Beth's Contradictory Brain

Poker and God

OR

Bad Beats, Taking It Personally, and Faith Residuals

I finally got to go play poker today. I bought in for $200 and won three or so little pots, was up over $100, and was hoping to spend a few hours playing. Now, I've never played for a few hours. I either go broke or win big enough to stop playing within an hour and a half.

I get KQ spades and have a good feeling about it. I think it was like $30 to see the flop. Ok. Flop comes 2 9 10 - two spades. Great. I've got the flush and straight draws. Now, 85% of the time I don't play draws. But again, I had a good feeling about the KQ and I'm right 90% of the time with that feeling. So the first guy goes all in. He's got probably $800 in front of him. The next guy calls. I'm like, shit! All three of us are all in, so we show our cards. The first guy has three tens - which has been a winning hand three times since I sat down, the other guy has pocket Aces. I'd call for my remaining $220. Sure enough, the turn is a Jack giving me the straight. Nice! Only three cards can beat me - a 2, 9 or 10. As is my luck - the river is a 9. The dick across from me has a full house to beat my straight.

If I'd won that hand I would have had over $700. Instead, I was busted out.

So, I'm driving to get some lunch before heading home and I get to thinking about why it is I take things like that so absolutely personally. It's like my brain thinks - thanks God, you gave me the winning hand and then made me lose.

And I realize that it's left over from my church going days.

See, I spent many years believing God was at least willing and able to be directly involved in my every day life.

What I realized today is that it made me take every little thing that happens personally. Traffic jams, wrong turns, good luck, bad luck, everything.

Now, it's not as pervasive as it used to be. And I think in some small way my anger has subsided with the lessening of that idea. But it was weird to see it more clearly.

Fascinated

While I didn't buy a copy of the book today, I read about half of it and the author notes at the end, I do find Anne Rice's new book, Christ The Lord, utterly fascinating.

It was almost at the height of my Christian days that I read her vampire series. John Irving's A Prayer For Owen Meany riveted me and had me spending a lot of time pondering fate and free will. But I'm not sure any book made me think as much as Rice's Memnoch the Devil. It was the culmination of Lestats' struggles with fate and free will, good and evil. As a creature who had no choice in being "made evil," he fought to know whether redemption was even possible for him. (That's an all too short take on the novel.) Being a Christian who had fought being gay for years until giving up the fight but also losing a lot of faith in the process, it just really moved me to read his struggles. I was fascinated that Rice could so movingly write those struggles.

I read a news story a couple of weeks ago about her new novel and how she's now only "writing for the Lord." I wasn't totally suprised, but as I keep saying, fascinated.

In reading her author's notes about all the research she did, I was so jealous. Oh to have the time and forebearance to do all of that reading. I was also happy to see someone else who has such a deep love of history and thirst for such deep answers.

I'm doing none of this justice. But if you're in a bookstore within the next few weeks, pick up the book and go to the end and read her notes.

Hard to write about

I'm finding it hard to blog these days. The stuff wandering around my brain doesn't make for easy blog entries.

I've been fascinated with religion lately. The death of one pope and the election of a new one and all the various reactions to both events are just one example. I've watched the first three episodes of Revelations and I'm not sure what I think of it. It's interesting that it's on tv at all.

To add in a little weirdness, I've been reading this prophet guy's stuff a lot lately. Many years ago, before I even moved to Austin, I'd go down to this church in Austin and hear him speak at conferences.

There's a category over there titled religion, and so I won't rehash my past beliefs and experiences. And I find I'm completely unable to compose coherent sentences about any of my current thoughts.

When I stopped going to church about seven years ago, it was mostly because I could envision something completely different from what I would find on any given Sunday in any given church. And while it's not something I talk about much, except with Nerdstar, I've had my ear to the ground, so to speak, listening for something really different to come along.

I believe there have been radical changes in the world we live in in the past five or six years, maybe the religious world will go thru similar changes.

Essay

This essay is the most comprehensive and compassionate I've read on the whole homosexuality and Christianity issue. The author is Larry Bethune, pastor of University Baptist Church here in Austin. Maybe I'll go check them out.

Theology

This entry over at BuzzMachine surprised me this morning. One of the topics Nerdstar and I come back to time and again is God and religion. I've been contemplating trying to find a church mostly for social reasons. Some of the best friends I've had in my life were my Christian friends during college. (It was Christian friends I made later, here in Austin, that rejected me.) Nerdstar has a couple of Christian women in her unit, and she, too, is finding them to be among the nicer, more stable people.

Nerdstar and I also discuss theology fairly often. We were out walking the dog Sunday night and talked about church and friends. Then Monday over lunch we were talking about about how weird the ideas in Christianity are. I was trying to explain the point of the cross (to destroy sin and death) and the importance of the Holy Spirit (direct communion with God). I think the modern church has completely lost what those two ideas really mean. We've nullified the freedom gained thru the cross and rejected the Holy Spirit almost outright. I told her the biggest disagreement I had with people at the last church I attended was that I said I'd take what I heard God telling me over what I read in the Bible any day.

Which brings me back to Buzzmachine's post.

It is the characteristic doctrine of utopian revolutionaries and violent heretics from many centuries -- this idea that God is speaking to them directly, and that they may now ignore scripture, history, and tradition, and do whatever feels good. is a quote from David Warren who left the Anglican church.

There's a great reply to this ickiness and more... go read his whole post.

Pissed Again

I was nice and didn't go into a rant about the military and how it doesn't consider me a "spouse" and all the trouble that causes. I was feeling a little more mellow, and distracted by other things in my head.

But, this pisses me off:

The following are excerpts from a sermon given recently by the Rev. Steven R. Randall at St. Timothy's Episcopal Church in Catonsville, Md.
Our country was shocked and shaken down to our very core [on September 11, 2001] as terrorists who had no regard for the lives of thousands of people but served a false god of violence and blind destruction attacked our country.
Like many of you, I feel like our church has been hijacked by misguided and in some cases evil terrorists. And like those planes of [September 11], our church is being used to destroy not only those inside in the name of some false god, but to destroy the lives of others, outside the church — people like you and me who don't yet know the love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ.

You CANNOT compare the 9/11 hijackers to people thinking that maybe, just maybe the church should be a little more loving instead of condeming. Bastard. Now, I understand most of what he says in the rest of this article. But nothing can justify his opening comparison.

Why participate in religion?

Cyn has some great comments on the gay bishop post below. She brings up the question of why gays would ever want to be a part of organized religion at all, much less be bishops and priests.

There are so many reasons why, but for me, going to church was a part of growing up and became a part of my life before being gay became a part of my life.

My parents started taking me to church when I was about five. My parents still go to that same church. It was a given that I would be in church twice on Sunday and on Wednesday night. In the summers during middle school the first week of summer was church camp.

Once I starting fooling around with boys in middle school, guilt became a huge underlying thing in my life. When I had my first girlfriend my senior year in high school, there were a lot of Sunday mornings I'd wait for my parents to go to church early, then I'd go to her house and crawl into bed for a while and then rush to church. I made it thru that year - coming out in high school slowly but surely, dealing with knowing my parents were completely unhappy with me, those sorts of things. Then I went off to a Baptist university. I had a lot of the same feelings Cyn had - thinking if they only knew I was gay, they'd feel very differently about me. There were a total of three friends who knew I was gay my freshman year.

My sophomore year was when being gay and religion collided in my life. The guilt was too much for our relationship and it ended. I spent the next seven or eight years completely devoted to God and church.

The whole reason I moved to Austin was to attend a church I thought was really cutting edge and fantastic. Within a year that church totally broke apart and no longer existed. That was probably the beginnings of my complete disenchantment with organized religion.

I tried everything in those seven years to not be gay, to do whatever God wanted me to do with my life. And at the height of that struggle I fell in love with Caroline, and the love I had for her changed my life. It was the first time I felt no guilt for loving someone.

It wasn't the whole gay/Christian thing that really settled for me that I could not participate in organized religion. It came down to a difference in theology. I think there's a whole level of being free from sin, of not being under the (religious) law and of grace that the modern church hasn't even begun to understand or realize. The message of the church I went to recently was supposed to be about freedom in Christ, but it really came down to being free do as that congregation thought a "real" Christian should. That's not freedom.

Anyway.

I still miss the fellowship of people who share similar beliefs. If I could find a congregation that was full of worship and the prophetic and didn't see my lifestyle as something sinful and rebellious against God, I'd love to participate. There were times of worship in that first church I moved here for that I'll never forget. I felt the love and peace of God like no other times.

Gay Bishop

Surprisingly, I haven't paid much attention to this story. When there were the last minute false accusations, I was pissed - that's just a horrible way to treat someone - period!

I've written much before on my faith, my leaving the church, my relationship with God. I could probably write much more (and I'm sure I will over time as these things continue to change in my life). I don't think I could ever be a part of denominational religion again. That's part of why I haven't taken a big interest in this story.

It's weird for me to read the reaction of straight people who feel their church has been taken away from them and feel like outsiders in it. That makes me a little happy - the shoe is on the other foot. They might get a small taste of what I've felt (and so many countless others have felt) for the past five years. Unfortunately, I don't think it will lead them to the idea that maybe, just maybe, God's love really is unconditional and they're wrong to judge anyone.

Anyway - this is a hard entry to write, I know I could offend so many, or could be completely misunderstood, or start silly semantics arguments.

Clean Slate

Back in the days when I kept a paper and pen journal I would usually only write when angst ridden. I figured it was the principle of when I'm happy I have better things to do than sit down and write. Now that I do this online stuff, I'm finding it very hard to write when angst ridden. Weird that.

In pondering all this communicating with God stuff Nerdstar and I are doing, I leafed thru some of my old journals to try to get a clearer picture of how that communication used to be.

From my sophomore year at Baylor University (after my breakup with my first g/f), around 1988, until the next time I fell in love with a woman in 1998 or so, I was a completely devote (or at least completely ignored all evidence to the contrary) non-denominational Christian. Those years were filled with a lot of faith, but not a lot of joy and peace. A lot of Christians dream of "saving the world for Christ", or being a missionary, or some such thing. The one thing I always wanted was to be able to have question and answer sessions with God.

There was about a six month period in 1998 when I completely rejected organized religion, embraced the idea of being a lesbian, lost all of my remaining Christian friends, and met Nerdstar.

Unfortunately, those six months are hazy in my memory, and, it was a time I was too busy to be writing it all down.

But, I've known since then that if I were ever to get to a place where I could peaceably talk with God again, it would have to be from a clean slate.

Maybe that's what God's working on now, cleaning the slate between us.

Because really, it's only about really knowing who God is. Because I remain convinced that once I really know who He is, everything else will fall into place - the trust, peace and joy.

It's hard to let go of all the anger, when I don't even know where the anger comes from.

And it's hard to write about any of this, when I know that the few readers I do have probably don't relate to it very well.

But, other than how much I'm still hating my job, this is what's going on with me.

Brrrr!!

Wow, it was 75 and sunny yesterday. It started out about 37 this morning and it's now 29 and drizzling! Woohoo! I might actually get to sleep in tomorrow morning because of icy roads. I know for those of you north of here - and almost everyone is north of Austin - this is no big deal. What's going to be the most fun tomorrow morning is turning on the local news and hearing about the 700 car wrecks! Yes, I'm sadistic!

This weekend I started re-reading A Prayer For Owen Meany. Wow. I'm not sure if I'm more like Owen or John when it comes to view of God and religion. But I can't even imagine what it would be like to know how and when you're going to die. It's a fantastic book about fate.

While driving this weekend I was talking with (to) Nerdstar about what's the point of this life we have here on earth. I mean, assuming there is a God, and that there is an eternity after this life - how crazy is it that these few years on earth - and even if you lived to 100 it would be nothing in the face of eternity - have any bearing on how you spend that eternity. And to make it even worse, we don't even know for certain about any of it. I mean, ok, so if this life does determine eternity, wouldn't it be a little better if there were at least more clearly stated rules? Yes, I know, it's supposed to be all about free will and faith. Just seems to me there's a little too much faith called for. There should be something more concrete to go on. Maybe the universe itself is supposed to be evidence enough of God. (and generally for me it is) But just knowing there is a God wouldn't provide much in the way of direction on what to do with this life.

Just seems to me there's an awful lot at stake in such a muddled game.

Convoluted Weekend

I'm back at work this morning, and thankfully it seems like a long time since I've been here!

Friday night was probably a study in variety. We went to grab a quick dinner and then went to a church service. Nerdstar and I have been talking about God lately. A church I've never attended, but used to know people who did, holds Friday night "prophetic" services. I thought I'd see what God's supposedly saying these days. It's so hard to write about this stuff - to put it in terms someone without a non-denominational background can relate to. In this service there was naturally a lot about the upcoming war and how Christians are God's warriors, thru prayer and such. It's such a compelling idea - that someone praying, either in church or at home alone, can help overthrow evil just as much as the actual soldiers deployed. And I must admit it's an idea I believe. There are so many stories in the Bible of people changing God's mind. My favorite is Moses. When he first goes up the mountain to talk to God, God is all about completely wiping out Israel. He's pissed at them. Moses goes on and on about how God can't do that, what would people say about Him and such. So, God relents and gives the ten commandments instead. Then, Moses goes back down the mountain, sees the golden calf, and immediately asks God to kill them all. Very funny stuff to me.

Anyway. It sounded to me like God's probably saying a lot of the same stuff He said back during the first Gulf War. Sitting there my biggest question was, what's different this time??

We didn't stay for the whole service. It got pretty annoying. So many of the people were there for reasons other than communing with God. Which is fine as long as you're not pretending otherwise.

From there we headed downtown to go hear Ginger play. WOW! The band before her was pretty good. It was a nice warmup. There were several babydykes in the audience and it was fun to watch them. The set Ginger played was fantastic. I've been going to hear her for about six years now and I'll never understand why a record label hasn't signed her.

Saturday we to Lake Charles full of optimism. How silly of us! We had nothing but bad luck all night, but tried to minimize the losses. Sunday we woke up with optimism again. That was downright stupid! The losses grew. It's just amazing when our luck is on a bad streak. We keep thinking, ok any minute now it's going to change. Nope. Not this weekend. What was frustrating was watching this little older man go from $300 to $4000 next to us at the craps table. Then, this little old lady put $100 in a $5 slot machine and walked away with $1500.
We're just hoping we got all of our bad luck out of the way and we'll do better in Vegas. Sometimes I get frustrated losing money thinking what we could have bought instead of giving it to the casino. But the idea was to get away and have some fun, and that's what we did.

What I Believe

So what is it I do believe? I believe in the God of the Bible, and in Jesus as the son of God and not just another prophet. But just that one sentence is filled with so many things that can be misunderstood, can trigger knee jerk reactions. I also believe there just might be no greater evil than organized religion. Evil being something that keeps people from truly knowing God. So what I've known I need is to get to a place spiritually where I know God for myself and not all the stuff my head has been filled with. I used to think I knew Him, that we talked and He loved me and my life was in His hands. But as I've said, those were also the years of some of my darkest depression. It seems like we're taught that God is love - until you're on His side. Then it all became pop christian psychology and a whole lot of being fixed (free from sin) so that you could be closer to God. It seemed God's love was only unconditional when you were a sinner, not once you became a Christian.

So I'm trying to find that God of grace and unconditional love and peace. Sad thing is I won't find Him in any church - not as long as I'm gay. (I'm not interested in gay churches, but that would be another post.)

And what I'm finding is that I'm scared to death of God. That the only thing I really have drilled into me is not grace but judgement. I'm scared He'll come in and make demands of me I can't meet - that His love won't be unconditional.

One of the themes in the Bible is God taking people thru deserts, stripping them down, isolating them, and then revealing Himself. Maybe that's the process I'm going thru. When I was closer to God I fancied myself somewhat prophetic, or at least I really really wanted to be. I want to be someone who can hear God speak, know His heart and mind. I've had longings to be the person who was able to help other people see God for who He really is.

I don't know. But wouldn't it be nice to have peace instead of anger?