Reprioritization

Yes, I’m still alive. And now I’ll explain why I’ve replaced the byline: “The random musings and Marxist rants of a Leftist, gay, Christian, vegan, Buddhist geek.” with “[...]“.

I’ve had to do some self-evaluation, look at what my priorities have been, and figure out why I’ve not been myself lately. I know that may sound like that hippie self-reflective off-to-the-woods/mountain/country-to-find-myself bullshit, but rest-assured I didn’t even miss a day of work in my whole self-evaluation process. In fact, it was a very simple process. I just set aside for a moment what I thought my priorities were, and asked myself, when have I been, truly, at my best? What has brought me real joy in life, and what must I do to get my life back on track? Don’t get me wrong, my life is good. I have a brilliant and gorgeous husband whom I love dearly, a great job, financial stability, a fantastic apartment overlooking Manhattan, loving family and friends, everything anyone could ask for and more. In that respect, my life is on track, and yet…

I’ve found myself frequently stressed out, short-tempered, and behaving in a manner of someone other than myself. I was going out of my way to be nasty to people who irked me. In short, I had become what I hated.* At one point I woke up in the middle of the night crying for no reason. I don’t know how Dino put up with me. For both our sakes, I had to figure out what was wrong and rectify it.

I realized I was neglecting an important need in my life. I have friends, family, and comrades, but I didn’t have a church. I was so far removed, I was even downplaying my views (and lying to myself) by claiming to be a weak agnostic of sorts. I’ve since realized that isn’t what I really believe, but I was so wrapped up in work and politics that I neglected my relationship with God, and my need for fellowship with my fellow Christians. I was fortunate to find a church that made me feel welcome, as well as a gay Christian group on meetup.com (although the last couple of meetings has only been 4 of us counting myself). Since I’ve changed my focus, I’ve been able to read and listen to conservatives without becoming angry. While I am still a Marxist, vegan, Buddhist, gay, and geeky, all those things are secondary. I am, first-and-foremost, (brace yourselves, my atheist friends) an evangelical, born-again Christian.

Now, forget everything you may think you know about evangelical, born-again Christians. “Born again” means I have made a commitment to having a personal relationship with God. “Evangelical” means I take that personal relationship, and the Bible, seriously, especially the Gospel message (although not everything in the Bible is literally true). I honestly believe that Jesus is the incarnation of God, that he died for our sins as a final sacrifice, and that he arose from the dead. And yes, I know how crazy that sounds. It’s even crazier than the idea that we shouldn’t kill sentient creatures for food. I can’t help but believe it. I’ve experienced God in so many ways in my life, to reject that would be so horribly dishonest I wouldn’t know how to live with myself. I’m not ashamed of what I believe.

In saying all this, I feel like I’m coming out all over again. I realize I may lose friends. I realize people may think less of me, or ridicule me, but I have to be honest with myself.

All that said, I still won’t shove my religion down your throat. But I won’t hide it either. I’ll gladly share my thoughts and beliefs with anyone who will listen. (For those “anyones,” I’m starting a new project documenting my faith journey: Testimony of an Unlikely Christian. I hope to develop this project into a book.)

And I’m still for the separation of church and state. All people deserve the right to live and worship and believe (or disbelieve) as they see fit, and no person has the right to impose his or her beliefs on another.

And no, this isn’t a satirical post. I meant every word of it.

* No doubt many of my friends on the Vegan Freak Forums will recognize this inside joke. But it isn’t really a joke here.

Bible Study Software

I’m a relatively new convert to Protestantism (2 years). Having been raised Catholic, I feel I do not have the solid understanding of the Bible that I should. I’m also a geek. So naturally, I have bible study software on my computer. Here’s a brief overview of the applications I’ve tinkered with, and which I recommend.

JSword Bible Desktop
http://www.crosswire.org/jsword/

JSword is a powerful free application that makes Bible study easy. It features parallel bible comparisons, footnotes, dictionaries, devotional readings, and is fully expandable through JSword bible and resource modules. It is available for free under the GNU General Public License.

This is the application I’m currently using, and I’m fairly happy with it. It still has some minor bugs that need to be worked out, but I’m confident that this will eventually parallel e-Sword in features and performance. I highly recommend using this.

E-Sword
http://www.e-sword.net/

E-Sword is a free, closed-source application and probably one of the best applications out there. It has virtually all the features of JSword projects, but is much more refined and stable. It also provides Bible modules containing the Deuterocanonical and Apocryphal books, Strongs concordance, and other nice features one would hope to find in a commercial Bible study application.
The only downside is that it is not open source, and it is restricted to the Microsoft Windows platform. It also lacks the easy module manager of Bible Desktop. Nonetheless, if you use Windows, I highly recommend trying this out.

MacSword
http://www.macsword.com/

This is another free, open-source Sword-based project. It features a very nice Aqua user interface. It is relatively easy to use, but lacks a lot of the more powerful features of Bible Desktop. If you are a Mac user, I recommend checking both Bible Desktop and MacSword to see which you like better. It’s not my favorite application, but it’s worth looking at.

As much as I like to support free and open-source software, one drawback is that many modern bible translations are restricted by copyright and cannot be used in these applications. Given that, I may cave-in and pay for a commercial application. But for now I’m happy with Bible Desktop, and using the hard copies of more modern translations when necessary.

Gifts of Love

I figured I’d get this entry in while I’m on my lunch break.

I am a Christian. I wear a necklace of the Hindu deity Ganesha, the Lord of Obstacles. It seems appropriate when I’m writing and debugging code. It was given to me by Dino’s sister, a devout Hindu woman, as a wedding present. I don’t consider it heretical or idolatrous. For one, I believe God reveals God’s self in many different ways to many different peoples and cultures, and to claim to have the one truth and understanding of God (as, sadly, many Christians seem to do), is – quite frankly – racist. Second, it was a gift, lovingly given, from my sister-in-law, to her new brother-in-law. It was a gift of love, how could it not be of God?

Such things aren’t idols. They aren’t worshiped. They serve as reminders of the love God and others have for us. The keep us mindful of things we may normally take for granted. I’m Protestant, and traditionally Protestants are opposed to graven images, but I was also raised Catholic, and I have a crucifix, and a figurine of St. Francis, and a small statue of the Buddha. They are just things, but they serve as reminders, as points of meditation. If I were to loose them, I would not loose that which they represent, which is far more important.

Life in perspective …

As of this weekend, I’ve been unemployed (not counting the 4 weeks at Target) now for 7 months.  I am going to have to explain to my creditors that I cannot make the payment I was supposed to make last week, that I have no one I can borrow money from, and I have no job and no income.

I don’t like South Florida.  It’s like one giant suburbia.  There is nothing intellectually stimulating here.  The nearest half-way decent universities are 20 miles in either direction,  and mass transit sucks.

I’ve lost virtually any desire to go to any church on Sunday.  The only Christian church that advocates veg*nism does so for the wrong reasons and is conservative/fundamentalist.  The more progressive congregations won’t extend the compassion they profess to the most innocent and exploited in this world.  So when the potlucks and fellowship dinners are scheduled, I have to excuse myself.

Apart from my husband and our mutual friends, I have no real friends down here.  I have no comrades down here – no one to discuss Marxism.  At times I’ve felt so isolated.

There are other matters that have had me feeling down, but they are too private to share on a blog.  But enough of this pity party.

As I was waking up this morning with Dino in my arms, I was reminded why I moved down here in the first place.  I thought about how drastically my life has changed for the better over the past couple of years.  I may need to find work.  I may be in horrible debt.  But when I consider what I gave up against what I’ve gained, there is no doubt in my mind that I’ve made the right decision in coming down here.

In spite of everything, life is good.

Separation of Church and State

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

-First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America

Our government is in the grips of the so-called “Christian Right.” In spite of this, many conservative Christians imagine themselves the victim of some invisible secular humanist movement that wants to destroy God and their rights to practice their religion.

All people should have a right to practice their religion, provided it does not interfere with the rights of others.  When a religious belief becomes imposed on others who do not share the same views, then religion becomes an oppressive force.  When public Christian prayer is mandated in public schools, those students who are not Christian are forced to sit quietly and listen.  In public spaces, where free speech should be protected, one can simply walk away.  Students are not free to do so, and no one has the right to impose their views on another in this manner.

Many of these same Christians, if they were the minority and found their children having to sit through non-Christian prayers, would object just as readily as the atheists, and rightly so.  Yet the golden rule tells them to do unto others as they would have done to them.  They shouldn’t have to sit through prayers they disagree with, so they shouldn’t subject others to it as well.

We should all be free to worship – or not worship – as we see fit.  We should not force others to subject themselves to our concept of God.

Too much net-surfing, not enough time

The Internets are ruining my life. I’m on sites I never dreamed I’d be on. I’m on friggin’ MySpace, FFS! I’m also on other forums and networking sites. I spend way too much time wondering why people haven’t responded to friend requests yet. It’s so silly, I forget that people have better things to do, including myself.

I went to yet another church last Sunday, this time it was a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). The service was nice, albeit a little boring. They had a fellowship dinner following the service. I explained I’m a vegan and don’t go to any meals where meat is served. So I went home. I can’t stand to be in the presence of people as they’re eating flesh. I can barely stand to be in the presence of vegetarians as they’re eating eggs or dairy. Why do people find it so difficult to extend basic compassion to those outside their own species? I think most people would go vegan if they had to do the dirty business of “food” acquisition themselves.

My PC is on the fritz. I need to replace the heatsink. It’s easy enough to do once I can get around to getting the replacement part. In the meantime, I’m on an old Mac iBook. It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so slow and the touchpad wasn’t so friggin’ sensitive. Every time I’m typing something, the cursor will jump to wherever the pointer is, and I get annoyed.

Christmas day I’ll be flying back up North to see my friends and family. I haven’t seen them since moving down here in August. It’ll be nice to see everyone, but I’m going to miss my husband, who is staying home because he can’t handle the cold.

Roman Catholics and Fundamentalists

Catholics are an odd lot. (Insert standard disclaimer here, that what I say here doesn’t apply to all Catholics, and I actually know quite a few nice Catholics. So if you’re reading this and you’re Catholic, don’t take this personally.) My experience has been that if Catholics meet a non-Catholic (Protestant or non-Christian) they are generally civil and tolerant (as much as I hate the word “tolerant,” it is apt to use it here). However, in interacting with people like me – an ex-Catholic who converted to Protestantism – the dynamic changes and they suddenly go on the defensive, asking me questions like why I left, don’t I miss Communion, etc. I try to answer those questions as best I can, but they act as though I am challenging their faith in defending my own. I find this absurd in the extreme, because it’s not only the same God we recognize and worship, but the same representation and manifestation of God, the same holy book (although my Bible has fewer books than the Roman Catholic canon, at least we actually read our Bible). In any case, my reasons for leaving are personal, and if any Catholic feels threatened by my decision, then they really should examine their own faith and ask why they feel challenged.

To be perfectly frank, I think a large part of the problem is a misunderstanding of what Protestant Christianity is. When fundamentalist evangelicals discuss Protestantism, they talk as though they have a monopoly on the word. (For an example of this attitude, visit www.chick.com.) Protestant refers to any Christian denomination, individual, organization, etc. that is not Catholic or Orthodox. As a Protestant, I do not believe the Bible is the literal word of God. I do not believe non-Christians are condemned unless they repent and convert. I make no pretense that I know what awaits me or anyone else after this life is done – I am more concerned with how I should live my life now. I make no effort to convert others – nor do I feel that anyone should. Religion and spirituality are personal matters for me. I’m willing to share what I believe, because it is a part of myself, but I would never try to make others believe as I do. I am not so arrogant to believe I have all the answers. I believe all religious traditions have something profound to say about life and God.

In the words of His Holiness the Dali Lama, “Lovingkindness is my religion.”