Why I Struggle with the Idea of Heaven

     In Christianity there is a certain tenet across most sects that is prevalent: the idea of heaven and hell.  I suppose it makes me a bad or at least unusual Christian, but I don't think I can believe in Heaven or even an afterlife.  Being blessed and cursed with a highly logically mind had led me to this conclusion. 

     My faith only goes as far as believing in God and the basic principles of Christianity.  Hell is not one of those.  Not believing in Hell is easy for me, because I believe that a God of Love of would not subject his people to torment that way.  I also think that every person has some amount of good in them; it may be just a speck, but it's there.  And for a God of Love to send these folk to Hell is cruel.  I mean think of the mentally ill who commit violent crimes not because of their free will, but because of their illness.  Where do they end up?  They can't end up in Hell, not for just being who God made them to be!  So I logiciked that it makes more sense that there isn't a Hell.  Hell is easy to discount.  But Heaven?

     I want to believe there is a Heaven or some sort of afterlife, but right now I can't/don't/won't.  My view of the soul is more of a person's conscience and personality than something that is going to float up into the sky to rest at God's side after I die.  However though I struggle with the idea of Heaven, I don't struggle with my belief in God.  Call it what you will: a universal force, coincidence, God, Allah, Yaweh, Vishnu, Jehovah, or Eloheim.  I believe in some form God exists in the world and in all of us.  I will always doubt God's existence, but my belief in Him will never be uprooted from my mind. 

     Anyways that being said, Religion is a man construct.  Humankind loves stories.  I am more led to believe that that is what Heaven is, a fairy tale told to adults so that they move away from their animalistic impulses and become good men of character.  Because positive reinforcement works.  I also believe Heaven exists because death and the unknown that follow are terrifying prospects.  Better to believe life goes on, albeit in a different manner, one where you get rewarded for making through the tough shit that is life.

     Heaven is a crutch.  There are a whole lot of Christians who have stopped living to live, and instead live to die.  That is insanity in my head.  Then there are those Christians who have moved away from Jesus teachings and towards hate, denouncing others.  They have created a system of have and have nots, but in this system it's Heaven they have and Hell for the rest of us.  Well if there is a Heaven, I'm afraid they are in for a rude awakening when Jesus walks up to them with the Bible, and says, "Did you not read this thing!?!" 

     Okay, I discussed my thoughts on Heaven, and my thoughts are a bit cynical.  I can't leave you guys here.  So I'll tell what I do believe in, History.  History is easy to believe in, just pick up any textbook to read the stories of long since dead men and women.  They may has passed, but they live on in our books, and through the actions they have had on people in their lifetime, for good or bad.  I mean your grandparents raised your parents a certain way and that was reflected on how they raised you.  History is there; it's palpable in a way Heaven is not.

     Since I believe in History, I feel like I have to be the best person I can be.  Because how I act and what I do in my life has an effect on others, who in turn influence others and on and on, in varying degrees of importance.  This is also easy to believe because others have affected me positively and negatively and that affects how I interact with others.  I am a Christian, but really I feel more like a Jesus Follower.  I use Jesus's teachings as a template for the person I would aspire to be.  And I use Church as a support group for these views. 

     My name may never get into the History books, and I may never end up with my name on the cover of a book, but it doesn't matter.  If a single action has changed someone's life in one small way I will live on forever in the collective conscious of this world.  I may change my mind on Heaven some day, but for now, this is my life and afterlife.

QBP: "If nothing we do in this world matters, then the only thing that matters is what we do."  -Joss Whedon

Butch Symposium Round Up #2: Butch Stereotypes and Misconceptions

     Butch Lab Symposium #2 is here!  For the first symposium the topic was "What is Butch?".  Here you can find my entry and the round up for that topic.  This next topic was about the stereotypes and misconceptions that exist with the Butch identity and image.  As a young butch I do try my best to write at least something that could be thought provoking, if not beautifully scribed.  My entry for this topic can be found here, and I encourage each of you to check out what the other symposium participants felt about the issue.  Just check the links below or at Butch Lab.

***

Butch Lab Symposium #2: Stereotypes, Cliches, and Misconceptions on Butch Lab:

• Ali Oh at Made of Words: Bottoms Up, Thumbs Up
• Madeline Elayne: Butches Don’t Wear Pink (and other fallacies)
• Victoria Oldham at Musings of a Lesbian Writer: Misconceptions
• Wendi Kali at A Stranger in This Place: Butch Stereotypes, Cliches, and Misconceptions
• RM at Letters from Titan: Butch Isn’t Ugly
• Kyle on Butchtastic: Butch Stereotypes, Cliches and Misconceptions:
• EST at A Lesbian Christian on Butch Stereotypes
• Joliesse Soul at This Side of Changed on Butch Stereotypes
• Laina at The Bookish Butch
• Harrison at How to Be Butch on Stereotypes, Cliches, and Misconceptions
• Lenore Louhi at Twenty Pebbles, a piece titled “Smoke”
• Cody on Cowboy Coquet on Stereotypes, Cliches, and Misconceptions 

My month long absence

Sorry readers about not posting for so long!  I have some catching up to do!  Have to post the new Butch Symposium Round Up!  Also I've got a religious contemplation entry to post after that.

The short of the long, is that I got rejected from medical school for a second time, the military thing fell apart and family issues equals not really want to do anything except brood and sulk for weeks.  I've finally got my head back on relatively straight now though.  

So I'm back.  I'll try and keep the post twice a week schedule, but it may devolve in a single post a week as I try just what in tarnation I am going to do with my life.

Also I just want to thank everyone for reading and commenting on my second Butch Symposium Post.  Now that I'm back I'm going to do my best to comment on the other extremely well written posts that put mine to shame.  

Back when I was homophobic

     I grew up in the great blue north, and felt that gay was normal, more than normal, cool.  So when I say I was homophobic, I don’t mean gay bashing homophobic.  I mean literally I was afraid of the same sex. 

     My personal space bubble in high school was well documented.  Hugs were a rarity, and if I were to give one it probably went to the guy I was dating.  I just didn’t do affection.  In college I learned about the power of hugs and I started to let people into my bubble…occasionally.  But still when it came to girls I was very picky as to would I allow there. 

     College is also where I met my first lesbians and made lesbian friends.  And as much as I loved them or supported I didn’t want to see them doing anything together or hear about it.  I was quoted as saying something to effect to lesbians friends W and SL, “Your love is a wondrous thing and makes me feel weird.”

     As for being in a sorority?  My personal uncomfortableness and extreme modesty became well known among my sisters.  It even became a game.  At important events I would get “boobed” by certain sisters.  I went along with the game, because it was meant to be funny, but it tore me up inside.  This game came to a halt when after an event the girls were changing.  I was surrounded by a room of half naked women and I was overwhelmed.  Then I got boobed by a sister and then I hid away and cried.  It was so freaking confusing as to why I was crying. 

     At a meeting with a small group of sisters I had gotten close to, I was asked why I was so uncomfortable around women.  I postulated that it was because my alcoholic mother was never affectionate with me.  One of my friends stated this didn’t quite explain my uncomfortableness.  While I agreed with this, I couldn’t think of another reason.  I said it could be because my mother only ever hugged me while drunk.  But even as I said the words, I didn’t believe them.

     Since college I finally figured out I was gay, and interestingly enough my fear of women has pretty much vanished.  I’m still not the most lovey dovey individual, but my personal bubble is much much smaller now.  I’m still quite modest, but that’s because I don’t wear skin showing girly clothes, cause I’d rather guy clothes.  And I’ve never had anyone to be naked with, so nakedness is unusual to me. 

     And that’s how the great big gayness resting in my soul destroyed the evil homophobia.

     The end.

QBP: "The roots of homophobia are fear. Fear and more fear." -George Weinberg

pic source

My Lenten Promise

I vow to give up self-hatred and slothfulness.  And in an effort to better my relationship with God, I will pray/converse with God everyday for the forty days of Lent.

Butch Symposium: Butch Stereotypes

 This is the second edition of the Butch Symposium going on at Butch Lab, created by Sugarbutch.

"What do people think “butch” means? What are the stereotypes around being butch? What do people assume is true about you [or about your masculine of center friends], but actually isn’t? What image or concept do you constantly have to correct or fight against? How do you feel about these misconceptions? How do you deal with them? Do you respond to these stereotypes or cliches? How?"

Butches hate men.  Butches drive motorcycles.  Butches wear leather jackets.  Butches are the “man” in the relationship and perform all the “male” duties.  Butches work with their hands.  Butches aren’t intellectuals.  Butches can only have short hair in a men’s style.  Butches like beer and sports.  Butches are mean.  Butches cannot access their feelings.  Butches want to be men.  Butches will only date Femmes and do not date other Butches.  Butches are (always) the sexually dominant ones.  Butches only wear masculine attire.  Butches under the age of thirty do not exist.

        I think the very first assumption is that if you’re a woman who presents masculine of center, is that you must be a lesbian.  This is perhaps true a lot of the time, due to homosexual being “alternative” there is more room for gender expression in that community.  But as Franky Fitzgerald of the new Skins generation has shown us, one does not have to love girls to feel most comfortable wearing masculine attire.  Assumptions specifically about me are tough due to my soft butch look.  More people would rather assume I am like them, straight and gender normative, than see me as I truly am and present.  

        The assumption that strikes me the most is that Butches cannot be intellectuals.  When I look at the representations of Butches in the media, I cringe.  A Butch can’t be a doctor, or a lawyer, and if she’s a professor she’s a women’s studies professor.  

        Any misconceptions I hear about butch women I personally respond back to, but I’m afraid I’m not brought into those discussions.  I present “normal” enough, which means I’m “safe”, which also means I don’t provoke those types of questions.  And it bugs me.  I want to get into the fight.  I want to support my Butch brothers and sisters.

I finish answering these questions with a question of my own.  What is that line between “normal” presenting and “Butch” presenting?  Or what has it been for you guys?  

Bought my first pair of men’s pants today

     It has been my plan ever since I started wearing men’s (boy’s) shirts, that I would one day buy men’s pants.  Each time I pulled on a pair of suffocatingly tight women’s jeans, or looked in the mirror at how the jeans hugged my curves, I thought about getting men’s pants.  But I didn’t.  Mostly because I was scared.  If I wore men’s pants would it change how people looked at me?  After I came out to my church friends, and got my hair trimmed short again, I realized that at this point wearing differently gendered pants was not going to matter.

     One issue down, next?  How did men size their pants?  A quick internet search provided me with the information.  Waist length by Inseam Length.  Okay…then I needed a measuring tape (and the only one I could find was pink…just tell me why “girly” things have to be pink?).  Measurements roughly taken.  Next to the store!

     Nope.  I waited and waited.  It wasn't until my roommate had to go to Old Navy before I finally made the decision to purchase the pants.  I think a store like Old Navy is great for the baby butch who doesn’t want to break the bank.  The jeans are moderately priced and usually the workers don’t care enough to bother you.  Plus I could easily slip in and out of the fitting room without being harassed by an attendant. 

     Though it was nerve wracking, I selected a few pairs of jeans of different measurements around the ones I took with my measuring tape.  I tried the different sizes on until found the measurements that worked best for me.  Then all I had to do was find the pants that I liked.  In the end I selected a pair of dark jeans, lighter jeans, and gray cargo pants I found on clearance. 

      So even though my heart pounded and I was wary of looks, I found that as long as I just went about my tasks no one bothered me.  And the day ended with success.

QBP: "Clothes make the man.  Naked people have little or no influence on society." -Mark Twain