I Have Faith In Love

The title of this blog, may lead you to believe that you are about to read a very long post, passionately constructed for the love of my life. In a way maybe you could say that but this post is actually inspired by a very powerful argument with my boyfriend. An argument about religion.

Most of you probably thought "oh shit, where is the escape button, get me out of here." Religion is such a touchy subject for people, especially where I live. It's actually possible that because of these beliefs, my beliefs that I am about to express to you all, will cause me great grief. That people will look at me differently or cause people to feel less about me or hatred towards me. But they're mine, they are my beliefs, I do not push them on other people, I will express them, but I will not tell someone that my beliefs should be there beliefs too, that my beliefs are the "right beliefs" or that your beliefs are wrong. I just have a set of beliefs that I hope will bring me eternal peace at the end of my life on earth. That my God will accept me and reward me for my time on earth and how I handed it, because lets face it, life is no walk in the part for any of us. Oh, and I'm going to try to cut down on how many times I say beliefs from now on.

Where I grew up, in a small town, there are 10 churches that I can name off the top of my head right now. There could be more operational ones that I'm not thinking of, and there definitely has been more. All of these churches are christian churches. Christianity is the main religion of my home town. Christianity is a religion, that I am sure most of you are familiar with. I grew up in an Anglican Church, surrounded by christians, my fathers family and my mothers family are christians and I too grew up a christian. I don't use this label anymore. I am not religious, but I am spiritual and I do believe in God. I don't believe that Christianity trumps Buddhism or Judaism. I do not believe that any one religion is the "right" religion. I believe in God. I believe there are many stories about God. I believe that God is in us all. God is good, God is kind, God is generous and God is Love.
I also believe in the Devil. I believe is Good vs. Evil, Love vs. Hate. I believe that God is Love and the Devil is Hate. You can not have good without evil, positive without negative, you will never live in a world with only love and no hate. There is a balance, you can't have one without it's opposite.

I'll fill you in on the argument I had with my boyfriend. I said I really wanted to stop using the word "Gay" and "Faggot" in negative way and he looked at me as if I were crazy and said "Why?! It is wrong, so it is negative." I do not believe that we get to judge whether someone elses love is right or wrong. I believe Love is good, the kind of love that causes no harm, that is unconditional and true. I do not believe that because two people are the same gender that they can't have a true and pure love. That God will punish them for being able to find some sort of Love in this world that is so full of hate.

Here is a run down of who my God is, he might sound just like the God you know, you might not agree that that is who your God is, but that is okay because we all have different beliefs. This is the God that I choose to live under:

God is:

1. Good
2. Love
3. Generous
4. Kind
5. Understanding
6. Comforting
7. Accepting
8. Truth
9. Positive
10. Hope

All these characteristics are how I believe that my God wishes people to be. I believe is a God that is all these things and only these things, because he is perfect and he created us in his image, or with the power to be his image. Because yes God created us, but God is not alone, He may be the light, but there is always darkness, a shadow. 

The Devil is:

1. Evil
2. Hate
3. Selfish
4. Cruel
5. Close-minded
6. Hurtful
7. Judgmental
8. Lies
9. Negative
10. Doubt

All these characteristics are how I believe that the Devil wishes people to be. I believe he influences us with these characteristics, I believe that he is the wrong in the world. 

Now this is where is gets kind of tricky, because my boyfriend would say, well a meth head "loves" to do meth, does that make it right? No, it doesn't. God believes in a Love that is not at the expense of ourselves or others. Meth harms ourselves, a meth addict is influenced by selfishness, a characteristic of The Devil, into thinking/believing that they "love" meth or need it. Meth also harms the ones we love, the ones that care about us, again harm, cruelty and selfishness are not characteristics of the God that I believe in. 

Now for the hard discussion, the discussion that always creates a tension between my boyfriend and I, and many other people that I see everyday. Is Gay Love wrong? Is it a sin? Is it evil? 

In my belief system, no it's not evil. Love is a characteristic of God. A woman loving another woman or a man loving another man, isn't evil. It isn't causing someone else pain, not saying that their family members may not hurt because of it, because of how they were raised and how their belief system was built. But set religion aside, if you love someone you are kind, you are generous, you are understanding, if your love is true, it doesn't matter what gender either of you are. I believe that my God is a God that believes is finding love in a world fuelled by hatred. I feel as if our world is polluted with judgement, hatred and cruelty, so if we somehow find a true, unconditional love, that God is not going to punish anyone for that. 

Am I Gay? No, I love my boyfriend, but I can't say that if hatred came between us that I would never fall in love with someone of the same gender. I want to spend the rest of my life with my boyfriend. I love him very much, we have been through a lot and when we push away from each other we are like magnets that pull each other back in. I'm saying that it's not that it is impossible that I would never be "gay." 

Lately I have been struggling with a life style change similar to this blog post. I'v been trying my very hardest to fill my life with characteristics of the God I choose to believe in. This God could be the same God you believe to be your christian God, or Buddist God. But to me, he is just God, he had no ONE religion, he is a spiritual being that lives within us all. He is the Good, the Light, the Truth. 

I don't believe Him to be just a metaphor for life either, so may say well if you have no religion how can you believe in God? Well because I just believe that he lives inside us all and that he is the "good" half of opposites. I don't believe he has any characteristics of The Devil. 

One of the main reasons I have chosen not to believe in religions because their God's have "punishments" or their God's are selfish, or their God's discriminate against a true love because of the similarities in the people affected by said love. I don't want to believe in a God that is going to damn two people who have found something SO hard to find in this world. Not that people go to Hell for one sin or even ten sins in their life, but I chose to believe that my God, feels sadness or grief when he sees a "straight" married couple filled with hatred towards each other and disgust, or when they selfishly damage a love by committing adultery or "cheating." Those things cause harm to other people, "gay" love doesn't harm anyone unless one of the couple inflicts harm or pain onto the other. This would then cause my God the same grief as the "straight" couple did. 

I didn't write this blog in order to push my beliefs on to whoever reads it, I wrote this because I was so inspired by the confusion and pain that I felt after the argument that my boyfriend and I had, that I needed to write it all out. Because in all the reals that I grew up a "christian" I never felt the passion for my beliefs like I did tonight. I laid in bed and cried because I couldn't understand how people could discriminate against a true love, whether it be between two men, two women or a man and a women. It reminds me of when people don't believe in mixed race couples or when calling people "niggers" was acceptable. Lately I have been more conscious and disappointed in myself when I used the word gay or faggot in general conversation, as a describing word that's so easy to use. Just like "nigger" used to be. I really hope that the war on love is beat like the war on black oppression was for the majority. Not everyone will be won over. 

Again these are just my beliefs that I needed to let out of my head before I could fall asleep, otherwise I would have been writing this post over and over in my head. And the sad part is, every time I write a post, I like to leave the link on facebook for people to read, but because of the hatred in the world I fear posting it. Not because I am not proud of my beliefs, but because I feel that they in ways could cause trouble for me with other people in my community. I'm not saying that anyone's beliefs are wrong, I just choose not to share them, I live by my own belief. God surrounds me and fills me, he is my light and my almighty God, but I don't believe him to be a set religion. I do not know other religions, I was not educated in them, there are no places to do that where I live, other than the internet. But I don't NEED to educate myself to know that I believe in the God that I described above. 

I apologize for any discomfort that I have caused any reader, that was not my intention and I don't feel that my beliefs should cause you any harm. I do not believe that if you believe something totally different than me, that your beliefs are wrong, because I have no power to judge that or determine that. I just have faith in my God and you should too, whether it is the God I described above, the christian God, or your own version of him. In the end He gets to judge us and that is the only time we will ever full understand him. 

Stay Happy and True to Yourself <3