At some point I realized that I do not have any use for a religion that only benefits me. I wanted the community that had been outlined by Jesus and other biblical writers where we love our neighbor as ourself and my neighborhood included a lot of people facing challeges that I was protected from. But my own comfort was not the goal. Some privilege cannot be shared. I could not take the privileges of my whiteness or my cis genderness and wrap them around my friends to keep them safe when I wasnt around. Loving them meant understanding and believing in the realities that they faced. Loving them meant supporting policies that would let them live healthy and safe lives. 

There are a lot of scriptures about love. Maybe even more scriptures about love than any other single topic in the bible. So it amazes me that more Christians do not pursue love as a spiritual discipline. As I was leaving the church, one of the things that cut the ties I still felt was listening to Christians disparage compassion as just an emotion that is commendable but which lives somewhere below logic and reason. I thought it was a fruit of the spirit and a key component in the second greatest commandment. I thought we were supposed to imitate the compassion of Christ. And I was tired. I was so tired of telling people what should be obvious. If your love does not have you wishing, hoping, and working towards the health and safety of those around you, you don't really love them. If your love has you talking over the person you are trying to help and telling them what they really need instead of listening, you dont really love them. 

But I realized at some point, maybe even with my mom's voice coming through the telephone, that love wasn't a spiritual discipline for them. I had to choose. Could I abandon my most honest, authenthic understanding of the first and second greatest commandments to keep the peace? Was there a point to a religion that espoused a love that conquers death but which coined the phrase "toxic compassion"? Truthfully no. If I believed the words I had read and studied, being faithful meant following the law of love even if that took me out of the church. I am not the best biblical or theological scholar. I am probably not even in the top 40%. But I choose to believe Jesus when he says "by your love people will know you." And also, "if you love only those who love you, what reward will you get?"

Another step on this journey was the day I heard a coworker talking about someone in their family harassing them which they summarized as, "there's no hate like Christian love." Oh how I grieved to hear that. It had been years since I had introduced myself as a Christian and I knew exactly what they meant by the phrase, a dozen scenarios I had witnessed flashed through my mind, but I grieved because of a truth that shouldn't be true. What would Jesus think to know that that's how so many people view their Christian neighbors--"these people say they love me, but if this is love, I wish they'd hate me." What is the point of a religion like that?

Am I a Christian? Am I not? I don't know. I still talk to God and my imagination of God is built almost entirely of the Christian workdview. But I don't think most churches or most American Christians want me. I am well aware of how much I don't measure up. For one, I have rage and grief where "good Christians" have temperance and long suffering. And I wish to God that I knew what to do with the rage and grief. But if He wont take them away, I ask that he send companions who understand that these too are gifts, albeit not the gifts I wanted.