Sunday, May 2, 2010

Sermon for May 2 - Loving Others

It's been months since I've posted an entry, and for good reason--I realized I don't have much to say anymore. It's been more than six years since I found out about my status and I think I am very lucky to still be alive and where I am. The biggest change in my life is that I have started going to church again. It's a congregation of predominantly gay individuals who have decided that they're not going to let their sexuality come in the way of a relationship with a Divine Being. Sure it's hard to square what the Bible says about being gay with being a Christian, but the Bible also mentions that it's perfectly OK to have slaves, too. We'll ask God the hard questions when we get to heaven.

Today's sermon was about loving those people we just can't stand. Lord knows there are a couple of people like that in everyone's life. The minister challenged us today to make a conscious decision to care about someone like that. More often than not, what prevents us from loving someone is that we spend too much time being infatuated with our own selves that we can't see anyone else. Like the beautiful boy Narcissus from Greek mythology, we fail to hear others, too caught up in our own images. Like the nymph Echo who loved Narcissus, we're unable to express what we really feel. Love is not about mushy feelings, but about believing in the potential of someone else. That got me thinking as to the last time I tried to believe in someone other than me. It's apparent I need to start trying a lot harder.

2 comments:

thwany said...

seriously

Raven said...

You're back! Glad to see you posting. :)

You make a great point. What I'm about to say may sound trivial, but I think I need to make a bigger effort to care about the other drivers around me. They're the people I hate most in my life - and since they're mostly entitled Beverly Hills drivers, it's easy to hate them. But that's no excuse for doing so. My hating them is really a problem with me, which I need to work on.