In the most recent Christian headlines it would seem Jenninfer Knapp has come out of the closet. According to Christianity Today, the singer/songwriter has been in a relationship with her partner for “almost eight years” and cites her lifestyle choice as one of the many straws that drove her away from full time songwriting for seven years.  It’s a good article but the following words from Jennifer were the ones I found most profound:

During my college years, I received some admonishment about some relationships I’d had with women. Some people said, “You might want to renegotiate that,” even though those relationships weren’t sexual. Hindsight being 20/20, I guess it makes sense. But if you remove the social problem that homosexuality brings to the church—and the debate as to whether or not it should be called a “struggle,” because there are proponents on both sides—you remove the notion that I am living my life with a great deal of joy. It never occurred to me that I was in something that should be labeled as a “struggle.” The struggle I’ve had has been with the church, acknowledging me as a human being, trying to live the spiritual life that I’ve been called to, in whatever ramshackled, broken, frustrated way that I’ve always approached my faith. I still consider my hope to be a whole human being, to be a person of love and grace. So it’s difficult for me to say that I’ve struggled within myself, because I haven’t. I’ve struggled with other people. I’ve struggled with what that means in my own faith. I have struggled with how that perception of me will affect the way I feel about myself.

Knapp always been one of my (few) favorite “Christian” singer/songwriters and I’m looking forward to her latest.

I’ve heard about these “Town Hall Meetings” and seen how they’ve been sensationalized by both sides but when I see this I just have to ask: What is wrong with people?

I’m not sure what is going on with the kind of fervor behind these outbursts.  We may disagree with people but to tear someone apart because you can begs to ask a much bigger question.  I can’t say this is really about “politics”, in fact I think “politics” is a flimsy facade that many folks are simply hiding behind. Healthcare and Economic stimulus’ aside, part of me wonders if the prices of reality TV and the readily accessible information (opinions) that live on the web are finally taking their toll on us.

It is not the magnitude of our actions but the amount of love that is put into them that matters.

- Mother Teresa

A little while back Cara and I were headed out for coffee on a Saturday morning when we noticed some commotion on the corner a few blocks from our loft.  We’re getting more comfortable with “city life” and it’s always interesting to see so many diverse people interacting in such a small space. In the county people typically avoid anyone not “like” them, here people have no choice but to run into people who aren’t “like” them.

So we investigate a bit more and see that the folks on the corner are protesting. Protesting what: a union? healthcare? Obama? No, abortion. The reason they’re on this corner is because that is where the clinic is; a few blocks from where we eat sushi, down the street from where I get my haircut and on the way to our favorite Saturday morning coffee place.

All of a sudden this place, these people are in my neighborhood. I’m no longer in the grandstand, I’m on the same street.

I don’t really want to talk about abortion and faith but where I do want to stay is in a place that sees those things and is fully aware of where we can be, in the neighborhood.  Too often we (I) devise ways to make these real situations entirely theoretical or overly simplistic and in doing so we lose something in the adaptation; I think we lose love.

The song in the beautiful video above talks about unrequited love, knowing that something isn’t felt by the other person. (It also reminds me of Willow) I’m not judging the folks outside the clinic but I want to use them as a tool for introspection: am I showing people love? Not romantic love but something that transcends that, am I reaching out to those that need that voice, that reassurance or am I becoming another one of their scars?

Do we examine our motives constantly and always seek to show love of do we get caught up in the comfortable game of being “right?”  By being “right” am I ceasing to “love?”

Something in your voice,
sparks a little hope
I’ll wait up for that noise
your voice becomes my home

So. On a lighter note I’m trying *really* hard to get back into this blogging thing, despite my tendencies to write absolutely nothing and rarely comment on anyone else’s blog… For your own entertainment check out this week’s episode of This American Life. They run into my friend Cole and get his thoughts on spending the evening in a Chik-fil-a parking lot with folks smitten by a certain chikin sandwich.

If you’re in St. Louis this weekend be sure to stop by the Mad Art Gallery in the Benton Park neighborhood as Cara is having another craft show