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  1. <?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><?xml-stylesheet href="http://www.blogger.com/styles/atom.css" type="text/css"?><feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom' xmlns:openSearch='http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/' xmlns:blogger='http://schemas.google.com/blogger/2008' xmlns:georss='http://www.georss.org/georss' xmlns:gd="http://schemas.google.com/g/2005" xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001</id><updated>2024-04-19T22:07:46.241-07:00</updated><category term="My Journey"/><category term="gay Christian"/><category term="gay"/><category term="YouTube"/><category term="community"/><category term="relationships"/><category term="Side X (ex-gay)"/><category term="Catalyst"/><category term="Hot Zone"/><category term="GCN"/><category term="Milestone Post"/><category term="trips"/><category term="dating"/><category term="My Church Paradigm"/><category term="My Story"/><category term="vision"/><category term="Beyond Ex-Gay (bXg)"/><category term="marriage equality"/><category term="TWC Collaborative Community"/><category term="suicide"/><category term="buddy"/><category term="sex"/><category term="work"/><category term="Heroes"/><category term="Coalition of Bridge Builders"/><category term="Family"/><category term="My Dad"/><category term="Ethnic Shame"/><category term="Journey Christians"/><category term="Makena"/><category term="Media Mentions"/><category term="The Blade"/><category term="divorce"/><category term="military"/><category term="Free Hugs"/><category term="HIV/AIDS Collaborative"/><category term="toastmasters"/><category term="Blog Favs"/><category term="Jay Brannan"/><category term="flirting"/><category term="swervemat"/><category term="Ex-Gay Watch (XGW)"/><category term="God Dream"/><category term="Just For Fun"/><category term="green space"/><category term="protests"/><title type='text'>Two World Collision</title><subtitle type='html'>These are the chronicles of my journey into two clashing worlds - being &lt;strong&gt;Gay&lt;/strong&gt; and being &lt;strong&gt;Christian&lt;/strong&gt;.  Both seem hostile to each other and  those of us who are trapped in the middle are left with having to live two separate lives. We live in the reality of having a genuine faith in God but also having same sex attractions that are extremely hard to deny or ignore.  Where is the peace in the midst of confusion? Where do we fit when our two worlds collide?</subtitle><link rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/'/><link rel='hub' href='http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/'/><link rel='next' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default?start-index=26&amp;max-results=25'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><generator version='7.00' uri='http://www.blogger.com'>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>329</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-6835914084283914730</id><published>2012-08-03T11:44:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-08-03T13:53:15.027-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="gay"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="marriage equality"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="protests"/><title type='text'>Christians, Gays, and Chick-fil-A</title><content type='html'>&lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;
  2. &lt;a href=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIFC6WZidwA3f9s3xYmUP6K6nmhhwsyTnpG4V9edAYgxJ5QpeWn5ykhtJchkRj5rohSapsQSTEIwvzOa3GwmF7UdxmiSJT24yWPJTJSFez5CnLGG4Z8nPD2lV4mjLGu86WfXt9YA/s1600/chick-fil-a-appreciation-day.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; height=&quot;240&quot; src=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIFC6WZidwA3f9s3xYmUP6K6nmhhwsyTnpG4V9edAYgxJ5QpeWn5ykhtJchkRj5rohSapsQSTEIwvzOa3GwmF7UdxmiSJT24yWPJTJSFez5CnLGG4Z8nPD2lV4mjLGu86WfXt9YA/s320/chick-fil-a-appreciation-day.jpg&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
  3. I came back to my &#39;ole blog because I started writing these things on Facebook but then it got to be so long it was ridiculous to make it a single post on FB. I didn&#39;t feel like it was a good medium for it. So anyway, here&#39;s what i wanted to say about recent tit-for-tats about Christians, gays, and chick-fil-A.&lt;br /&gt;
  4. &lt;br /&gt;
  5. I know many people who have experienced gradual shifts regarding their perspective of gay people and the issue of civil rights and all that. I know many people have regret for having voted for Prop 8 or regret for neglecting to vote about it. It&#39;s a few years later and I pray that people would not make the same mistake by ignoring the debate-conversation-kerfunckle surrounding Chick-fil-A, but instead choose to engage it. It matters.&lt;br /&gt;
  6. &lt;br /&gt;
  7. I read several blogs this morning that I wanted to share. Each say some very important thoughts that I share. Some have thoughts I don&#39;t completely agree with (but that&#39;s okay). But I&#39;ll add here some of my own thoughts:&lt;br /&gt;
  8. &lt;br /&gt;
  9. &lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;
  10. &lt;a href=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJfEfgO_hA5EL4ylvv5fQBkHwWFCQHa9tNxcMVHXBvWZfL-2D1TdSrHwwzNxvtjC8BqhOhR0da24nbkfeBcG6vndsDqnoK6lbSVULyO8fTY23D8zOXokO28IJZEeYYE5SoHuxlgA/s1600/sarah-palin-chick-fil-a_582x381.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; src=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJfEfgO_hA5EL4ylvv5fQBkHwWFCQHa9tNxcMVHXBvWZfL-2D1TdSrHwwzNxvtjC8BqhOhR0da24nbkfeBcG6vndsDqnoK6lbSVULyO8fTY23D8zOXokO28IJZEeYYE5SoHuxlgA/s1600/sarah-palin-chick-fil-a_582x381.jpg&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
  11. One of the things I liked &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.owldolatrous.com/?p=288&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;about this one&lt;/a&gt; is that he makes the point about bullies. We talk so much about how bullying in schools is wrong, but when a kid stands up to a bully, he gets scolded for fighting. It&#39;s not about being neutral. &lt;b&gt;Don&#39;t blame a kid for defending himself because he doesn&#39;t want to get his ass kicked (yet again). Get the bully to stop. Like seriously. Get the bully to stop. And don&#39;t buy it when you confront the bully and he starts crying and pointing fingers saying &quot;He started it!&quot;&lt;/b&gt;&amp;nbsp;Here&#39;s the rest of his post:&lt;br /&gt;
  12. &lt;br /&gt;
  13. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.owldolatrous.com/?p=288&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;http://www.owldolatrous.com/?p=288&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
  14. &lt;br /&gt;
  15. &lt;a href=&quot;http://matthewpaulturner.net/f1/5-reasons-why-the-church-failed-yesterday/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;This one is on 5 reasons why the Church failed yesterday&lt;/a&gt;. Chick-fil-A made tons of money yesterday. Lots of pictures and video were taken capturing the long lines of people proud about going out of their way to support their cause. But this subset of christians who participated in this &quot;appreciation day&quot; failed to acknowledge that they were inadvertently (and possibly unintentionally) going out of their way to contribute to the hurt of their neighbors. Believe me, I was extremely hurt to see a &quot;friend of mine&quot; advocating, supporting, encouraging, and participating in the Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day. &lt;b&gt;Despite the smiles, love didn&#39;t happen yesterday&lt;/b&gt;. Here&#39;s more of Matthew Paul Turner&#39;s post:&lt;br /&gt;
  16. &lt;br /&gt;
  17. &lt;a href=&quot;http://matthewpaulturner.net/f1/5-reasons-why-the-church-failed-yesterday/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;http://matthewpaulturner.net/f1/5-reasons-why-the-church-failed-yesterday/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
  18. &lt;br /&gt;
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  20. &lt;a href=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXVAk3mkYT1ZxKckUKA8l3yLOfYubKaKOY3PMwNYtPmMW4Eo9COPu01uY1rVibzWnH8Gq7VDP9rLOHi0t8jWLqvSxzxH2bTeYvD6bla1hbqmJKFKU7st0C2R8UveJCstBZwR8M8A/s1600/chick2-600x350.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; height=&quot;232&quot; src=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXVAk3mkYT1ZxKckUKA8l3yLOfYubKaKOY3PMwNYtPmMW4Eo9COPu01uY1rVibzWnH8Gq7VDP9rLOHi0t8jWLqvSxzxH2bTeYvD6bla1hbqmJKFKU7st0C2R8UveJCstBZwR8M8A/s400/chick2-600x350.jpg&quot; width=&quot;400&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
  21. &lt;br /&gt;
  22. &lt;br /&gt;
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  24. &lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;
  25. &lt;a href=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN1B7a6Gg5Hhnt4EernxBoGPVi-dkqdh0mz8Qrx8cdjfSZIMnIrPyzAinD6dRxdWNW5a4fuVK-QdAIvsB93H4sjV5t8BFfArwB3rswVhUz_oT-2exdyJyNnMiQ3nPVnEh55wFoKA/s1600/Huckabee1-500x281.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; height=&quot;111&quot; src=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgN1B7a6Gg5Hhnt4EernxBoGPVi-dkqdh0mz8Qrx8cdjfSZIMnIrPyzAinD6dRxdWNW5a4fuVK-QdAIvsB93H4sjV5t8BFfArwB3rswVhUz_oT-2exdyJyNnMiQ3nPVnEh55wFoKA/s200/Huckabee1-500x281.jpg&quot; width=&quot;200&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
  26. What I liked about &lt;a href=&quot;http://michaelpatz.com/2012/08/02/the-morning-after-chick-fil-a-day/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;Mike Patz&#39;s post&lt;/a&gt; (from a Christian&#39;s perspective) was his point that &lt;b&gt;the problem isn&#39;t an unrepentant gay community but rather its an unrepentant Church&lt;/b&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;
  27. &lt;br /&gt;
  28. &lt;a href=&quot;http://michaelpatz.com/2012/08/02/the-morning-after-chick-fil-a-day/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;http://michaelpatz.com/2012/08/02/the-morning-after-chick-fil-a-day/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
  29. &lt;br /&gt;
  30. &lt;br /&gt;
  31. &lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;
  32. &lt;a href=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTv6Mv1ls09jTcSYsNsSjug5nlPVR-hB8TqiM5Jn0Yn3gX66tR-XJUAYVN2oX7FC8LUrc3e8hUMlNCwniDHsqLQlMykLrFtY5Sva6DxudtkOCTBZo3KJcAfid1QL9Mnzf2zuMusw/s1600/sorry.png&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; height=&quot;213&quot; src=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTv6Mv1ls09jTcSYsNsSjug5nlPVR-hB8TqiM5Jn0Yn3gX66tR-XJUAYVN2oX7FC8LUrc3e8hUMlNCwniDHsqLQlMykLrFtY5Sva6DxudtkOCTBZo3KJcAfid1QL9Mnzf2zuMusw/s320/sorry.png&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
  33. My friend &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.loveisanorientation.com/2012/my-quick-thought-on-chick-fil-a/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;Andrew Marin commented&lt;/a&gt; about the gay Kiss-in at chick-fil-A restaurants planned for today and how Christians should respond. I like that he says to go and &lt;b&gt;bring them some McDonalds because they&#39;ll probably get hungry and won&#39;t be eating chicken sandwiches&lt;/b&gt;:&lt;br /&gt;
  34. &lt;br /&gt;
  35. &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.loveisanorientation.com/2012/my-quick-thought-on-chick-fil-a/&quot; target=&quot;_blank&quot;&gt;http://www.loveisanorientation.com/2012/my-quick-thought-on-chick-fil-a/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
  36. &lt;br /&gt;
  37. Lastly, I&#39;ll close with more of my own thoughts.&lt;br /&gt;
  38. &lt;br /&gt;
  39. Yes, people have the right to think and say their opinion. Chick-fil-A can take a stand against marriage equality. LGBT advocates can encourage people not to support a business. I don&#39;t think it was a good idea for Christians to support a politician&#39;s call for Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day because it is not an effective way for the Church to communicate love to a community that already distrusts it. AND I definitely don&#39;t think a gay Kiss-In at the restaurants is an effective way to protest the issue. Sure I get the point they&#39;re trying to make. But think about it. We&#39;re talking about a SUBSET of Christians who think us gay folk are really kind of disgusting (be honest) and therefore we&#39;re going to do something to perpetuate their disgust of us?&lt;br /&gt;
  40. &lt;br /&gt;
  41. &lt;div class=&quot;separator&quot; style=&quot;clear: both; text-align: center;&quot;&gt;
  42. &lt;a href=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOHrN8eb01X0dwp2inhmud-6MFIt-uGvjzz1yPC683GE5NQdlzxWhoTjqTyB7p7fGdU89Pl__dH5qAUTEKHvTiL0kU5oezudWLakFukq4LG2u_BemJA-A5o6KrMcL4piX1RlmR0g/s1600/kiss-in.jpg&quot; imageanchor=&quot;1&quot; style=&quot;margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;&quot;&gt;&lt;img border=&quot;0&quot; height=&quot;180&quot; src=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOHrN8eb01X0dwp2inhmud-6MFIt-uGvjzz1yPC683GE5NQdlzxWhoTjqTyB7p7fGdU89Pl__dH5qAUTEKHvTiL0kU5oezudWLakFukq4LG2u_BemJA-A5o6KrMcL4piX1RlmR0g/s320/kiss-in.jpg&quot; width=&quot;320&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;
  43. &lt;br /&gt;
  44. Some gay people feel like some Christians &quot;flaunt&quot; their judgments around. Some straight people feel like some gay people &quot;flaunt&quot; their sexuality around. Some gay people feel like it&#39;s not fair that straight people can express affection publicly but they can&#39;t do it without people getting outraged.&lt;br /&gt;
  45. &lt;br /&gt;
  46. We need a different approach. The public protests may raise awareness but it isn&#39;t the most effective way to shift thinking. We need to build relationships with each other. We need to learn how to disagree with each other in a civil way - &amp;nbsp;in a way that doesn&#39;t forfeit friendships or familial ties.&lt;br /&gt;
  47. &lt;br /&gt;
  48. People won&#39;t fear us when they get to know us.</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/6835914084283914730/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=6835914084283914730' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/6835914084283914730'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/6835914084283914730'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2012/08/christians-gays-and-chick-fil-a.html' title='Christians, Gays, and Chick-fil-A'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIFC6WZidwA3f9s3xYmUP6K6nmhhwsyTnpG4V9edAYgxJ5QpeWn5ykhtJchkRj5rohSapsQSTEIwvzOa3GwmF7UdxmiSJT24yWPJTJSFez5CnLGG4Z8nPD2lV4mjLGu86WfXt9YA/s72-c/chick-fil-a-appreciation-day.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-5391262426127667324</id><published>2012-08-03T11:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2012-08-03T12:19:25.538-07:00</updated><title type='text'>A Line in the Sand</title><content type='html'>&lt;span style=&quot;background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;&quot;&gt;Wow, it&#39;s been almost two years since I&#39;ve written a blog post here at Two World Collision. I started it in July 2005 and I wrote through 2009 and a bit of 2010 to chronicle my journey of reconciling my faith and my sexuality. Then I reconciled it and I moved on. I still had plenty to say but I found alternative outlets to process my thinking and to share my thoughts.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
  49. &lt;br /&gt;
  50. &lt;span style=&quot;background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;&quot;&gt;This year in particular has been crazy. A lot has happened. I may resume writing here again just because I&#39;ve been feeling so many different things and I haven&#39;t used other outlets to fully express what was going on inside. I&#39;ll leave it at that for potentially future posts.&amp;nbsp;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;&quot;&gt;I miss blogging.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
  51. &lt;span style=&quot;background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
  52. &lt;span style=&quot;background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;&quot;&gt;So this post here stands as my official line in the sand between where I left off in 2010 and where I am now in 2012.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
  53. &lt;span style=&quot;background-color: white; color: #444444; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;
  54. &lt;hr /&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/5391262426127667324/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=5391262426127667324' title='3 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/5391262426127667324'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/5391262426127667324'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-line-in-sand.html' title='A Line in the Sand'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>3</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-4128002664783607291</id><published>2010-10-22T14:04:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2010-10-22T19:56:22.359-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="gay"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="military"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="suicide"/><title type='text'>Appealing the Ruling on DADT Enables Bullying</title><content type='html'>&lt;a onblur=&quot;try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}&quot; href=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpS0JMNBoMX1Yo0DD0UagepcnS9BDvt6pRac287lbEWPC7Ykmze-2tD0NZDwFSBytUaYUKn6nQONOs7MC9riGnXlk7FwpgRsHK_XcU7vCkHcN3NrCxyIBd28Yc-5_G4OPewBoOMw/s1600/DADT.JPG&quot;&gt;&lt;img style=&quot;MARGIN: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; WIDTH: 320px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 238px; CURSOR: pointer&quot; id=&quot;BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5530986556113402834&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; src=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpS0JMNBoMX1Yo0DD0UagepcnS9BDvt6pRac287lbEWPC7Ykmze-2tD0NZDwFSBytUaYUKn6nQONOs7MC9riGnXlk7FwpgRsHK_XcU7vCkHcN3NrCxyIBd28Yc-5_G4OPewBoOMw/s320/DADT.JPG&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;I&#39;ve been increasingly disappointed with President Barack Obama lately, particularly because he appealed the federal court ruling that Don&#39;t Ask Don&#39;t Tell is unconstitutional. I was hopeful, like many, that his Presidency would be a catalyst for justice for LGBT americans. And at first I was patient with the delays and his ever constant excuse that he prefers that change happen via Congress.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But here&#39;s my thing. When a federal court judge determines that a policy is unconstitutional - aka unjust and contrary to the values document of our country, and then to make an appeal against such a ruling - to me, that&#39;s a very intentional decision to support the continuation of injustice and inequality.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Seriously, how many judges (who by the way, it&#39;s their JOB to be objective and impartial) across the country at various levels of government need to rule that something is wrong before people keep asserting that they&#39;d prefer to have Congress (who by the way, are by nature partisan and partial) or even the general population make a vote saying that something is wrong. It&#39;s stupid. To me, it has nothing to do with legal process and how something becomes law and how it&#39;s better that there&#39;s broad public support for something becoming law. If it&#39;s wrong, it&#39;s wrong. If it&#39;s unjust, it&#39;s unjust. The very function of a judge is to determine that! And if the President &#39;claims&#39; that he supports repealing the policy anyway, well then I think it&#39;s a total cop-out to pass the buck and say well if all of those people agree, then we&#39;ll repeal it. Nevermind a judge.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;m disappointed because when I voted for him, I had hoped for a leader.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Every time a judge says that discriminating against gays and lesbians is wrong, and then someone else steps in to say, &#39;Wait a minute! Let&#39;s vote on that!&#39; or &#39;Let&#39;s ask someone else about that!&#39; or worse even &#39;If it&#39;s wrong, let&#39;s change the constitution so that we can keep doing it!&#39;, every time that happens, it further communicates to not only our youth but to everyone else that it&#39;s okay to discriminate and treat certain people differently. That&#39;s bullying.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So now, with the media attention around teen suicides and anti-gay bullying, and the popular It Gets Better campaign, now the President has the nerve to do an It Gets Better video saying that it&#39;s not your fault and that you should reach out to those who support you. I find this highly hypocritical because he fails to realize that Don&#39;t Ask Don&#39;t Tell and all kinds of other anti-gay discriminatory laws ARE ALL WAYS THAT ENABLE PEOPLE TO BULLY GAY PEOPLE.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Really. And so to intentionally make an appeal of the court&#39;s ruling that something is wrong, so that once again, openly gay American soldiers can be bullied into staying in the closet or getting kicked out of the military, well that&#39;s just disappointing and frustrating.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here&#39;s what I think. If the Commander-in-Chief ORDERS the military to STOP doing something as simple as treating openly gay and lesbian soldiers/people differently, and instead to treat everyone equally and with respect, regardless of how they may personally feel about such an order, then I believe that our military is capable of following those orders, even in a time of war. It&#39;s a cop-out to say that we need to study the impact on military readiness from such a repeal. They&#39;ll be ready no matter what.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Since when did military commanders NOT give an order until first they took a poll to see if the troops would like the order or not? That&#39;s absurd.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&#39;s not like I think, at the time of the last election, that the alternative would have been any better on this subject. But still, it&#39;s disappointing. And i&#39;m not sure he&#39;d have my vote again.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;d rather have voted for Michelle Obama. Now her - I still love!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But as for President Obama - if it really does get better, then ARE YOU going to help make it better?</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/4128002664783607291/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=4128002664783607291' title='5 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/4128002664783607291'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/4128002664783607291'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2010/10/appealing-dadt-is-enabling-bullying.html' title='Appealing the Ruling on DADT Enables Bullying'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpS0JMNBoMX1Yo0DD0UagepcnS9BDvt6pRac287lbEWPC7Ykmze-2tD0NZDwFSBytUaYUKn6nQONOs7MC9riGnXlk7FwpgRsHK_XcU7vCkHcN3NrCxyIBd28Yc-5_G4OPewBoOMw/s72-c/DADT.JPG" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>5</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-315389095540383610</id><published>2010-05-28T10:36:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2010-05-28T10:36:43.313-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="gay"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="military"/><title type='text'>Ending the Ban on Gays in the Military</title><content type='html'>Haha, yeah I know it&#39;s been 9 months since my last blog post! While I&#39;ve kept quite busy with fun and exciting things with Catalyst, a part of me still misses blogging - to process my thoughts on what ever it is I&#39;m thinking about. I wish I had the time to do it more!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I decided to write today because &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100528/ap_on_go_co/us_gays_military&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;I&#39;ve been reading&lt;/a&gt; about recent and yet long overdue attempts to repeal the ban on &quot;Don&#39;t Ask, Don&#39;t Tell&quot; and I had some initial reactions. In a nutshell, I&#39;ve gathered that opponents to the repeal are &lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;concerned &lt;/span&gt;about how the ban would effect military life and readiness.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Really?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Who do you think we are? Do gay people cause such sexual chaos that without any formal regulations, we would be free to f*ck anything and everything that moves? If you remove the leash, we&#39;ll be like dogs? Even in battle? Even when there is an important job to do?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Consider how offensive that &quot;concern&quot; is. At the very core, &quot;Don&#39;t Ask, Don&#39;t Tell&quot; is not about protecting good order. It is more about preserving prejudice than correcting injustice. The &quot;concern&quot; reveals that they would rather assume that gay people are sexual deviants instead of assuming that our military men and women already are people of order and discipline - whether gay or straight.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is the ban that jeopardizes good order and discipline because it perpetuates an unhealthy, unrealistic, and unfounded fear in its own people. It creates the doubt.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Gay people don&#39;t make military weaker. We make it stronger. Gay people don&#39;t make the Church less holy. We make it more faithful and graceful. Gay people don&#39;t diminish society. We catalyze it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The fear and concern about how our presence will effect others is counterproductive. Because all of those fears and concerns happen with straight people - and perhaps even more.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Do straight men and women serving in the same unit jeopardize military life and readiness?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The fact is that gay men and women are often leaders. Many of us strive towards excellence. We are good at what we do. My theory is that since growing up in the closet can sometimes make us feel inadequate and unacknowledged and that being gay is not in our control, many of us compensate (perhaps even over-compensate) by working even harder than others to achieve things because that is in our control. We can&#39;t choose to be gay. But we can choose what we do - to succeed, to excel, to be fabulous!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Either way, we need gay people to be gay people because the experience of being gay and (for many of us) growing up in the closet makes us thoughtful, innovative, creative, and empathetic leaders in our society.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;People should be proud to have us among their corps.</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/315389095540383610/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=315389095540383610' title='4 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/315389095540383610'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/315389095540383610'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2010/05/ending-ban-on-gays-in-military.html' title='Ending the Ban on Gays in the Military'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>4</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-2833413999879644745</id><published>2009-08-10T11:46:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-10T11:46:46.411-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="green space"/><title type='text'>My New Green Space</title><content type='html'>Since I haven&#39;t been posting regularly here at Two World Collision, I thought I&#39;d point you to my new blog called &lt;a href=&quot;http://mynewgreenspace.blogspot.com/&quot;&gt;My New Green Space&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&#39;s a new personal project that I&#39;ve started in my new rented home. I&#39;ve got free reign over the backyard and I&#39;m going to be building up a backyard organic garden from the ground up. It&#39;ll be fun to do! I&#39;ll have a balance of videos of me and friends, pics, and also my own writing to document my progress.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I don&#39;t know how often I&#39;ll be posting here. You can definitely search the archives to see past posts I&#39;ve written. And you can also go to the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.TwoWorldCollision.com&quot;&gt;Two World Collision Collaborative Christian Community&lt;/a&gt; site over at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.TwoWorldCollision.com&quot;&gt;www.TwoWorldCollision.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But if you want to follow along with what I&#39;m doing personally beyond my community activities and my gay Christian related activities, come find me over at &lt;a href=&quot;http://mynewgreenspace.blogspot.com/&quot;&gt;My New Green Space&lt;/a&gt;!</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/2833413999879644745/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=2833413999879644745' title='4 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/2833413999879644745'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/2833413999879644745'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2009/08/my-new-green-space.html' title='My New Green Space'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>4</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-6753901319577204209</id><published>2009-08-10T11:19:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-12-12T18:12:53.053-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Catalyst"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="community"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="vision"/><title type='text'>Finding Me at GoCatalyst</title><content type='html'>So I know it&#39;s been quite awhile since my last blog post here. In fact, this whole year has been pretty quiet here at Two World Collision in terms of having regular blog posts. So I figured I&#39;d write a quick post letting you know I was alive and around and where you can find me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;ve been extremely busy and active the past 8 months with investing my energies with trying to catalyze collaborative communities here in Long Beach with my non-profit organization - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gocatalyst.org/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Catalyst Community&lt;/a&gt;. We have seen much progress - too much to try to cram into this post here. So if you&#39;re particularly interested in continuing to journey with me, check out:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;Catalyst Blog&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Catalyst Community blog at &lt;a href=&quot;http://gocatalyst.blogspot.com/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;http://gocatalyst.blogspot.com/&lt;/a&gt;. I&#39;ve documented our work since the start of 2009 so if you piece together all the awesome things happening from the blog posts there, coupled with the periodic posts here at Two World Collision, well then you can kinda get a glimpse of what my life has been like. It&#39;s been no doubt an exciting roller coaster ride. But I&#39;ll be regularly blogging over there.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Come find me over at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gocatalyst.org/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Catalyst&lt;/a&gt;!</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/6753901319577204209/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=6753901319577204209' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/6753901319577204209'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/6753901319577204209'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2009/08/finding-me-at-gocatalyst.html' title='Finding Me at GoCatalyst'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-3042855896252446112</id><published>2009-06-26T09:18:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-10T11:21:04.868-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Heroes"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="YouTube"/><title type='text'>The Passing of a Catalyst</title><content type='html'>The world obeserves the passing of Michael Jackson, a catalyst who reinvented pop culture and his own personal world and in the process connected millions of people around powerful messages and affected millions of lives in countless ways.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It must have been so lonely.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;object width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;344&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;movie&quot; value=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/1zpTQCQEFhg&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;fs=1&amp;amp;&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowFullScreen&quot; value=&quot;true&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowscriptaccess&quot; value=&quot;always&quot;&gt;&lt;embed src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/1zpTQCQEFhg&amp;amp;hl=en&amp;amp;fs=1&amp;amp;&quot; type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; allowscriptaccess=&quot;always&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;true&quot; width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;344&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;See lyrics below in this post . . . . &lt;span class=&quot;fullpost&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;Man In The Mirror&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;m Gonna Make A Change, For Once In My Life&lt;br /&gt;It&#39;s Gonna Feel Real Good, Gonna Make A Difference&lt;br /&gt;Gonna Make It Right . . .&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As I, Turn Up The Collar On My Favourite Winter Coat&lt;br /&gt;This Wind Is Blowin&#39; My Mind&lt;br /&gt;I See The Kids In The Street, With Not Enough To Eat&lt;br /&gt;Who Am I, To Be Blind?&lt;br /&gt;Pretending Not To See Their Needs&lt;br /&gt;A Summer&#39;s Disregard, A Broken Bottle Top&lt;br /&gt;And A One Man&#39;s Soul&lt;br /&gt;They Follow Each Other On The Wind Ya&#39; Know&lt;br /&gt;&#39;Cause They Got Nowhere To Go&lt;br /&gt;That&#39;s Why I Want You To Know&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;m Starting With The Man In The Mirror&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;m Asking Him To Change His Ways&lt;br /&gt;And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer&lt;br /&gt;If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place&lt;br /&gt;Take A Look At Yourself, And Then Make A Change&lt;br /&gt;(Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na, Na Nah)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;ve Been A Victim Of A Selfish Kind Of Love&lt;br /&gt;It&#39;s Time That I Realize&lt;br /&gt;That There Are Some With No Home, Not A Nickel To Loan&lt;br /&gt;Could It Be Really Me, Pretending That They&#39;re Not Alone?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A Willow Deeply Scarred, Somebody&#39;s Broken Heart&lt;br /&gt;And A Washed-Out Dream&lt;br /&gt;They Follow The Pattern Of The Wind, Ya&#39; See&lt;br /&gt;Cause They Got No Place To Be&lt;br /&gt;That&#39;s Why I&#39;m Starting With Me&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;m Starting With The Man In The Mirror&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;m Asking Him To Change His Ways&lt;br /&gt;And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer&lt;br /&gt;If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place&lt;br /&gt;Take A Look At Yourself And Then Make A Change&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;m Starting With The Man In The Mirror&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;m Asking Him To Change His Ways&lt;br /&gt;And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer&lt;br /&gt;If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place&lt;br /&gt;Take A Look At Yourself And Then Make That . . .&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Change!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;m Starting With The Man In The Mirror,&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;m Asking Him To Change His Ways&lt;br /&gt;No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer&lt;br /&gt;If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place&lt;br /&gt;Take A Look At Yourself And Then Make The Change&lt;br /&gt;You Gotta Get It Right, While You Got The Time&lt;br /&gt;&#39;Cause When You Close Your Heart&lt;br /&gt;You Can&#39;t Close Your . . .Your Mind!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That Man, That Man, That Man, That Man&lt;br /&gt;With That Man In The Mirror&lt;br /&gt;That Man, That Man, That Man I&#39;m Asking Him To Change His Ways&lt;br /&gt;You Know . . .That Man&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer&lt;br /&gt;If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place&lt;br /&gt;Take A Look At Yourself And Then Make A Change&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Hoo!&lt;br /&gt;Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na, Na Nah (Oh Yeah!)&lt;br /&gt;Gonna Feel Real Good Now!&lt;br /&gt;Yeah Yeah! Yeah Yeah! Yeah Yeah!&lt;br /&gt;Na Na Na, Na Na Na, Na Na, Na Nah (Ooooh . . .)&lt;br /&gt;Oh No, No No . . .&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;m Gonna Make A Change&lt;br /&gt;It&#39;s Gonna Feel Real Good!&lt;br /&gt;Come On! (Change . . .)&lt;br /&gt;Just Lift Yourself You Know&lt;br /&gt;You&#39;ve Got To Stop It. Yourself!&lt;br /&gt;(Yeah!-Make That Change!)&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;ve Got To Make That Change, Today!&lt;br /&gt;Hoo! (Man In The Mirror)&lt;br /&gt;You Got To, You Got To Not Let Yourself . . .&lt;br /&gt;Brother . . . Hoo! (Yeah!-Make That Change!)&lt;br /&gt;You Know-I&#39;ve Got To Get That Man, That Man . . . (Man In The Mirror)&lt;br /&gt;You&#39;ve Got To, You&#39;ve Got To Move! Come On! Come On!&lt;br /&gt;You Got To . . . Stand Up! Stand Up! Stand Up! (Yeah-Make That Change)&lt;br /&gt;Stand Up And Lift Yourself, Now!&lt;br /&gt;(Man In The Mirror) Hoo! Hoo! Hoo! Aaow! (Yeah-Make That Change)&lt;br /&gt;Gonna Make That Change . . . Come On! (Man In The Mirror)&lt;br /&gt;You Know It! You Know It! You Know It! You Know . . . (Change . . .)&lt;br /&gt;Make That Change.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/3042855896252446112/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=3042855896252446112' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/3042855896252446112'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/3042855896252446112'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2009/06/passing-of-catalyst.html' title='The Passing of a Catalyst'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-6825570995353353982</id><published>2009-06-24T12:24:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-06-24T14:12:02.330-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Coalition of Bridge Builders"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="community"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="gay Christian"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Hot Zone"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Journey Christians"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="TWC Collaborative Community"/><title type='text'>Bridging the Gap</title><content type='html'>Lately it&#39;s been difficult for me to want to maintain bridges (much less build them) between the worlds of faith and sexuality. Honestly, I feel like wounds  just keep getting ripped back open and the scabs are barely hardening. Perhaps my heart, too?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My heart isn&#39;t hardening towards the Lord. Heck no, I love Him! He&#39;s cool.  We&#39;re cool.  It&#39;s church folk that I guess I&#39;ve been growing weary of - both gay and straight. That&#39;s probably a whole other blog entry by itself. You may get a sense of where I&#39;m coming from in February&#39;s post &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2009/02/monkeys-pet-fish.html&quot;&gt;The Monkey&#39;s Pet Fish&lt;/a&gt;&quot; and also April&#39;s posts &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2009/04/through-my-eyes.html&quot;&gt;Through My Eyes&lt;/a&gt;&quot;, &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2009/04/outside-village-walls.html&quot;&gt;Outside the Village Walls&lt;/a&gt;&quot; and &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2009/04/disrespectful-but-with-smile.html&quot;&gt;Disrespectful, But With a Smile&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But when it comes to the idea of bridge building within the Church between those who hold a traditional perspective and those who hold an inclusive perspective regarding being gay, I&#39;ll admit that my initiative has sharply declined the past several months. Our local bridge building efforts (&lt;a href=&quot;http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/search/label/Coalition%20of%20Bridge%20Builders&quot;&gt;see Oct, Nov, Dec posts here&lt;/a&gt;) seems to have been on pause - I guess we&#39;re all busy (that&#39;s the easy excuse).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I think what brought us to a screeching halt was when it began to become an unsafe place for me. I say that because I was helping to drive our efforts forward and so when I hit the breaks, no one else took the initiative.  I felt personally attacked and undermined by one person and the result was me feeling unqualified to be part of such bridge building dreams. Before that, we had been experiencing some really exciting relational breakthroughs. He drove me back into the closet as he reminded me of my shame.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I do believe, however, that we can resume our bridge building efforts. The vision of the Coalition of Bridge Builders is &lt;span style=&quot;font-style: italic;&quot;&gt;to see the broader Church engage in a productive and safe dialogue regarding gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender individuals within our community&lt;/span&gt;.   We started our efforts with churches and organizations. I wonder if we could resume with starting with individuals first. Our initial approach was to connect with the senior pastors but our efforts quickly became event driven, rather than relationship driven. Perhaps we can invest our energies with a coalition of individuals who are open to entering this dialogue - a productive and safe one.  Individuals like Wendy Gritter at &lt;a href=&quot;http://btgproject.blogspot.com/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Bridging the Gap&lt;/a&gt; and everyone taking part in today&#39;s &lt;a href=&quot;http://btgproject.blogspot.com/2009/05/announcing-btg-synchroblog.html&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;synchroblog event&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If we can catalyze individuals from the ground up, then the conversation will inevitably take place among the leaders. But if we only engage the leaders, then it may not filter down to the people. With productive and safe dialogue happening from both ends, then I believe we can see healthy movement.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How can we do this?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;ve written before about these things which I&#39;ll share with you at the end of this. But first, here are some of my more recent thoughts from my gay Christian perspective and as a bridge builder:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;1. A Sense of Safety is Paramount!&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Regardless of the positions we take on issues, we have to be sensitive to people feeling safe. Remember that a gay Christian has experienced tremendous historical hurt by the Church. Asking a gay Christian person to engage in dialogue with a straight Christian person about the subject of being gay or the subject of homosexuality (those are two different things) is like asking an abused person to sit next to the person that abused them. I realize that you may not be the actual person that hurt them, but the feelings are still there and it can get pretty raw when it resurfaces. So if we want to keep everyone at the table, then we all need to be sensitive to that.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;On the flip side, us gay Christians need to remember that this dialogue isn&#39;t therapy. The person next to us or across the table isn&#39;t really the person that hurt us. He or she may represent those who hurt us but it&#39;s not fair to them. We can&#39;t project our anger towards them by inflicting our baggage on to them. Let&#39;s remember that they are present - they are there willing to sit with us to have this very important dialogue. That should score points with us.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;2. Take Initiative!&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you&#39;re a straight Christian person willing to be in this dialogue, it&#39;s a huge gesture for us to see you take the step forward into the gap. The reason is because from a gay person&#39;s perspective, we have routinely experienced people stepping &lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;&quot;&gt;away &lt;/span&gt;from us. We are all too familiar with rejection. So if you would take the initiative in reaching out toward us, then we&#39;re more likely to step forward to join you in the gap.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you&#39;re a gay Christian person willing to be in this dialogue, we ultimately have to choose to step towards the other person as well. I know how we can be really bitter and not want to take any steps forward while expecting the person or group that wronged us to do all the work of making amends. Well, we have to be proactive about our forgiveness too.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;3. Elevate the Conversation&lt;/span&gt;!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;We have to find our common ground. There are numerous things that we might disagree about: tongues, tithing, communion, baptism, leadership roles and worship styles and structures and approaches, or even our interpretations of Scripture about the subject of homosexuality and being gay. But we may agree on the Deity of Christ, the Trinity, salvation by grace through faith, and a number of other core things. We need to elevate the conversation beyond the politics of our differences. We need to elevate the conversation to a broader vision - to see God&#39;s people love better. Our goal isn&#39;t to enter into debate about the things we disagree on. Our agenda cannot be to try to change the other person&#39;s mind. That was the old way and that clearly has served only to divide the Church further. But perhaps through relationship, we can change each others hearts towards one another.  And God&#39;s Church can again begin to assemble to worship Him.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So with that, I invite you to continue this dialogue at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twoworldcollision.com/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;www.TwoWorldCollision.com&lt;/a&gt; - a gay and straight collaborative christian community.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here are articles I&#39;ve written to help serve this dialogue:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twoworldcollision.com/page/Building+Relationships+That+Matter&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Building Relationships that Matter: A Framework for Entering the Hot Zone&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twoworldcollision.com/page/Journey+Christians&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Journey Christians: Beyond the Side A/B/X Framework&lt;/a&gt;&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Be sure to check back at &lt;a href=&quot;http://btgproject.blogspot.com/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Bridging the Gap&#39;s blog&lt;/a&gt; to see what other bloggers are contributing to the synchroblog event!</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/6825570995353353982/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=6825570995353353982' title='5 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/6825570995353353982'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/6825570995353353982'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2009/06/bridging-gap.html' title='Bridging the Gap'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>5</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-6405438807645657280</id><published>2009-04-23T10:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-04-23T10:09:22.919-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Hot Zone"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Journey Christians"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="TWC Collaborative Community"/><title type='text'>Three Lessons Along A Straight Gal&#39;s Journey</title><content type='html'>This is a letter written to me by Pat who recently joined our other TWC site - &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twoworldcollision.com/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Two World Collision Collaborative Christian Community&lt;/a&gt;. That&#39;s a place for both gay and straight &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twoworldcollision.com/page/Journey+Christians&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Journey Christians&lt;/a&gt;&quot; to walk with each other beyond the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twoworldcollision.com/page/Building+Relationships+That+Matter&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Side A/Side B/Side X framework&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Pat is a straight gal on a journey through this issue and she shares three lessons that she has learned for herself so far. She gave me permission to share her letter with everyone here. Thanks Pat!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-------------------------------------------------------------------------&lt;br /&gt;Hi there, I&#39;ll update &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twoworldcollision.com/account/PGMT&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;my profile&lt;/a&gt; later, for now I&#39;ll introduce myself a little:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I am a Mexican Catholic straight girl who came to this whole &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twoworldcollision.com/page/Building+Relationships+That+Matter&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;hot zone&lt;/a&gt; discussion by complete accident: to make a long story short I stumbled upon Andrew Sullivan&#39;s blog, felt totally immersed by it and felt really curious that he was both Catholic and Gay (go figure, I didn&#39;t know that was possible) ... fast forward 40 days (I am a little obsessive person) and now I know about &quot;reparative therapy&quot; the damages of reparative therapy, the possible biological link to homosexuality, gay sheep, marriage laws in the states, anti-gay propaganda, gay parents, gay struggle, gay kids suicide rate, bible passages, etc.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Names that only yesterday meant nothing to me like &quot;Nicolosi&quot;, &quot;Alan Chambers&quot; and &quot;Jon Cameron&quot; or &quot;Mel White&quot;, &quot;Boswell&quot; and &quot;Mychal Judge&quot; ring bells for me now, whether for disapproval or approval.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have become an avid reader of Box Turtle Bulletin, Warren Throckmorton, Gay Christian Network, Ex Gay Watch, The Marin Foundation and, of course, your blog.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Through this journey I have learned three things so far:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;First Lesson:&lt;/span&gt; That we all as Christians have a VERY big obligation to the Truth. If the first commandment is to love, I would say that the second commandment is to restlessly pursue the truth, no matter where the truth takes us. We cannot get comfortable by &quot;just knowing&quot;. When we don&#39;t actually know, we must investigate, look, knock, ask, call. Every truth comes from the Holy Spirit, and I dare say that no matter WHO says something (a church, a president, a reverend, a priest or even, gulp, the Pope), if we find out that what is being said is false, then that is not possibly coming from the Holy Spirit.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;Second Lesson:&lt;/span&gt; I am convinced now that being gay is not a choice, and since it is not a choice, it cannot be (substantially at least) changed. And all our following judgments about the question should take that as a premise.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;Third Lesson:&lt;/span&gt; A constant I have found with all the anti-gay propagandists is that they lie. I&#39;m not talking about what they believe, I am talking about plain and simple ignorance or distortion of the facts. The bare facts. So that makes them really suspect in my book. The other thing is that they are usually very very spiteful people.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So that&#39;s it, I don&#39;t know where this journey will further take me, I know that I want to do something, but I don&#39;t know what exactly. So joining this network is a start, I guess.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Pray for me! And congratulations on your courage! (great web design by the way!)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;love,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Pat.</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/6405438807645657280/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=6405438807645657280' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/6405438807645657280'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/6405438807645657280'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2009/04/three-lessons-along-straight-gals.html' title='Three Lessons Along A Straight Gal&#39;s Journey'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-294173909930527180</id><published>2009-04-22T00:49:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-04-22T00:49:18.288-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Catalyst"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="community"/><title type='text'>Green Long Beach! Festival 2009</title><content type='html'>&lt;a onblur=&quot;try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}&quot; href=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnAbNXEQ61IGgtHyQMY7S337qR8cYeRuxfahDiTsiU5ED3dADPSxk9EkhIcSlJaVukwo3eGaJ5ouScRB2faLMb0apH3wyzAq95AUsXbE3Iz23-64_C_C5JgU5g2MqnA4VA9AqnnQ/s1600-h/Poster-(11x17).jpg&quot;&gt;&lt;img style=&quot;margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 215px; height: 320px;&quot; src=&quot;https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnAbNXEQ61IGgtHyQMY7S337qR8cYeRuxfahDiTsiU5ED3dADPSxk9EkhIcSlJaVukwo3eGaJ5ouScRB2faLMb0apH3wyzAq95AUsXbE3Iz23-64_C_C5JgU5g2MqnA4VA9AqnnQ/s320/Poster-(11x17).jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot; id=&quot;BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5327418534040291746&quot; border=&quot;0&quot; /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;Happy Earth Day everyone!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In recognition of all things &quot;green&quot;, I thought I&#39;d write a post today on the Green Long Beach! Festival. This will be Catalyst&#39;s first big city-wide event as we co-host the festival. I&#39;ve been serving as the Logistics Coordinator and it&#39;s been keeping me quite occupied! But I&#39;m having a blast and I&#39;m working with a terrific team!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Check us out at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.greenlb.org/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;www.greenLB.org&lt;/a&gt;!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Tweet with us at &lt;a href=&quot;http://twitter.com/greenlb&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;http://twitter.com/greenlb&lt;/a&gt;!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Find us on &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=159300590108&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Facebook here&lt;/a&gt;!</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/294173909930527180/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=294173909930527180' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/294173909930527180'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/294173909930527180'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2009/04/green-long-beach-festival-2009.html' title='Green Long Beach! Festival 2009'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnAbNXEQ61IGgtHyQMY7S337qR8cYeRuxfahDiTsiU5ED3dADPSxk9EkhIcSlJaVukwo3eGaJ5ouScRB2faLMb0apH3wyzAq95AUsXbE3Iz23-64_C_C5JgU5g2MqnA4VA9AqnnQ/s72-c/Poster-(11x17).jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-5536705337521407483</id><published>2009-04-19T22:55:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-04-19T23:10:57.759-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="gay"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="gay Christian"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Hot Zone"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Side X (ex-gay)"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="suicide"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="TWC Collaborative Community"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="YouTube"/><title type='text'>Disrespectful But With a Smile</title><content type='html'>I&#39;m just gonna say this upfront - I reserve the right to vent on my own blog.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That said . . . . what the frickin&#39; hell!?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;m serious! I mean, really, how in the world can straight &quot;professing Christians&quot; smile with  arrogance and then slap me in the face and think that they are doing the Lord&#39;s &quot;good work&quot;? I probably shouldn&#39;t say &quot;Christians&quot; because some of the people there were cool. It&#39;s more like this particular pastor of &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.avillagecommunity.org/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;A Village Community&lt;/a&gt; here in Long Beach.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I literally wiped my feet on the mat, not before entering this &quot;house of worship&quot; but rather AS I LEFT this place.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-style: italic;&quot;&gt;&quot;If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, shake the dust off your feet when you leave that home or town.&quot; - Matthew 10:14&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All through the service I kept mentally shaking my head at the things I was hearing . . . .&lt;span class=&quot;fullpost&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The whole service was about asking questions. People were asked to text message their questions. The pastor even started off with talking about &quot;us having a conversation with each other.&quot; But instead of a discussion about the value of having questions or that we sometimes ask the wrong questions or what are the right kind of questions or at the very least having a discussion about the question - like I suppose I was expecting from this kind of a topic - instead, the pastor read off a question, answered it himself, then read off another question, then answered it himself, then read off another question, then answered it himself.....blah blah blah.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I mean seriously, who does he think he is that he&#39;s got all the answers according to his worldview?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And here&#39;s the kicker. After reading off a question that said, &#39;Does God love believers more than He does unbelievers?&#39; he arrogantly and resolutely &quot;ANSWERED&quot; with an emphatic &quot;YES&quot;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Seriously. He said that there is scriptural evidence to suggest that God chooses some and does not choose others and that He loves some and does not love others. Seriously.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now, yes, there&#39;s context to this whole thing. But that&#39;s still the bottom line of what he was saying. And I&#39;m not saying that I don&#39;t believe in a distinction between &quot;God&#39;s people&quot;. I understand that as well as the &quot;setting apart&quot; of them. But in this discussion about &quot;questions&quot; I was absolutely dumbfounded that it didn&#39;t even occur to this pastor or anyone else that perhaps that was the WRONG question to ask. I mean, really, do you really want to talk about how God loves some people but not other people? Was that the &quot;message from God&quot; for today?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It didn&#39;t even occur to him that perhaps the better question to ask instead of &#39;Does God love believers MORE than He does unbelivers?&#39; but rather would have been better to ask &#39;How does God want me to love both believers AND unbelievers?&#39; That would have been a question God would answer. I mean, how many times did Jesus NOT answer a stupid question? SO MANY times! Why? Because people asked the wrong question.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But no. Instead of reframing the question, he stayed on that direction to go on and on about God&#39;s sovereignty to love whomever He chooses and to NOT love whomever He chooses. Why, did this pastor say? So that the ones He chooses to love could FULLY APPRECIATE the love. So that the ones He chooses to love could see the contrast. Seriously. He spoke about an exclusive love. No empathy or compassion for those outside of God&#39;s love. Just that those whom God chooses to love should appreciate being chosen.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I also wondered why the pastor wasn&#39;t coming up to me to shake my hand or welcome me during the entire service - particularly since there was literally 12 people in the room and there was a &#39;say hello to your neighbor&#39; time and also two times where everyone broke up into tiny groups to discuss stuff. There were times when he could have said hello. I wondered if he recognized me because we had met once or twice YEARS ago while I was with that faith-based non-profit that I co-founded. But maybe he didn&#39;t recognize me. Yet still he chose not to greet or welcome the obvious ONLY  newcomer.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At the close of the service, he prayed a prayer of just accepting truth in faith. Um, the truth that HE just presented? Without question? Without doubt? The prayer was to accept it even when it was hard to accept. His answers. His truth. His interpretation. His worldview. I seriously thought this, but during the prayer it really felt like it was a brainwashing. But this wasn&#39;t a cult out in some remote ranch. This was a church just like most in the city.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So then after the service when everything was done and over with, he walked up to me saying my name, &#39;Eric, you remember we met before.&#39; And I was completely friendly and saying that it was good to see him and he asked a couple probing questions about what I was doing now. I told him about &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gocatalyst.org&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Catalyst Community&lt;/a&gt; and I told him about the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.greenLB.org&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Green Long Beach! Festival&lt;/a&gt; and that some from his church were having a booth and selling T-shirts. I told him about some of the good things we&#39;re doing in the community. I didn&#39;t say anything gay-related.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;He wasn&#39;t interested in what I was doing now though. He wanted to probe because he had thought I was a pastor. I told him that I encouraged some communities of gay Christians to feel supported because there are so many that want to worship but are being rejected out of their own congregations. But no I said I wasn&#39;t a pastor. And in that context of conversation, he began to say what he really wanted to say which was that he wanted to make it CLEAR that they were not an &quot;affirming&quot; congregation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(And in my head, I&#39;m thinking why is this relevant? I didn&#39;t bring up the gay thing, he did. And if he didn&#39;t know me before this, he wouldn&#39;t have even known that I was gay.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Really? I&#39;m here visiting your church and was actually looking for a place to start going to regularly and the welcome sales pitch is to make it CLEAR that they were not a place that thinks &quot;gay&quot; is okay. Really? And after me telling you that there are SO MANY CHRISTIANS who are gay that WANT TO WORSHIP JESUS but are being REJECTED out of their OWN CONGREGATIONS, you feel it necessary to talk about the gay pride parade and how there are churches in the parade that are affirming of &quot;the lifestyle&quot; and there are churches on the side that are holding picket signs and yelling &quot;burn,&quot; and you want to tell me that your church represents &quot;neither&quot; but that you want to make it CLEAR that &quot;we are not affirming&quot;? Really? That&#39;s what you want to tell me?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And after saying these things to me, he started saying with a smile, &quot;That&#39;s my main concern. I wanted to make that clear.&quot; After he said that a couple times, I thought it was odd. It seemed out of context. So I inquired, &quot;wait, sooooo, what&#39;s your CONCERN?&quot; I asked genuinely with a &#39;I don&#39;t get it&#39; tone. I wasn&#39;t saying anything about anything gay regarding me and this congregation. And he said, &quot;well the festival. If we&#39;re going to have a booth, I wanted to make it CLEAR that we&#39;re not affirming.&quot; So I was like, &quot;but the festival is a GREEN festival. You know, GREEN as in, the environment? The festival is about encouraging people about sustainability and how to use energy efficiently and to talk about recycling.&quot; And he was like, &quot;oh.&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-style: italic;&quot;&gt;&quot;Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.&quot; Ezekiel 16:49&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Who&#39;s the Sodomite?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So now as I think back to the lack of welcome and the lack of eye contact and the messages that God loves the believer and NOT the unbeliever and the closing prayer to accept the truth and the intentional effort to make it CLEAR (his words) that they were not an affirming church . . . . I get the sense that it was all because he did recognize me right from the beginning. Remember, there were only 12 people present. I was clearly the newcomer.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After he realized that I was helping to organize logistics for a GREEN festival, he said his goodbyes to me, stepped back and away to assemble his post-church service meeting (which was actually a debrief of their &#39;outreach project&#39;).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I said my friendly goodbyes to the folks I met, started shaking my head and wiped my feet at the front door as I LEFT them.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What a freakin&#39; arrogant hypocrite.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So I drove home just pissed and angry and mad at how disrespectful he was but with a smile. I&#39;m SURE he has NO CLUE as to how offensive he was. And I&#39;m SURE he has NO CLUE as to how he hurt me and his own witness.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;By the time I got home, still mad, the first thing I saw when I turned on the television was the &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uQrVgQaxik&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;ending speech from Sigourney Weaver&lt;/a&gt; in &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.prayersforbobby.com/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Prayers For Bobby&lt;/a&gt;&quot; (see below) and by the time she hugged her son/that kid at the side of the parade I was literally balling my eyes out just crying like really really heavy tears.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I mean, seriously, why can&#39;t I just go to a church service with other people that love Jesus and not leave feeling worse than I did when I arrived? (And no, maybe I don&#39;t want to always go to a church where the congregation are mostly gay.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As far as I&#39;ve gone on this journey, I&#39;m still surprised at how this still affects me the way it does. I still take it very personally, the Church&#39;s rejection of gay people, because &lt;a href=&quot;http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2008/01/suicide-and-porcelain-punisher.html&quot;&gt;my own story of suicide&lt;/a&gt; is very real and relevant to me. And I was the one who gave THEM a chance. I freakin&#39; allowed myself, yet one more time, to go into a place knowing that these freakin&#39; Christians might freakin&#39; hurt me freakin&#39; again. AGAIN! It still affects me profoundly and as strong as I think I am, they still freakin&#39; make me cry every time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Damn it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;object width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;344&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;movie&quot; value=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/6uQrVgQaxik&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowFullScreen&quot; value=&quot;true&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowscriptaccess&quot; value=&quot;always&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;embed src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/6uQrVgQaxik&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&quot; type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; allowscriptaccess=&quot;always&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;true&quot; width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;344&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Break the cycle of hurt. Go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twoworldcollision.com/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;www.TwoWorldCollision.com&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/5536705337521407483/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=5536705337521407483' title='7 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/5536705337521407483'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/5536705337521407483'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2009/04/disrespectful-but-with-smile.html' title='Disrespectful But With a Smile'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>7</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-316752635883053525</id><published>2009-04-15T14:38:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-04-15T14:39:51.212-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="gay"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Journey Christians"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="TWC Collaborative Community"/><title type='text'>Choosing to Love</title><content type='html'>This is a letter written by my straight &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twoworldcollision.com/page/Journey+Christians&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Journey Christian&lt;/a&gt; friend Becky to a pastor in response to a comment he had made about gays:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The truth is, you never know how you are going to react to something until it is close to you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Whether or not I think being gay is right or wrong is not the issue. This is an issue of love. How we choose to love and respond when people are being hurt and treated as being something less than human . . . .&lt;span class=&quot;fullpost&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There was a day when I had to make a choice. I chose to listen to the stories. A story about a young man just beginning his life who was hung on a fence post to die. Why? And what makes it even more horrifying is that &quot;Christians&quot; to this day still protest saying this boy is now in HELL...I refuse to believe that.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then there was another story about a friend of mine who loved the LORD with all of his heart, who had to leave his church and the youth group he loved..for many reasons... but mostly because he feared the reactions of his fellow Christians should they find out he was gay.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There were friends who do not want to leave their house because of how they have been treated. Humans who believe that they should not be on this earth!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There was a close friend who lived in fear, every day of his life. Fear that he would be &quot;found out&quot;, always looking over his shoulder if he chose to go out with friends. Who might see him in the &quot;gay&quot; district. I began to ask myself why there was even a &quot;gay&quot; district in cities. I related it to biblical times when so many Christians were persecuted and had to go live in groups together in hiding to get away for the hatred and abuse. They could not tell anyone who they were for fear of losing their lives.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So, therefore I chose to listen and be a positive force in place where people feel like darkness sounds them everyday. I chose to be light in the darkness. I want to make the darkness and pain go away for my friends. I want to go to the places I believe JESUS would be. HE would be with the broken, hurt and suffering. HE would be with the people who have been abused, and all in the name of the Lord.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I had to make a choice a number of years ago when 3 very close and dear friends of mine all came out to me in what seemed a matter of days. I had two options, one was to hurt them, alienate them and leave them alone. The other was that of LOVE. That no matter what, I would love them through my actions, to accept them and everyone right where they were at. Was it right or wrong? I don&#39;t know, but I would allow God to be God and if it were wrong then He would convict my friends. My job was to have no agenda, to love them right where they were at, as hard as that may be. What grew out of that decision, both filled me with love and also shocked me.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One time I accompanied my friend to the &quot;gay district&quot; and I met a man who told me he hated &quot;Christians&quot;, hated everything about them. I told him that I was one of those people he hated. He asked why I was there then? I explained to him how I had no agenda, that I was there with my friend, to support him. It was amazing how that turned him around and we talked for hours about everything. I questioned him and began to dig deeper, and found out that he had a great sense of who God was and knew that God was bigger than the universe. Before we went our separate ways that night he said to me that I seemed &quot;different&quot;, a good different, different than most people. I just smiled, knowing what it was. It was an &#39;aha&#39; moment for me, I felt shalom come over me. That is exactly what I wanted. I want to be different, I want to be a Christian without ever having to say I am. Without ever having to quote from the Bible. I just want people to see something different in me, and that being Jesus Christ.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That was not the only occasion, afterward gay people seemed to be everywhere. I had to reexamine what I was forced fed. Here is what I know, I believe that everyone was created equally in God&#39;s image. That He loves everyone the same, and that it does not matter what someone has done, is doing, or will do for He knows all.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have become extremely passionate about erasing the stereotypes that are often held against the gay community. Yes, there are gays who do go out the bar, just like many straight people. There are gays who do sleep around with many sexual partners, just as do many straight people. There are gays who refuse to walk in the way of the Lord, as do many straight people. So why does our society deem it &quot;normal&quot; when straights do these things and &quot;perverted&quot; of gays?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the end, it does not matter to me if a friend of mine is gay or straight, they are my friend. Unless of course they were endangering their life, I would let them know and beg them to stop, gay or straight.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I have come to realize that people are people, no matter what their sexual preference may be, no matter what their denomination or religion, no matter the color of their skin.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I contend that if my beliefs are wrong that I will be shown that in one way or another from God. I believe that HE is the ultimate judge....it is up to HIM, not me nor any other human being.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Pharisees are mentioned many times in the Bible. I remember the story of one of the Pharisees inviting Jesus to dinner and the Pharisees being upset because Jesus did not wash before the meal. Jesus tells them that they clean the outside but the inside is full of greed and wickedness. In many ways that is not too far off from so many Christians of today. We look great and &quot;clean&quot; on the outside, we go to Church services on Sunday and forget about &quot;Church&quot; the rest of the week.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I recently watched a movie called Prayers for Bobby! It was a true story about a young gay boy growing in a conservative Christian household, with a mother who was misguided by what she was taught. She made her own son feel like he was nothing. She would tell Bobby he was going to hell, and that she would never accept him, ever and neither would GOD! After years of struggle, Bobby ends up taking his own life. It is not until after his death that his mother realizes what she had done. She found his journal and read of the struggles he had, how he prayed endlessly to change and how he questioned GOD. It was then that she too began to question, how could a beautiful, loving boy like her son be damned to hell? In the end she realizes that the judging should have been left to GOD, not her, nor any other human. She knew she was partially responsible for what happened to her son because of her close-minded thinking. Her fight to change that thinking continues to this day.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the end, it does not matter what I think or what anyone else out there thinks. To me it only matters what GOD thinks. I believe that JESUS loves us all the same. His love is unchanging for everyone. I think that if we focused on what we had in COMMON with one another, instead of the differences, then we could live in true COMMUNITY as we were meant to live! I do not know what made GOD lay this topic on my heart? But, he did and I can feel in the core of my bones. It has allowed me to learn so much about myself and who I was created to be. To understand what it means to be a Christian and love one another unconditionally. To show people love through my actions. I believe that love really does win!!!! Love is a choice and I choose to love! Love wins.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;Becky O F&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-style: italic;&quot;&gt;Romans 15v4-6 &lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-style: italic;&quot;&gt;&quot;If you judge others you will have no time to love them.&quot;~ Mother Teresa&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-style: italic;&quot;&gt; &quot;Before you echo &#39;Amen&#39; in your home or place of worship, think and remember...a child is listening.&quot; Mary Griffith.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;----------------------------------------------------------------------&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you are a straight Christian who, like Becky, thinks that expressing genuine love is more important than the divisive politics of the Church&#39;s homosexuality debate, then join us at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twoworldcollision.com/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Two World Collision Collaborative Christian Community&lt;/a&gt; and find out what it means to be a &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twoworldcollision.com/page/Journey+Christians&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Journey Christian&lt;/a&gt;.&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/316752635883053525/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=316752635883053525' title='3 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/316752635883053525'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/316752635883053525'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2009/04/choosing-to-love.html' title='Choosing to Love'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>3</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-7409023677122546799</id><published>2009-04-11T12:46:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-04-11T13:54:28.018-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="gay Christian"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="My Journey"/><title type='text'>Outside the Village Walls</title><content type='html'>So I happened to see a post card flyer of an event called &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.themurderjesusproject.com/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;the Murder Jesus Project&lt;/a&gt;&quot; that i was thinking about checking out tonight. It&#39;s hosted by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.avillagecommunity.org/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;A Village Community&lt;/a&gt;, a local Long Beach church. I spent an hour checking out their web sites and watching many of their videos. Here&#39;s the one on that project:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;object width=&quot;400&quot; height=&quot;267&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowfullscreen&quot; value=&quot;true&quot; /&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowscriptaccess&quot; value=&quot;always&quot; /&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;movie&quot; value=&quot;http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1640575&amp;amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;amp;show_title=1&amp;amp;show_byline=1&amp;amp;show_portrait=0&amp;amp;color=&amp;amp;fullscreen=1&quot; /&gt;&lt;embed src=&quot;http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=1640575&amp;amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;amp;show_title=1&amp;amp;show_byline=1&amp;amp;show_portrait=0&amp;amp;color=&amp;amp;fullscreen=1&quot; type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;true&quot; allowscriptaccess=&quot;always&quot; width=&quot;400&quot; height=&quot;267&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;From what I could see from many of their &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.avillagecommunity.org/creativity/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;creative videos&lt;/a&gt; is that they welcome people on life&#39;s journey. I found myself wondering if this village community of believers even had the capacity to walk with these kinds of people. Attracting them to the church is one thing, but what happens once they&#39;ve &quot;attended&quot;? I wonder how willing this village community is to really journeying with us or if they simply wanted to bring people in for an event.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I noted, by the way, that their stated spiritual beliefs is just a link to the Missionary Church denomination and I enjoyed reading about their beliefs that &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.mcusa.org/AboutMC/PositionPapers/SocialIssues/tabid/406/Default.aspx&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;homosexual activity, like adulterous relationships, is clearly condemned in the Scriptures&lt;/a&gt;&quot;. Who knows if this particular local church agrees with their denomination mother ship but their site doesn&#39;t say otherwise. Would that mean that I&#39;m not welcome in their village community? &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And so why would I want to set myself up by trying to join their village only to have them set me outside the village walls once they get to know the real me? Or worse, allow me inside the village square without inviting me into their homes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;[enter sarcasm] And people think of the &lt;span style=&quot;font-style:italic;&quot;&gt;gay&lt;/span&gt; community when they think of the sin of Sodom? (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezekiel%2016:49;&amp;version=31;&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Ezekiel 16:49&lt;/a&gt;)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;(I know, it sounds like I&#39;m pre-judging this local church but i&#39;m more commenting on mainstream churches in general. I&#39;m still gonna check them out tonight.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In describing my own journey, I&#39;ll often talk about not being a part of an institutional church because I have a different paradigm of &quot;Church&quot; - that Church is the community of believers connected by Spirit and relationship, not a place to go or a thing to do. We are the Church. And i&#39;ll often justify not going to a sunday &quot;service&quot; because i&#39;ll say that i&#39;m in regular community with believers.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That&#39;s not been the case so much these past few months. I&#39;ve kept myself occupied trying to do good things in the community and I&#39;ve actually had a great time getting to know many folks in the creative communities and even the green communities. But the truth is, I&#39;ve been out of fellowship and the next time someone asks me what church I &quot;go&quot; to, I&#39;ll probably respond authentically with &quot;I don&#39;t&quot;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;ve been talking to Jesus about it actually. It&#39;s just that I don&#39;t connect with or resonate with much of what I see from many churches. I&#39;ve been around too long and so I can see right through the gimmicks. It just turns me off. And what&#39;s more, I&#39;m kinda bugging over people who say one thing but don&#39;t follow through. I&#39;d like to see a community of believers who were investing in mutually knowing each other - both regulars and newcomers instead of being content with simply seeing each other at events. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I know tomorrow is Easter. I&#39;ve no idea what I&#39;ll do. And my family decided not to get together for the traditional lunch gathering. It&#39;s easy for them to decide that when they all have their own families to be with - spouse and kids and in-laws. I don&#39;t have that just yet, being single and all. They are my only family. &lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;m not too keen on attending an Easter service either when I barely even go on any other sunday.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You get that I&#39;m not all that concerned with presenting a super gay Christian image, right? This is just me (today), unapologetically.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Either way, me and Jesus are still sticking around doing our thing.</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/7409023677122546799/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=7409023677122546799' title='6 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/7409023677122546799'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/7409023677122546799'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2009/04/outside-village-walls.html' title='Outside the Village Walls'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>6</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-1868782279009812657</id><published>2009-04-09T11:56:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-04-09T11:56:58.519-07:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="gay Christian"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="GCN"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="TWC Collaborative Community"/><title type='text'>Through My Eyes</title><content type='html'>I really was not expecting to tear up and cry while here at work after seeing this again.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;object width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;344&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;movie&quot; value=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/LBMbNSyqwkA&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowFullScreen&quot; value=&quot;true&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowscriptaccess&quot; value=&quot;always&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;embed src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/LBMbNSyqwkA&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&quot; type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; allowscriptaccess=&quot;always&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;true&quot; width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;344&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;My own story rings clearly for me and while I hear clips of their stories, they sound so much like mine. (see &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2008/01/suicide-and-porcelain-punisher.html&quot;&gt;Suicide and the Porcelain Punisher&lt;/a&gt;&quot;).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I suppose I teared up this morning because I&#39;ve been feeling kinda alone in recent weeks - for a lot of reasons, really. But after seeing the trailer for &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.throughmyeyesdvd.com/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Through My Eyes&lt;/a&gt;, GCN&#39;s recently released project documentary of young Christians wrestling with the issue of being gay and of homosexuality in the Church, I found that it stirred up a lot of those familiar emotions and memories of searching for connection and never seeming to find it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;These days, I busy myself with helping others to connect. I&#39;ve been working non-stop on the Catalyst Community (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.gocatalyst.org/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;www.GoCatalyst.org&lt;/a&gt;) and the Green Long Beach! Festival (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.greenlb.org&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;www.greenLB.org&lt;/a&gt;) the past three months. Not to mention  my other project, the Two World Collision Collaborative Christian Community site (&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twoworldcollision.com/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;www.TwoWorldCollision.com&lt;/a&gt;) as well as many of the other collaborative communities and coalitions that I&#39;ve been trying to help catalyze. These are all reasons why I haven&#39;t blogged here so frequently.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But in working so hard to help others connect, the heart of where that comes from is my own desire and need to connect - to feel connected. I long for reciprocity. And I appreciate the few truly mutual friendships that I do have in my life. It&#39;s just hard when relationships seem to come and go or fade before a root takes hold. What&#39;s harder is trying - really trying - not to internalize this pattern as my fault. Or perhaps it is. Or some of it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Regardless of the reasons why or what the pattern means, at the end of the day I still find myself alone.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In thinking about these stories of young Christians who live and/or wrestle with being gay, what resonates for me is the fact that we want to connect. We want to live in faithful Christ-centered community. But when our churches reject us, what more do we have left?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A pastor asked me once regarding me not having a home church and asked if there was a community of believers who missed me when I wasn&#39;t present. The interesting thing is that after attending services at that church, no one acknowledged that I was present in the first place. And after subsequently discontinuing attendance at those services, I&#39;ve not heard from the pastor. It&#39;s hard to miss someone you didn&#39;t realize was there.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So I suppose the answer to the question is &quot;no.&quot;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/1868782279009812657/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=1868782279009812657' title='3 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/1868782279009812657'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/1868782279009812657'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2009/04/through-my-eyes.html' title='Through My Eyes'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>3</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-5789832850200471586</id><published>2009-02-01T14:56:00.001-08:00</published><updated>2009-02-01T20:59:24.312-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Coalition of Bridge Builders"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Ethnic Shame"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="gay Christian"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Journey Christians"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="My Church Paradigm"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="TWC Collaborative Community"/><title type='text'>The Monkey&#39;s Pet Fish</title><content type='html'>I was having one of those &quot;ugly&quot; cries. You know that gross tears flowing out of my eyes with snot dripping from my nose and lips quivering into an upside down smile with cheeks tightened up. That kinda cry. It was one of those &quot;ugly&quot; cries.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not cute.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I was driving on the freeway this morning when it happened, on my way to a church service at &lt;a href=&quot;http://global.newsong.net/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Newsong&lt;/a&gt; in Irvine, California. There&#39;s a few reasons why this is significant to me. For starters, it&#39;s a predominantly Asian congregation. Secondly, it&#39;s a predominantly straight congregation. Thirdly, it&#39;s a bit of a mega-church. If you&#39;ve followed my story these past couple years you&#39;d know that these are definitely outside of my comfort zone.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But the Lord, in His hilarity and divine plan, was sending me here and I knew exactly what was up His sleeve. I just didn&#39;t necessarily like the fact that I had to be the one, once again, to go do the thing that absolutely challenged my sense of courage and security.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I was having a breakthrough there in the car this morning. And that breakthrough was the realization that I was afraid of God&#39;s people. I&#39;ve never been afraid of God. He&#39;s always been trustworthy and consistently by my side. He&#39;s my friend. But it&#39;s God&#39;s people that I fear, at times. Because much of the profound hurt that I&#39;ve experienced in my life was connected in some way to God&#39;s people, my own brothers and sisters in Christ. Ironic.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I wasn&#39;t crying because of the fear though. I was crying because realizing the truth that many people are afraid of Christians and see them as unsafe hurt-ers instead of heal-ers makes me sad and (I think) grieves the Spirit . . . .(read more)&lt;span class=&quot;fullpost&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For the major part of my life I&#39;ve experienced &lt;a href=&quot;http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/search/label/Ethnic%20Shame&quot;&gt;ethnic shame&lt;/a&gt; for being Filipino. I didn&#39;t like being Asian nor did I feel like I connected with other Asians. I experienced racial prejudice with slurs directed at me while at a very young age and I responded by internalizing that hatred. Until recent years, having come out of the closet, the Lord has done much healing in me in that area of my life. Particularly since the Lord had begun a process in me of learning how to love myself as I am, the way He does. And so I&#39;ve found myself growing - becoming more and more comfortable around Asians and even being able to look in the mirror.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Going to the service at Newsong was also going to be the first time since coming out that I was going to be investing in relationships with straight people in a church fellowship. When I came out, I had primarily been visiting with and getting to know people in congregations where the majority of people were gay. But this morning, I wasn&#39;t simply visiting a &quot;straight&quot; church because of an invitation or because I was church hopping. Before I even experienced a sunday morning service at Newsong, the Lord had already been telling me that I was supposed to go and invest in relationships there. So whether or not my first impression was great or terrible, I already knew going in that I was going to keep coming.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The fact that this was a church with resources and lots of people and that God was sending me here didn&#39;t make me feel comfortable either. My paradigm of Church has always been that &quot;church&quot; was not a &quot;place to go to&quot; or a &quot;thing to do&quot;. I believe that we are the Church - the web of relationships that comprise God&#39;s family who live out a lifestyle of faith, and so if we are to experience this community fully, we have to see past the man-made structures and begin to see a Church without walls. (&quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2005/09/jumping-walls.html&quot;&gt;Jumping the Walls&lt;/a&gt;&quot; and  &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2005/09/band-of-brothers-and-sisters.html&quot;&gt;Band of Brothers and Sisters&lt;/a&gt;&quot; describes my paradigm of Church further.) But one of the things that I liked hearing about Newsong beforehand was that they taught about similar themes regarding the Church without walls. It would be interesting to see how this looked within the context of a mega-church structure - to see if the substance of relationships in community was present as evidence of those who lived out this &quot;Church without walls&quot; paradigm. Nevertheless, the things I had been told about Newsong before coming to a service was refreshing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So there I was crying in the car talking with God about how He always seems to send me to uncomfortable places. The reality is that I&#39;m just always willing to go where He is. He&#39;s taken me to some very interesting places in my life and they were all places where He was already actively working among the hearts of people there. And so here He was again, sending me to an Asian Straight Mega-Church. My God&#39;s a comedian and He thinks He&#39;s funny.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The point isn&#39;t that Newsong is fine and great and that God is working through them to minister to others. I&#39;m sure that&#39;s happening but that&#39;s not what I&#39;m talking about. The point is that God has been actively working on the hearts of people here at Newsong and He wanted me to witness it and possibly even be a part of it. I don&#39;t know exactly what that looks like but if indeed He&#39;s preparing their hearts to enter into friendly non-combative relationships with gay people as a different approach to the historically hostile approach towards them, then heck yeah I&#39;ll keep myself in proximity to wait for God&#39;s prompting or call on me to share my heart and life.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I can be pretty critical of the Church in general with all of it&#39;s institutional surface relationships that come in arrogantly and hypocritically with best intentions of helping poor needy souls. It&#39;s like the Church has a savior complex. But I&#39;m not simply critical of the Church. I can see what the Church can be - effective ambassadors of reconciliation, once again. We&#39;re not that now. But we can be. I&#39;ve often written and spoken about these things. But here, this morning, I could be in the very uncomfortable situation of being part of God&#39;s answered prayer. It&#39;s not enough for me to talk about how the Church needs to change while in the comfortable safe spaces of fellowship with people like me. No, if I was going to pray for it, then I have to be willing to be the tangible body that God uses to answer my own prayer. Otherwise, I&#39;d just be complaining.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For several months now, the Lord had been speaking to me about building community among straight Christians who could be loving and supportive of those who are gay. I haven&#39;t seen that happening much elsewhere in the conservative evangelical world. For two years, the Lord had me investing in relationships with gay people and even catalyze a tangible sense of community among gay Christians. Now it seems the Lord would have me do similar things with straight Christians. And already knowing the character and trend of God in my own life, I can see how these two communities of gay and straight Christians can eventually be brought together - not through program or agenda but rather through relationship.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If that&#39;s what He&#39;s up to, then I&#39;ll go and do whatever He wants me to do. Even if that means going to a community of straight Asian Christians and for the first time offering myself authentically right from the start. I would make no effort to advertise the fact that I&#39;m gay but I would make no effort to hide the fact either. I would allow myself to be known (organically and in due time) as the man that I am and if God sparks relationship between me and others then I trust that it will be mutually edifying.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But this comes with huge emotional and relational risk. I&#39;ve no idea how I&#39;ll be received. I can say that the two people from this congregation that I&#39;ve shared a meal with - dinner with the Life Development Pastor and lunch with the Small Groups Director - both received me with love and generous hearts. And I can call them friends. But I&#39;ve got my share of baggage. My hope is simply to be known in safe ways and to know others in safe ways.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Honestly, though, I don&#39;t enter into this without my own hypocrisy. I speak a lot about the need for reconciliation and for the most part I&#39;ve seen that in my life more and more. But very recently, only a week and a half ago, a friend that I&#39;ve known for almost ten years betrayed my trust and I&#39;ve been having a difficult time forgiving him - much less giving him the time of day or releasing his &quot;blocked&quot; status from my Facebook.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Boy, I&#39;m telling you that actually living out this life with Jesus is tough! It&#39;s one thing to go through the motions on Sunday morning but it&#39;s absolutely another thing to be owning His life as mine.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The pastor at Newsong Church is Dave Gibbons. I don&#39;t know too much about his celebrity but I gather that the work and ministry that he&#39;s done for the Lord has been noticed in evangelical Christendom. He&#39;s also got a new book out called &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.amazon.com/Monkey-Fish-Leadership-Third-Culture-Innovation/dp/0310276020/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&amp;amp;s=books&amp;amp;qid=1232831354&amp;amp;sr=8-1&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;The Monkey and the Fish: Liquid Leadership for a Third Culture Church&lt;/a&gt;&quot; which I&#39;m very interested in reading since much of what I&#39;ve heard has resonated with my paradigm of Church. This morning, he shared several points with the congregation while introducing the eastern story of The Monkey and the Fish. In a nutshell, the story tells of a typhoon raging and the monkey who sees the fish in the water. With good intentions, the monkey tried to &quot;save&quot; the fish by picking it up out of the water. The pet fish died and the monkey is an idiot. (That last part was my own, sorry Dave.)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So when I think about the Church on the issue of gays both in the congregation and in the community, some people can be a big monkey trying to help their pet fish and just makes things worse.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ex-gay programs, exorcisms, reparative therapy, ex-communication from church or being disowned from the family.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Church has left in its wake people like me who cry on the way to their precious &quot;church services&quot; or on the way home or in the shower or any where else where we feel completely alone.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But we are no one&#39;s pet and none of us wants to be someone&#39;s project.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;While Dave didn&#39;t specifically reference the gay thing in his message, I think it can be applied. Straight Christians can do a world of good by simply putting the halo on the shelf, getting in the water, and experiencing empathy for what it&#39;s like to be gay - both in the congregation and in the community. In Dave&#39;s message, he talked about how this will require people to be in painful adaptation - the notion that it is going to be absolutely uncomfortable, will require a commitment to staying in the water (in relationship), and operating with the truth that Jesus is already present and that it&#39;s okay to step aside and just watch.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There&#39;s only room for One Savior in this Church.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So let&#39;s not mess up what Jesus is doing by throwing ourselves in before assessing how Jesus wants to use us productively.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;On the flip side to this whole message is that I feel like God was telling me that not only am I the fish but that God was leading me to be of help to the monkey. It&#39;s not about the monkey being productively helpful to the poor fish. It&#39;s about the monkey being humble enough to realize that he could possibly use some help from the fish.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But how do you tell a fish that he can help the same monkey that tried to drown him with oxygen in the first place?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I guess that&#39;s where I find myself at right now.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I believe that I am a child of God, a member of His Church, who is not only valued and loved but is also useful and qualified for serving in His Kingdom. Am I willing to take the same humble approach of not simply trying to save the Church from its arrogant ways as if I&#39;m some sort of twisted savior, but instead am I willing to build relationship with other straight Christians to actually appreciate their well-intentioned hearts and to earn the kind of trust in these relationships that grants me the privilege of speaking into a person&#39;s life?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It&#39;s the same approach that I would want from straight Christians to gay people. It seems only fair and reasonable that we would each share a stance of common humility.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Gosh, I can see the transforming power of reconciliation through relationships that God can do in healing His own Church - answering the prayers from both &quot;sides&quot;. And what a testimony it could be to the world to show that even the Church can learn to forgive itself.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That kind of credibility would go a long way towards us being seen and even welcomed again as ambassadors of reconciliation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-style: italic;&quot;&gt;[Be sure to check out &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twoworldcollision.com/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Two World Collision Collaborative Christian Community&lt;/a&gt; for both gay and straight Journey Christians.]&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/5789832850200471586/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=5789832850200471586' title='9 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/5789832850200471586'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/5789832850200471586'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2009/02/monkeys-pet-fish.html' title='The Monkey&#39;s Pet Fish'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>9</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-6247706967558620252</id><published>2008-12-29T23:42:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2008-12-29T23:42:58.239-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Catalyst"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Coalition of Bridge Builders"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="community"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="HIV/AIDS Collaborative"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="swervemat"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="TWC Collaborative Community"/><title type='text'>Ten Lessons Along the Adventure of My Life</title><content type='html'>It&#39;s been a long and amazing year! What started off to be a year-end blog post ended up becoming way too long to put up here on the blog. So I posted it at our &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twoworldcollision.com/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;www.TwoWorldCollision.com&lt;/a&gt; site for more flexibility.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I begin with talking about the projects that I&#39;ve been a part of this year. Then I share the details of the amazing summer adventure that I had in August when I ran into a super cute hot buck-naked golden tan blond haired North Carolina guy in the middle of a hawaiian jungle.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It was the adventure of my life and through the experience I pulled out ten life lessons for the journey.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Check it out here:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twoworldcollision.com/page/Ten+Lessons+Along+The+Adventure+of+My+Life&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Two World Collision: Ten Lessons Along the Adventure of My Life&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Cheers to an awesome 2008!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Blessings!&lt;br /&gt;Eric</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/6247706967558620252/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=6247706967558620252' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/6247706967558620252'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/6247706967558620252'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2008/12/ten-lessons-along-adventure-of-my-life.html' title='Ten Lessons Along the Adventure of My Life'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-9191528298222809722</id><published>2008-12-23T12:30:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2008-12-23T17:30:28.289-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Hot Zone"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Journey Christians"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="marriage equality"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="TWC Collaborative Community"/><title type='text'>Another Shot Fired</title><content type='html'>Another shot fired.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Pope made a controversial comment that many are interpreting as hostile towards gays. &lt;a href=&quot;http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7796663.stm&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Here&#39;s an article from BBC&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-style: italic;&quot;&gt;[Edit #1: Yeah, I realize the Pope was talking about behavior and not people, but let&#39;s be honest. The vast majority of gay and straight people will not make that distinction.]&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;[Edit #2: I decided to make another edit to the sentences above and below because I can acknowledge that it wasn&#39;t consistent with the heart of the message in this post.]&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The culture war over beliefs and interpretations about sexuality and justice continue to rage on and both sides will continue their own version of a witch hunt. In the last two months, we&#39;ve gone from Proposition 8 passing in California, to national protests to repeal Prop 8, to Rick Warren being selected for Obama&#39;s inaugural invocation (in my opinion, a premature gesture for the appearance of bridge building without first establishing relationship so that the selection would make sense), to coordinated responses by HRC and other organizations calling on Obama to affirm a commitment to GLBT justice and equality, to the Pope addressing Cardinals and staff (and essentially the world) making more comments against homosexuality.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This war must end.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Dignity and respect has nothing to do with our own personal opinions about things we disagree on. At the very least, we need civility. The ideal would be love, but perhaps that&#39;s too much to ask for during this holiday season. Each of us needs to consider the impact of our words - especially if, from our perspective, our intent is good.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;We cannot continue to hurt each other.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;We must elevate the conversation beyond the politics of our differences. Now more than ever do we need to create a space beyond the framework of &quot;I believe this and you believe that&quot;. We need to create a space where we can come together based on what we have in common, not on what we don&#39;t have in common. We need people, both gay and straight, willing to become &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twoworldcollision.com/page/Journey+Christians&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Journey Christians&lt;/a&gt;&quot;.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If this is you, then be part of what we&#39;re trying to do at &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twoworldcollision.com/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;www.TwoWorldCollision.com&lt;/a&gt;.</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/9191528298222809722/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=9191528298222809722' title='5 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/9191528298222809722'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/9191528298222809722'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2008/12/another-shot-fired.html' title='Another Shot Fired'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>5</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-202578964709945460</id><published>2008-12-22T15:05:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2008-12-22T15:13:14.255-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Just For Fun"/><title type='text'>Disco Christmas</title><content type='html'>Merry Christmas from me, ate Jayson, Whistler (Michael), Howie, and Earl!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;div style=&#39;background-color:#e9e9e9; width: 425px;&#39;&gt;&lt;object id=&#39;A202817&#39; quality=&#39;high&#39; data=&#39;http://aka.zero.jibjab.com/client/zero/ClientZero_EmbedViewer.swf?external_make_id=FlZ6Abu0NbuH9zCm&amp;service=sendables.jibjab.com&amp;partnerID=ElfYourself&#39; pluginspage=&#39;http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer&#39; type=&#39;application/x-shockwave-flash&#39; wmode=&#39;transparent&#39; height=&#39;319&#39; width=&#39;425&#39;&gt;&lt;param name=&#39;wmode&#39; value=&#39;transparent&#39;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&#39;movie&#39; value=&#39;http://aka.zero.jibjab.com/client/zero/ClientZero_EmbedViewer.swf?external_make_id=FlZ6Abu0NbuH9zCm&amp;service=sendables.jibjab.com&amp;partnerID=ElfYourself&#39;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&#39;scaleMode&#39; value=&#39;showAll&#39;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&#39;quality&#39; value=&#39;high&#39;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&#39;allowNetworking&#39; value=&#39;all&#39;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&#39;allowFullScreen&#39; value=&#39;true&#39; /&gt;&lt;param name=&#39;FlashVars&#39; value=&#39;external_make_id=FlZ6Abu0NbuH9zCm&amp;service=sendables.jibjab.com&amp;partnerID=ElfYourself&#39;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&#39;allowScriptAccess&#39; value=&#39;always&#39;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;div style=&#39;text-align:center; width:435px; margin-top:6px;&#39;&gt;Send your own &lt;a href=&#39;http://www.elfyourself.com&#39;&gt;ElfYourself&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href=&#39;http://sendables.jibjab.com/ecards&#39;&gt;eCards&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;/div&gt;&lt;img style=&quot;visibility:hidden;width:0px;height:0px;&quot; border=0 width=0 height=0 src=&quot;http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.0NXC/bT*xJmx*PTEyMjk5ODc1MzQ1NzMmcHQ9MTIyOTk4NzUzODI5NSZwPTQxODgxMyZkPTIwMjY3NSZnPTImdD*mbz*3YTI2Njc2MjUzODA*NTIwODNlZjE*NTM5ZDQwYWEwOA==.gif&quot; /&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/202578964709945460/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=202578964709945460' title='1 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/202578964709945460'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/202578964709945460'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2008/12/christmas-elf-dance.html' title='Disco Christmas'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>1</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-1728939098491014513</id><published>2008-12-16T14:24:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2008-12-16T14:34:48.955-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="dating"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="YouTube"/><title type='text'>Sock Me in the Stomach Three More Times</title><content type='html'>&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.ehow.com/how_2054274_deal-unrequited-love.html&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;How to Deal with Unrequited Love&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;object width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;344&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;movie&quot; value=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/XF4qbWqfU5w&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowFullScreen&quot; value=&quot;true&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowscriptaccess&quot; value=&quot;always&quot;&gt;&lt;/param&gt;&lt;embed src=&quot;http://www.youtube.com/v/XF4qbWqfU5w&amp;hl=en&amp;fs=1&quot; type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; allowscriptaccess=&quot;always&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;true&quot; width=&quot;425&quot; height=&quot;344&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;u&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight:bold;&quot;&gt;The Space Goes Down&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/u&gt;&lt;br /&gt;by &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.myspace.com/goodbyeelliott&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Goodbye Elliott&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-style:italic;&quot;&gt;the space goes down…&lt;br /&gt;sock me in the stomach three more times.&lt;br /&gt;then ride with me into the sun,&lt;br /&gt;forget your plans,&lt;br /&gt;and forget you already have someone&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;cause grace bestows the morning light,&lt;br /&gt;upon the grace of those who choose,&lt;br /&gt;to live a life, with absolutely nothing to lose.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;so sock me in the stomach three more times,&lt;br /&gt;sock me in the stomach three more times,&lt;br /&gt;then walk away and forget, forget, and act just fine.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;i think that i&#39;m gonna head for the ocean,&lt;br /&gt;i think that i&#39;m gonna head for the ocean,&lt;br /&gt;and forget, and forget, and forget (i lost you)&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;so take your ideas of autumn in california,&lt;br /&gt;and leave me with my hopes of what could’ve, should’ve happened,&lt;br /&gt;and don’t care about my dreams&lt;br /&gt;cause nothing is ever what it seems,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;so eat your words and drink your lines,&lt;br /&gt;and toast to love and all the good times,&lt;br /&gt;and bless the chase that brought out the best in you,&lt;br /&gt;but the worst in me,&lt;br /&gt;the best in you,&lt;br /&gt;and a few good songs.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;then you sock me in the stomach three more times,&lt;br /&gt;you sock me in the stomach three more times,&lt;br /&gt;and walk away and forget, and forget, then act just fine.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;i think that i&#39;m gonna head for the ocean,&lt;br /&gt;think that i&#39;m gonna head for the ocean,&lt;br /&gt;and forget, and forget, and forget&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight:bold;&quot;&gt;cause i don’t want to ruin what you have,&lt;br /&gt;if you&#39;re happy that&#39;s the plan,&lt;br /&gt;so i guess it comes to you never knowing&lt;br /&gt;how in love with you i am,&lt;br /&gt;and i don’t want to ruin what you have,&lt;br /&gt;cause if you&#39;re happy that&#39;s the plan,&lt;br /&gt;so i guess it comes to you never knowing&lt;br /&gt;how completely in love i am,&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;so take your ideas of autumn in california,&lt;br /&gt;and leave me with my hopes of what could’ve, should’ve happened,&lt;br /&gt;and don’t care about my dreams&lt;br /&gt;no nothing is ever what it seems,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I read it. I said it. I stole my momma’s credit. Yeah I’m cool. I’m hot. Sock me in the stomach three more times.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://lyrics.payplay.fm/Goodbye+Elliott/The+Space+Goes+Down&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;lyrics&lt;/a&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/1728939098491014513/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=1728939098491014513' title='2 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/1728939098491014513'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/1728939098491014513'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2008/12/sock-me-in-stomach-three-more-times.html' title='Sock Me in the Stomach Three More Times'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>2</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-1917016352843033438</id><published>2008-12-07T20:21:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2008-12-07T20:22:14.495-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="gay Christian"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="TWC Collaborative Community"/><title type='text'>TWC Featured Question: What Does a Gay Christian Look Like?</title><content type='html'>Our next featured question over at our Two World Collision Collaborative Community site is:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;&quot;What does a gay Christian look like?&quot;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Instead of a written explanation, I&#39;m interested in seeing this question answered visually. Share your photos of a service project or worship service or anything that shows a gay person living out a lifestyle of faith.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Go here to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twoworldcollision.com/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;www.TwoWorldCollision.com&lt;/a&gt; to answer the featured question.</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/1917016352843033438/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=1917016352843033438' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/1917016352843033438'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/1917016352843033438'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2008/12/twc-featured-question-what-does-gay.html' title='TWC Featured Question: What Does a Gay Christian Look Like?'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-3543610397835334988</id><published>2008-12-06T19:46:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2008-12-07T20:15:46.455-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="marriage equality"/><title type='text'>Prop 8 - The Musical</title><content type='html'>&lt;object width=&quot;464&quot; height=&quot;388&quot; classid=&quot;clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000&quot;&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;movie&quot; value=&quot;http://player.ordienetworks.com/flash/fodplayer.swf&quot; /&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;flashvars&quot; value=&quot;key=c0cf508ff8&quot; /&gt;&lt;param name=&quot;allowfullscreen&quot; value=&quot;true&quot; /&gt;&lt;embed width=&quot;464&quot; height=&quot;388&quot; flashvars=&quot;key=c0cf508ff8&quot; allowfullscreen=&quot;true&quot; quality=&quot;high&quot; src=&quot;http://player.ordienetworks.com/flash/fodplayer.swf&quot; type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/3543610397835334988/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=3543610397835334988' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/3543610397835334988'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/3543610397835334988'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2008/12/prop-8-musical.html' title='Prop 8 - The Musical'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-6279159314432494931</id><published>2008-11-30T20:03:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2008-12-26T08:56:27.373-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Coalition of Bridge Builders"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Hot Zone"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Journey Christians"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Side X (ex-gay)"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="swervemat"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="vision"/><title type='text'>Journey Christians: Beyond the Side A/B/X Framework</title><content type='html'>I&#39;ve often said that we are not alone. Along my own journey, I&#39;ve been blessed to have encountered straight Christians who have been supportive of my story. That doesn&#39;t necessarily mean that they all believed that being gay is or is not a sin. Just that they&#39;ve all been supportive. As my friend &lt;a href=&quot;http://love-is-an-orientation.blogspot.com/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Andy&lt;/a&gt; often says, there&#39;s a difference between validating a person&#39;s experiences (by acknowledging them) and affirming a person&#39;s belief system (by sharing them).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If we&#39;re ever to elevate the conversation beyond the politics of our differences, we need an alternative space for conservative/traditional straight Christians to be able to walk with us who are either not straight or not conservative or not traditional . . . .&lt;span class=&quot;fullpost&quot;&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I still maintain that the &lt;a href=&quot;http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2007/12/side-x-culture-and-vision-for-inclusive.html&quot;&gt;Side X culture&lt;/a&gt; and ex-gay programs do more harm than good. They communicate the mixed message of God&#39;s &lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;unconditional &lt;/span&gt;love with the Church&#39;s &lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;conditional &lt;/span&gt;acceptance, and the historical result of such a culture is that it traumatizes individuals into a closet of shame and secrecy (and suicide) and has left many in its wake feeling spiritually abused. I believe that the Side X culture and ex-gay programs attack our self-esteem, self-image, self-confidence, and self-worth.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-style: italic;&quot;&gt;[&lt;a href=&quot;http://swervemat.wetpaint.com/page/Spectrum+of+Perspectives&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Click here if you are unfamiliar with my use of the Side A, Side B, Side X Spectrum of Perspectives.&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I respect that many of us have a difference of perspective, opinion, and interpretation regarding the issue of faith and sexuality. That&#39;s okay. I think the Church needs to learn how to disagree with itself. My pal Ryan and I developed the term &quot;&lt;a href=&quot;http://swervemat.wetpaint.com/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;swervemat&lt;/a&gt;&quot; to describe &quot;&lt;span style=&quot;font-style: italic;&quot;&gt;a learning space where one explores various viewpoints of a relevant subject in order to gain perspective.&lt;/span&gt;&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But what alternative is there for straight Christians who lean more on the Side X part of the spectrum and can&#39;t exactly affirm a Side A or Side B stance on the issue but at the same time recognize that the broader Church needs to get away from the terrorism of Side X?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;ve come to realize more and more that there are straight and gay Christians who are what I call &quot;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;Journey Christians&lt;/span&gt;&quot;. These are believers who don&#39;t primarily use the Side A, Side B, Side X framework. For these Journey Christians, they engage in relationships without the lens of sin/not sin. They interact on a completely different plane and paradigm where a person&#39;s viewpoint about the issue of being gay and being Christian is less relevant than the fact that every person is worth knowing. And so they are willing to walk with others along the journey of their lives without precondition of purity or shared perspective.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It seems too simplistic for some &quot;Side - ?&quot; Christians to accept that these Journey Christians are simply building relationships on love. It sounds almost too intangible. But the fact remains that they live out the truth of our common faith in Christ with a consistent message of both &lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;unconditional &lt;/span&gt;love from God and an &lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;unconditional &lt;/span&gt;acceptance from God&#39;s people. They leave the judging to the Judge because they realize that condemning another individual of whom Christ died for is way above their pay grade. As believers, it&#39;s simply not our place to do such a thing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;All of us have been charged to love God and to love one another (the Greatest commandments) and then also show others to do the same (the Great Commission). So where ever any of us land on the spectrum of perspectives, it really doesn&#39;t matter in light of the fact that we are to engage in authentic relationships that are shaped not by our opinions on issues but rather shaped by our love.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;That doesn&#39;t seem so hard. What does this look like?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;1. Give each other the freedom to journey with God.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;We need to keep pointing each other to Christ and get out of the way. We need to restrain ourselves from molding someone into the image of what we think they should be. We need to learn how to walk with one another without telling each other what to do. If we point people to the Counselor, instead of arrogantly counseling them with our own answers, then we more effectively disciple one another how to nurture our direct communication with God. That&#39;s more important than simply providing a temporary seemingly good answer. It&#39;s better for us to encourage each other to present God with our questions than to seek our friends for the answers. Let go. Trust Jesus enough to talk to His own.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;2. Be willing to journey with each other.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Relationships take investment - of time, of energy, of heart. Our challenge is to love beyond our surface interactions and to explore what it looks like to walk through life with one another. Celebrate in each other&#39;s joys. Can it be enough for me to be happy that you are happy without the precondition of me agreeing with what you&#39;re happy about? Let&#39;s support a family member or friend in the things that they are excited about. On the flip side, grieve in each other&#39;s sorrows. Life isn&#39;t always about celebration. It&#39;s a struggle too! Let&#39;s share in each other&#39;s disappointments. Walking with each other through life means communicating through our actions that we are not alone.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;3. Love without agenda.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;We are the Church. And as the Church, we are to live a lifestyle of faith beyond the box of our religious routines. Let&#39;s explore ways of expressing tangible love. This could include hugging someone or putting your hand on someone&#39;s shoulder as they &quot;come out&quot; to you. Show the person tangibly that they are not unclean and that you are not afraid to touch them. Let them know that Christ loves them and that they are worthy to approach God with their questions. Encourage them to invite our Lord into their process. Just love without a (straight/Christian) conversion agenda. Tangible love builds relationship.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;4. Subject ourselves to our own mirror&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;We need to stop looking at what we think is wrong in others and love them without precondition. We can remain humble by continually examining ourselves for correction instead of &quot;lovingly&quot; telling others what they need to correct. I can hardly see your sin because my own huge sin is blocking my view.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold;&quot;&gt;5. Experience empathy not pity&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is much hurt in the gay/gay Christian community. If we are to walk with one another, gay or straight, we need to empathize with each other&#39;s stories. We need to share in the painful experiences of others so that we can love more sincerely. For too long, the words and actions of God&#39;s people has caused hurt in already fragile people and has forced God&#39;s loved ones emotionally and spiritually farther away from Him. Cry when I cry. Get mad when I get mad. Show me that you&#39;d rather be on my side instead of a Side A/B/X. It&#39;s personal. So get personal. Stand up for me. Don&#39;t tolerate it when someone else dehumanizes me. Remind me that Christ&#39;s love gives me human dignity. Then model it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;These are some tangible ways that Journey Christians can function above and beyond the Side A/B/X framework. Something has to change. We cannot continue this cyclical war of perspectives within the Church because it is hindering our effectiveness in being a witness of God&#39;s love. We cannot continue the Side X culture that communicates an inconsistent message of love. We have to shift the cultural paradigm of the broader Church to one that centers on our common faith in Christ and respects the individual faith journeys of all Christ&#39;s believers.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is a better Way.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Go to &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twoworldcollision.com/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;www.TwoWorldCollision.com&lt;/a&gt; to see a community of Journey Christians.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/span&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/6279159314432494931/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=6279159314432494931' title='4 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/6279159314432494931'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/6279159314432494931'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2008/11/journey-christians-beyond-side-abx.html' title='Journey Christians: Beyond the Side A/B/X Framework'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>4</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-7888218380849330888</id><published>2008-11-29T00:25:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2008-11-29T00:25:54.313-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="TWC Collaborative Community"/><title type='text'>www.TwoWorldCollision.com</title><content type='html'>Hi everyone,&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I just wanted to announce our new domain for our collaborative community web site that we launched last week. So now, you can go to:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.twoworldcollision.com/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;http://www.TwoWorldCollision.com&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;From there, you can have a member profile and connect with others, participate in the discussion forum, advertise your blog, post your own articles, or share web sites, links, and resources that you have found useful for your own journey. Our TWC collaborative community is a place where we all contribute and share parts of our journeys together so that we can encourage more and more people out there that none of us are alone.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Once you&#39;re there, be sure to get a member login, then invite your friends! You can even email specific pages to friends too!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I hope to see you there!</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/7888218380849330888/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=7888218380849330888' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/7888218380849330888'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/7888218380849330888'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2008/11/wwwtwoworldcollisioncom.html' title='www.TwoWorldCollision.com'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-5606747253212871648</id><published>2008-11-26T08:53:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2008-11-26T08:54:02.191-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="community"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="gay"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="TWC Collaborative Community"/><title type='text'>TWC Featured Question: Being in the Closet</title><content type='html'>We&#39;ve got a featured question over at our Two World Collision Collaborative Community site. Go on over and share your experiences!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;span style=&quot;font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;&quot;&gt;&quot;What are some ways that being in the closet (either now or in the past) has affected the decisions you make now?&quot;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://twoworldcollision.wetpaint.com/thread/2110118/Being+in+the+closet&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;Go here to answer the question or read other responses.&lt;/a&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/5606747253212871648/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=5606747253212871648' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/5606747253212871648'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/5606747253212871648'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2008/11/twc-featured-question-being-in-closet.html' title='TWC Featured Question: Being in the Closet'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14457001.post-5162401453709067190</id><published>2008-11-23T10:50:00.000-08:00</published><updated>2008-11-26T08:54:40.362-08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="community"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="gay Christian"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Milestone Post"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="My Journey"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="My Story"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="TWC Collaborative Community"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="vision"/><title type='text'>New TWC Collaborative Community</title><content type='html'>Three years and four months ago I started Two World Collision to chronicle my journey of reconciling my faith and sexuality. At first I was anonymous and was able to process my raw thoughts about questions and answers, sex and relationships, love and lust, sin and biblical interpretation, the spectrum of perspectives, my paradigm of Church, community and vision.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Along the way my journey towards Christ evolved from seeking clarity to seeking authenticity. In walking with Jesus, I found the peace of God&#39;s love and was able to find a cohesion of my two worlds - exploring what it looks like to live a vibrant faith and a healthy sexuality. I say that not in the context that I have achieved those two things, but rather that my direction is shaped by my desire for both those two things.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I still have a lot to learn.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I&#39;ve had the opportunity to share my story in a variety of ways besides this blog. I&#39;ve written my story in narrative form. I&#39;ve told my story through audio podcast interviews. I&#39;ve shared my story in newspaper publications and magazines. I&#39;ve given my story on Youtube video. I&#39;ve contributed my story on other web sites. I&#39;ve even shared my story at public events (which I&#39;m hoping to do more!). I&#39;m currently working on sharing my story in a series of three books (stay tuned and pray for me in that please).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But along the way of sharing my story more and more openly and authentically, I&#39;ve encountered so many friends on this same path with Christ. We&#39;ve discovered that we are not alone.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For some time now, I&#39;ve wanted to make a shift here at Two World Collision from me telling my story to you telling your story. I&#39;ve been humbled to have received emails from around the world these past three years from people who have read my blog, cried, related, and reached out to me. It&#39;s been amazing to see what God has done through this. I&#39;ve also encountered fellow bloggers who are also sharing their story. We all have a story. We all can find some parts of someone else&#39;s story that we can relate with. I think it&#39;s important for people out there to realize that there are people like you and I who have reconciled our faith and sexuality or that there are others on a similar journey. There are too many of us that feel alone.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So I decided to establish a space for us to build a sense of community with fellow sojourners. Alas, I am proud to announce the evolution of the Two World Collision blog to the Two World Collision Collaborative Community. It&#39;s a web site where we all help shape. Each of us contributes content to it - our stories, our blogs, our videos, our artwork, our research, our reviews and anything else we have found helpful for our own journeys so that we can pass it along to help someone else&#39;s journey. It&#39;s also a place where we can talk through discussion boards, connect with others through their profiles, and share photos.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Don&#39;t worry, I&#39;ll still have this blog to process my own thoughts and share vision.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So go ahead! Get on over to &quot;our&quot; space at &lt;a href=&quot;http://twoworldcollision.wetpaint.com/&quot; target=&quot;blank&quot;&gt;http://twoworldcollision.wetpaint.com&lt;/a&gt;!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;And be sure to  use the &quot;Invite&quot; to tell your friends to join us too!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;object type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; id=&quot;w491a038f707368174929a53993141204&quot; pluginspage=&quot;http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer&quot; data=&quot;http://static.wetpaint.com/swf/widget/latest_h.swf&quot; width=&quot;300&quot; height=&quot;272&quot;&gt; &lt;param name=&quot;Movie&quot; value=&quot;http://static.wetpaint.com/swf/widget/latest_h.swf&quot;&gt;        &lt;param value=&quot;transparent&quot; name=&quot;wmode&quot;&gt; &lt;param value=&quot;PID=4929a53993141204&amp;amp;THEME=black&amp;amp;HOST=attached-wapi.wetpaint.com&amp;amp;NAMESPACE=twoworldcollision&quot; name=&quot;flashvars&quot;&gt; &lt;param value=&quot;all&quot; name=&quot;allowNetworking&quot;&gt; &lt;param value=&quot;always&quot; name=&quot;allowScriptAccess&quot;&gt;       &lt;embed type=&quot;application/x-shockwave-flash&quot; src=&quot;http://static.wetpaint.com/swf/widget/latest_h.swf&quot; flashvars=&quot;PID=4929a53993141204&amp;amp;THEME=black&amp;amp;HOST=attached-wapi.wetpaint.com&amp;amp;NAMESPACE=twoworldcollision&quot; wmode=&quot;transparent&quot; width=&quot;300&quot; height=&quot;272&quot;&gt;&lt;/embed&gt;&lt;/object&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/feeds/5162401453709067190/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=14457001&amp;postID=5162401453709067190' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/5162401453709067190'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/14457001/posts/default/5162401453709067190'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://twoworldcollision.blogspot.com/2008/11/new-twc-collaborative-community.html' title='New TWC Collaborative Community'/><author><name>Eric</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03948061964482528393</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='24' height='32' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiUM72Hfy5j-gGjqItbY8MANONatQxNLs12oJhFM6bFLjO8GLvBuGS0aUiI4DuaaicrsO6trAQcn6MnQDQ4fU_VjUTJS9jWrz6pqblEID5wVs1cvWGBcYxa6qBVix9uIxY/s220/head_shot.jpg'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry></feed>

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