Comments on: Gifted by Otherness: 4 of 6

By: anita

anita — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 18:26:07 +0000

Eliz–> Thank you so much for sharing what you did. Your words stand as a powerful witness of both a faithful God and a heart that desires nothing more or less than to love and follow God. What a journey!

Susan –> Fully awake…I love that. I don’t like to think of how much of my life I napped through. It’s great to be awake to see God working among us. Part 5 is on its way….

Lor –> I’m thrilled in the truest sense of the word that what we have here is a haven for you. We all need places of refuge where we can simply breathe in and out. The Halloween masks…what a great metaphor (and we all know Anita loves metaphor) for being what others would have us to be rather than who we really are. As I read it I immediately remembered and felt one of those hard plastic masks on my face that was just as hot, sweaty, and suffocating as you described and what a relief it was to drop the mask. Beautiful! Coming fully alive takes time but once the journey begins, there’s no going back…and who would want to anyway?

By: Lor

Lor — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 15:14:19 +0000

“In our willingness to live whole lives before a holy God we call others out to bring those hidden parts of themselves out into the light of grace as we have already done and are continuing to do each day.”
Seems to me that this could well be a mission statement for this ministry!

I know that ever since I’ve been entering this “haven” I have been constantly finding myself challenged to question many of my most tightly held concepts of self. As a lesbian and as a prodigal Christian. It’s truly amazing how many of our thoughts and actions in life can be molded by the influence of others(no matter how well intentioned they may be) rather than coming from our true innermost selves.

I Googled the Parker Palmer you mentioned. In one of his articles he uses the term “wearing others people’s faces”. Such an apt description of how we live so much of the time. It reminded me of going trick-or-treating as a child and wearing a Halloween mask. We had alot of fun but I can still remember how hot, sweaty, uncomfortable and hard to breathe it was behind that mask. And what a relief it was to take the mask off at the end of the night and be able to breathe freely again. And even though people gave us candy when we showed up at their door, they never really knew us till we took our masks off.

Your posts make me want to rip the mask off, stomp it to bits and get on with being “fully alive”. Maybe someday…

By: Susan

Susan — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:52:19 +0000

“To live out the full expression of God in us is to live fully and freely alive.”
Yes! Yes! and Yes, again! I believe that God wants us to be fully alive, fully awake, and fully enjoying and using (read “not abusing”) the gifts we’ve been given. Looking forward to part 5.

By: Eliz Anderson

Eliz Anderson — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:58:32 +0000

Anita your term fragmentation I know all too well. The mental damage I have done to myself by setting my religion AS God and determining His will caused me to refuse to even acknowledge myself as gay. But in order to continue to refuse truth and force myself to live a lie I had to fragment my mind to keep from seeing what was always there. Thank God He never has giving up on me. His healing working within me when I finally could deny no more and came to Him. Not caring if He took my life as long as I had Him, just for Him alone to do whatever He chose. Straight, gay, whatever His will was I desired. No longer TELLING God WHAT was His WILL. Finally letting Him be sovereign Lord, God in control rather than me in my human wisdom and religion.

By: anita

anita — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:16:56 +0000

Stephanie–> Amen Girl. And isn’t it nice when you get to the point when you stop determining what’s true based on what other people say should be true and instead look inside your own life and connection with God to know what the truth of your life really is? A very cool thing and a huge step in our spiritual maturity.

Lindsey —> Great thoughts and observations and I look forward to the day when you never have to itch again And how I agree with you that we need each other and the differences that bring to our lives that always keep us stretching beyond our own small perspective and experience of life.

By: Lindsey

Lindsey — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 02:28:48 +0000

I have heard a lot of people say that gays must learn to “hate the vileness that is homosexuality” or some other equivalent thing. It just makes me itch, to think of how much damage comes from turning hatred inward. I love to hear people talk about their journey to embrace themselves as whole beings and learning to love and care for our bodies, these odd little temples of God.

God knew what he was doing when he made us so complex. He knew that we needed our differences, we needed our challenges, we need each other.

Amen to being fully alive!

By: Stephanie

Stephanie — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 21:33:06 +0000

Very powerful Anita.

“You can be fully alive.”

Yes, you can! I think one thing that made it difficult for me to come out was the fear that I may die spiritually. That message had been conveyed to me time and time again by those in the church and those in ex gay ministries.

“Don’t embrace it, it (homosexuality) is death, spiritual and moral decay.”

That’s simply not true.