What do I want?

Today’s therapy was exceptional. We worked really hard to discover what exactly it is that I am striving for. She is noticing I don’t like to talk about myself, and I tell a great story with my voice missing. She’s been telling me this for a while, but it occurred to me, today, this is what my professors are saying, too. I know the material, but what do I think? Where is my voice?
I finally got some clarity and realized what I want is an education. I want to know everything, not to win or gain the prize of a grade (or anything else), but because I love all of it. And I have so much material I am overwhelmed, and I have a past history with grades that is unhealthy-not to mention I have to keep a scholarship.
I love the hard stuff, too, because that is the reality we live. I don’t need sugar-coated truth. Or a false platitude that will not work when it all falls apart. What I love about the Bible is it will not let us think one way. We can’t harmonize the texts because there is too much going on throughout the generations, and the stories adapt to their time and place and audience. Our Bible is influenced by other ancient texts, too. To me this opens up the mystery of the Bible more. The Bible is endless with mystery-more to learn. And it makes me want to learn more about what is going on around me, too. Not just then. How is Scripture speaking now. That is what our ancestors did.

All this to say is this is why I write so much. I want people to see I am doing the work to create my own thoughts within a community, and getting educated more intensely on tough issues I am talking about. My church nor seminary are telling me what to believe or think-they are helping me with how to think. Big difference. It is essential our faith is communal, our individualized faith has failed us terribly as citizens. As a faith community we should be on the side of those who are left out and poorly treated. The Bible is pretty clear about that.

We can’t make false equivalences to ignore major injustices. We also can’t skip over lies and deceit – Mike Pence replacing Jesus with Old Glory, for example. This is why I was asking that professor and pastor last week why he wrote loving our neighbor isn’t the greatest commandment. That is not our problem right now at all. I don’t even know what loving our neighbor too much looks like. I can testify it doesn’t look like the USA or the church. He needs to clearly state why he thought that tweet was necessary as a faith leader. He never gave me a good answer. This is what we are up against.

MAGA – no one knows what that means. We let that go without question from people who say Make America Great Again. Has America ever been great for everyone? We need a concise explanation on what that means. Also, abortion. Know what you are talking about. If it is important to you-then do the research. No blind loyalty and platitudes. That is how terror happens.

The book I am reading, that I mentioned last night, mentions how white America doesn’t like to talk about our sins. He is Hispanic and knows their history isn’t innocent. They were here first doing what white colonization is and was doing, too, but they don’t lie about their history. The Bible doesn’t lie about the sins of its protagonists, either. When I realized this, that is when I fell in love with the Bible. It is complex and messy, but we find God and liberation in it.

For me, education is the key to help us out of the mess we made. Without love it is nothing, though. And I know that is what the pushback has been on expertise, but throwing out education has made us foolish. People from other countries say they have never seen a country so proud to be uneducated. There are reasons for this: 1) we don’t fund education equally (major sin!) 2) we allow homeschooling and private schools go largely unchecked in the name of freedom – and they have been weaponized against public schools. 3) Public schools are the cornerstone to our democracy. They have failed in many ways, but they are the ones we can hold accountable for change as a society.

This is my passion.