Distance...

...makes the heart grow fonder. Thoughts of returning to those lips, cause my knees to weaken, much like when we first started dating and I couldn't stop my heart from beating faster and my hands from trembling. I love you. Three words that hold so much meaning, yet at times are used in an insignifant manner. I love you. Meaning I feel empty when not around you. Unhappy and distraught. I love you. Meaning get close and hold me tight. I love you. Meaning let's kiss until we can't feel our lips anymore. I love you. Meaning your touch often times gives me goosebumps and causes me to breath in a unique pattern. I love you. Meaning this distance hurts me. One more week.

Happy Canada Day

Fireworks will send an immense amount of smoke into the atmosphere this evening. Music and events are taken place all over Canada. The Queen is visiting. I am an American experiencing this day for only second time although Heather and I have been together for 5 and a half years. I'm excited. Someday in the near future...3-6 months, I will be a resident of Canada. They will have accepted me as the lesbian wife to Heather, where as the States does not. I am a bit disappointed in my country for making me choose between it or love. Of course I chose love. So I say to the United States of America... screw fourth of July. I'm not feeling very patriotic. When I lived there (although I adore Portland Maine) I did not feel free to be me. That's not okay. That's not how a free country should feel to anyone.

Be in the world and of the world...

At church this morning our pastor talked about several passages of scripture and this idea that the more conservative side has of being in the world, but not of the world. He basically said that was BS and that in order to be engaging our peers when it comes to God, we need to be in the world, of the world and in return change the world. That's what Jesus did. He didn't just know about fishing, he fished. He didn't just know about the poor, he was poor. He didn't just know about the sick, he touched them and healed them. Jesus knew and practiced the relevant things of his day. Prophets and followers would think of him as "mad" at times because he would let a prostitute touch him with her hair or spend more time on the streets than in the temples.

Goal is already defeated....

So I was planning on blogging everday until I was legally allowed to work in Canada, but our computer needed repair and was taken to the laptop doc on Sunday. They said that it will take about 14 days to get fixed, if they can fix it. So here I am hiding out in a secret place, on a secret computer, trying not to get caught. haha. Needless to say the goal of blogging once a day is out until its return.

To show empathy is to identify with another person's feelings. It is to emotionally put yourself in the place of another. The ability to empathize is dependent on your ability to feel your own feelings and identify them. Sympathy is simply recognizing one's pleasure or sufferings. You might not experience that persons pain, like would you using empathy, but you feel bad for them.

Empathy is relating. Some people can relate to an experience you have had or are having and some people cannot. However, I think that Empathy and Sympathy both have a lot to do with compassion. When I was younger I was molested and raped by an older sibling. Someone who was family. I was a kid and he was kid. I think that in a way we both thought that what he was doing was normal. My parents never spoke up about it and they saw it happening. The situation was unfortunate, but it is an experience that has led me to feel empathy for children abused by family members and also, because I love my brother...for those who sexually abuse. Because my brother and I have both healed from the sexual trauma, I`d say that I am even more empathetic towards sexual offenders, because I know that with help and motivation healing is possible. My parents are a bit funnier about it because my brother is their son and he has a 5 year old and a fiance now...they think nothing of his sexual abusing past, but when they hear about a sexual offender moving into the area, they put up fliers and hold meetings on how to get that person out of there. Why the difference between my parents and myself...we went through it together. The only difference that I can piece together is that I had a relationship with God, who is a God of compassion. I`m not saying that my parents aren`t compassionate, because my mom will feed any mouth that comes hungrily to her door. She will give anyone the jacket off of her back. My dad allows strangers to sleep on his couch. It all chalks up to the different perspectives of events and the emotions that we feel. What we feel for most. Sometimes we are not affected at all. Everybody has the ability to show sympathy, but sometimes you have to have gone through something, to relate to it to.

Another area where I think I can personally show empathy is in the debate of Homosexuality and Christians...dahn dahn dahn dahnn. Growing up, I had a gay uncle and my parents were okay with his lifestyle. However, my dad often told homophobic jokes around the house and my mom (being a Mormon) thought that it was wrong to be gay. I wound up becoming a christian when I was sent to a bible camp at age 8. From then on, I attended church by myself. I remember sermons preached on sin and homosexuality was one of the sins. In my head I truly thought that being gay was against God`s plan, so I told random strangers and even my uncle that being gay meant hell. I understand that belief now, I don`t agree with it anymore. After going through high school and college (bible college) without any serious boyfriends, I found the love of my life. From day one she took my breathe away. Within weeks I fell in love and yet, still loved God. I battled with what my head was taught and what my heart felt, so I studied the topic at hand with the bible and history. I looked to the original languages used. In a round about way I asked professors and theologians what they thought about being gay. I studied hard. I came to the conclusion that God made me out of love and that love is captivating. Jesus never disagreed with homosexuality. Heather`s love for me felt just as powerful as that of God. Anyway, all that to say that I feel compassion for those who truly believe that homosexuality is a sin (however, I do not condone the actions often taken place because of that and I also do not condone the lack of constitutional rights!) and I feel compassion for those who are gay (like myself) and in love, but unable to express it because their country or family doesn`t support them. I also feel a positive amount of empathy for those who are supported and accepted by their loved ones.

To end on a quick note...I am quite the rambler. Off I go to tear me down some wallpaper...literally.

A blog a day...

So I am making it a goal to do one blog a day until I am a legal resident of Canada. Heather and I have a lot of paperwork to do and money to save up before then, so it will be a lot of blogging for me. I am someone who loves to read blogs, but never finds the words to truly write what I want to say at any given moment. Part of my goal to blog more also means reading more, because I can't blog about nothing and my life will quickly get boring to read about. As in my last post, I will google a word or phrase or scripture or theological idea or something and then reflect on it. Sounds simple, now I just have to stay motivated to do so.

Today the phrase I googled was "naked truth". I must of read a book title or something somewhere for me to just come up with it. I guess I was hoping to get some insight on the truths of life in a raw perspective. Immediately the first website had something to do with adult entertainers. Go figure. A few links below that one, had pictures of adult entertainers. Lil' Kim has an album called "The Naked Truth". Leslie Neilson from Naked Gun has a memoir called "The Naked Truth". Jenny McCarthy wrote a book called "Belly Laughs: Naked Truth about Pregnancy and Childbirth"...other than that I did not find what I thought I would. Bummed and now without words.

Naked Truth to me is the truth that has no fluff surrounding it. It is a statement that there is no denying. Its raw and real. Its concrete. I know that this is a random blog...that's what I get when google-ing for ideas. Haha. Maybe it will be more insightful tomorrow.

No such thing as the "innocent" suffering...

I was reading a post about suffering on Christiananswers.net (just for fun, I sometimes type a question into google and then open the first response) and found this as a section title or point: "There is really no such thing as the “innocent” suffering". Do you agree with this? I believe fully in God, but this is always one of the areas in which I struggle to find peace. I struggle because I have worked so closely with those who were born with genetic defects or certain syndromes. I also struggle with the thought of suffering infants and toddlers. They are far too young make their own choices, therefore how are they not innocent. The same website also says this, "As far as babies are concerned, and others who may be incompetent mentally to distinguish right and wrong, it is clear from both Scripture and universal experience that they are sinners by nature and thus will inevitably become sinners by choice as soon as they are able to do so." I take from that statement "sinners by nature" and think that God created them, and the core of who they are then is a sinner, which God created. God made the clients that I worked with in Maine, sinners. He made them that way? Another website I opened was http://www.apocalipsis.org/difficulties/innocent.htm. This guy says that "suffering is the price for human freedom." According to Christianity, didn't Jesus pay that price? I am more than okay with people suffering if they deserve it...hell sometimes, I deserve it. Why the innocent, those who are incapable of doing right and wrong by choice?