Miscellaneous

RAGE!

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Okay, I normally stay away from two things when I blog: Politics and outright reprimands.

But I’ve had it!

This is not about Judge Kavnaugh, though that whole mess is partly what got me to thinking about this, but also what I’ve been reading about in my Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric book. It has a whole chapter devoted to how we justify our own bad ways of thinking.

The whole book has a liberal slant, but its not wrong.

But  my problem is not just with politics, but with how we as a culture and as a people are handling conflict. And I mean this is extremely personal, because I find it in myself. I see it in the people around me. Slapped on slogans, broadcasted over talk radio, and good gracious the  news network! For crying out loud, it’s even in our superhero movies and teen dramas.

That thing can be put into one word: Rage.

“Oh, it’s well beyond rage”–William Wallace, Braveheart.

Just take a minute and think about it, what word would you use to describe the way people talk about each other? The way they talk about policies?

What I hear and feel when I see the news is rage.

It’s mindless too. And I’ll admit my own political party is nearly as bad as the Left (clearly we’re not rioting and sending death threats.) I am disgusted by Conservatives who spend all their time blasting the left. While I wholeheartedly believe the left is wrong, and I can’t help but think they act abominably as a whole, even if as individuals I know plenty of decent liberals, but I have never felt the appropriate response was to return in kind.

Pointing fingers is not helpful, maybe we’re right, maybe we’re not, but playing the  blame game will not leave anyone innocent. In fact, it’s stupid for human beings to play this with each other.

It’s like how Adam and Eve pointed fingers in the Garden, both of them did wrong, did it help to blame others? We can argue for hours on who was more guilty, but it won’t change the past.

We can’t change the past.

I’ll tell you one thing, if tomorrow every democrat I knew of had a change of heart and started doing the right thing and standing up for the truth, then it wouldn’t matter to me what the party had done in the past. I don’t freaking care what the Clintons did, or Obama, because it’s in the past. What I care about is the future, if democrats were doing what I honestly thought was best, then I would vote for them.

My identity is not in my political party name, it’s in my morals. Conservatism lines up with what I believe in, that doesn’t mean conservatives always do things I like. I don’t support the party because I like all the people in it, but because I think the bad ones do less damage, and the good ones do more good overall.

Fixing the politics in this country would take a number of miracles, and both the left and the right are holding us back. I’m not ashamed for my party’s ideals, but I’m ashamed of the way we uphold them,

Rage is a virus. It’s contagious. And it’s all about returning in kind. The Left has been awful to the Right, no mistake, but being awful back…this bickering, name calling, mocking, and whining…I consider it beneath us.

Look, I’ll get frustrated with liberals just as much as the next conservative, but I do not hate them. I don’t consider them all to be the worst of humanity. (Some yes, but you’ll find those in every party.) I may get mad at what they do, but I do not want to let myself be consumed by rage every day. It has to be exhausting to do a talk show on politics.

Now, I know there would be protests here. Some would argue that conservatives have to be more aggressive because we own so little of the networks. True enough. I’m not against showing initiative. But, if we’re really as better at politics and morals as we claim, then we shouldn’t have to stoop to yelling and verbal jabs. Or generalizations.

What are we so mad about anyway? That evil exists? That in our mind it’s represented by the opposition? That people can be liars, thieves, abusers, backstabbers, accept bribes, and be unbelievably biased (the ironic thing here is that for some of you I just described my own party.) Did it surprise anyone? Why is that making us angry?

The Bible says not to fret over evildoers, and to not give way to wrath or let anger consume us because it only leads to harm.

I challenge you, whether you’re right or left, to take a long hard look at how your party acts toward the opposition. Ask yourself, is that how I believe people should be treated?

I admit, no. There, I said it.

I especially implore you college students and teens, many of you are liberal, and it’s easy for young people to feel anger over causes (I ought to know, I am one.) But, is this the legacy you want to leave? Rage? Ten years from now, will you be glad of what you did out of rage, or what you did out of mercy?

I’m not letting conservative young people off the hook, how cruel can we be to the others? What kinds of things do we call them on social media.

If there’s one thing I do agree with liberals on, it’s that human rights include not being disrespected and then having it justified because of prejudice. But that goes for them too. If you believe racism is wrong, stop labeling everyone who disagrees with you a racist…because that’s still being bigoted. Does that make you better than us?

Conservatives, stop accusing liberals of destroying the country. We’re all doing it. It’s not just them. And it’s not really the wisest way to change their minds either.

Lastly, everyone for your own sanity and relationship’s sake, please, for the love of all things holy, let go of your rage. It’s blinding us all to the truth. Blame is a waste of time. It doesn’t matter. At the very least, Christians should be comforted by the thought that God will judge in the end who is to blame. He won’t play favorites.

Until next time–Natasha.

Thoughts on the RWBY team members.

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Some of you older followers know me and how I get with show characters. I just can’t help myself, I have to delve into them. A year or two ago I did a post about characters from Ever After High and what I learned form them, I thought it might be fun to do the same thing with RWBY. Even if you don’t watch it (and I recommend it but do not read the comment section.) The show is rife with interesting life lessons.

Now, though I like most of the characters, I don’t get as much out of all of them. The thing that makes RWBY different form Ever After High (there are similar stylistic choices) is that Ever After High was very much character driven, the character’s individual perspectives were the main source of conflict. Which was great, and I have no complaints about shows like that. But RWBY is a different kind of show. It’s story-plot driven. The characters become more clear with plot development. Which means you love them more the longer you watch.

A lot of the lessons aren’t really spoken so much as implied. One would be the importance of forgiveness. Over seasons 4 and 5 especially, Yang, one of the main four, deals with bitterness toward her mom as well as her teammate Blake for abandoning her, in the end she realizes she needs to forgive Blake, and at least come to terms with how her mom is. At no point does anyone directly tell her to do this, but her sister and her friend both say different things that change her perspective, plus she learns a lot on her own.

That’s as good a theme as any to start with. The point of Yang’s arc, and Blake’s in some ways, is that forgiveness is not something people deserve, and it’s not something they can earn. Some fans have complained that Blake was forgiven way too easily, but they miss the whole point. You can never deserve forgiveness, so either it is given, or it isn’t. Yang could have waited, but it wouldn’t have changed what happened, it would have only dragged it out. I’m glad she saw that.

Blake has a hard time forgiving herself. I related to her a lot in season 4 when she talked about being tired of people getting hurt because of her. Girls especially tend to feel this way, though I’m sure boys can too, but that feeling that we bring more trouble than we’re worth. Blake’s checkered past of working with a terrorist cult (Before realizing what she was in) makes her pretty insecure about whether or not she’s really able to help people.It seems like she gets them hurt more than she saves them. There’s a very cool song “Like Morning Follows Night” that’s between her and Sun, her boy friend that illustrates what she feels and what his response is is that it hurts people more to be pushed away than it does to risk themselves for her. Blake slowly starts letting herself get helped.

Then there’s Weiss, another member of the main team. Her story is more complex than most of theirs. She is out of place in her family. As cliche as that sounds, believe me if you watch it, it’s real. I felt uncomfortable around her family as a viewer, something about them was creepy. Both Weiss and her older sister realized they needed to get away from their parents, their father especially. I normally find that story line annoying, because it’s just not justified, but in this case their dad really is evil and I can’t blame them at all. Aside from that theme, there’s an interesting side theme that children aren’t guilty for what their parents have done and shouldn’t be made to pay for it. Plus a good old crack at how the rich and indolent can live such empty lives. Which is well worn, but in this case fits.

Ruby, the team leader, was not my favorite. I liked her but she’s more young and quirky than I tend to favor. Over time I came to appreciate her though, she gives her teammates and friends some great advice. Telling Jaune, another team leader, that he’s not allowed to be a failure now that he has  a team to lead. It’s an important moment because everyone, even the fans, thinks he’s already failing and that’s kind of hard to help without him getting a serious upgrade. But Ruby turned it around to show that leadership can be entrusted to us whether we like it or not, and yet it’s still our responsibility to be the best we can.  Ruby inspires that in all the other characters.

And then there’s the other main team, JNPR (pronounced “juniper”) Aiiiy. SPOILERS!

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Seriously, I don’t know if I can bring myself to talk about it just yet. Suffice it to say they have some of the most emotionally wrecking arcs of the show.

But before and after and during that they have some of the best development.

All of them are introduced as a little quirky and unusual, and Jaune the leader, is shown to not be a very good fighter. Yet over time we see what makes them exceptional.

Jaune, though he lacks confidence, proves to be fiercely loyal to his friends and devoted to his team. Though he gets bullied and has issues with admitting he needs help, he eventually stands o]up to the bully for the sake of his team and then learns to accept help. He expresses his frustration at always feeling like the damsel in distress. Even as of season 5 he’s still the weakest fighter, but that isn’t really the point. There’s more to strength than being powerful, and there’s more to being a hero than strength. In fact what Jaune’s teammate Pyrrha shows him is that being a hero to someone is a lot more about believing in them and being there when they need help then it is about being able to kick rear. Thought that’s always fun to watch.

Ah Pyrrha, my favorite. I just love her, I can’t help it. No one can, I’ve yet to read a bad word about her.

Pyrrha was from the start easily the kindest character on the show. She and Jaune are alike in that they see someone in need and the aren’t shy about helping them. Pyrrha usually makes it look way cooler, but hey, if you can, why not?

Pyrrha’s theme ended up being about love. Something that I pinned down about her early on was that love wasn’t just something she did, it was who she was. Pyrrha is never seen doing anything mean or selfish. She inspires without trying to. Really you have to see it to understand, but you can’t watch any scene with her in it without thinking “Wow, she’s just so…nice, but like, she means it. How does she do that?”

Nora and Ren are the last two members of the team, and they’re a package deal. They balance each other out. Nora is peppy and a little crazy, but shows she is emotionally intelligent over time. Giving both Ren and Pyrrha advice that tells us she pays attention to what people are feeling. Ren is the opposite of Nora as far as personality goes and sees uncomfortable with emotions. Which is explained later, his theme ends up being getting closer and not letting anger make you do foolish and reckless things. Facing your demons and so on.

There’s even more, but this is long enough for one post. Until next time–Natasha.

The Resurrection Arc.

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Hey fiction buffs! You’ve heard of character arcs before, but did you know there’s different kinds?

Yeah, probably if you read or watch any TV show that’s fictional, you knew that. I’m simply being dramatic.

You might know of arcs (and for you non-buffs, an arc is how a character or plot develops from one point, usually an immature one, to another, usually a better, wiser one. Typically the arc is what shows us the point of the whole story, but there are negative arcs that show one good guy turning bad, or a good guy slowly giving up on their cause. These are the bad example arcs that are meant to be a warning.) But have you heard of a Resurrection Arc?

Most arcs follow a pattern and this one does too. It’s actually pretty widely used, but since it is often misused, and people are now knocking it, I thought I’d write a defense of it.

All arcs are meant to change the characters and show them something they did not see before. Some arcs are a part of the plot and the characters learn by dealing with the challenges of that part. That’s what category I put a resurrection arc into.

A lot of things kick off arcs. The most famous is getting a challenge like being chosen for something, or the sadder common catalyst is a character losing someone close to them. Sometimes just witnessing a tragedy is enough to do it, other times the character has to lose their soulmate for their arc to begin.

However, there’s another really cool thing that kicks of some arcs. And it’s a resurrection. A resurrection can happen one of two ways. Either it’s a character literally coming back from the dead, or from being almost dead, or they just thought they were and it turns out they weren’t; or something else can be restored to a character that they felt they lost. In fiction especially this can mean a gift or power, or it can mean a belief in something they had lost faith in. It’s popular now for a memory to also be something that helps a character in this way.

In older stories resurrection is often just straight up someone’s coming back to life. This theme appears in fairy tales way more that we realize. Often it’s intertwined with redemption. Many of Anderson’s lesser known stories involve resurrection, and even his most famous ones that have had those elements removed in the retelling.

In modern fiction Death has an oddly compelling presence. Take “The Fault in Our Stars,” or almost any dystopia fiction now. Death is everywhere, often very young people are obsessed with it. (Funny that it’s often older people writing this stuff.) I always loved life, I was happy when nobody died. I considered “The Lion King” a sad movie, (and that part still is.) But of course, Mufasa isn’t really gone, and that can be part of a resurrection arc. Realizing that death isn’t so powerful. It’s why you won’t see this arc in the death-shadowed stories I just mentioned, unless it’s in some twisted, unholy way. Frankenstein’s monster is no example of resurrection, just to be clear.

Life wins out in the end, and love. That’s the message of resurrection arcs in a nutshell. But the complaint, which I’m sick of hearing, is that they don’t create lasting stakes.

Since the Avengers franchise took off, fans have been growing dissatisfied with happy, everyone’s alive, stories (like they don’t all hate it when their friendly neighborhood Spiderman gets knocked off, please.) While I find the constant whining about it to be stupid, I do note that there’s something to be said for making things a bit more realistic.

It’s not that no one dies that really bugs me, it’s that no one gets hurt for very long, no one loses anything in their lives, and no one seems to be affected for longer than two films by any traumatic experience. Also I fail to see character growth even when they are.

In truth, whether characters live or die has nothing to do with depth. Action flicks that kill off henchmen by the dozens aren’t known for being deep. And Chick flicks that don’t kill anyone, or else do it in a more drawn out, romantic way, aren’t necessarily shallow. The Notebook is dumb for most of the movie, but the ending always gets to me because it is saying something profound about love.

That said, I think people who knock resurrection arcs are missing their potential. It’s not always a cheap cop-out to have a character not stay dead. In fact, often it’s a very good catalyst for growth in both them, and everyone else.

When a characters is resurrected, everyone has to reconsider what life and death means to them. They have to ask themselves what they are willing to sacrifice, and what they aren’t. But most of all, it changes the dynamics of how they see the antagonists. Maybe there are things more powerful than whatever the evil stands for.

As for the character who comes back themselves, they get a chance to change things about their lives that maybe only losing them gave them the clarity to do. Or they impart some wisdom on the other characters that they couldn’t before. Resurrection means restoration.

If we no longer like that, it is because we have grown more hopeless. It’s more cool now to just accept the crap in you life and deal with it, then it is to hope for a change. People encourage you to give up on hoping for others to change, for things to turn around. Be the force, they say. Well, that’s fine in its place. But what about when your force isn’t enough?

What about when all the kick-rear skills in the world won’t save you? What about when you’re losing heart and nothing else will help? What about when someone simply can’t save themselves?

Resurrection is what solves this, and nothing else can. It’s a restoring of life and hope and faith to someone who had lost heart. It’s the only thing that makes redemption fully possible. Because though a death may redeem someone, it only sticks if life comes out of it.

Resurrection, in the end, is what breeds humility. What engraves the inevitability of our own need for someone to intervene on our behalf into our souls. By overcoming mortality, it reminds us of it.

It’s not cheap. It’s often the hardest thing to do well.

I for one will never get tired of this arc, until next time–Natasha.

Vacation and Compromise.

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Wow, you guys are awesome. My first post in days and you gave me like 8 views plus five other posts.

I haven’t really talked about my vacation, and I should post some pictures once I can get them onto my computer, but for now I’ll just say it was pretty good.

I won’t call it the best experience I’ve ever had. There was too much driving and drama for that, but I got to visit a lot of cool places, including the Grand Canyon. Which is beautiful. It’s huge too. I know you know that already, but until you see it you just don’t comprehend its grandeur.

Yellowstone was cool too, I got to see little baby bison, and some elk grazing on bushes, and even a Mama bear and her cubs.

The best thing was getting to see family I usually see two days out of a year and actually learn to know them better, and to meet family I hadn’t even known about before. Also I made a new friend who I’m staying in touch with.

Family Vacations are something that’ll make you either love your family or hate them. We got to see the good and bad of each other. I don’t know how my sisters put up with being jammed int eh back seat with me for nearly 14 hours. And with my parents when I drove. Things like music priveledges are points of contention.

You’ve probably heard that it’s wise to learn how to compromise. Or to quote Captain America/ Peggy Carter “Compromise where you can,”

Do you know I’m starting to wonder if people know how to compromise anymore. Have you ever walked away from a conversation feeling like the other person just passive aggressively told you it was okay, when it really wasn’t. They give you that “I’d argue further if I cared enough about what we were doing” feeling. Or they say “Do what you want.” Which means pretty much the same thing.

It’s a problem with younger people especially, not knowing how to tackle something out. To give a little, to take a little. I have the same problem myself, but I’m trying to get better at compromise.

My definition of compromise is not give up what you want, but be willing to take only part of it, and give the other person part of what they want.

But compromise has different levels. Sometimes it can mean you do what someone else wants more than what you want. Say both of you want to do different activities on an outing, but you have limited time. You could relinquish doing what you want more than once or twice, and let them do more of what they want, in the name of peace.

Or you could compromise by splitting what you want into separate days or times.

But if you truly just relinquish your will to the other person, I call that a surrender. We need to know how to do that too. But in a way that doesn’t make the other person feel bad.

I’ve never been the best at this, but some people can surrender without you even realizing they did it.

Anyway, I don’t have much more to say about this, except that if you’re going to have a family, you better learn to compromise, in the name of peace.  Just a word to the wise.

Until next time–Natasha.

Hello again

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I’m back!

My vacation was exhausting. I don’t think we go on vacations to rest, we do it to get away from our routine. that’s why it’s so tiring, New things make us tired.

Human beings are adaptable, but it’s not easy. After a week or so your body just wants to go home and sleep in your own bed.

My vacation was not one of those eye opening soul discovery ones. I was surrounded by various members of my family almost he entire time, jammed into a small car not meant to carry so much stuff, and on the road for 2 hours on a short day and 5-8 hours on a regular day.

But it did surprise me how, when I finally had a few hours to myself, and I settled down, I felt much clearer about what I needed to do.

In my life there’s so much noise, but what getting away from it made me realize that noise isn’t something that you ecape by switching location.

I went from a Suburban  area in a west coast state to the empty wilderness of Wyoming, Montana, and Utah. Hiking over mountains, driving through Yellowstone, and staying in towns of less than 2,000 people, which is unheard of where I live. As someone aware of how hard it can be to support a small business when you advertise to thousands of people, I wonder how motels in these tiny towns stay afloat, I guess the cost of living is less. Plus people might work a few different jobs.

Anyway, I always thought of myself as someone who liked quieter areas, but I realized I don’t. I like nature, but I feel out of place in rural country. It reminds me of one of the essays I read for English class “The Trouble with Wilderness.” The real wilderness left in this country is between the cities, it’s not even really our national parks. It’s the places no one goes to except wild horses. It’s the undergrowth that keeps animals out of sight form the road.

The truth is, wilderness is only something you find off the beaten (or paved) path. My sister and I got close to it driving a quad over a desert area. But even so, that’s not quite it. And I got to visit some dinosaur tracks, which I’m a big fan of, there were some paw prints there too, probably from a more recent animal. Still, that’s not really wilderness.

Wilderness is something you find when it’s just you alone with God and with nature.

Civilization is really just what you call it when two people meet and settle down. Why else does marriage represent civilization not just in the Bible, but in many religions and stories?

I don’t think it’s impossible for a couple to experience wilderness together, but when it comes to being in it even when you’re not out in nature, you need to be alone.

Capturing that feeling of wildness is something we can only do when we’re either by ourselves, or with someone else who has felt it and understands it.

The feeling you get when you’re out in the wind, or when you gaze at a sunset, or look at the mountains. When you feel really alone, but not lonely. That’s being wild. Because in those moments you dare to dream anything and you believe in anything.

It’s no surprise really that folks who live surrounded by nature used to come up with stories about fairies and elves and sprites, something about it makes you believe in what you can’t see.

After all Romans does say that the invisible attributes of God are plain to us because of nature.

The real reason science isn’t enough to produce faith isn’t that science disproves God, but that sciences deals with what our eyes see, while faith deals with the unseen world, because that’s where the spiritual, the most important part of life, takes place.

I realized that finding peace and quiet in my life isn’t something I can do by eliminating city noises till all I hear are crickets and grasshoppers. (Some of them in Wyoming make this weird popping sound that you wouldn’t think a bug that size could so without snapping itself in half.) It’s something I have to be willing to seek out.

Peace is about letting stuff go and focusing on God, or even just on another person in your life. Without the TV and the radio in the background.

And being willing to be by yourself for awhile. I actually had gotten out of practice, but when I chose to keep being alone, I felt it cleared my head.

So my exhortation to all of you is to take some time today and find that.

Until next time–Natasha.

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Shell Waterfall in Wyoming.

I pick an awkward subject as a final post before vacation.

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Hellos everyone, sorry for my long delay, I have had some writer’s block lately. Once I got out of school I felt like I just wanted to chill around my house doing nothing very important.

But I’m leaving for vacation today so I guess that’s not going to be an option anymore. I’ll be gone nearly two weeks and won’t be able to post. So I want to make this one count.

And with that in mind let’s talk about something awkward.

I’ve been watching videos by this youtuber who’s a professing bisexual. Which normally I’d stay far away from but my sister convinced me to give him a shot.

I don’t hate non-straight people, but it’s uncomfortable to be around someone with a lifestyle that you feel is wrong in may ways. Though I guess to a Christian, anyone else’s lifestyle is wrong.

Which maybe explains why I feel uncomfortable around unbelievers in general.

This kind of awkwardness has been pegged as just being too out there to handle other people’s difference by those who dislike Christians. Some think we’re just too close minded and immature to tolerate other points of view.

But intolerance is not always a sign of immaturity. You’d not tolerate fleas on your skin or even on your dog, and it’d hardly be mature if you did.

People who go through life believing our goal should be to harm no living thing aren’t really being realistic. The world is set up for us to have to fight and overcome obstacles form bugs to bureaucrats. Things get hurt in the process, I wish it was always the bad things.

That said, the alternative sexual sub culture is still something I am not sure how to deal with. I can’t avoid it at my school, or in my state. And when I meet those people I’m generally surprised by how normal they seem until I know.

This you-tuber is actually a brilliant, talented fellow, who seems to be struggling with his sexuality and his frustration with being lonely.

Yet he came to a surprisingly mature frame of mind in one video, and I was puzzled.

This may have changed my perspective on homosexuality or bisexuality. Don’t get me wrong, Is till believe it’s a sin.

And I still find it repulsive.

But if I’m honest, it’s not like I’ve never felt the temptation. I’m starting to think there are probably few people who haven’t.

It’s actually normal for young teens to have what seems like homosexual feelings when puberty is first beginning. Your body can be confused for whatever reason. Then it changes. I’m not a young teen anymore, but I had that problem.

And I was totally embarrassed about it. And nowadays, in this society I think people are even more embarrassed because we don’t want to be told to embrace it and be gay.

How does a christian youth deal with feelings like that? Or how does anyone who wishes to be normal deal with those feelings?

Some have chosen to accept what’s popular now and just be gay…to my surprise this doesn’t always mean an actual sexual lifestyle, but just that they identify that way and think it fits them. I think the appeal here is simply to cease the struggle. Only it doesn’t work.

And I’ve been tempted to make that agreement plenty.

The Bible terms homosexuality as a strong delusion. Which means it’s extremely hard to realize it’s a delusion. The person in that is so blind that they don’t even think of it as sin, and in biblical times it was even more of a problem then it is now.

As much as the publicly gay propaganda annoys me, I’m realizing that the regular people who struggle with that problem don’t necessarily want applause (and thanks Hollywood for yet again making the situation worse than it already was) they just want to feel normal.

I think that’s where the torture comes in, and as much as they try to accept not being normal, I can’t help but think it’s just not going to happen.

Because homosexuality is not normal, biologically and spiritually speaking.

But I did notice something in the Bible that might shed some light on this subject. In the Bible God speaks of the Church as his bride, meaning men and women, and King David spoke of God as delighting in him and pursuing him.

Does that mean (and there are sects of Christians who will say it does) that God is okay with homosexuality.

No, I think you’d have to throw out Romans and Corinthians to believe that. And some of them do, but I don’t.

What this means is that God has placed the desire to be romanced in men as well as women. It’s actually a human quality. And a Divine one too, since God loves to be adored.

I feel bad that personality traits such as creative expression have been pegged as feminine or gay for such a long time. It’s not gay to like things that are considered girly, since all of those things were once considered manly anyway.

Men used to have the market on creativity. I think it would be stupid to say all those artists composer, poets, and actors were gay. Many of them were quite the opposite to an unfortunate level.

The secular world is right about one thing, people who choose the gay lifestyle do have repressed feelings. But I don’t believe at the core those feelings are sexual.

Boys who decide they have gay tendencies may feel that way for many reasons but I  think one can be that they don’t feel it’s okay to have more tender, mushy feelings.

I never found those kinds of men to be unmasculine just because they had softer sides, but I guess that’s not how a lot of people grew up seeing it.

Honestly, even homosexual men still have that innate desire to save people, to be the hero. Oddly enough, this may be evidence even in how some of them now flaunt it publicly to get praise. Supposedly that desire is supposed to be masculine.

But here’s the thing, I’m a woman. And I admit, I find other women attractive. Girls actually feel threatened by each other because they can see each other’s charms, sometimes more than men can honestly. But I would not ever want to marry a woman. It would be like marrying myself and who wants that.

As a woman I do like the thought of being rescued, often more than I’ll admit to myself. But I also really like the thought of saving people.

Both men and woman like to feel that their spouse has got their back and would rescue them if they were ever in danger.

The difference is a man might blame himself if he is unable to save his wife from some things beyond his control.

I think homosexuality has appeal because it takes less work than heterosexuality. There’s less homosexuals out there, so dating can be prolonged and avoided, and maybe the truth is they don’t always really want to date that badly. They just don’t want to be alone. Gay people tend to have a lot of platonic friends of both genders. But full commitment… how often does it happen?

Also when your’e the same gender there’s not that annoying gender clash problem. Which is hard to deal with, though in the the end worth it.

I’ll always prefer some things about girls to guys. Like how they aren’t always as rude. But if I had not guys in my life, it would be boring, and predictable.

In the end I think that a lot of sexual confusion is going around period. Even I’m not immune to it, though I wish I was. I struggle with wondering if I have perverted desires. And why I’m admitting this on the public internet is because I know that’s everyone. I doubt anyone has not felt slimed by the corruption going around, and event hose who have sexual mores I think are wrong can be disgusted by how much sexual sin is flaunted.

I guess I’m coming to see homosexuality as not the worse inescapable sin that ever existed. It’s pretty bad, but the people who commit it aren’t always bad through and through. They still have God given gifts.

I do still believe no one can ever be truly happy or satisfied who is living in sin. But I guess it doesn’t mean that they’ve abandoned all their good qualities. And I still blame the media a lot for my overly negative perceptions of homosexuals.

The sin is terrible, but the sinner can be a mixed and mixed up bag. That’s what I’m trying to say.

I don’t have the solution yet. I know God can deliver people even of strong delusion. But what I don’t know is how Christians can help yet. I think I lack the experience. But I’m hoping my attempt at getting a clearer perspective on it will help me at least. I still believe that I owe even homosexuals unconditional Christlike love, just because they are still human beings.

And for the record, if someone reading this views them as the spawn of Satan or something like that, remember that all sin is repulsive and we are all sinners. It would be nice if we could say they were worse, but sometimes a person can have one fatal flaw and in all other respects be overall better than us. WE all have something that rips us up and U think compassion with wisdom is a better path to take.

I’ll never change my mind about it being a sin. But maybe I’ll learn to  deal with it the way Jesus would.

Until next time–Natasha.