Concretely Gay

[concretelygay]

A reaction to a youtube video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54k8lK9POGY As a white person dealing with white guilt I think I try to protect not others or a race, like Dr. Davis was saying, but my own image and it definitely does stifle my growth. So many things have gone unsaid that I should have said so that I get to have that dialogue. 

Then when you all talk about how things get flattened as we project things onto it and I just thought: I do that. I take in tones and try to make sense of what is happening in hopes of protecting my own image down the line. But I'm missing out on the mistakes and the process and the dialogue. Defund 413 has been helping me get better at saying things around white people but I still need to push myself to keep pushing. I can see how I take one little sentence that a Black person (and some people of color but mostly Black people right now) says and I'm like this my new BIble. I will live out that off the hand thought to the best of my ability and never falter. It never occured to me how that would affect the Black person I could be sharing space with. I think that's one thing I am understanding more and more is that people know when you are dancing around them on eggshells and it makes them uncomfortable. I didn't know that. I thought that's just what being polite was. But if you go into my church growing up or my family I think you would find that "being polite" was walking on eggshells. But now it has an even darker more nefarious reason. I am walking on eggshells around Black people because I don't want to be told I need to change something. And probably that’s why I was walking on eggshells in my family or at church because I didn’t want to engage in a dialogue, I didn’t want to change something that was working for me. And I do it now in other spaces.

I think my proudest moment this past month was that I asked what Redlining was and answered incorrectly to why Redlining happened (I answered crime). I am so horribly embarrassed to think about what that said about me to the people in that Zoom room but those things felt true to me. I was so wrong. So dumb and so ignorant. But that’s what I was. In that moment in that time and space I was all of those things. I guess I should have said above my thought process was so wrong. I am not wrong as person or bad. I have bad thought processes and harmful beliefs. But that says nothing about my worth as a person. I can have those thoughts and still be worthy and lovable. But I can also be unsafe to Black folks. That is the hardest thing for me to understand. I can still be worthy and unsafe to Black folks. I can be harmful to Black people and still have value as human. These things are not on a binary. In fact it is possible that most white people are harmful to Black people and have worthy-ness. 

Now before you misunderstand...my harmfulness does not make me worthy. It is apart of me that I am actively trying to move through and work through and remove from my being. It does not make me worthy. But it also doesn’t take away my worthy-ness?  I guess this is where I’m going to falter. Truly, I feel less worthy because of my mistake. How could I have been so stupid to say crime is why Black people were banned from buying houses in certain areas? Like what a turd thing to say. Everyone in that zoom room must think I’m a turd. But look at my shame statements look at what I’m getting from this. My image is tarnished. People must think I’m bigoted and dumb. It’s not focusing on the people I’ve hurt. It’s not even including them in the statement. It’s not even asking them how they felt. It’s not even inviting them and their personhood and the intelligence into my brain. And now this is where I’m completely and totally at a loss. 

Let’s say I believe that my mistake and my display of racism was a mistake and not some demerit on my “Good Place” point system what do I do. Well I’ve listened to some of the Ta-Nehisi Coates article on redlining. I’ve agreed to help make a redlining map of my town. I’ve set up a meeting to do some of the analysis that could be useful to my town. But I have not apologized to the people. And I don’t know if I should have. I want to. But apologizing right now in 2020 seems to have this weird overtone of expecting forgiveness. But I more want acknowledge that I fucked up. And not just that I fucked up but that I believed the wrong thing. Like that’s real. I really believed when I said it that crime was going to be the reason redlining became a thing not the outcome. But I’m afraid to admit to the people of color in the room that that is exactly what I thought and that I know that that was wrong. I have no idea how to physically do that. Like is that something you put in a facebook message? An email? Do you wait until it comes up again and just be like I’m a moron? How do you communicate all the feelings without making them feel like they owe you anything? What is the magic formula?

And see how fast it comes back? I’m writing this stream of consciousness style. You can see how I go from pointing out that I’m protecting my image by trying to find the magic way to exist in the world to doing that same thing I’m pointing out. Like how? How can the brain really not focus for however long it takes me to write a paragraph?? 

Back to the problem of me being racist and saying racist things on a Zoom call with Black people who I respect and like. And who I want desperately to like me and okay me as a good ally. That’s it that the sentence. That’s the tweet. I want them to like me. I want to be safe for them. I want to be in community with them. So I need to do better. I don’t need to bring it up again if it doesn’t come up. I need to with my actions do better. I need to think and slow down and be in the moment and try to be with people even on Zoom. And I need to remember in the moment to apologize when I get that feeling. At least that is what my gut is telling me today. And my gut could be wrong so we will see. 

But I guess I need to be prepared to own up to this mistake. If I ever get called out or called in I need to own it and say “yep that was me. I said that and I believed it. And looking back I feel silly and ignorant. And I was those things. I don’t believe that now and understand that that comment may have hurt you. I’m sorry I said it and believed it and I’m going to keep reading and educating myself to try to limit the number of time I do things like this.” And then I need to listen to whatever feelings come up and try to be as open to receiving those comments and feelings as I can be. 

So I don’t know how I got from the video to my own stuff but that’s probably some more white supremacy right there. 

[concretelygay]

What is my fussiness for?

I get fussy some days. And I mean really fussy. Everything my partner does drives me up a wall. I don’t want to do my work. I’m angry at the world. I’m angry at the process of re-learning everything. I’m angry and annoyed and fussy.  Why? Like what might that emotion be wanting to tell me? Why would fussiness exist? 

For me I notice it comes and then it goes. That’s so interesting to me. Does it just need to come out? Is it just pent up energy? 

It happens when I’m tired. Is it specific kind of exhaustion that sparks it?

I want to be away from people and outside forces. Is it about control? Do I just want to have full control over everything affecting my life, all of the inputs? 

I’m finding myself focusing on input. That’s kind of a weird word. That feels like it’s coming from a sensory input type of place. I think it might be about that a little. Control and sensory stuff keep popping into my head as keywords. Are there actions that come after? I don’t think I need to avoid fussiness. I think it’s just a thing but I don’t want to shove it away and let it pass. I’d like to do some dealing with or sitting in. 

Writing helps. Talking to the tumblr void. I’m glad no one really reads this stuff. But I like that someone could. I like testing out the waters with writing. I like that I can look back at something. Like a little time capsule. Even if it’s only these few posts. I’ll always know some of what I was thinking here on this day. 

Why tumblr? Why not a journal? I like the idea that people could read it. That it might be apart of a public conversation some day. But I have no friends on tumblr I have not posted this anywhere else so it’s unlikely that someone will find it. 

Back to fussiness. So when I get fussy I should write? Is that it? I also like deciding stuff when I’m fussy. Getting my way. It seems like an anti-codependency mechanism. The fussy just says a big old no to whatever. Just allows the me to choose my exact path with very little indecisiveness. It helps. But sometimes it feels mean. I try to ignore that feeling. And just do what I need. But it’s not easy. I hope it will get easier.

[concretelygay]

Is assuming a police department is bad judgemental?

This is a big question and I’m not going to answer it. I’m going to wonder about it.  My first thought is what do we know about the police department? Do we know their history? Do we know how people feel about them? How they act with people? Are those last two questions in cohesion? Do we know who makes up the department? Are the old, young, white, black, hispanic, latino/a? Do they speak English or Spanish? Do they speak a different language? Are they American? Are they from Hong Kong? Do they work for the town, a state, a country? Does any of these demographics matter?  Who originally called the police department bad? Did they have an experience with the police? Are they okay? Do they feel taken care of by people in their life? Are they sad? Are they angry? Did someone they know have an experience with the police? Is this person poor or wealthy or somewhere in between? Do they have a lot of friends or just a few? Are they Black, Indigenous, or a Person of Color? Are they white? Are they mixed race? 

Why did I think of mixed race when I thought of person raising the point of police being bad but not when I thought about the police? Am I even ready to tackle such a question? Why do I care if it’s judgemental? Richard Rohr said not be judgemental what do feminists say? Why do I care so much what the feminist philosophers say? Am I just trying to find right still? I got really off topic. Let’s see if I can sort through some of these thoughts and why they may or may not be important. 

Thinking about the police does feel important. Because if someone is being really mean and harmful and you’ve tried then it’s time for a boundary. But that’s a super individual subjective point that I’ve outlined. Like how do you know when someone is being mean and harmful? What does you’ve tried mean? That’s normally the rabbit hole I get to with this stuff is for me I don’t feel hurt by the police. I see how other people are hurt though and those people are sometimes working with me. So I could become unsafe. It is so hard not ask is that bad here. What do I mean by unsafe? I guess I mean that by working with the police on something I could become pro police? What does pro police mean? I believe that there are better ways to keep people safe other than the current model of policing. But I don’t understand how talking and working with an officer of the law in America reverses the above statement. I do not understand why they are on a binary. I would not mind saying to any police officer I do not trust your field or the company you work for. I would also say that most corporate data scientists. And I am one. I actively believe if we worked on replacing policing with community services and other things that communities that tend be over policed are asking for we would have a safer community. But does that mean I can’t work with police officers?

My best guess that from my side if I keeping an open mind on the police officers reaction then I can work with a police officer. Because if they are willing to work with someone who believes their job is not working then they will. My best guess is many people don’t believe a police officer will work with someone who believes their job is not working. I have no reason to assume that. I would work with someone who believes that high education is really messed up and should be torn to the ground. I guess I don’t love higher education all that much let me think of another profession. I have a really strong love of small businesses and bakeries. Maybe I could say I would work with someone who wants to close all small family owned bakeries. Could I tell them data that might prove that small family owned bakeries should be closed? I don’t know. It would be really hard. I would want to have a relationship with this person before I did that. I would want to trust and see their humanity. I would want talk about their reasons for wanting the data. I would want to know their history. I would want to judge them. 

I don’t know what the question I’m supposed to ask at this point is. I would want to be skeptical and negative about a small bakery hating person. I would imagine maybe some police officers would feel this way toward me. What would I want the bakery hating person to do? I guess I would like them to get to know the bakery that my dad owned for many years. I would like them to ask about all the care my dad put in to making that business good and safe. I would like to ask the workers that came and went through my dad’s business and how they felt. I would like them to work there and see. I would like the to slow down and trust my humanity.

But what about the reason that person hates small bakeries. To be dramatic what if someone in their life died because of food poisoning and they couldn’t even afford to pay for the funeral because even though they won the suit the bakery didn’t have the money to pay the family. Maybe the bakery tried to cover it up and never even said sorry. Maybe the bakery slandered the family and blamed them for the death of their family member. Maybe the whole town turned on the family and other families like them because this the family wanted a proper apology for the accidental death caused by the bakery. Maybe this family has shown that bakeries across the country are killing people like their family and others and never taking responsibility. 

Okay I think this analogy is getting off track. But I guess the hole I’ve found myself in is that I can see on the polices’ side the love of their career and their livelihood. I have lived most of my life with someone with that same passion (my dad). I have seen when retirement came and that passion was not available the changes that occured. I have seen the defensiveness of working long hours and holidays even when I feel like valid points against those habits were made. I have lived, been raised by, and cherished those personality traits. 

But I have also seen the fear in people’s eyes as they have been approached by police. I have heard voices crack. I’ve watched proud, amazing, genius people shrink under the gaze of police. I have heard stories of lives destroyed by the criminal justice system. I believe them. I hear them. I am feeling my experience of their experience and it feels not right. I can only imagine what it feels like to feel their experience. 

Can both be true? Can one be more true? Can one need to matter more right now? Can I not have any answers and still demand change? Can I post this widely? Will I be kicked out of organizing spaces for questioning whether all police are bad? Will I be shamed by family for believing an old institution should be destroyed? Is my questioning a privilege that others don’t get? Does my questioning undo my action? Can these words and thoughts really be bad? Is that binary thinking what got us here? Shouldn’t I try something new?

I have questions. I’m not sure all cops are bad. I want to hear what they have to say. But I also don’t believe in the police force. I want to tear it down. I want it to be done sooner rather than later. I think muddling through without the police for awhile will be better than having them. I want the individual police officers to find jobs that are fulfilling. I don’t want them to struggle in poverty. I want to befriend them, learn from them, and commune with them. I want Black people to feel safe. I want their voices to be more important than mine right now. I want to find ways to step aside. I want to use my privilege to make the world safer for all. I want to learn from Black communities because I think they have knowledge that I need to learn. I want Black people to feel safe around me. I want to be healed so I am safe to be around. I want to get better. I want to be transformed.

I am using a lot of I statements and that probably means something. I feel disconnected from a we. There is no we that I can use and feel okay using. That makes me sad. 

This got away from me. But I’m happy I wrote it.

[concretelygay]

What is black and white thinking?

Black and white thinking can be called many things. Binary thinking. Dualistic thinking. Good or bad thinking. But it all adds up to the same thing. You only give yourself two categories one that represents good and one that represents bad. 

For me good and bad thinking really narrows the possibilities in the world let’s take an example: There is a 7 year old boy names Johnny. During recess one day he pushes a child named Jason.

Did Johnny do a good thing or a bad thing? I would argue Johnny did a bad thing.

Does Johnny make bad choices? Yes the evidence says that Johnny makes bad choices. 

Is Johnny bad? Now here is where black and white thinking gets hard. Calling a kid bad with this little information is hard. This is when we start to realize that maybe we don’t want to label Johnny with just these two categories that original questions were better? But this question for me brings up a lot of feelings.

Going along the same vein of how black and white thinking plays out when you try to interact with the world, let’s flush out Johnny’s story.

Johnny’s two moms have been fighting a lot. The night before the recess incident Johnny’s parent he calls Mom pushed his parent he calls Mama. Then the next morning Johnny’s family was running late to school. Johnny’s older sister was really stressed because this would be her 20th tardy and if she gets anymore she might not get to move forward in school. She was swear and yelling at everyone. When Johnny got to school he got in trouble for not having his library book and he was so hungry because he didn’t have a snack and skipped breakfast to save time. His best friend Suzanne laughed when the older kids were making fun of Johnny for having two Moms and Johnny was feeling really bad when Jason stole the ball from him during basketball. Johnny pushed Jason trying to get the ball back (sorta) but also just to get out some pain. 

Did Johnny do a good or a bad thing? With all that back story and the excuse that Johnny gives for why Jason got pushed it starts to get hard to even call the pushing hard. We know that violence is not a great too to get out pain and results in more conflict. But Johnny is 7 and having a hard time in life. If we narrow down on just the pushing and think about how it might have affected Jason someone who may not know Johnny’s back story we might still land on pushing another kid being bad. But even this simple of question gets a ton more complicated.

Does Johnny make bad choices? I mean probably not. Johnny probably is not in control of what his body is doing. He is hungry and stressed and 7 year old. He probably has very little memory of choosing to push anyone. He didn’t choose to be late or not eat food and even if he did he is 7. The choice to push was probably not the smoothest choice for Johnny to get what he needs but I would argue it wasn’t a choice.

Is Johnny bad? Now with the backstory this question because easier. No way Johnny is not bad. He is having a really hard time and is reacting to that in with some negative behaviors. 

What about Jason? This is where it gets tough. Jason probably has scraped knee and is feeling confused and sad. He was just playing the game and then he got hurt. That probably feels bad to him. He gets to think of these actions from Johnny as bad. For him no matter the backstory getting push to the ground is bad. It hurts and does not feel fair. 

So with all these questions and backstory we can see there are a lot more layers to this than the initial question of did Johnny do a good or bad thing. If we had just stopped there we may have never gotten to all the chaos of all parts of the this story. Sometimes that feels good to avoid that chaos, but does it feel good to Johnny or Jason? For the actual players in the story until needs are met and stories are discussed, very little goodness will happen. That is tough. Because that means as adults helping these kids in this situation we need to remember to ask all these questions in order to trick good and bad thinking into capturing all of this nuance. Or maybe if we could move out of good and bad thinking into a wider perspective maybe there is a better question that covers all of these questions in one.

Why did Johnny push Jason? What was Johnny feeling before and after pushing Jason? Jason how can we make you feel better?

These three questions might be more useful, get the backstory from Johnny, and find a way to help Jason. More needs might get met and we might not be tricked into stopping after asking is pushing bad.

[concretelygay]

I’m Not Sure I Understand Protests

So there was a Back the Blue, Pro Trump Rally in my town. I was encouraged to show support of the counter protest. I couldn’t make myself stand outside just feet away from folks not wearing masks, so I decided to make two signs and drive around the block a few times. It was silly and pathetic compared to the real protestors but it will all I could muster. 

During the drive, I went around 5 times, I was terrified. A person on the speaker shouted my license plate number and said I support terrorist and pedofiles, and not to get in my Lyft. (Aside-I drove Lyft for 3 months 2 years ago and I leave the stickers on mostly to rebel against my parents because they didn’t want me driving Lyft). So I was feeling scared and then I was feeling so sad. Because the worst part of watching these people jeer at my neighbors and friends. Was that the Trump supporters were humans. I just wanted to talk to them and I didn’t know how. I wanted them to be in masks so I could walk over and say hi. I want them to put away the loud speaker so I could have one one one conversation. I wanted to join their group and get to know them. But that felt unacceptable to think or feel. So I drove and drove for about 20 mins I drove slowly around the block. And it felt like nothing.  I think I have done more good for this world walking down the block than I did on that drive. It honestly felt pointless on both sides. What were they trying to do? What were we trying to do? I don’t get the point and I want to so badly. How does screaming at each other from across the street do anything? I don’t understand. I want to know why they like Trump so much. I want to know it from their perspective. They were people that if I saw out of this context I would feel more comfortable with than the people on counter protest side. They looked like people who would attend my churches I’ve attended. They looked like my neighbors. They looked like my friends. I don’t understand what we anyone on those blocks wanted. I read one post that said the goal was to make them feel unwelcome. I guess I didn’t want them there like that. But I don’t want them to go away, I want them to change. I want them to see what their leader is doing and dislike it. Or at least I want them to think critically about their leader. 

Look I know you aren’t supposed to have sympathy for people who are so openly against things like Black Lives Matter, Masks, basic Human rights. But I can’t not look at a person and see that they are a person. To see that they feel things like I do and not want to add to their pain. Now I know the counter argument is do I put that much effort into the pain of Black people, Indigenous people, or People of Color. No, I haven’t. I am just starting to put more effort into learning how to be in community with those communities. But who is supposed to put effort into the Trump supporters. I present masculine, I have a beard, I’m white, I have deep voice, I am educated, I come from wealth, I am Christian, at this point I’m even in a straight passing relationship, I will never have to worry about a visual or an audio of me negatively affecting me. So why shouldn’t I spend time with these people. Why shouldn’t I get to know them and try to change their mind?  I don’t have the right answers. I know I’m wrong about protests. I know that protests are not pointless. I know that there are a lot of reasons to take to the streets that I can’t understand. I know that there are things I am doing in this very writing that will negatively impact the world and hurt the healing of others. But I am writing this for me. I need to work through this. I’m not going to tag, this on social media other than here, but I am going to post it publically. I am not going to hide my faults. Because I think that contributes to the issues. I am not perfect. I do not get this world we are living in. 

I want to be in community with Trump supporters and those who think I support terrorist because I had sign that says “Trump politics makes people unsafe”. I know that for many that makes me a part of the problem and probably truly makes me a part of the problem. I also want to DEFUND THE POLICE. I also do not believe that Trump should get to do some of things he has been doing (sending military to cities, bolster Columbus Day for political gain, inspire White Supremacists without at least claiming it wasn’t intentional, inciting hate). I also think there should be term limits, a universal wage, universal health care, universal mental health care, universal access to food, climate change regulation, a massive focus on how to empower the generations of Black people that are still suffering from slavery, a focus on creating jobs while still automating as much as possible, a shift away from capitalism, a shift away from the protestant church, gay/trans/lesbian/bi/and other sexual minorities should be able to raise children in all states, and that the American military is largely out of control.

But I know that me feeling sympathetic and like I want to reach out to the Trump supporters in my town is probably on the wrong side of history. I hope I figure out how to let go of the blocks that are so stuck in me that sees people and wants to reach out a hand no matter what they are doing. And I think this is even more so with white people. I think I want them not to disagree with me. I want them not to scare people. I want them not to make me look bad. I want them not be afraid and angry. I want them to see things the way I see them. I don’t want their views to be my views. I don’t want their president. I want to heal with them. I want them to stop doing what they are doing. I want I want I want.  I need to do better. Many people need to do better. Gosh I wish we were fighting about straws. I need to not worry about others. I need to heal myself. Why am I so upset over this rally? Why am I so ashamed? Is that telling me to do more next time? Is that telling me not to go? Is that telling me that I’m doing something wrong? That I am wrong? I know why I am sad. I am sad because I believe that many of the ideas that have been running this country since its inception are immoral and hurt people. From it’s bad to be a sensitive unique snowflake to people who are in pain should say their pain in a super calm way or their pain is invalid and not worthy of my help to police or bust mentality. All of these things make be sad. I don’t enjoy living in a society that supports these things. But I like my home. And I like people who believe these ideas. But it’s my belief that they might not have explored these different ideas. That statement is too prideful. Let’s reverse it. I don’t know why someone would support those ideas that I don’t like. I’ve tried to explore the reasons and I don’t agree. I don’t know why we can’t see it similarly or the same or even talk about it. How can nice people, kind hearted people not help me understand their perspective? Why? Why does it feel like they don’t want to listen to mine.

So I decided fuck it I’m gonna try to find the person who was yelling at me. So I went to Pioneer Valley Massachusetts For Trump 2020 and posted this:

Local Amherst person here. I drove past your demonstration a few times. I think this will probably get deleted because we don't share the same views, but as I was driving I really wished there was a way we could actually talk to one another instead of being so against and separate. Maybe I should have gotten out the car, but my partner asked me not to because of COVID. If the person saying he wants to have a debate into a mega phone actually does tell him to message me. I hope one day I can learn more about you all and your individual lives. Because at this moment I think I am missing something important. Though I don't support you cause I do want to understand more people as people. Hope one day that will come fruition. Best, "The Lyft driver who supports terrorists" (I think that's who I was)

So overall. I don’t get how standing on either side of the street does anything. How waving a flag and yelling and showing signs does anything. I don’t get any of it. I want to do the work to understand but I don’t know where to start. I guess I will google about protests and get back to you.

[concretelygay]

Forgiveness Confusion

So writing is hard, but helpful. That’s what I’ve come to. But writing is hard because words are the literal worst.  There are all these hidden meanings and sometimes the definition of the word doesn’t really explain what it means. It can make the world a really confusing place, especially when these words are tied to your moral standing in the world.  If you know me then you know moral standing and general goodness of a person (read myself) is very important to me. Which brings me to the most confusing word, Forgiveness.

So if you’ve studied Christianity even a little, forgiveness probably means a whole lot to you. You know that whole Jesus died to forgive our sins, whole foundation of the religion thing.  I mean his whole existence on Earth was a lot about forgiveness. So you can see how my younger, very Christian self felt that forgiveness was a very important concept. If you were good at forgiving you were really a solid person, you know like Jesus.

Here is the tricky part about the word though, what does it mean? How does one forgive? To be honest I have no idea, but I wanted to share some thoughts. 

I don’t think forgiveness is saying that something is okay or fine. If something was okay or fine you know you wouldn’t have anything to forgive. I think that’s what acceptance means. In fact, I think you actually have to think something is not okay in order to forgive. Because if you didn’t think the action was bad then you can’t forgive the action. 

But then what is forgiveness? Somehow it seems tied to letting go of some anger about an action. It’s confusing though, because sometimes anger feels like it can protect you. If your really mad and scary no ones gonna do that mean thing to you, because they’ll be too scared. 

So that makes forgiveness hella vulnerable. Like you are basically admitting someone hurt you. That you are hurtable. And that you are no longer protecting yourself with a whole bunch of anger. The other thing that anger does for me is it makes the person who hurt me feel a little less human. If I’m really mad at someone and I view them as less than, then there words and/or actions don’t matter as much. So in this forgiveness scenario, basically, you are giving that up. You’re saying this human that hurt you is a full and worthy person. That you are equal. That what they say and do has an equal meaning to what you say and do. That can be horrifying if the things that someone is doing is hurting you. 

Now, my brain is saying so if we are letting go of our protective anger and we are honoring the harmer’s humanity how does the action stop? Does forgiveness just result in the same thing as saying the action is okay? And I think to forgive safely one needs to be really sure of their own self worth. The above paragraph is saying that you are equal humans not that the other person is more worthy of getting what they want. So getting out of a harmful situation is the most important part of forgiveness. You have to recognize that what is happening is not okay for you and find away out. Only then can you forgive. 

So I don’t know if that whole if someone says “I repent” seventy seven times you have to forgive them thing really flies with me.  I think if you are safe and okay like God is at all time then sure. Let people get away with a lot. That’s why parents let kids mess up a decent amount, because the kids aren’t harming the parents, often times. They’re just making mistakes here and there. Those mistakes can be wrong and mean, but if a kid calls their parent a poopoo head, the parent can correct and forgive that action really easily because they aren’t being harmed in an intense way. 

Well now I’m just rambling. Basically, where I’m at with this whole forgiveness thing is that I don’t get it, especially in on going relationships where the same behavior is being repeated a million times. But it seems like if something bad happened to you in your past and you’ve gotten away form that happening then maybe you can forgive the perpetrators. Supposedly that seems to help people. But I guess that’s the thing maybe you can’t forgive someone until the behavior stops??? I have no idea and I have no idea how you make it fit with that Luke verse where you have to forgive someone seventy seven times. 

I guess I’ll end with be as kind as you can, and try to find ways to make yourself feel equal to everyone.  When that isn’t happening I don’t see how forgiveness can happen and supposedly forgiveness is pretty great if you can understand it. 

[concretelygay]

IT: Using Windows Manger to Partition an External Hard Drive

1) First plug in your external hard drive to your computer.

2) One up your file manager.

3) Right click this PC. And click Manage.

4) Go to disk management under storage in the menu on the left hand side.

My external hard drive is disk 1. My hard drive is disk 0. The blue bars are the primary partitions of the drive.

5) Right click the blue bar in the drive you want to partition. And choose to shrink the volume.  This will delete things on your drive. So make sure to do a solid back up if you need to. A window will come up and ask you how much you want to shrink your partition.  I’m going to choose about in half.

6) Then you’ll get an unallocated bar that is in black. This will be where you new partition goes. Right click it and click new simple volume. Then a wizard will come up. The options you want to choose are:

a) The amount of disk space you want to give the partition (I gave it what was available it comes up as the default.)

b)  I assigned it a letter drive. You cannot assign or do some cool mounting stuff that I don’t understand yet.

There you have it I learned how to partition a hard drive using the builtin windows function. 

[concretelygay]

Faith: My Queer Faith Story

Hi my name is Terry. I grew up Christian. I am gender questioning but female assigned at birth. I like women mostly. And I love lesbian culture so I like to call myself a lesbian. I have a masters in applied mathematics. I really like to be precise and clear. I like rules for every little thing, so conservative Christianity has always spoken to me. Even now it speks to me. At least until it doesn’t.

I am Christian. I follow the rules laid out by the Bible. If I go to church and do good works like mission trips and study the Bible well I am good. Others who do not do those things might be bad.

This thinking lives in me to this day. It makes sense. There exists a right and a wrong and a good and a bad and there are those two categories and that is how the world works and it all makes sense.

Until it doesn’t.

Until you think about the amazing Jewish people in your life who might not go to heaven because they don’t accept this odd figure, Jesus, who we like to pretend we know a lot about.. But we, the Christians, get to do stuff like misrepresent his race and do bad things like slavery in his name and we get to go to heaven?

But wait just don’t think about that stuff.

Think about how good it feels to walk into church and have everyone know your name. Think about the pride you feel when you know a hymn really well. Or can brag that you go to church and do mission work. Think about all the good people at your church, they can’t be wrong. Focus on that, don’t think too hard.

This was my thinking for so many years. I’d go between the structure, security, and safety of my rigid views and the questioning part of my curious brain. The safety I once found in religion started to fade.

When I started to come out to myself, my religion became over powered. I was queer and gay and a butch lesbian and Jesus and churches were gone, not because I was kicked out but because like the questioning part of myself and religious views, I couldn’t bring my queerness and religion together. My religious views were kind of these big jerks who just couldn’t hang out with anyone. So questioning and queerness took over big time and it was pretty great. IT felt like there were no rules and you couldn’t be bad. This made me feel so amazing.

But I couldn’t find that safety and sureness that I had when my religion was in control. I couldn’t find that community where people really cared like in church. I couldn’t get any of those nice feelings back from questioning or queerness. So I turned back to religion. I learned from a church called New Abbey in Pasadena CA and a podcast called Queerology that questioning and queerness can hang out with religion. That religion can be so much more complex than a list of binaries. And I’m not trying to simplify this, but for me it felt like a switch. I just didn’t know that you could just expand religion like that. I didn’t have to pick between religion and questioning or queerness. I could just ask religion to expand to include questioning and queerness.

This is where I am today. I can talk about religion like this a little bit more now. I can tell you that religion can be full of awe and wonder. It’s bigger and there are more experiences that can be contained by it than I ever thought possible. But I can’t explain my feelings on it.  I can’t tell you I feel the safety I did when I was a kid. I can’t tell you that I feel like I can go to church and not go back into that same loop of I am good and others are bad and don’t think too hard. I can tell you that sometimes I can listen to a sermon on my podcast app on the bike path about the resurrection and look up at the green and the woods around me and feel this peace and fear and wholeness that make zero sense. I can tell you that these experiences feel a million times better but also a million times worse than the peace and safety of my childhood.  

But somehow this new idea of religion holds all of these explanations and so many more. I feel like I don’t have the rule book I want anymore, but I have a sense of something. Maybe it is peace. I think that maybe my religion has gone from order and safety to peace and acceptance. There is no way to make it concrete and I do not like that, but it’s nice because this new way of viewing religion can even hold that it’s hard for me.  

So I’m not going to church anymore and haven’t even listened to a sermon in months. But I think about religion and spirituality every day. I find awe and wonder everywhere. Sometimes I even feel things like on that bike path. Sometimes I even put in Christian language and that feels good, but other times I don’t and that feels good too. So I don’t have a great ending other than to say that the struggle to categorize is fading more and more and the struggle to accept is growing and I think I like that for now, even if I can’t make it precise and clear, and in some ways that is kind of nice.