of genitalia (which may reflect some spiritual and/or scientific realities about sexuality). I saw in pornography these selfish, brutal men who were the receivers of pleasure, while women were the selfless givers. I found this idea entirely repulsive, and realized later that I had associated the male genitals with this idea of being a receiver of pleasure. Thus, lesbians were mutual givers of pleasure and love to each other, and the idea of women with male genitalia meant I could be a giver of pleasure instead of a receiver. Men in general were sexually hungry, objectifying monsters (though I didn't actually read this into individual men I knew, just the identity of “male” and how women perceived men), while women were more focused on "real" love, including in their sexuality. You can tack this onto the list of potential damages coming from pornography.

The real kicker of my discoveries about myself, where there's the big disconnect between those who have experienced identity issues and those who have not, is the description of feeling like this is "really me." This was what I'd heard many homosexuals say, and now I was having this same, difficult experience. As the idea that I felt like a woman inside became a thought, I felt such a strong resonance, a strong peace, a sense of security and safety at the idea. I think this, of anything, was the most terrifying experience. It was definitely the most difficult to come to terms with. Yet I couldn't deny it, and my empathy grew dramatically for people who felt this way about their own sexual orientation. Coming from a more conservative Christian background, I realized that there was more to the stories than I had seen them given credit.

You can see how all of these different elements came together to form my gender dysphoric experience. I lamented any of the male elements I believed would be assumed about me, such as violence, jealousy, control, lack of emotionality, etc. I found safety and affirmation in what I saw as the woman's world, of affection, physical touch, emotions, tenderness. My body moved like a woman's when I would dance how I felt came naturally, and their was so much appeal in having the anatomy and clothes of a woman. They were directly tied in my mind with this identity of tenderness I loved and wanted to exude. And when I was totally honest with myself, it just felt right. So... what now?

Resolutions
In contrast to this flood of feelings, I did hold a conviction that I was made how I was supposed to be, and this included my bodily sex. This doesn't apply to everyone necessarily, but I felt, based on my own relationship with God, that there was something more complex going on. Yet, the conservative right was ready to condemn me, diagnose me, fix me or accuse me of not praying hard enough, and left no grace for me to even consider any possibilities or go on my own journey. The progressive left offered me no understanding, simply wanting me to accept what they had accepted, being offended that I considered there might be an actual problem (because then they’d have to question themselves, too), not even considering that maybe every impulse should not be acted upon. I felt strongly that something else had to be going on, that the default answers on either side were lacking, that feelings of mine were lacking in reflecting reality and were pushing me towards wrong solutions, but were also conveying truth about myself. I felt answers and understanding should come before action. Of course, I tried "praying it away" and that didn't work at all, but I think I was meant for a journey (and that journey was the answer to the prayers). So I basically just held out, exploring my feelings, talking to people, and seeking understanding of myself.

The first step on my journey was simply to feel. I had to let myself feel, and not let shame block things out. I had to notice the experiences that triggered feelings of wishing I was a woman. (Just last week, a mom at my work expressed some concern to my female coworkers at the preschool where I work because "there was a man in here.") These experiences are key, and then you find the situations in your past that resonate with them, or the images you were given by media and culture. You have to ask what you actually believe about yourself, about the parts of yourself you doubt. Sometimes it takes writing some poetry (which I certainly did), sometimes it takes specific friendships, sometimes it takes hearing songs or watching movies. It was over the course of about 2 years that I discovered the background information I've been discussing, the patterns that lead up to my issues. Other things took longer, and I'm sure I'll be finding pieces inside myself for a long time to come. When you have no idea if you'll actually find those answers, it’s terrifying, and either way it takes a long time and a lot of self searching.

There are also things you find that you don't relate to that are just as helpful a piece of the puzzle. While I did find being a woman with certain female anatomy appealing, I didn't want to have a womb. I didn't want to bear children, to give birth, or to be a mom. I was completely sold on the idea of being a dad (which makes sense, having had a dad who was both strong and gentle). This made me realize how much the issue was not related to some biological switch in my brain, but much more an issue of "nurture." The issue was very much about relating to women.

I also discovered that I had felt women were attractive and men were not. I would see women, and they were captivating in their appearance. I wanted to offer that same to them and, in this way, felt inadequate. I recall one night watching a movie with some friends, and a scene with men in speedos left the girls in the room looking away grossed out, saying "ewww!" Then a scene with women left the men looking away because the women's bodies were so attractive that the men had to look away because it was so desirable. A plethora of experiences like this left me feeling that men were the gross ones and women were the attractive ones I wanted to be attractive, and not just as a way to feel good about myself, but as a way, again, to offer my future wife the same love she was offering me by being so beautiful. Thus, to be a woman was to be attractive.

I found in my searching my stories in the past, of young looks, negative reactions to romantic feelings, the inability to relate to the image I saw of “maleness” from society, etc. I saw the doubts about myself it introduced, that I was scary or dangerous, that I was unwelcome, that I had to emphasize certain parts of myself and ignore others to have women be my friend. I saw how pornography had added bad layers of thinking to my mind, and was part of my understanding of male/female interactions. I realized that “woman” had become an ideation of the perfect way to be safe, comfortable, affectionate, emotional, dance how I wanted, be friends with women, and in a way, to be the female element for myself I wasn’t receiving anywhere else.

It was a huge blessing that God has made me a fairly transparent person, because being heard and connected with was step two in my journey. I longed to share with people, being a verbal processor and a fan of intimacy, but I was afraid of the reactions at the strangeness. There was actually a more accepting attitude building among my college peers about homosexuality, but several times I opened up about my own issues, there was disgust and repulsion. It was surprising. Once, there was a gender conference at Multnomah to discuss people's sufferings in regards to gender issues. There was a discussion group after where people were asked to share their stories, and after several women had spoken, I began discussing pains I had encountered, and was then shut down because I was male and "couldn't possibly understand what being hurt based on your gender was like," that I was just deceiving myself. (Another future article I would like to write is based on experiences like this.) The black and white thinking on both political sides gave me no help. Thank God, I did find those handful of people that actually gave me grace and understanding, and allowed me to verbal process my discoveries and pains.

Healthy femalefriendships, and the affirmations that came through them, were step three in the journey. Insecurities about ourselves develop when we have strong or repeated negative experiences. As I often say with psychology or anything, the opposite of the cause is the solution. Thus, in having poor relationships with women being a piece of my struggle, having quality relationships with women was a part of the healing. Having women who were close to me, who treated me as valuable even without a sort of romantic attraction (which actually felt objectifying and also affirmed that I needed to be the "gross" masculine parts I didn't like) was very healing. I also use the wisdom "you don't go shopping when you are hungry" to explain a lot of psychology, because what happens with an unmet need is you feel as though you need a solution much more extreme than the actual need. A hungry person buys more food than they need to, and a lonely person likewise seeks extreme solutions. Sometimes this solution is an embrace of “normal” (many men act hyper masculine to deal with the developmental issues), and other times, like in my case, it is much more a rejection. I'm happy I didn't follow the maritally idolatrous advice of many oversimplifying Christians that I just needed a girlfriend, because I would have just created a new extreme that wouldn't help me heal.

The affirmations happened many different ways, and happened all along the course of my journey, some even just this last year. First of all, seeing men as these sex hungry monsters that use women for their own pleasure, it was very healing to find out that many women struggled with porn, that most women liked sex, and that a lot of them... were very horny. Some surpassed me. This helped me feel a lot more comfortable with my own sexuality. I wouldn't have to lower my sexual drive with a future spouse, but could be in a give and take relationship without swapping genitals.

Many experiences contributed to alleviating my belief that women saw me as scary or that I was unwelcome being close to them (again, unless they had a romantic value from me, though this was mainly in abstract). When one friend asked me to be in her wedding as a bridesman, it was very healing. At one moment, I was holding her hand to comfort her before she walked down the aisle, and as I looked around at her and the bridesmaids, I realized I was the only one in the bridal room crying. And I loved it, because that's me. At that same wedding, one of the bridesmaids was very friendly with me, and we hit it off really well. I could feel this appreciation for me as a whole person. It didn't feel restricted to "just friends" or the opposite of being fully romantic, but it just felt like I, as a whole human being, mattered. It destroyed the dichotomies created by where I did and did not fit society's definitions, and left me feeling whole and adequate, as Shea.

Shortly before these, though, was what was probably the most influential friendship. One female friend of mine was very accepting of me in my effeminate side, and let me wear her clothes at times, and appreciated my extreme hip movements because she'd never danced with a guy who could keep up with hers. I felt fully loved and embraced in this “effeminate” self. Yet... she was personally strong, much stronger than I, and though I felt like I was already fully adequate in her eyes, I could see she wanted me to be strong, too. It had felt in the past like there was a dichotomy between these two types of people, the gentle and effeminate, and the strong masculine. Most people's actions had affirmed that they only wanted one or the other. With her, though, I saw that either was welcome, yet both, together, was most ideal. And slowly, experiencing grace no matter which way I acted, I slowly was able to destroy that barrier in my mind between these two concepts, and was able to be closer to what, again, was a full and true Shea. The wedding experiences shortly after only reaffirmed these experiences.

Additionally, over the last couple years, I've made friends with several girls who “like” other girls. Regardless of the traditional ideas of Christianity, God has blessed me so much through these friendships. In my mind, I certainly had ideas that, of all the people who would dislike men, lesbians would want nothing to do with me. So to have them enjoy my company, to have them tell me how safe they feel around me, it's been shattering even further to those past held beliefs about myself. It is beautifully ironic to me that they, of all people, have helped me follow a more traditional Christian value of not trying to switch genders. It is because, like Christ, they know that the greatest commandment is love.

Now we get to the very difficult issue of the "true self" experience. I'd like to think my view is the most holistic approach, validating the many different perspectives and experiences in regards to these difficult issues. Basically, I think that when we look inside and see that place that feels like the true self, we really are seeing that: the true self. The main issue is that it is natural for human beings to doubt themselves over society, because what is one person against "common sense?" Of course, as we grow, we realize that much of society’s standards are bogus, but usually by the time that happens, we've already internalized these standards, and what we feel like is a fight with society is really a battle with our own internalized beliefs. So the real issue is that much of what we see is the real us, but the definitions are what we need to change, not ourselves. I also think that our sufferings and pain are a key component to us as human beings. That's our story. Thus, those desires and "false" answers that come out of that pain feel very close to our real identity because they are, in a way, part of it.

Thus, step four becomes redefining "male" and "female," and in my opinion, throwing out masculine and feminine as any sort of objective words or standards. I still use them because I find them helpful, but in using them I call myself feminine, because they are cultural constructs. (I think there's a small truth to them, but we'll get to that later). As I came to the realizations I've been describing, I basically had to start looking at myself as the standard of male, without letting myself dip into the need to change myself to feel comfortable. It's not a clear line, obviously, but it did become more clear as I worked on the other steps, especially understanding myself. I started to realize that many of the things tied to gender dysphoria were actually things I liked anyways, but I didn't realize that there may be a desire that's part of my nature multiplied by nurtured issues (thus, back to the shopping while hungry analogy). As I let myself be myself, casting off both the cultural definitions, along with the gender dysphoric reactions, I felt more "me" than I ever had, and more peace, hope, and confidence. I even found new things I enjoyed that were considered feminine after a lot of healing from the gender dysphoria, such as flowers. (It breaks my heart that it's not normal for women to give men flowers, and I'm thankful for the friend who did give them to me!) I love pretty much all colors, and it's so nice to be able to enjoy the color pink without feeling a tension between either society or dysphoria.

I've realized that the real Shea could be described as a hybrid of masculine and feminine, though the reality is I was always me, and I just got split with a false dichotomy. I've been learning that there's clothes that are somewhat feminine, but I like them as much as some of the male clothes I like, and it’s because I genuinely like them in a “male” way, but in my own kind of male way. I'm thankful for my female friends who help me find the clothes I like, and the positive feedback they've given. It may come as a shock to many, but there's many women who healthily enjoy men in clothes not traditionally ascribed to men. Some women like men in makeup, some like men in heels, and some like men in dresses! Of course, it's really tough to find what is the true Shea when I'm reacting to the extremes of the gender dysphoria. I think, had I chosen to embrace my transgender feelings and start identifying as female, it would have been nice for a year or two, but then I would have been back where I started, with the same problems and not knowing myself. The acceptance I was encouraged towards by the more liberal was likely just as poor an option as the “girlfriend” strategy taught by the more conservative. Now I've found peace. There's still tension often between me and society, and I actively work to do what I can to be a proponent of cultural change, but I am much more comfortable in my own skin, shape, personality, and identity. Being "male" no longer means being anything other than Shea.

One other way I overcame my reactions was forcing myself into male activities I was uncomfortable with. At one point, I was invited to play some 2v2 basketball, which I had never done (nor wanted to). And in that moment, I felt as if God was saying "You can be anyone you want to, but you shouldn't be ruled by fear. If you don't like sports, don't do it, but maybe do it this one time to overcome the fear." So I did. And it was great. I still don't care much for it, but now I'm not afraid of looking like "that kind of guy" and now I don't play just because I don't enjoy it very much. The reality is, society's definitions are good for us neither when we restrict ourselves within them or restrict ourselves outside of them. Either way, society's poor definitions end up ruling us.

Lessons
I think one of the biggest lessons in all of this is: life is complicated. Things are complex, and can't be shoved in tiny boxes, especially when it comes to the deepest elements of ourselves. Many people who identify as transgender or gender dysphoric will read my story here and not relate to any of it, because the experiences, sufferings, and identities of each person vary so much and work themselves out in a myriad of ways. I do see a common theme of suffering and the mind's attempt to correct the perceived issue, but that's about it for anything potentially "universal." My goal is not to have you walk away with some sort of toolkit to "fix" people.

My desire is to help people be gracious and humble. Coming into this article, you may not have had any idea the strange things going on in my head at the phrase "gender dysphoria," and hopefully this has left you with an idea that we really don't know without listening well what is going on inside of other people. I'm very good at self analysis and at articulating myself; how much more so do people who aren't as good at these things need patience, grace, and love? Remember, the world is infinitely more complex than your understanding of it, especially in regards to people. Practice listening well.

What about gender? What about male and female? What are masculine and feminine? I've thought about these issues for a long time now. There's obviously the biological side of male and female. Is there anything else? Is the rest all a social construct? Personally, I think there is a difference beyond the biology of male and female, and I like to put it vaguely and mysteriously like I think it belongs: gender is spiritual. I don't think we can describe or define it in any human language, but it is something that is just there, that we experience, almost like a “people flavor” (Yum!). I don't think it's a spectrum, either, and I think people that believe it is are still tacking too much onto the words male and female, trying to understand it within constructed definitions. I think it's a really simple concept that we don't get to understand, we don't get to boss anyone else about, we just get to enjoy. It definitely isn't something that should make us feel restricted.

In fact, this is one of the big lies and dangers of our cultural definitions. Once we start defining gender, we exclude or decrease anyone who doesn't fit that role. Suddenly, we act like gender is something that can be lost simply by how we behave. Suddenly, a man is less male because he cries, or because he's not into cars. Suddenly a woman is less female because she doesn't like dresses, or because she gets scrapes and cuts. We use horrible phrases like “man up” or “quit being a girl.” This, in my mind, is a huge cause of gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria is not caused by behavior, but thinking it is caused by behavior can actually cause it! The negative beliefs about ourselves and categories are the cause, while behavior is a red herring.Whatever gender is, it certainly can't be lost or earned. Again, I think it's something we can't define, and it shouldn't make us feel limited, but instead, it should leave us feeling more free.

I have another theory from all of this. Some people give a scale of heterosexual to homosexual, but I think that there is a point on the opposite side of heterosexual that I call hyperheterosexual. It is where a person has too strong of an attraction to the opposite gender, and finds their own gender repulsive, in themselves and/or in others. I would certainly use this word to describe myself. I haven't derived many implications from this idea, but it's a work in progress (and could be totally untrue).

Another lesson I've learned in all of this is that your coping mechanisms are usually reflections of your true self. This is missed by many who are looking at psychology through black and white thinking, attempting to “purge the bad.” The reality is, when we experience trauma, our minds look for a solution among our existing skill set. Thus, a guy who's true self fits the masculine stereotype, but had similar experience to what I did above, may become extremely masculine. I have a "feminine" personality, a child-like spirit, and have been told my spirit animal is a cat with a dog personality. As I said above, I would react with presentations of myself as feminine, childlike, and feline, and this is because those elements did reflect part of my true self. Instead, in finding our weaknesses, we should also find our true selves and our strengths.

It breaks my heart that we are so afraid of sexuality in Christian culture. Our sexual attractions and deviations from the norm are so revealing about what is going on inside of us. Sexuality is the deepest form of intimacy, so it makes sense that of any place that could reveal what issues we are having in regards to intimacy, it would be sexuality. The types of porn we have struggled with, discussed in the proper context, can be very revealing and a fruitful path to healing if we can discuss and discover why they have been so appealing. In as much as you feel comfortable, please try to be non-reactionary to discussions of deviance from what is considered sexually normal. If people have moral convictions about pornography and certain sexual acts, not talking about it will make it worse, not better. Many people need to have those conversations.

It is also important to know that, when discussing gender and sexuality, attraction and identity are two entirely different issues (though often correlated). The way you feel about and identify yourself is very different from what you find yourself attracted to. There are masculine gay men and flamboyant gay men. There are masculine straight men and flamboyant straight men. To stereotype an effeminate guy like myself as gay is not reflective of reality. I do think, however, we see some correlations, because people who experience one of these issues often end up having negative experiences that lead to another. I will not attempt to speak for a universal "cause" of homosexuality, but several male friends of mine have said they were naturally "effeminate", and thus rejected by men they knew, which lead to their struggles with homosexuality. Going back to the first conclusions, life is complicated.

I often hear people talk about the need for community, or rebut that with a need to have confidence in oneself, or rebut that with the need to rely on God. Personally, I think these arguments are kind of silly. We need to play our part, we need other people to play theirs, and we need God to play His. His is, from my perspective, a given. Ours is our choice. The role of others... sometimes it just isn't there, and we suffer. No level of confidence in ourselves will make up for that. Locking up your heart and labeling it "confidence" to make up for a lack of human connection will not work in the long run. As C. S. Lewis says, that is the definition of Hell. All three elements are valid needs.

For Christians, there's an honest look we have to take of ourselves as a culture, especially in American Evangelicalism, as a major contributor to gender dysphoria. My dad brought me a magazine once about the cultural changes in regards to gender happening in America. In it, there was an article about a child born as a boy who felt like a girl, who was helping make a book for other children, and they said "I felt like a girl's brain in a boy's body." I looked at my dad and said "Who told this kid what a girl's brain felt like?" It is common for us as human beings to look to justify ourselves, and sadly, Christians forget that this is the opposite of faith. When homosexuality became more accepted and normalized in America, Christians wanted to justify why they opposed it, and thus emphasized their own rigid definitions of gender in order to justify why kids need one mother and one father. Sadly, these definitions are generally false, and the generations who do not fit are being wrecked by them, along with leaving Christianity behind them. We’ve made gender discussions into this scary either/or, when it’s much more often about accepting all of ourselves. The solution is not to make a person accept the made up standards of “masculine” or “feminine,” but simply to let them engage with all of who they are. We’re upset at transgender people for not playing by certain rules, but we made the rules up and are pretending that they are authoritative. If there are authoritative rules or guidelines, people might actually be open to them if we’d stop claiming our own were objective.

Orthodoxy
Honestly, had I written this article a few years ago, it would be very different, not just because of healing I hadn't done yet, but mainly because I would have written it trying to fix people. However, I've recently converted from Evangelical Christianity to Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and it's changed a lot about me, including ideas relevant to this subject. I think a lot of people will find these perspectives helpful, and they are very key to my journey, so I include them here.

From an early Christian perspective, the main issue with human beings was not that they were law breakers, as if God was some legalistic judge. Their issue is that they were selfish. They were viewed as sick with this selfishness, and the reason they were separated from God was not because God pushed them away, but because they rejected love, which is the very being of God. We are simply unable to relate to Him without learning to love, like a kid who is mad at a parent while the parent is trying to love on them. As C. S. Lewis said, the gates of Hell are locked from the inside. The main way we learn to love is by denying ourselves. This comes through accepting suffering, fasting, forgiving enemies, etc. There was also no dichotomy of spiritual vs physical, or picking certain things to be sinful. Anything in creation could be sinful because we could be selfish and clutch on to it. Thus, the Christian lifestyle was about removing selfishness to make room for Christ.

This means, from an Orthodox perspective, that regardless of heterosexuality, homosexuality, gender dysphoria, or any other issue, the main goal is to deny ourselves and focus on love, not to obey rules. Rules are there to reflect love, but even the early church knew there would be exceptions based on love and the rules being at odds with love. I'm blessed that I find the practice of sexuality I feel called to as comfortable, as I know others who are attracted solely to the same gender but feel called not to act upon this desire, which is a lot more difficult than the path I have before me. I am very proud of them for following their convictions (and they do not have to marry anyone, either). From an Orthodox perspective, this is nothing to be ashamed of, but it will push a person closer to Christ and is an opportunity to share in his sufferings. It is a martyrdom, in a way.

This also means there is no shame. Responsibility and remorse over certain actions is good, but I believe shame is when we degrade and devalue ourselves, which we should never do. Shame is us attempting to sit in God's seat to judge ourselves. I also think we should not feel any guilt for our desires. We may need to take active steps to overcome them, but I had no control over my gender dysphoria, and even if I believe I shouldn't act on those feelings, I have no shame, guilt, or responsibility for having them. I did not choose them. I feel the same way about homosexuality, pedophilia, and sexuality in general. Do not feel ashamed or guilty for what you feel. Then, in regards to actions, if you act unlovingly and poorly on those feelings, do not feel ashamed, and only feel healthy guilt (responsibility) to correct your wrong, ask for forgiveness, and do better in the future, still with no shame.

I also believe that everything is beautiful, and that sin, or the lack of love, is never as strong as the beauty in everything. It has effect because God has given us free will, but there is always beauty to be seen in everyone and every act. As someone who, if I struggled with homosexual desires, would feel called not to act on it, I feel there is still beauty in the loving relationships between people of the same gender, even if sexuality is involved. I see so much love, care, and healing in the relationships of my LGBT friends.

A strong view of the original Christians was that God had each person on their own journey, and it was not our place to judge. Who knows what God is doing in the hearts of each person? We all have issues and struggles, and he deals graciously with us, one problem at a time, so as not to overwhelm us. Each of us has something He wants to challenge in us, but is waiting until we are ready. To judge anyone else because of their life decisions is not our business. I like to give the example that, if a friend told me he was dating a prostitute, I'd say "That's probably not a good idea." And yet, God had the prophet Hosea marry a prostitute. We do not know what journey God has each person on. In the Orthodox view, it is our job solely to cultivate our own hearts to love through obedience to Christ.

In scripture, we do not see a myriad of rules about gender. Generally, the rules are the same for both. We are all called to love, and we are told love is patient, kind, etc. There's no attributions of any traits to a specific gender. We even see God described by female analogies, and it was always taught that He is without gender. There's the command specifically of husbands to love their wives and wives to submit to their husbands, but we see countless times throughout scripture that love and submission go hand in hand. They are not a gender specific job. Personally, I think it's as simple as this: If you are male, and you seek to deny yourself and love, you will be a Godly man. If you are female, and you seek to deny yourself and love, you will be a Godly woman. You don't have to follow some specific rules based on your gender. Be yourself, take up your cross, and learn to love.

Conclusion
Sometimes I dress up to “look like a girl” because I think it’s funny. I like dressing up as things I’m not, like goth, for the heck of it. Other times, there’s clothes I actually like, even as a male, but almost a specific kind of male that just hasn’t been allowed to exist in general society without calling them a woman. But in either case, these types of clothes or behaviors don’t have to do with a reaction to pain, with an inadequacy, or with trying to change myself. It no longer rules me. No fear is associated with the act. I'm me because I'm me. I focus on denying myself and taking up my cross daily, on learning to love and treat those around me better. I don't have to worry that I'm gonna break some "code" and be the wrong gender. I am surrounded by women both strong and tender, who love me and tell me I'm handsome, tell me I'm beautiful, who tell me and show me they trust me, who are sexual and not afraid. I'm surrounded by beautiful men who I like to jokingly flirt with, because to the pure in heart, all things are pure. I am much more confident that someday I'll be a good husband, and some day I'll be a good dad. I'll submit to my wife and she'll submit to me, we'll love each other and teach each other, and I'll be a strong and protective father, who is emotional and gentle with his kids. I've still got healing to do, but I'd like to think I've come a long way. I'm a lot more comfortable being Shea.

Thanks for reading my story. It's been an intense journey, especially the last 6 years as I've explored the gender dysphoria. It's a blessing to me to be able to share it with you, and just to have it written down! I hope it will help you in your own journey towards love (and He who is love), both in finding your true self, and in loving those who are seeking to do the same. Your true self is who Christ made you to be, and the journey to Him, and to love, is the exact same journey as the path to your true self. The kingdom of heaven is within you.

If you ever have any questions or thoughts, feel free to message me on Facebook, where I'm listed as "Thaddeus Patrick Layton." I’m not easily offended, so you are welcome to disagree with my thoughts (or dislike my amateur writing skills). If you've got friends you think could use some guidance, I may not have much to offer, but send them my way and I'd be happy to chat with them!

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I want to add a note based on a conversation I had during the draft stages of this article. If you find that, in reading some of the earlier parts of the article, it sounds so strange and unfamiliar to have the insecurities I discuss, you need this article. If you find yourself thinking that even if you don’t relate to society’s definitions, it doesn’t bother you, so “why does it bother him so much,” this is exactly why you need this article. If you have fit in socially all your life, you will not have doubts about these traits, even if someone questions them. But when a majority of what you have to work with is bad experiences, it is the only thing your brain has to go on. If a person is raised being told they are stupid, they will believe it. If they take an IQ test and score high, they might start to change their minds, but they will still feel stupid. Their brain may even start to think that IQ is a different kind of smart/stupid scale than the one they grew up being called, and the one they were called is more important. If you find yourself unable to relate to women, your brain will take all the variables it has experienced to come up with an answer, and then a solution. To the people that experience insecurity, those pains are very real. Time makes them sink deeper and deeper, like a stick in mud, and the further it sinks, the harder the idea is to get out. Also, our insecurities are not based simply on doubts about ourselves, but doubts about relationships. You can believe something positive about yourself, but feel no one sees it. This is just another answer the brain gives to deal with experiences, accepting both the philosophy of self confidence, but combining it with the reality a person has faced. Basically, I’m saying again that life is complicated, and that if you find these concepts to be so strange because “Shea is definitely not threatening,” it should definitely reinforce in your own mind how much you need to hear people’s stories. You may also have some insecurities you don’t even realize are personal because you’ve read them into everyone else, or attached them to a gender or some other category. This should ring much more true for Christians, because we supposedly believe God is in control, and yet we have fears and worry every day. Don’t we know God is in control? We are human beings who, without even a conscious effort, are affected by our experiences. This is also why faith is not a single, one-time prayer, but a journey of slowly experiencing God and being affected by that experience.

History, the Path Home from Exile

The purpose of this post is not to "argue" anyone into my denomination of Christianity, or make anyone feel inadequate. My heart's longing is simply to call people to what I believe to be a fundamentally Christian idea, the study of history. I mention my own theory of why much of history has been lost which is, of course, my opinion. I would simply hope that this article causes people to go and study church history, prayerfully and thoughtfully, and be willing to accept if God uses it to challenge them, in whatever way that may be. If you want to be comfortable where you are at, I would encourage you not to study church history, as my life is much harder than it was before I studied it. My life, though, is also far more fulfilling after studying it.

I was reflecting on history and the Bible, and something hit me: most of the Bible is history. The main way that God has chosen to reveal himself is history, and in scripture we constantly see that God is known to future generations by remembrance of what he has done in the past, AKA history. The Israelites are called to look not only at their own lives and generation, but the past lives of their lineage, to see God working and to know him.

• "When your son asks you in time to come, saying, 'What do the testimonies and the statutes and the judgments mean which the LORD our God commanded you?' then you shall say to your son, 'We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the LORD brought us from Egypt with a mighty hand.'"
  ~Deuteronomy 6:20-21

He tells them himself to erect stones and monuments so they can explain to their children and grandchildren what God has done. When they forget these things, that's when the nation starts to go down the drain.

• "Thus the sons of Israel did not remember the LORD their God, who had delivered them from the hands of all their enemies on every side."
  ~Judges 8:34

We face the same dilemma today that the Israelites did. We study the history of the Israelites (through the Old Testament), and history of the Apostles (mainly through Acts), and we have modeled for us especially in Hebrews that God's grandest plan is known by recalling and understanding history.

• "We must pay the most careful attention, therefore, to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away."
  ~Hebrews 2:1

Yet the whole of the life of God's church, the testimony of his work today (like Israel was in the OT), two thousand years of the spiritual family, we have lost. It is no longer in our families and in our traditions. Instead, culture rules us, and we do not see it. We are as unaware of it as a fish is of water, that Post Modernism and human movements have formed American Christianity today. Culture itself is a reflection of human uniqueness, but we now let our culture define things for us, such as bowing, marriage, worship, hell, prayer, etc. We criticize certain faith traditions for not being "biblical," but then we make our own traditions. We teach the Bible as the primary Christian authority, and yet most of us don't even know where it came from. We create definitions for communion ("It's just a remembrance of Christ"), baptism ("It's just a declaration of faith."), and the church ("Anyone who has relationship with Jesus."), and when someone comes and says "here is the history of God's work in his people," we reject them as if our definitions were from Christ himself.

• “A time is coming when men will go mad, and when they see someone who is not mad, they will attack him, saying, ‘You are mad; you are not like us.'”
  ~St. Anthony the Great

How our history was lost, I believe, was the sins of our fathers. The sins of past generations effect future generations. In my opinion, those leaders of ancient Rome's church around the time of the Great Schism, still with the whole Church, took a humble brotherly primacy to be supremacy over all Christians. Thus the family was broken apart, and even though the confused father (the church of Rome) was rejected later, the many sincere Protestant orphans of this broken limb of the family tree are still in much darkness. Worst of all, we are not even aware of it, because we do not know our own history and family lineage.

• "My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. 'Because you have rejected knowledge, I also reject you as my priests; because you have ignored the law of your God, I also will ignore your children.'"
  ~Hosea 4:6

Unless we are taught by the Apostles, how could we know the teachings of Christ? Christ certainly considered his teachings to be pivotal, even after the Spirit became involved at Pentacost. We must be guided by those who were also guided, implying a lineage, a New Testament spiritual family and genealogy.

• So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
  ~Acts 8:30-31

The behaviors and beliefs of Christianity, the actions and the intellect, are foundational to Christianity and the required fruit of any true believer and any true church. However, the core of that foundation is spiritual relationship with Christ. Spiritual connection, that profound mystery of relationship, which psychology is so beautifully inadequate to explain, is also the crux of the church. We think that we can create our own church because we think and act (believe and behave) in the Christian manner (as is often defined by us). However, without the spiritual element of the church, we handicap ourselves to a degree at least on par with the rejection of scripture.

• "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
  ~George Santayana

I believe that, if we turn to those who Christ taught through, to the Apostles and to the students they elected in their stead, we'll find that this necessary spiritual element of the church is wholly taught in scripture, and by the church fathers, and is why there must be a church which is one spirit and one body.

• "If I am delayed, you will know how people ought to conduct themselves in God's household, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and foundation of the truth."
  ~1 Timothy 3:15

If we are to remember this history, if we are to follow what we find there, if we are to use the model of lifestyle from that fragment which God has protected in our tradition (the Bible) to return to the full tradition and teaching of Christ, then we must seek what our Lord and his appointed disciples truly taught. We must doubt ourselves in the fullest humility we can muster, speaking as Socrates that the only thing we know for sure is that we know nothing. Then will we love wisdom and instruction, and then will we able to discern what is true. It must become our prayer, to know God's truth regardless of our presuppositions. Then we can truly find the tradition that was given by our Lord, which should be not only our rule but our cherished hope, the very essence of the Gospel.

• "So then, brothers and sisters, stand firm and hold fast to the traditions we passed on to you, whether by word of mouth or by letter."
  ~2 Thessalonians 2:15

Sadly, we often grow too confident in ourselves. We judge that the problem is simply those who have no morals, but the reality is that morality based on individualism is not Christian. Conscience is important, but it is by Christ, the Apostles, and the church which we know truth, not by our own intellect. Even Israel is condemned not because they do "whatever they want" but because each follows his own opinions of right and wrong.

• In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
  ~Judges 17:6

We must seek the truth, and we must do so boldly. We must be ready to give an answer for the faith we have. We must do more than pile our own stones of remembrance, but we must seek the stones that were piled by those before us. There is no other Christian teaching than this.

• "And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
  ~Matthew 16:18

If the direct disciples of the Apostles were not correct in their understanding of Christianity, what hope have we that the gates of Hell will not prevail over us as well? We must be in connection with the whole church, and not just those in our time or place. This universality is of the very nature of the kingdom of God. We cannot be true Christians without the church, anymore than the hand or eye can live alone.

• "One Christian is no Christian.”
  ~Tertullian

We must seek the house built by the Lord, no matter what ways it may challenge us, for building our own house will lead to our own destruction. We must avoid at all cost the traditions and theology of man, and seek wholeheartedly the traditions and theology of God's own revelation. Only a church built on this foundation will last.

• Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labor in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain.
  ~Psalm 127:1

We must be willing to admit that there may be some sand beneath our feet, and be willing to admit we may not have both feet firmly on the rock. He who thinks in this manner, even if he is on the rock already, will find that foundation stronger. He who will not think in this manner, or does not have time, or does not find it interesting, or doesn't feel like it, is already knee deep in sand.

• "Why defend a lion when you can open the cage and let it defend itself."
  ~My dad on the subject of Truth

Love is equated with God, but so is truth. To reject the pursuit of truth is as folly as to reject the pursuit of love. Both these paths of rejection lead to hell. To know neither truth nor love is a guarantee that one has no relationship with God. This truth of God is beyond the intellect. To say that the pursuit of God is a matter of factual belief in him is folly.

• You believe that there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that--and shudder.
  ~James 2:19

The faith is life and is a lifestyle. That's why, while history is a main genre of scripture, so also is the epistles, which discuss heavily the lifestyle of a christian. Thus, we must seek what was taught by Christ himself, the author of the christian life, and not any modern concoction. We must seek the cause of our several versions of the "one faith", and the many fragments of our "one body." We must respond to what we learn like King Josiah, who found the missing book of the law in the temple and tore his clothes, and began embracing the teachings of God.

• Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the Book of the Law in the temple of the Lord.” He gave it to Shaphan, who read it. When the king heard the words of the Book of the Law, he tore his robes. “Go and inquire of the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Great is the Lord’s anger that burns against us because those who have gone before us have not obeyed the words of this book; they have not acted in accordance with all that is written there concerning us.” [The prophet Huldah responded,] "Tell the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, 'This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says concerning the words you heard: Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people—that they would become a curse and be laid waste—and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I also have heard you, declares the Lord. Therefore I will gather you to your ancestors, and you will be buried in peace. Your eyes will not see all the disaster I am going to bring on this place.'"
  ~2 Kings 22:8, 11, 18-20

I believe that each man will be judged at the end of time according to the knowledge he had. Many will walk through the gates of heaven and hear "Well done my good and faithful servant" from a variety of Christian backgrounds, and I even believe some from other religions. However, that does not excuse us from seeking the fullness of obedience to Christ. "If you love me, you will obey my commands." James says that "he who knows the good and does not do it sins." Will we be able to claim ignorance?

• This is what the Lord says:
  “Stand at the crossroads and look;
      ask for the ancient paths,
  ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
      and you will find rest for your souls.
      But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’"
  ~Jeremiah 6:16

History is where the truth is. History is where spirituality is. History is where the church is. History is where our Christian family is. History protects us from repeating past mistakes. Without history, there is no journey, no progress, no hope. History is the main way by which we know the teachings of our Lord Jesus, who was a real historical figure and participated in the life of humanity. Study the life of his body like you learn the heritage of someone you love, for the Christian community is where Christ is found from the time of his ascension until the time of his return.

Words of "Encouragement"

On the Inadequacies of Words
The world is complex. Any way we slice it, no matter how many pieces, we will never boil it down to any single piece. Human language, however, is our attempt to communicate an understanding of this complex world in the form of mere sounds and shapes that are much simpler than the world itself. Additionally, these sounds and shapes are arbitrarily chosen (the sounds and letters in “dog” were not chosen because of any inherent resemblance to an actual dog). We then take these arbitrary correlations and make them into a standard (such as the Dictionary) so that there can be some organization to the system (definitions are “right” and “wrong,” and we base words on other words), because without a standard we would not be able to use these correlations to communicate in any way, as they are arbitrary. This whole tool of language is a great concept, but when we forget these pieces of the nature of language, and begin to think that words themselves somehow correlate directly with the ideas they attempt to represent, we arrive at many dangers.

The system of words is, at its core, a form of simplification. It takes complex ideas in our heads and makes them simple so that they can be worked with. We often attempt to communicate, however, without remembering that words are not guidelines but simplifications. Thus, not only would a completely agreed upon system of language by every human be wholly inadequate (and probably impossible because the number of words required would be infinite), but we regularly do not agree on the meanings of words. Worst of all, we often assume we do, or that our definitions are the “correct” ones. Appealing to the Dictionary can help, but words change too, and thus there is really no standard of language possible.

On Using Words to Encourage
As Christians using words, we need to keep these weaknesses of language constantly in mind. What seems to happen often is that we have an incredible, real, important experience, and then we sum up that experience in words, and we proceed to use those words as if they were as powerful as the experience itself. This tends to do much more harm than good.

We may experience a great loss of which our current experience and understanding does not equip us to deal with through “pure joy” as James calls us to do. We sit in grief, and maybe even self pity, not comprehending that there is a bright future ahead. When we walk that journey of pain and weakness with God, He does his usual amazing works and pulls us into a place brighter than where we were before, and we find ourselves much stronger. As we are called to do, we share this story with excitement.

A problem arises when we encounter another person in the stages of deep grief and potentially self pity, and we share the simplest form of our story with them in an attempt to “encourage” them. We say something like “just trust God” or quote a Bible verse. Our intentions may be good, but the reality is that what it took to pull us out of our dark place is not conveyed to them simply by the sounds coming out of our mouths. Unless that experience is in them to be stirred, those words will not stir in them what it does in us, because we speak those words from an experience we have had. Worse, we often shame them for not responding to our words the way we did to the experience.

Scripture talks about how some people need “milk,” basic and easy information, and others can eat solid food that is more difficult to understand and process (I Cor.). Even God uses this same idea when He deals with us and brings pain, journeys, and joy to our lives, as the different ways of threshing represents in the book of Isaiah. Likewise, we must remember that each person is at an entirely different place in life, and even if what a person needs is exactly what we have, we may not be able to give it to them. If we can, it will not be through words, but through giving them an experience of ourselves, and more importantly an experience of Christ in us. If our words are involved, it will more likely be by the telling of our story, which at the very least expresses to the person an understanding that life is complicated.

Conclusion
Strive every day to remember that, though words are useful, they are not adequate to convey the deepest needs of the human being. That can only be done through relational, spiritual experiences. Patience is probably what we need to give others more often than the “right” words. If you want to encourage, try to "rejoice with those who rejoice, and weep with those who weep” (Romans). That gives people the strongest possible experience of understanding that you can give. That’s the kind of thing that changes people’s lives.

Questioning God / Logic's Inadequacy / Beauty's Necessity

This started as a short single sentence in my journal on realizing that beauty clearly exists, and makes no sense without a higher power of some kind. It turned into a long essay that seemed slightly disconnected, and then became three essays that could likely be separated into their own articles, but I keep together as they follow the flow of my mind and then conclude together. I didn’t write this to be a public article, but later turned it into a blog post. There were also some changes I made to the beginning that I did for the sake of clarity that I didn't like, so you can read the original, more poetic version here.


The Questioning of God

Sometimes we doubt God. We aren't sure He's there. We cry out and feel like there's no response.

I won't say there’s no response from God, but I say if there is a response, I'm blind to it. Be that the fault of my own sin, so be it, and I firmly grasp that responsibility. Be it God’s choice, then it is the right one.

Still, this doubt happens. Long I have endured these struggles, and some days I find myself with answers of some sort; other times, not so much. By the fact that I am still here on Earth living, and living by this belief of God, I have endured. This, in itself, could be an answer or miracle.

Today, new thoughts approach. I watch the lead character of The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman as he wrestles with the pain of vagueness from his Christianity, and the fear of meaninglessness without it, as he calls out to God over and over. He asks those tough questions of God I fear to ask, but I empathize with the begging for God to show himself in some way. "Why should He hide himself in a mist of half-spoken promises and unseen miracles?" He expresses the doubt I also feel. Will we be condemned for feeling this doubt, or that we spoke it out loud?

I think not. I recall the glory given in the ancient Church to St. Thomas's doubt. To ask for proof is not an immoral act. To question with the intent to defy God is wrong, but to question with the goal of true knowledge is noble, and judging by the fruit we see that the result was Thomas's declaration of the glorious and saving faith in Christ. I aspire to be a doubting Thomas! Glory to this saint and glory to God!

I would never say nor have I ever believed there is no evidence or little evidence for God. This would be a farce. However, while there are certainly strings of evidence holding the weight of difficulty in such belief, those strings can wear thin and push a person to let go as their arms no longer are strong enough to hold on. The man in the film, really, begs for those strings to be made ropes, and fears that they are not currently strong enough to hold the doubts, for should the doubts conquer and the strings break and the weights of belief drop, no alternative is left but nihilism. He barters with Death for more time, and then spends it on these questions. (This reminds me of an Orthodox answer to the miracle of a preserved life, that it is for more time to repent. Maybe, also, it is more time to come to our needed conclusions?)

The Inadequacy of Logic

I see in this world no plausible explanation for many concepts, such as beauty and love. Some deny that they even exist, or claim them to be mere issues of chemicals, but I have seen, time and time again, that our attempts to only do "reasonable" actions is futile, and am reminded of the necessity of there being innately valuable things in existence, things that don’t require logic to support their value.

We pretend that we have a logical standpoint simply because we can trace an action to something we label a necessity. For example, I eat to sustain my body, and I sustain my body to live. Look how logical eating is! Look at the great train of rationality that solidifies its value as an action! Look at the superiority and safeness in such solid logic! And yet, in this thinking a person relies solely on the presence of logic, without any thought of if logic is truly fulfilled. In this pattern of thinking, we are spiders that know we must have a strong web of logic on which to support us, but the problem is our web is attached to nothing but itself and floats on the wind. We glide along, taking pride in the strength of its fibers and its masterful connection to itself, until we are finally dashed against the rocks. Any person who claims to be rational knows that circular logic is not logical at all, and yet we persist to insist on pure logic, which is by nature circular.

In the example above of eating, and I would argue in most issues where you force a person to the final unconnected web by asking them "Why?" (a question that haunts us all by demanding complete logic), what we find is that we must question living itself. The necessity of living lies at the end of all of our human webs. Why live? As Protestants to Sola Scriptura, the Evolutionists have found many an explanation for their discoveries and desires when sourcing them back to Self Preservation. The problem lies in that foundation itself, for it demands logic as much as everything relying on it. Self Preservation has no explanation; it is assumed to be logical in itself. Something purely assumed to be logical with no support is the fundamental illogic. If it were the fundamental logic, any computer would automatically desire to continue existing. Yet, we must create that idea in a computer like any other. We must tell a computer that self preservation is valuable before it ever considers it important.

So the question is: who told us we were important? Why do certain things in existence pursue a continued existence, while other things do not? The naturalist will act as though there is a clear line, but there is none. All matter, really, should be indifferent to its sustained existence, and it certainly shouldn’t care what form it is in, whether a pile of dust or a human being.

In the cores of our being, though, we all know life has a purpose. We struggle and wrestle to find it, but we all suspect it is there. Even those who take their own lives admit that there is meaning of some kind, for the denial of some kind of meaning is usually what leads to a desire to escape; meaninglessness is at odds with our very being, and thus some cease to be. The real logical conclusion is indifference, and I’ll boldly claim that you’ll find no person who is anywhere near indifferent about their life. They may feel such at moments, but true rationality would be able to escape all sentiment, including that of one’s own existence.

Where does that trail lead us? I believe an important conclusion is that there must be things that are innately valuable. There must be ideas or concepts or principles that are valuable because they are valuable. This would place them outside of science or naturalism, thus being generally avoided by many modern philosophers. But many of the great philosophers knew how important this question of meaning was, and they regularly concluded there was something beyond nature in existence (they just often disagreed on what exactly it was).

Why are we more prone to disregard this topic today, though? A secular book called Education’s End by Anthony T. Kronman discusses this avoidance in our current age:

“The question of what living is for—of what one should care about and why—is the most important question a person can ask. Yet under the influence of the modern research ideal, our colleges and universities have expelled this question from their classrooms, judging it unfit for organized study.”

We have become more entrenched with equipping students to do whatever they so desire, with skills, rather than exploring the meaning of doing or desiring anything. Acting without thinking is just as dangerous as thinking without acting. I believe a large part of this situation lies in the fact that finding answers to these questions limits us, and in our current age we worship freedom, and seek to have it justified. What’s been found is that as soon as these questions are asked, people become limited, so the answer has become to stop asking them at all.

One of the best scientifically oriented movies ever made, Interstellar, discusses the inadequacy of science to explain everything by introducing a conflict between the idealistic scientist Dr. Brand and her skeptical colleagues.

Brand: Maybe we've spent too long trying to figure all this out with theory.
Cooper: You're a scientist Brand.
Brand: So listen to me, When I say that love isn't something we invented, it's observable, powerful. It has to mean something.
Cooper: Love has meaning, yes, social utility. Social bonding, child rearing...
Brand: We love people who have died, where's the social utility in that?
Cooper: None.
Brand: Maybe it means something more, something we can't yet understand. Maybe it's, some evidence, some artifact of a higher dimension that we can't consciously perceive. I'm drawn across the universe to someone I haven't seen in a decade who I know is probably dead. Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space.

We see portrayed, first of all, an assumption that science is no place for a discussion of love. More importantly, though, this scene appeals to something in all of us that can empathize with what she says, while conveying the absence of a completely scientific answer for the phenomena. This scene doesn’t prove anything, but it certainly asks good, challenging questions. I admire that a movie aspiring to being science fiction, with a large emphasis on science, would propose that there may be a higher state of being than simply what we can scientifically observe in this point in our existence.

One can create clever ways of fitting the universe into a box labelled “science” in theory, making themselves feel validated. In reality, though, even the elements that are purely scientific are infinitely beyond our grasp. If I understood Quantum Mechanics at all, I might give an example from it.

My point in all of this is that logic can only ever be fulfilled by admitting that something exists outside of it. This is not to say that we must be illogical, which I find loathsome as a person fond of logic, but that there must be a third option, nonlogic. Logic even connects with and interacts with nonlogic in a beautiful dance that they were designed to be in.

The Necessity of Beauty

I believe strongly that innately valuable things exist, things that are nonlogical and are impossible to be supported directly by logic (my essay on logic supports them indirectly using logic) yet are valuable. However, what those innately valuable things are is certainly not solidified. One innate value and nonlogic I propose here is beauty.

To define beauty, in my opinion, is one of the most futile quests that could ever be attempted. We can describe it, but a definition is a form of logic, and beauty I believe is nonlogic. The best way to describe beauty is, of course, by direct experience. It can only be understood empirically. Find one of your favorite artistic works, be it film or photo or symphony or fiction or even food, and stop to take it in. Stop a while to think and feel and maybe even describe for yourself the way it captivates you.

That’s beauty. That’s all I can say. I write as I listen to the musical work of Ludovico Einaudi to make sure I am experiencing beauty as I write, engulfed in the full effect.

It’s commonly said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I would say the reality is that there is so much beauty to be admired, but each eye is often so limited to see it. I’ve had experiences that I once thought worthy of being ignored, finding them later to captivate me to breathtaking levels. The flaw lies not in the object, or in the subjectivism of beauty, but in us. Beauty itself requires a journey to truly see. Thus, to expand our sense of beauty requires many journeys.

Logic is something you can concoct yourself. You can be told it, written it, calculate and map it out. Beauty, on the other hand, cannot be given directly. It must be experienced. It can be conveyed only if the giver and receiver are both equipped for the process. It relies on something more than normal rational thought. I would suppose it relies on whatever a soul may be.

I am compulsed to clarify, as in my last essay, that beauty is not at odds with logic. In fact, they can contribute to each other. The expression of logic through a debate can be beautiful by its wit, its clarity, and its accuracy. Beauty can often be consistently pointed to by logic, such as listing the beautiful trait common in a series of films (a logical sequencing), thus assisting a new beauty being created in the interconnectedness of the films.

Upon many years of thought, I would say that art itself is the expression of beauty. Leo Tolstoy disagrees with me, saying art is not beauty but our uniting factor to each other. I would disagree, because even though art unites us, it would render the content pointless as long as it unites us in some way. The content of art is important. If Tolstoy is correct, then if a single piece of art connected us, all other art would lose it’s purpose. And pragmaticism, being a very logical function, seems at odds with beauty. Beauty must be, again, valuable in itself. It’s contribution to society must be itself, for if we look for a logical foundation, we will end up once again in illogical circles.

I could address many great thinkers, such as Oscar Wilde who says the exact opposite of Tolstoy, that art is our individualism’s strongest form. Still, I think beauty and art are so difficult to understand, so widely controversial, because they are unable to be placed under any microscope or be measured in any way. Beauty is outside of our control, and in that way among others, it is beautiful.

Conclusion

In all this, don’t misunderstand me. Beauty and the other nonlogical things are not independent. Beauty does not rely on logic, but it very likely relies on something else, a grander nonlogic, or something that is both logic, nonlogic, and incomprehensibly a step beyond that. What is it then? Or whom? Seeing as beauty seems much more tied with our identity as humans and the reality that we are relational beings, it would make sense that the contingent of beauty is a relational being.

All this writing was to say something to encourage myself, and I hope it may encourage you too. I wanted to say for myself that each day, happy or sad, hopeful or discouraged, that as I see beauty and passion and love around me, as I hear the tones and patterns of music that reach places in my being that I wouldn’t otherwise know exist, as I talk to and touch people who are a depth of being and uniqueness in and of themselves, and I remember how much more is in the world than this, it suggests… nay, it demands that there is someone out of which all of it flows. It was placed here for me to enjoy, for me to take care of, and for me to offer back to it’s source. If I can care so deeply about so much and with such richness as the broken being I am, how much more so does the Source care perfectly, and beyond my comprehension?

God and Our Daily Disciplines

Most of my life I've found it difficult to balance two extremes of thinking about God's role in our lives. On one end, we know that prayer, scripture, attending church, and many other practices of our faith are incredibly important in our walk with the Lord. However, it becomes unhealthy to think that God punishes us for not doing them, or that the cause of our problems and stresses is a direct result of us "not reading our Bible daily."

The simplest explanation I've arrived at is the following analogy: Suppose a friend designs and builds me a special computer that I use regularly. Like all technology, it tends to have it's quirks and bad moments. My friend recommends I stay in regular contact with him so that he can help me keep the computer working well. This doesn't mean that things will always run perfectly simply because of our regular communication with him. It also doesn't mean that this friend causes the problems with our computer because we are not in communication with him, as if to punish me. It's for my benefit! However, it is silly for me to be upset or disappointed when things go wrong with the computer if I'm not following his advice or communicating with him.

Likewise, when we aren't working on our relationship with the Lord, our trials are not punishment for the absence of scripture, prayer, or church. Still, it is silly for us to expect our lives, which are created by him, to be full of his clear presence when we are not seeking his presence.

God certainly works for our good even when we forsake him, which we do regularly. Still, scripture is clear that seeking him out has some correlation with his work in our lives. I'd prefer my sorrows to be validated in light of a current walk with the Lord, rather than realizing I'm expecting my best friend to be handling my problems when I don't attend to our friendship (which he'll still attend to regardless).

Ultimately, don't shame yourself for not involving yourselves in the Christian disciplines, but do them in response to the truths of God's love and works on our behalf. If you get things out of order, placing those acts (prayer/scripture/church/etc) before the blessings and works of Christ, you'll be living in a miserable, works-based faith, rather than one reliant on God's mercy. All your works and worship are meant to be nothing more than a response to God's love, glory, justice, and mercy.

Yet, he is your best friend. Where all others fail you, he never gives up. If you seek to truly love, you never will without his help. If you seek to return love to those who love you, you owe him infinitely times more love. Don't be ashamed of your failure, but you break his heart constantly and yet he still loves you. So respond to his love with obedience to his love.

God Cares About Everything

This will be a switch from the deep (and confusing logic) of my last post. Hopefully it comes a little more naturally.

Yesterday, I went to The LEGO Movie. I swear, I tried so incredibly hard not to cry. I really did try. By the end, however, I was unsuccessful. I cry at everything. I cry when I'm happy and when I'm sad. I cry with movies and with music. I used to try not to cry and I would be ashamed when I was younger, but now I embrace it and I encourage others to cry. The human body releases three kinds of tears, which each... Well, I'll stay on topic.

What I've realized though is that I cry much easier than I ever have, and as weird as it sounds, this has grown as my relationship with the Lord has grown. The more I feel that I understand and have conformed to God's heart, the more tears just come naturally. I cry at what seems like the silliest things, too. Heck, I cry at delicious foods, or watching a fan meet a famous person.

I asked myself "Why?" Why do I cry at everything? I realized it's because we live in a world that was created by God, and he cares about his creation. He didn't just create some basic things we like to say are most important, either, such as love and death. God created oak trees, the Mona Lisa, electro swing, skyscrapers, hamburgers, Breaking Bad, gymnastics, mathematics, accidental curly fries, supernovas, smiley faces, being double jointed, water fountains, the old west, kaleidoscopes, spaceships, and so much more.

I think that as Christians, we can sometimes forget this, especially those of us with a logical slant. I do think that we need to remember there are things to be priority in our emphasis, such as love, justice, mercy, and other values. However, we live in a universe created by God, and he cares about every single element of it.

I grew up watching movies and looking for the "normal" values (from how I was taught). You watched a movie for it's positive characters, for a good and happy ending, for interesting twists, and for clear moral lessons. Otherwise, a movie was considered pointless and stupid. As I've made new friends, however, I've seen a world beyond these oversimplifications of media. I've realized that you can watch a movie for a talented director, for beautiful music, for anti-heroes, for a genre that seems to effect our hearts just right. Movies can pique our passions for a variety of reasons, and maybe some deserve to be emphasized, but they all matter.

I think this is why I cry at everything. because God cares about everything. He even cares about a single actor portraying an emotion really well. He cares about what it feels to be in a cyberpunk dystopia. He cares about a director who can portray a variety of film genres well. In this way, we can say "everyone is special" and that man is made in God's image... and not be lying. Because when we play favorites with what counts as being important, we diagnose the people who care about what isn't "important" as being broken or less than special.

So I'll continue to cry at everything, because passions are important to God. I love seeing everything done in excellence. I even love watching a story of a character making bad choices and destroying their lives like in Breaking Bad, because I learn to do better, and I sympathize with people just like Jesus did when he suffered for our sins. I'll cry about the Peanut Butter Pickle Bacon burger at Killer Burger because it's so delicious. I'll cry at emotional piano covers of inappropriate songs like The Bad Touch by Tom Rosenthal. And I'll cry to see how happy my friends are at shows and movies I don't quite get just because I know how it effects them.

I'll keep trying to care about everything. Everything. Because God cares about everything, and if I love and grow to be more like him, I will too.

Do We Control Our Lives?

In this life, we can categorize happenings in two ways: controllables and uncontrollables. There are things we have the ability to control and things outside of our control. Our mindset about each of these is addressed in psychology as an internal locus of control or external locus of control, being whether we tend to blame controllable forces or uncontrollable forces, respectively. A strong internal locus of control means we take a lot of responsibility (but degrades into blaming and shaming ourselves), and a strong external locus of control means we understand there are things outside our control (but degrades into making excuses and playing the victim).

It seems that, by human nature, we default to a strong sense of external locus of control (things outside of my control are to blame for my situation). Most articles and guides on the two locuses of control are about developing a stronger internal locus of control, and thus helping a person take responsibility for their lives. Motivational speakers and success books emphasize this mindset that we can take control of our lives (which is common thinking for the Enneagram type Three). Likewise, the "happiness is a choice" mindset is a reaction to the default of an external locus of control by emphasizing an ability to control our thoughts and thus our emotions. Every self-help section of books is filled with titles such as Our Thoughts Determine Our Lives and Change Your Brain, Change Your Life. There is great value in these ideas of taking control of our lives, and I believe that we generally have a greater control over our lives than we tend to think. I often repeat the mantra, “If you really want it, you’ll make it happen. If not, you’ll make excuses.”

I believe, however, there are some very dangerous consequences of an overemphasis of controllables and an internal locus of control. The first is that a complete control of emotions makes them arbitrary and reduces their value. While it’s good to have an effect on our emotions and be able to healthily regulate them, if they become a simple switch that we turn on and off, we negate the purpose of negative (but not bad) emotions like sadness and anger, and the positive ones like happiness become the equivalent of a pleasure button to be pressed constantly and consequently devalued. Emotions tie strongly with the artistic side of our identity as humans, where we appreciate things that often have their beauty in being out of our control.

Another consequence of the extreme internal locus of control is a paradox of the will that is created. Suddenly, we can step back from our decisions to effect our own will that made them. This sounds simple enough, but the problem is that our will is required for us to desire to change itself. That same will cannot alter itself and exist at the same time, in the same way a snake cannot eat itself. You can work your way back altering your will and desire deeper and deeper, but never will you reach the end of it.

When we over emphasize the internal locus of control, we also degrade love. One of the most beautiful elements of love is that it is freely given to us, rather than taken. A belief that all things are controllable makes love a demand of ours rather than a gift. In a lesser version of this same error, we can see love as something to be earned, where we can receive it through the control of our own actions to thus make us worthy of love.

One of the worst consequences of an emphasis on controllables is that instead of an obedience to God, they can become our own way of not trusting him. While a Bible full of commands about how to live our life surely suggests we have responsibilities and should use our control, when we derive hope, meaning, relationships, purpose, and such out of our own actions, we devalue the need for God in our lives. If happiness really is a choice, then I don’t need Jesus anymore because I can just choose to be happy.

My last point, and in fact the main reason for which I wrote this article, is a twofold point of psychology and theology. When we de-emphasize uncontrollables, we deny our own needs as human beings which God gave us. In doing this, we are actually denying God’s created order and will. It would be insane to say that living without food is a choice, because we know that we begin to die physically without the nurturance that God designed us to have. Few people would say that a negative reaction from the deprivation of physical sustenance somehow suggests a lack of faith in God, or a lack of taking of personal responsibility. However, we often act as though a negative reaction from the deprivation of emotional sustenance (relationships, love languages, etc.) suggests a lack of trusting God and a shoving off of responsibility and playing the victim role. We don’t realize that this mentality makes things worse, as God designed us to break down emotionally without proper sustenance as he did on Earth, and we will actually create more emotional problems in the same way we would from starving ourselves.

God created a world of controllables and uncontrollables. A healthy person lives knowing both these realities. Trusting God does not mean denying his created order, and his created order includes having physical and emotional needs. If you deny that parts of the world, including internal parts of yourself, are out of control, you will harm yourself, distract yourself from God’s will, and devalue the beauty of his creation. Faith in God requires uncontrollables!



Bonus Points - Related to Motivation and Responsibility

• “There is no try, only do.” The famous quote from Master Yoda of the Star Wars universe. I strongly dislike this quote, because “trying” means putting your heart into something. You made a real effort, and while mankind judges by outside appearance, God says his priority is the heart. I’d rather the failed friend who put in their whole heart than those who accidentally do the right action. Success is a helpful hint at effort and a good heart, but is generally an unreliable guideline. The truth is, the best friends and achievers are the ones who consistently try and fail, not the ones who do well with ease. Nothing worth admiring was ever done without first trying to do it.
• Excuses. It’s bad to make excuses (suggesting a fabrication), but sometimes we have excuses regardless of our intention. A blind person makes a poor art critic, and I’ll gladly excuse them for it. The concept of “no excuses,” while generally helpful for a motivator, can degrade human beings for limitations God himself put into our world. If I want to judge when having excuses is a problem, I generally ask myself two questions: Is this person trying to change? Is the person taking responsibility? Personally, when someone let’s me down, I prefer an excuse (assuming they have one) because it helps me understand, and I can judge no one who I do not understand.

Learn - "Just Trust God"?

Christian cliche, brace yourself... YOU'RE GOIN' DOWN!

Odds are, if you clicked on this post, you've heard this phrase countless times. Heck, you've probably used it several times yourself. Chances are also that you've heard it used in ways that, at the very least, made you a tad uncomfortable.

"Just Trust God"

So am I about to argue against trusting God? Nope. The statement above would be agreeable if it wasn't for the way we add that "just" onto the idea of trusting God, which reveals how we abuse the truthful and Biblical concept of trusting God. It implies that there is nothing else, only a trust for God. This is often used to imply no sadness, or no action.

First off, it seems that Christians who use this phrase often imply no fear or sadness. Sadness doesn't imply a lack of trust for God. People who trust God are still emotionally distressed. Otherwise, Jesus probably wouldn't have been trusting in God (himself?) at all when his "sweat became like great drops of blood" from his anguish (Luke 22:44). Even God himself grieves according to scripture (Genesis 6:6). While sadness can spring out of not trusting God, it can also be very present in those who trust him. Be sure not to judge people's walk with God by their poorness or richness in spirit, like the Pharisees judged people by their financial poorness or richness.

Another way Christians seem to use "just trust God" is to imply a lack of action. People are treated as if them acting means they trust their action more than God, and truly trusting him would be sitting back and watching him work. Yet, we have a Bible full of stories about people who trusted God, but they didn't just trust God; they also acted. Scripture's heroes were men and women of action. They pray (an action in itself), and the they seek the results they (and God) desire.

We are even inconsistent in our use of this idea (based on whatever is the popular way to use the concept). We'll treat some things as worthy of trust with action ("Trust God to help you find food/a job."), yet other things are unacceptable all together ("Don't be sad! Just trust God!" and "Stop seeking people to fill your emotional needs! You just need to trust God!"). Why can't we trust God and still seek the things we desire and even need? Are our actions and trust truly incompatible? I don't think so.

There are people who act in the place of God because they don't trust him, which is where these ideas have rooted from, but trust and action are not incompatible. So then, what does a believer look like when trusting God? I think the lesson boils down to this:

Trusting God doesn't mean he does all the work. Trusting God means he's the boss.

When we trust God, we still act. In fact, trusting him often leads to action. However, we act how he desires us to, not out of a fear that we won't achieve our desired results if we don't act. Sometimes, too, trusting him does mean being still (Psalms 46:10). Yet the fact that our Bible, which commands us to trust God, also gives commands for action and tells stories of the faithful acting, gives us good reason to accept that trusting God usually includes an action. If you still aren't convinced that trust isn't accompanied by action, check out the book of James, which talks about how faith is accompanied by works.

Be sure to second-guess your use of "just trust God" the next time you talk with someone who's sad or seeking to meet a need of theirs. The faithful hurt and the faithful act.

Also...
...There's one other way we use this phrase, and it's much worse. We sometimes use it as an excuse not to help people. We see others in need, and we have the resources, but instead we tell them to "just trust God." If God will provide, why should we? You can read a bit more about my opinions on helping those in need here.

Response - "23 THINGS TO DO INSTEAD OF GETTING ENGAGED BEFORE YOU’RE 23"

It's been a while since I wrote a blog post (which is probable the most cliché way to start this post, haha). I figured after seeing this article several times, having several discussions, and even having my opinion sway, I'd just write about this post, which covers some of my favorite subjects: people, relationships, and wisdom.

This article on 23 things to do instead of getting engaged before 23 was not only fascinating and challenging in itself, but also brought up a lot of my own ideas I have never quite put together before, so I figured this was a great two-in-one. My points are both responses to her ideas and building on my own (and friends' responses I quote).

Here's a link to the article by Vanessa Elizabeth:
23 THINGS TO DO INSTEAD OF GETTING ENGAGED BEFORE YOU’RE 23

Here's the best as I can summarize it: Men and women under 23 are getting married because it is hip, they want its pleasures, and they can't deal with life on their own. Instead, people should wait to get married and take time to develop their own identity by enjoying many pleasures and experiences of their lives so that they know themselves and don't miss out.

The Negative
Adventure: Her premise seems to be that once you are married, having adventures is impossible. You could argue that traveling is hindered somewhat, but it is still entirely possible. As my friend John put it, "I didn't realize that now that I am married I can't grow, learn, travel, party, cuddle, read or explore anymore! What a mistake!"

Identity: "I have no idea who I am, what I’m doing, and who I’ll be doing it with for the next year… let alone for the rest of my life." That doesn't mean that no one else does. In fact, discovering yourself is very much enhanced by other people. Others often know us better than we know ourselves.

Age and maturity: While there is definitely validity in relating age/experience and wisdom/understanding, these things are not directly correlated. As my friend Amanda said, "Just because you're 10 years older doesn't mean you'll stick it out." If no one knows themselves enough to get married at 23, I doubt Elizabeth should even be writing marriage advice at that age.

Selfishness: My major problem with the article is the selfishness of it. Her 22nd point in the list blatantly says "Be selfish." The 11th says to "Date two people at once and see how long it takes to blow up in your face." This is completely inconsiderate of the two other human beings who's lives would be torn apart by such an action. Even the consequences of such action are only described by the consequences of the person doing the cheating.

However: She has said multiple times on her Twitter and Facebook that the list was actually satirical. Still, after reviewing the article several times, she doesn't make this very clear.

Originally, I really liked the article. She makes some very good points I've said many times myself. I was only swayed to a more neutral position as people pointed out the selfishness that underlies the motives and reasoning.

The Positive
The Divorce Rate: "The divorce rate for young couples is more than twice the national average." This is a very serious statistic that needs to be considered. The article she links too has some very relevant stories. We should be deeply challenged by these stories and statistics, and ask ourselves why this is happening.

Want vs Need: There seems to be a cultural assumption that we need to get married. Most of the time I hear a person arguing for marriage, they are arguing against reasons not to, but most seem to act as if it is an obvious necessity. I think this hinders us greatly from asking us why we really should get married. Most of the reasons such as personal growth and emotional support can be done without marriage, so we really need to think about what makes marriage special or different (because I'd like to think it is more than just sex, personally).

Identity: While I agree with most people that you can definitely develop your identity in marriage, it is not unwise to have a strong understanding of who you are before getting married. Our identities play a role in our marriage to someone, and also have a part in who we choose to marry. While "we can learn who we are while married" isn't an untrue reasoning, that's a poor reason not to take the time to learn about yourself significantly before you get married.

Co-dependency: This is probably one of the biggest subjects for me. I've seen too many "safety blanket" relationships where people who don't know how to be single get married out of despair. Too many people "hide behind a significant other" and hope to fill holes that parents, compliments, and even God should have filled. Books like "The Family" by Balswick & Balswick discuss this, and much research does, and yet most Christian and secular circles just treat it as if this is supposed to fill the hole (or God is the only other element at play). Our culture doesn't actually explore marriage, but rather just accepts it, and through this we open the doors to a lot of issues that I believe make marriages much less healthy. We are destroyed from lack of knowledge. As my friend Maggie said, "some people marry young simply because they don't know what else to do and they don't wanna be alone."

Love lasts: "If your love is truly eternal, what’s the rush? If it’s real, that person will continue to be committed to you 2 months from now, 2 years from now, and 2 decades from now." I'm not idealistic enough to think that there's this magical connection that makes it impossible to marry the wrong person; we have freedom to make our own decisions. However, I do think that both as a Christian, God has plans (like we say he does with nearly everything else), and also exactly as Elizabeth says, if someone really loves you it lasts.

Other's experiences: I can relate to hearing things like "my mom and dad got married young and X, Y and Z." The thinking that "it worked before so its a good idea" is a terrible line of reasoning, and yet I hear people use it all the time. (The Israelites use this same reasoning in Jeremiah 44 to justify worshiping false gods.) I don't feel like I should even have to elaborate on how bad this logic is. You can probably come up with a bunch of your own examples in your head.

Additionally
Commitment: I hear people say all the time that marriage is about commitment. If that were true, why wouldn't we just use the words interchangeably? Commitment is a huge part of marriage, assuredly, but it is not the whole of marriage. Communication, honesty, intimacy, sexuality, and many other elements go into what makes marriage. I think two committed people can work through issues together, but I don't think that it means every relationship where you can do that is wise.

The right person: I think the most important element in a marriage is the maturity of the two people ("maturity" being a large blanket term I use that covers commitment). However, I think the second most important element is who you choose to marry, and rather than just looking at age, I agree with my friend Rob that "you should probably base that around when you meet the right person." I think the real challenge, then, in figuring out how we determine who the "right person" is, and I'd direct you to not only ask some married couples, but ask people who have spent their lives studying and counseling marriages. (Check out Les & Leslie Parrot, Cloud & Townsend, and Neil Clark Warren.)

Wisdom vs mistakes: There is a difference between saying something is unwise and saying it is a mistake. There may be very good reason to say that young marriage is unwise or should at least be approached with strong caution (the divorce rate being one of those reasons). However, as my friend Collin says, "Assuming that all people married and younger than 23 are making grave life mistakes is an all-ism fallacy." I think the article could be construed both ways.

"No one is perfect": I hear this statement all the time and it bugs the heck out of me because of its misuse. Yes, no one is perfect, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't apply wisdom and grow some before we get married. No one will drive perfectly, but we still learn the rules of the road and do our best. We still have a standard of "that person is abusive" in comparison to people who are healthier. So it isn't unreasonable to discuss the standards of what will make a marriage stronger or when a person is ready.

Opinions: This is one final response to an objection I hear much too often. People will say "you're single and don't know anything." However, people can have comprehension and understanding without direct experience. People also have experienced hurt, relationships, betrayal, life, and a lot of other elements in marriage that do give them some insight. Even more important though, is that some people will have a single marriage experience, and others will take that as enough for thorough insight. I'd say I trust the advice of experienced marriage counselors more than a few married couple's experiences, just like I'd trust the zookeeper's opinions about animals more than the person who just loves to look at elephants. Marriages are all different.

Conclusion
I think one of the biggest issues in all of this is the necessity of marriage. People spend a lot of time defending things like marrying young, and yet don't give very good reasons to marry young. To figure this out, we need to push past the cultural defaults of just assuming marriage is normal and we don't need to have any reasons (which means our only reasons are purely emotion) and actually explore the rationality behind it as much as we do the emotions of it. Yes, we can marry young without grave consequences, but should we?

In all of this, though, we need to remember too that everyone has different experiences, and calling Vanessa Elizabeth an idiot or a hypocrite does nothing to encourage her or anyone else who reads her article. It actually makes us look like the unreasonable ones, in my opinion. As my friend Ryan said, we need to be "reading with the intention of loving." I appreciate her honesty to write down what she thinks, and I think it does offer some very wise insights for critical thought that should challenge us.

Consider - Disgruntled with Diversity

I wrote this as part of a paper, and I touched it up a bit and added to it because I've been wanting to write this stuff as a blog post anyways. I'd be happy to hear your thoughts (and I may, of course, have some responses).


This last year, I’ve been learning a lot about the dangers of extremes and the pendulum effect. I like to call it being reactionary (action based off of a negativity) versus being actionary (choosing to act based on it being right). I’ve started to realize that even our general human history over the last 2,000 years has reflected this in our philosophies. We went from pre-modernism, where we trusted authorities such as the church, to reacting with modernism where we trusted logic that we could distinguish and decipher ourselves, to reacting with post-modernism where truth became subjective entirely to what we feel or decide. I’ve started looking at much of what culture, philosophies, and even my own beliefs do in terms of this effect. I’ve realized how often we see something bad, wrong, or often just a perversion of a good thing, and we do the opposite of it as a solution, which often causes new problems, even going as far as contradicting the original purpose of the change.

In terms of diversity and discrimination, I think this has happened a lot. Racism and slavery in America is one of the best examples. We have had discrimination based on numbers (which is currently acknowledged almost as if it is the only kind) where white people kept black people as slaves, and then they were still segregated even after slavery was abolished. This is something terrible and wrong, but reactions have gone too far. The ways we have reacted have produced new forms of discrimination psychologically, where we have enabled culture to discriminate and oppress white people.

Not only do numbers discriminate, but financial power can too, where corrupt rich can use their money to oppress a poor majority. It really comes down to a mix of power and a heart that uses that power wrongly. The thing is, we have created social standards that oppress people, and these standards are often called “political correctness.” To discuss discrimination against whites or stereotypes of white people is considered “politically incorrect," and puts white people in positions they cannot escape because they feel ashamed for being white. Shame is another power that is held over the heads, and hurts people just like slavery and segregation. This is a psychological version of what so many fighting for social justice have wanted to fight against, and my opinion is that it is just as bad as any other version of discrimination. It doesn’t just apply to white people, but I’ve seen it applied to the rich, to men, and to many other social groups, and what’s even sadder is that we still have the original issues, such as racism against blacks, right alongside it.

I’ve begun referring to this issue as “pop diversity,” where people have seen the popular diversity issues and are reactionary. We see issues such as racism and sexism as popular and thus more and more people hop on the bandwagons to fight them. However, so many other groups such as introverts and physical touch people are discriminated against, but the subjects aren’t popular so many are fighting to have them even acknowledged.

I think having classes like my class Human Diversity here at Multnomah are an excellent idea. I think they are a great way to fight discrimination, and I’ve very much enjoyed the class. However, I feel like a lot of diversity movements in general are only half of what is necessary. We are teaching people blind passion without actually equipping them. Passion is important and powerful and really the only way we change the world for the better, but passion should be our fuel, not the decision maker.

It’s similar to if culture teaches our kids how important it is to drive cars, so they have the passion, and classes equip them with information on how to actually drive it, but no one teaches them about how to be safe, to obey safety rules of the road, and to be careful of other drivers. They’ll speed, drive recklessly, and cause more damage than driving cars does good! Movies like Five Minutes in Heaven illustrate how teens who were given passion without wisdom in Ireland were killing people and not even understanding the repercussions. They had focused so much on the discrimination that they had no way to realize they were doing the exact same things, until someone told them. Imagine if diversity classes came bundled with wisdom on how to not go too far and how to not contradict your own values.

I think we need more diversity classes, but I think each individual topic and the class as a whole needs to look at the risks of seeking diversity. In fact, the classes need to actually explore the philosophies behind diversity. Movements that don't consider their own weaknesses or potentials for extremism are some of the most dangerous forces in existence. Not only do we often enable the pendulum effect by not cautioning people when fighting discrimination, but we don’t spend enough time establishing why diversity is valuable so that we can build opinions on that foundation; at times, it can appear more of an assumption without clear reasons.

One additional area I’ve been challenged to think through is in regard to events like Black History Month and MLK day. I liked MLK day, but I didn’t like Black History Month very much, and it took me some time to figure out why. I think the problem is that there’s no balance between accepting and valuing a person's diversity, and being required to embrace them and be involved in their passions.

Black culture is an amazing thing, and I am glad people take time to celebrate it and keep history of it. However, what frustrates me is that many people shame white people for not celebrating it, even though those same people probably wouldn’t attend a “white history month” (I wouldn’t want to either). If I have a geek culture month, or a blonde culture month, I wont be offended if people outside of those interests don’t attend. I’m not petitioning for our government to celebrate those either, though I’d definitely attend a geek culture month (in fact, you could say these are what events like ComicCon are). I’m not going to attack anyone for not attending a nerd convention, even if nerd’s have brought about the amazing technology everyone uses.

Martin Luther King, Jr. day, on the other hand, I very much enjoy because we are celebrating MLK, and not just because of something subjective we relate to (such as body features or personal cultural preference), but because he stood for social justice, which we can all rally around. Luther both acted on social justice, which is worth celebrating, and he gave us ideas that apply to people everywhere. “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Not only will I attend events like this, but I will be rather shocked when other people don’t seem interested in this topic or others like it.