So, today I heard back from my senior project advisor that my project had not exactly been approved, per say, after all, after I sent in my fourth revision last month. Nope. All this time, they've still wanted me to do a fifth revision, and haven't told me. Two days before the project kickoff. And they've threatened to completely pull the plug on my project if I don't have all the meetings lined up within 40 hours' time. Because they definitely couldn't've given me a softer warning first.
Meanwhile, there is an abundance of people willing and eager to talk about my third topic - the LGBT community (or "sexual identity," depending on my audience) - and I've had to scrape together contacts for the first two. I don't regret having to do the first two, but it's difficult to get a project going about something people don't necessarily have a great deal of energy behind.
Homosexuality and abortion are honestly the two biggest topics like this that are relevant to discussion right now. I don't know anything about abortion and am tired of hearing people aimlessly banter about it without getting anywhere or having any real reason for talking about it. I'm sure there are millions of people that engage it well, but I'm uninterested in the topic as of right now. Homosexuality on the other hand... it's extremely hot, I'm extremely interested, and the Church won't freaking touch it.
I'm not frustrated with administration as much as I'm frustrated with the character and reputation of the Christian Church, particularly in America. This afternoon, I spent Lunch and Office Hours talking to a couple friends about why they have rejected Christianity, and I was rather distraught to learn that all the reasons they seem to have rejected it are the same reasons people should accept it. The Church just hasn't engaged the conversation, hasn't stood with integrity, hasn't reflected Christ, hasn't reflected truth and goodness and rightness and freedom. If it had, from my point of view, all the issues my friends (and frankly, I as well) have had with the Church would have been positive reasons for the affirmation of the Church. Having to stand there as the representative of "Christianity," which has proven itself the antithesis of what I believe in in so many ways to these people (and the millions they represent), I'm quite frankly very embarrassed. In that context, I become apologetic and rather angry that the truth I believe in so passionately has been misrepresented so egregiously by the very people I claim, with the title "Christian," to be in community with. And these people are both part of the LGBTQ community. We might pretend faith struggles and openness about sexuality are not linked, but they are. Ignorance and inauthenticity and condemnation and closed-mindedness and judgment and stagnancy and loveless attitudes simply abound in the Church, and becoming the victim of that makes you much more sensitive to the perceived faults of the religion itself. So little of what the Christian religion stands for, especially to people outside of the Church, is completely counter to anything Jesus seemed to be shooting for... except shouting "Woe to you" and having faith like children. Both of which seem to happen in the wrong context and for the wrong reasons.
I am very aware that I may well sound rather offensive, but this is my personal blog that I get to use for my frankest uncensored personal opinions, for once. These are my experiences and feelings about the matter, and I cannot bear to shoo them into censorship. We live as part of a cowardly, pathetic Church that at times seems nearly incapable of "civil discourse," and is nearly ineffective where it is. Everything happens slowly and carefully and reluctantly, and to get anything at all done, to say anything, weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours of preparation have to go into it. It's hard for me to say that this is a bad thing, because I understand on an intellectual level why it needs to happen. But it provokes so much frustration, because for me, personally, this is such a simple, honest, authentic quest for goodness. Why does the Church have to come out looking so lame from the standpoint of intellectuality and personal liberty and acceptance if God is Truth, and we're free in Christ, and the Church is supposed to be a place we celebrate those things?
Something gets lost in translation. It angers me that it is possible for people to reject Christianity because it is a) loveless b) condemning c) estranging d) stupid e) inauthentic f) lacking in self-awareness. Those are all the things people should move INTO the church upon rejecting. It angers me even more that I agree with all those accusations and still find myself committed to the institution.
I suppose it's that anger that gives me hope for eternity.
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