Do I understand what I believe?

After the SCOTUS ruling on marriage equality two things happened on my social media, a flurry of support/elation and the converse of dissention.  I'm not naïve that any decision would be met with all support, but what I found to be the most fascinating is the use of biblical rationale for the opposition.  Because I'm naturally introspective, I of course began to question my faith. 

I am a devout Christian who tries to live out my faith daily, some days my actions/responses are an outstanding representation of the Christian faith and there are the days I would rather not speak of.  However, when I see my Christian tribe spew hate I stop to think, how are We practicing from the same doctrine?  I do not claim to be a theologian, but because of this tugging on my heart I believe strongly, this is God's way of saying I cannot live out the word without understanding the word.  Therefore, I must be able to understand (because that's who I am) what God truly said about how he intended His children to live out our lives when it comes to marriage.

I think the calling then becomes for me to engage those who oppose the union of all marriage and seek out what the word says.  As I type these words I feel a bit of anxiety, because I would rather read a good book, or work on my novel, or maybe work on my dissertation, rather than what I'm about to do.  Ultimately, I hope through this interaction I will be able to increase my faith, by seeking the truth.  My hope is that I will be able to find and explain that God is not divisive and speak truth.

A great sadness...

The last 6 months living on the East Coast has been extremely troubling.  I like to think of myself as an advocate and seek to understand social issues before weighing in.  While externally my country has been in great turmoil on reconciling tough issues, what's been the most troubling is the reactions of people I call friends.  I have witnessed my friends post extremist ideals and extremely hurtful "troll like" responses.  I've began to reflect on how broken we all are and that I don't know these friends really well.   Take a beat Coco, which is my way of saying don't rush to judgment. 

I think now 2 months of reflection I realize when people are hurt and do not feel heard, the initial reaction/response seems to be anger.  Anger, for me is not a useful reaction because it doesn't resolve the issue.  I think a more compelling reaction is compassion.  Now, I have to clarify, I often feel anger, but I redirect once I've had an opportunity to reflect on the root cause of the emotion.  This mechanism for me has come as a result of years of therapy and a lot of internal work.  I've found this approach to be much more helpful when trying to address extremely complex issues.

This post then leads me to ask, if we all took time to be more compassionate could we resolve longstanding issues?  I would lean to think possibly, but it would also require us to be less self-righteous and more humble, two things I know I continue to struggle with.  But, I think if we sought to be more compassionate we would also have to get closer to the problems.  For some of us we would rather be side-line commentators, who express our anger, instead of helping to do the work to fix the problem.  Or in some cases be a part of the movement to fix that helps fix the problem.  I encourage you then to pick a side, the side of compassion.