In His Steps

It's funny that this topic is the one for my birthday...  I believe all of us have a natural inclination to judge ourselves and others too harshly.  "I can't believe I did that." "I would never  do that ..." "How could anyone think this way?!" "If a friend talked to me the way I talk to me, they wouldn't be my friend anymore." "Can you believe they stepped out the door like that?" "Can you believe they stepped out the door at all?" "I'm a horrible person and don't deserve to succeed or be happy." All of these are complete shenanigans. But, it's not so easy to turn off not only judging yourself, but making those judgments about someone else. In it's own way, being judgmental just gives us another thing to be  judgmental about! "I judged them, how could I?" And the spiral begins anew. It's also very natural. We decide what we are as a culture and the ...

I wasn't sure what to write until I read an article today entitled " I'm Christian, unless you're gay. " It got me thinking back on my life, and reflecting. Most of the time, I don't recall being outwardly hostile or hateful to those different than me. Cautious and uncomfortable, yes. Now, I could be wrong. When I look back on my life, particularly in the first twenty two years, I wonder how anyone was able to stomach my presence at all, much less still be friends with me today. I was whiny, selfish, and exploding my emotional fallout on everyone around me. Emotional fallout that I don't know that I deserved to have, much less inflict on others, frankly. But mostly, I was reminded of a dear friend of mine. He was one of my first guy friends, and my only one in high school for most of the time. I developed a code for us to write notes in (loosely based on Elder Futhark runes) and one day he handed me a two word note. The hilarious part is I misread it thr...