Monday, April 30, 2012

To the Polls!

Christians in NC should vote for Amendment One on Tuesday.  Or so I'm told.

NC Amendment 1, Section 6 reads in part:


"Marriage between one man and one woman is the only domestic legal union that shall be valid or recognized in this State."

Okay.  Why?

Well, Genesis 1:27, Leviticus 18:22, and Romans 1:26-28 for starters.

Ah then.  Because the Bible says so, right?

Right.

Indeed it does.  What else does the Bible say?  Like... "the works of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality..." Galatians 5:19 or "Flee sexual immorality." 1 Corinthians 6:18 or "abstain from sexual immorality..." 1 Thessalonians 4:3. 

Seems clear enough.  If "sexual immorality" includes anything apart from sex between a husband and wife then that pretty much covers it all.  Sooooo....

where is it?  The other amendment?  The other amendments?  You know, the ones that say:

"It is prohibited for any man or woman to participate in consensual sexual activity while cohabitating apart from marriage, as defined by Amendment One, section 6."

What about the one that says:

"Any teenagers found to be sexually active prior to marriage, as defined by Amendment One, section 6, shall no longer be eligible for public education and must immediately be withdrawn from any public institutes of learning."

What?  You haven't seen these? Haven't signed the petitions?  Haven't bought the t-shirt?  Hmmmm.  Neither have I.  But I'm awfully curious as to why not. 

If conservative Christians are, as they proport to be doing, protecting God's biblical definition of marriage and thereby speaking on His behalf at the polls, then why aren't we formulating, marketing, and pushing through legislation to protect God's biblical sensitivities regarding ALL sexual acts?  Why, in heaven's name, stop with a marriage amendment?

Come on Amie, grace has to supercede law at SOME point.

Ah yes, His grace is sufficient.  Our constitution?  Not so much, I guess.

Well, you can't expect the democratic government of a free and richly diverse people such as America to legislate every point of Christian morality.  That would be legalism at its worst and set us back 200 years to a pre-revolutionary state church existence and would make it nearly impossible to follow Christ's command to show love given the extremity of the law, constant mutual suspicion and condemnation, as well as the likelihood that none could escape its judgments thanks to that darned "all have sinned" thing. 

Oh, how I love when these conversations go right where I want them to. ;-)  You are right.  And what's more it would be impossible because the line of morality among Christians is as variant as the day is long and is most often drawn just inside of one's own level of comfort.

So INSTEAD ---

Perhaps we should remember that the Constitution of the United States is not Scripture.  And that there may be evidences of MANY sacred writings from MANY cultures and belief systems reflected in its content.  But rights should never have been, and should never again be afforded us by our common religion, or common race, or common gender, or common sexuality--but by our common humanity.

Instead, ask yourself "why do we draw the line here and not there?"  "Here" being Amendment One and "there" being the Nth degree of the biblical standard.  And if, in fact, you're not willing to push the line "there" then you have no choice but to unwrap the cause from its spiritual packaging with Bible-verse-quoting ribbons and bows and see that what you are left with is hypocrisy and discrimination.  Stop dressing it up and putting God's name on the gift tag.

Monday, April 23, 2012

Randomness

I never know which blog to blog under.  (SERIOUSLY a first-world problem)  If I talk about family then it should be Sexton Crew but if I mention the hood maybe it should be Launch 150.  Blah.  I'll just hope you don't mind blog-hopping too much and stop stressing about where to share the randomness of our lives.  Occasions such as this morning when Bella came into my bedroom and shouted, "Mom!  Smell my tits!"

Gulp.  My brain went into rapid flip mode, like a card shark shuffling the deck, searching for a reasonable explanation.  Thankfully, I drew an Ace.  The Ace being remembering that Bella has been begging for deodorant lately.

"Bella, do you mean armpits?"  Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes!

"Oh yeah, mom.  Oops.  Not tits.  Armpit."

Oops indeed.  "Bella, please promise you will never, ever again ask someone to smell your tits, okay?"
She complied.  After silly giggling.  The silly giggling concerns me.


Farm life randomness:  We are finally milking the goats.  It's not a perfect science.  They have opinions and attitudes and ridiculously strong hind legs.  I decided to start wearing my "Bailey's Coffee Creamer" apron while milking.  I thought it might inspire them if they caught sight of the competition.  It didn't.  I would say we're working on our technique and they are working on their patience.  Hopefully, that will translate into an abundance of creamy wonderfulness before long.


Rad randomness:  We see progress.  In ourselves.  In Mamoune.  However, we now also see that a few weeks of what looks like a "normal" kid doesn't mean you have a "normal" kid and doesn't mean that your RAD kid can be parented like a "normal" kid.  Failure to recognize this can lead to bad things.  Like finding yourself being body slammed into the bathroom floor and donning some pretty nasty bruises.  I got the full brunt of this particular eruption. 

In retrospect I can see that the steam was rising and it could have been averted.  And while it's not okay and there is much mending to do...I believe it will be even longer before the next episode because of the knowledge I gained.  The bruises will heal.  I am just thankful for the tools I have been given by our therapy so that my heart was not so badly bruised this time and we'll move on from here.  No ground lost.  Just a rest stop.

Normal is way overrated anyway.  And on that note, I will close with this slightly less random thought...

I love Pink. Not the color. The person.


WHAT?!!! Amie, you do NOT mean the gangster-punk-rocker with ever-evolving hair who is raw and brash and has the nerve to write songs that mention things like drinking, fighting, and masturbation and even has a song with the F-bomb right there in the title... do you?

Yep. That's the one. Love her!

Tim and I recently watched the video to her Grammy-nominated song "Perfect". (The clean title and version of "F#%*ing Perfect") It is powerful. It is convicting. It is moving. I showed it to my daughter. My attachment disorder, fit-throwing, body changing every day, hormonal, pre-teen, out of control, body slamming, effin' perfect daughter.  Maybe you should show it to yours, too.