Guys, Not Everyone With A Confederate Flag Is Racist!

If I had a dollar for every time I saw a Facebook post that made me angry, I could afford to get guac on my burritos when I go to chipotle because I would be considerably well off. I have quite the diverse range of Facebook friends, so I see a diverse range of opinions in my Newsfeed. Usually, I just ignore people and let them be. However, this time I just got so heated I had to write out a few things in order to vent, and it’s turned into a blog post.

I’ll get right to the point. I have noticed that there are a lot of people who are upset about the confederate flag being removed. A few southern states have already removed them from their state grounds, and more states may follow their example. Some stores like wal mart have decided to stop selling confederate flag merchandise. And because of these decisions, some folks in the south feel like their “history is being taken from them.”

I have no idea where to even begin addressing this. Let’s just try to break it all down and see if we can get at the heart of what is upsetting people. The confederate flag is a symbol. Indeed, it represents a particular history, a particular experience, a particular culture. It is a symbol of Southern pride—but only for some people. The key point that those who are so desperately clinging to this flag while simultaneously proclaiming “I’m not a racist!” seem to be missing is that that flag means something completely different to black Americans. For them, it is also a symbol. It also represents a particular history, experience, and culture, but it is NOT a source of pride.

That flag has been the icon of black oppression since the civil war. It is an icon of hate. It is a symbol that creates division. Our country is in desperate need of racial healing, and clinging to the confederate flag for the sake of preserving your history sends a message to your neighbors that their history and experience is less important than yours. After all, what are you really trying to preserve? What does the flag really represent? It represents a tradition of hierarchy where whites hold all the power and blacks are treated as second-class citizens, or worse. The confederate flag reminds us of who has held the power all throughout US history, and now this refusal to let it go is further evidence that our modern day situation has not improved much. White Americans still have the upper hand, and that hand is a clenched fist wrapped around a confederate flag.

If we truly want to move forward as a nation, if we truly seek equality, then those in power have to be willing to surrender this false sense of entitlement. Change cannot happen without making sacrifices, and at this point I’m talking about more than just a stupid flag. We need humility, grace, and mercy. We need to acknowledge the hurting that is going on in our very own communities.

It is easy to dismiss events like the tragedy in Charleston because we can tell ourselves that it was just the extreme actions of a terrorist. But the ugly truth is that our complacency as a nation to the plight of the black community has contributed to a culture of hate that allows such events to take place. Nine black Americans--our brothers and sisters--were gunned down in a church. Nine innocent people were violently murdered simply for being black, and yet YOU are the ones who feel threatened?

Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Faith and Stuff: Confronting the 'What ifs'

“But what about babies?”

We were sitting in someone’s living room, having “small groups” or “bible study” or whatever you want to call it, and someone had just finished explaining the hard, uncomfortable truth of the fate of non-believers: We are all deserving of hell. It is only by God’s grace that any of us are saved. It is unfortunate, but not unfair that those who have never heard the gospel die and go to hell. That is why it is so urgent that we send out missionaries and spread the gospel at every opportunity we have.

“Are you telling me, that babies who die are currently burning in hell?” I asked angrily. “Because we all deserve hell? Even those innocent children who never had a chance at receiving God’s grace?”

I never received a satisfying answer that evening, which wasn’t uncommon during youth group. I refused to accept that God was tossing infants into the fiery pit, but we left it at that. There were a lot of things I was unwilling to accept back then, but it was often easier to ignore them. Whenever I started to ask questions, I was always discouraged by the “answers” I received. I struggled with my faith a bit, but eventually, I learned how to handle these tough encounters without hurling myself into a faith crisis. Whenever I read a difficult passage in the bible, I would close the pages and offer up a prayer:

God. I don’t understand what the heck I just read. I have no idea why you would say such a thing. BUT. I trust you. And I hope that someday, I will reach a better understanding of all this.

With this established trust, it became a lot easier to stomach those crazy Old Testament passages, and my Senior year of high school, I accidentally fell in love with the OT. Such vibrant stories! They were a mystery I never tired of solving. Just in time, too.

When I was accepted to Eastern University, there were a few dear members of my congregation who were concerned about the nature of this particular Christian school. They didn’t want me to fall prey to “false teachers” and lose my faith. I wasn’t worried though. My faith had already been tested many times before and had only grown stronger because of those trials. I could handle anything those liberal Christians would throw at me.

When I learned that all incoming freshmen were required to take Intro Old Testament and New Testament courses, I was super excited. Finally! I would have access to a real bible scholar who could answer all of my questions and help me unlock the mysteries of the OT. I had a plan: I would befriend this professor, just like I had befriended all of my teachers in high school, and then he would have to spend the rest of his life answering all of my questions. I was a bit discouraged when I realized there were 200 other students in the class (how are we supposed to become best friends if I am but 1 out of 200 students???), but I sat near the front and hoped for the best.

Spoiler alert: we did become friends, but he never answered any of my questions. In fact, he only ever left me with MORE questions. Jerk.

Even so, that class--along with a number of other experiences I had that first year away from home-- changed my life forever.

I was incredibly resistant at first. I’m always resistant to change. At one point I had even convinced myself that my professor was one of those False Teachers I had been warned about. It was a shame that such a nice guy was secretly evil and probably going to hell.

Eventually, though, I had to admit to myself that things just weren’t adding up anymore. I began to wonder if I was really guarding my faith or if I was guarding something else.

What if?

What if asking questions doesn’t have to result in a crisis of faith? What if God is big enough to handle my uncertainty? What if God doesn’t need defending? What if I let go of my need for answers, for certainty?

I was afraid that if I let go of my beliefs I would lose everything, even God. And then I would just be floating around in the abyss of the Unknown, without a foothold.

But then I remembered that prayer from high school. It was founded on trust, not right belief. Maybe it was time to revisit that prayer:

God, I don’t always understand what’s going on. I don’t like not having all the answers. But I trust you. And I am grateful to be on this journey.

Thus, like Elsa, I let it go...

Sorry, couldn’t help myself. But anyway, that was the beginning of a very long, still on-going process of change for me. My whole perspective on God, sin, life, and even love, have changed dramatically over the years. I may continue to write about what that process has looked like for me. Or not. Who knows? My moods are unpredictable.

Rejection and Stuff

So, it has basically been a year since I’ve written anything for this blog. I am soooo on top of things. I have about five other posts that I started and never finished. Honestly, I can only find motivation to write something if I am avoiding writing something else--but since I’m not a student anymore, there are not a whole lot of opportunities to avoid writing something.

But recently I've been working on a rèsumè and cover letter. Let me tell you, rèsumès and cover letters are the worst things ever. I hate them so much. I have to talk about how great I am when I don’t really think I’m all that great, and I have to somehow convince the reader that they should hire me without flat out begging them. It’s miserable. So I figured I should write a blog post instead of submitting my application.

This is a job that I really want and that I think will open a lot of doors for me. But I haven’t applied yet. I keep planning out the next steps, like what I’ll say in the interview, or what I should wear. But I still haven’t applied yet. I like thinking about how great it will be if I get the job. My life will be so much better if I get the job, and I can see a lot of the loose ends in my life finally coming together if I get this job. But. I STILL have not applied.

Why is that? Good question, Self. I think the most obvious reason is that I’m afraid I won’t get

the job.

Now I realize that if I don’t apply, then I most certainly will not get the job. But you see, the difference is that if I don’t apply, then they will never have the opportunity to reject me. And once again it all comes down to fear of rejection and what rejection means. If I never apply, then I will have a (very lame and pathetic) excuse for not getting the job. But if I do apply, and they still don’t hire me, well then it could only be because I am a worthless failure at the very core of my being.

That’s not true, and I know it’s not true, but sometimes I just have a really hard time believing it.

If I let fear dictate my life, then I will have to watch countless opportunities pass me by while I sit here designing my own hell. I don’t want to do that.

So here is what it comes down to: If I don’t get this job, it won’t feel great, but it also won’t be the end of the world. Learning to deal with rejection is hard. But what I need to remember--and I think everyone could benefit from this advice--is that it is not our circumstances that define us, but how we respond to those circumstances that reflect who we are. It’s never too late to change how we respond to the challenges in our lives.

I guess I’ll go ahead and submit that application now.

Competition and Stuff

On Friday I was catching up with a dear friend of mine, and in an effort to make small talk he asked me if I was following any of the March Madness Football.

Yeah. So I don’t really care for televised sports and obviously most of my friends don’t either (though even I know that March Madness is about baseball, not football--jeez). I’ve never been able to get into all the hype. But recently in one of my classes I was required to reflect on the nature of competition, and this led to a lot of self-reflection.

I played sports as a kid. I played basketball early on and then slowly transitioned to softball and baseball. My mom always forced me to try something at least once, and then if I didn’t like it, she didn’t push me to continue. But aside from pushing me to give these things a try, there was no more pressure from my parents. I can remember basketball games with other parents who would scream from the sidelines until they were blue in the face. I always felt so sorry for those girls as I watched them run up and down the court with tears streaming down their faces because their parents were never satisfied.

I didn’t need crazy parents to fuel my competitive streak, though. That’s the weird thing. I have enough of a competitive nature all on my own. I was a very aggressive defensive player. And if you tried to stop me or if you got in my way I WOULD THROW YOU TO THE GROUND. Remember, this is elementary school we’re talking about here.

I think transitioning to softball was better for me. It’s somewhat less of a contact sport…. But I don’t need a basketball court or a softball field in order to display my dominance. If you’ve ever played a game of Risk with me, you know exactly what I’m talking about.

The thing with competition is that I don’t think I’ve ever been competing against the other team; I have always competed against myself. If my team lost a game, I never really took it personally because, you know, it’s just a game. I was my softball team’s captain in 8th grade, and I was super encouraging to the girls when they were beating themselves up over striking out or not playing the field well. After all, we’re just here to have fun. But if I did something wrong, well then that was a completely different story. It’s amazing how my brain interprets a given situation. A strikeout? Oh. Guess it’s time to get “Loser” permanently tattooed onto my forehead.

My problem is that I’m a perfectionist who doesn’t believe in myself. That means that if there is a competition that I don’t believe I can win, then I won’t even participate. Perfectionists aren’t content to just get by. We have to be the best. So in my coursework, if there is an assignment that proves to be too much of a challenge, I would rather not turn anything in and get a zero than submit something that might reveal my inferiority. That’s how you end up with a “perfectionist” with a C average. It’s fear. I’m afraid to confront my own inadequacies.

If it sounds like I don’t know where I’m going with this, that’s because I don’t. I’m pretty much working this out as I go along.

Perhaps the real issue is my source of self-worth. I’m not even sure what standard I’m trying to measure up to, but I am slowly learning to accept that literally no one can live up to the standards that I have set for myself. If I’m ever going to be able to truly love myself, then I have to stop being my own opponent.

Birds and Backpacks

It is incredibly entertaining to watch someone else play Flappy Bird, particularly if they are not very good at it. They scream and curse and get all sorts of bent out of shape over it. For the longest time I refused to play the game because I knew that I would get sucked in like everyone else. But then one of my friends downloaded it onto my phone against my wishes. It didn’t take long for me to get hooked. The stupid, stupid bird just flaps and flaps until it runs into the green tunnel thingies and then it just plummets straight to the ground and lands on its stupid face and just lays there, defeated. It is incredibly frustrating--and addicting. But as soon as the game is over, you just hit play and start over with the next flappy bird, flapping and flapping with no real end in sight.

After awhile, I began to sympathize with the dumb bird. Yes, I am aware of how ridiculous I sound right now. But I mean, sometimes I feel like the bird in the game. I’m just doing the best I can to weave my way through the obstacles and just keep flapping for as long as I can. I don’t always know what my goal is, other than to just keep going. Sometimes, I do really well and I can keep flapping for a long time and I feel like a pro at life until BAM! I run into a metaphorical green tunnel thingy. Then I fall, and I fall hard. Other times I can’t seem to get very far at all without constantly running into some obstacle, and even the slightest problem that I run into can be enough to knock me flat on my face. Sometimes, I don’t want to get back up and keep flapping. I just want to lay there on my face because what even is the point?

Have I worn this analogy out yet? Let’s switch gears a bit. I was recently trying to explain to someone what my depression and anxiety feels like, and I believe I ended up describing it as a sort of cloak of darkness that I wear. But I don’t really like that because it doesn’t accurately depict the weight of the burden that I bear. After some thought, I decided that it’s more like a backpack that I am always carrying. On some days, the backpack is light and I am able to carry on with ease. But other days, my backpack is inexplicably heavier. It contains all sorts of things: my fear, my anger, my hatred, my doubt, my anxiety, my sadness--and so much pain.

I can’t take the backpack off. It’s always there. Even when it doesn’t seem so heavy, it’s still there. When it grows heavy, I can try to ignore it, to pretend that I’m not really carrying all that stuff around. But the charade can only go on for so long before the backpack gets so heavy that I can’t keep going anymore.

I have to unpack the backpack.

There are a number of ways to do that. Journaling helps. Friends help. Therapy helps. Pretending that I don’t have the backpack or all the things inside the backpack does not help. Knowing that I’m not the only one with a backpack does help. Knowing that the backpack will not always be so unbearably heavy also helps. Carrying around my Perpetual Backpack of Grief has made me a stronger person, and the items in my backpack also help me to be particularly sensitive to others who carry backpacks of their own. I’m still figuring out how to bear my backpack with wisdom and patience. I have a few wonderful people in my life who are helping me along. But I hope that someday I can be the sort of person who is able to help others carry their burdens, just as I have been helped.

I think that’s a goal worth flapping toward.

Why I’m Promoting Narcissism

Okay, obviously nobody really likes a narcissist, and striving to become one sounds like a terrible idea. I’m not really trying to promote narcissism with my blog. In fact, typing the word “narcissism” is already starting to get on my nerves. The reason why I use that word is because I like to exaggerate and use extremes. And that’s part of my problem.

I have a history of being way too hard on myself. I’m talking about some pretty intense self-loathing here. This was a pattern that I spent a lifetime developing. Old habits die hard. Especially when I am under pressure, my initial reaction is always to direct my anger and frustration at myself. Having the pattern of self-hatred so firmly ingrained into my psyche means that I have to work extra hard to break that cycle. I can’t just decide one day that I’m actually pretty great and move forward from there. I have to replace my old habits with new ones, and since my old habits involve taking self-hatred to the extreme, I have to be proactive about loving myself.

So when I talk about narcissism, what I mean is going beyond simply not hating myself. I mean having some self-confidence and allowing myself to be proud of myself every now and then. I mean offering myself the same grace that I allow others in my life. Basically, I mean loving myself as I have loved my neighbor.

I’ve always been taught to love my neighbor as I love myself. I think sometimes that command often gets misconstrued as “Love your neighbor more than yourself.” In fact, I once heard a lady from my church misquote it exactly that way. So I used to think that I should set my own needs aside and focus on loving everyone else. I had it backwards. I thought by being a good friend, a good sister, a good daughter, a good student, I would become a good person and that would make me more capable of loving myself. But what I have learned in recent years is that in order to love my neighbor fully, I have to first know how to love myself. It makes sense, really. Loving your neighbor as yourself isn’t such a great thing if you happen to hate yourself.

So I’m working on loving myself. That means ALL parts of me, even the messy parts. Especially the messy parts. It also means believing I am worthy of the love and respect I receive from others. It means finally embracing the knowledge that I, too, am made in the image of God--and that makes me pretty freaking awesome.

10 Mantras for my “Christmas of Courage”

No need to go into details, but this year my return home from college for the winter break was to hold a lot of challenges for me. In my last session with my counselor before leaving she gave me one final assignment to be completed on the plane ride home: create a list of ten mantras to use over the break. This is an exercise in “Positive Self-Talk” because I have a nasty tendency to be my own worst enemy. I’ve decided to share my mantras because… that’s what blogs are for I guess. Maybe some of them could also be useful to others.

1. I’m stronger than I think.

I word it this way because I’m not trying to fool myself with these mantras. If I just said “I am strong,” that would probably be ineffective because I certainly don’t feel like a strong person. But it’s important to remind myself that even though I don’t always recognize my strengths, I have overcome quite a bit so I truly must be stronger than I think.

2. I’m scared, but I’m also brave.

Being scared is not weakness. It’s natural. Being brave is persevering despite the gripping fear that makes it so hard.

3. I’m not alone.

Sometimes I still feel alone despite the dozens of people in my life who support me. It’s important to remember how blessed I am to have these people in my life.

4. Sometimes courage comes with crying.

This is another area in which I am way too hard on myself. I hate crying. But I do it all the time. Which means I get upset with myself often. But crying isn’t weakness either. Crying is a healthy way of processing and expressing my emotions, and it’s a heck of a lot better than trying to hold all of that crap inside.

5. I’m doing the right thing.

This ones pretty simple, but I’ve found that I’ve had to use it a lot. When taking such a huge step as I have, there will always be obstacles that can invite doubt.

6. I am ushering in change.

Even though change can be very hard sometimes, it can also bring forth a lot of positive outcomes.

7. I am becoming…

Sounds really profound right? Or unbearably cheesy… But our actions do have an impact on us. My actions are molding me into a better, stronger, more confident person.

8. Ten is a lot of mantras.

Okay, I get that ten is a great number when you’re making lists, but it seems a bit excessive for a list of mantras. I’m running out of ideas.

9. I am not responsible for other people’s feelings/reactions.

I can’t really take credit for this one because it’s something that a mentor/friend told me before my trip home, but I think I’ve actually used this one the most so far. It is so, so important to remember that I cannot control how people respond to me. When people get upset, I am not responsible for their feelings.

10. It will get better.

I hate ending on such a cliche note, but it is a good idea to remember that these challenging trials don’t last forever. Even when the struggle seems endless, there will always be a light at the end of the tunnel.