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Direct Access

When the US legalized gay marriage, social media was abuzz with opinions on the topic. I intended to defer to greater minds, and to those it affects directly, but the following Facebook post by an acquaintance pulled me into the fray:

There seems to be some confusion brought into the Church about whether Gay people will go to heaven. Apparently, God Himself has something to weigh in on this subject (for those with ears to hear what the Spirit says to the Church).

“Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11

I’ve overlooked the chastisements and judgments of her varied posts over the months since we met, as well as during a social event she invited me to, but this time stirred a response. I commented on her post, mentioning verses from 1 Cor. 13 about love, and God’s call for us to love, not condemn. Immediately, she sent me texts on my phone and private messages on Facebook, saying I was a voice for Satan, and an “accuser of the brethren”. I was still recoiling from those words, when she berated me at length on her post, including use of scriptures meant to silence a rebuttal.

Plenty of scriptures came to my own mind in support of love, but I knew they weren’t welcome. I typed a comment, “I have no words. I thought I was allowed a point of view. Why is promoting God’s love a reason to attack me?”, but it didn’t go through. I had already been blocked. Unfriended. Accused but denied a response. Rejected and ejected. Over and done in mere minutes.

The unjust and bizarre attack was meant to intimidate, silence and to shame me, just as the post was meant to do to gays. To be honest, I was shaken, especially by the amount of hate that was unleashed toward me. It didn’t escape notice that most of it was spewed offline where nobody could witness it. I had experienced a taste of the hatred that so many people endure from a few “Christians”.

Why does one woman’s behavior matter enough to address it in a blog post? Because this woman and her husband started and pastor a church, and additionally run an area-wide ministry to “lead leaders of the church”. How many others are being bullied, intimidated, accused and condemned?

So, in defense of the bullied, I challenge the bully …

What was the purpose of a post condemning gays to hell? Who was the intended audience for your “lesson”? It was a public setting, so I presume it was meant for any-and-all to read and take heed. I’ve wracked my brain for how it could be helpful to anyone, and have come up blank.

If people who are gay or lesbian read it, you created an illusion of a massive wall between them and God. Instead of hearing good news, such as John 3:17, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him”, they are met with an impenetrable wall with a closed door, and this sign over it: “Condemnation Church.” Why would anyone want to enter through that door?

bouncer

Why do people who have received God’s forgiveness and grace themselves, play bouncer and dictate who is allowed to know God and who is not? Why not do as we are asked, which is love others as he loves us, and share indiscriminately the truths that have given us life?

God is not exclusionary, and the (door)way to him is not via people. People may present themselves as the hoop to jump through, but they are not Christ. Imperfect beings that we are, we often ignore what we want, conclude some issues in the Bible are obsolete or indicative of the culture of the time (such as owning slaves, or the practice of polygamy and having concubines), while insisting on the infallibility of the Bible when using scriptures that reinforce our current beliefs.

Why don’t we admit that we aren’t all-knowing? Why don’t we suspend judgment during times of change and controversy? It’s foolish not to, because our dogma and arrogance is very evident to others – we are but resounding gongs. We think we have the monopoly on all truth, and everybody else is wrong. We’re certain everyone notes our rightness, our superiority, but all others hear is a piercing, clanging cymbal.

While we’re playing God, we are only helping the enemy’s cause, not God’s. We are the reason people are repelled from God.

We abuse God’s Word to puff up our pride, and flaunt our authoritative superiority over innocent people. We don’t even bother to ask God what his view is of others. We accuse people who don’t agree with us of not “having ears to hear” his Spirit, while it is we who won’t listen. We won’t humble ourselves and ask for God’s guidance, because if we do, we’re likely to be knocked off our pedestals — for he humbles those who exalt themselves. If we listen to him, he might tell us the very person we are condemning pleases him; he loves and approves of them; he or she loves him back and is malleable clay in his, the potter’s, caring hands.

He might unleash his wrath on us, not our victims, if we had “ears to hear”. So we don’t ask him anything, and we don’t listen. We keep busy, condemning.  We don’t even need God’s presence or direction; we already know which scriptures to use to ambush anyone who disagrees with us.

Still, somehow, the Bible transcends its misuse by humanity to represent God’s perfect nature. In the midst of those texts that mystify and divide, there are wonders to fill a lifetime. Instead of picking and choosing the scriptures to reinforce dogma, why not share the extensive wonders of God’s truths? Like this wonder:

All have free access to a loving God through a simple acceptance of Christ. Jesus wasn’t speaking of a select, exclusive group of people when he said,

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.” Matthew 7:7-8

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By Choice, Never By Force

Cindi Gale

Where do I go when darkness overwhelms? Where do I go when evil abounds and hopelessness prevails? Where do I go when I am powerless to right what is wrong?

To the only one who will accept my collapse for a time into total dependency.

To the one who sheds light on what is dark … little by little, or all at once … it isn’t up to me but up to him.

To the one who brings me into a partnership, not puppetry as I once imagined of him.

To the one who changes my expectations and beliefs — about almost everything — who corrects wrong-teaching acquired from birth forward, the misinformation about people and God, earth and heaven, death and life, evil and good, darkness and light.

Where do I go when I am fearful?

To the one who believes in me, and proves it by stepping back and…

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Counting All Listeners

I’m going to play teacher for a moment, and give you an assignment:

  1. Pay attention to all of the people you speak with for seven days, and note how many people actually listen.
  2. Pay attention to yourself in those interactions, to note if you listen.

When I say “listen”, I don’t mean only with ears. I mean to sincerely attempt to understand exactly what is being said.

Listening to others with that as the goal.

Listening to understand.

How many people do that? Do you do that?

I’ve been taking note of all interactions with people for several weeks now. They include people I know well, to people involved with monthslong projects I am a part of, to neighbors and acquaintances, to fellow attendees at a community event, to walkers that stop to talk in my front lawn, to a man using the same hiking trail as my dog and me, to strangers in checkout lines.

I can confidently say that more than 90% of people don’t listen.

Oh, they may stay quiet to allow a response to their inquiries or comments, but, comically, some don’t even allow a fragment of one sentence before they interrupt the response they themselves requested.

Some have better self control than that. They actually stay silent until I complete a brief thought, but then launch into the opinions or complaints they saw in the opportunity all along. They are using me for a human punching bag or sounding board.

Others follow what seems to be their idea of social etiquette, and do the basics of “turn-taking”, but then have put other words in my mouth than what I actually said. Some conclude I am an ally of their opinions and biases when I am not. Some conclude I am an enemy of their stances when I am not.

So many people hear what they want to hear.

They don’t use their ears or their minds, they simply project onto me what they decide I am thinking or saying. They put words in my mouth and thoughts in my head that don’t exist. They have even gone on to tell others that I said or did something that never happened.

Those kinds of “deaf” conversationalists are dangerous. They are the slanderers and liars, adding innocent names to their list of people who agree with them, or who have slighted them, or who are enemies. They remain certain of their “hearing”, when they never hear with their ears, let alone with the goal to understand.

So they “listen”, those people — technically they hear sounds come out of my mouth — but they don’t listen.

Remember that unofficial list of people I took note of in the past weeks of interactions, the less than 10% who actually listen? One great listener in particular comes to mind.

She is a longtime acquaintance but a new friend. A year ago we finally made time for one-on-one conversation. At our very first lunch among many that followed, she was a surprise, a breath of fresh air, and a glass of cold water.

She listens.

She is a veteran at it, I am certain. She lives her life respecting the thoughts and words of others. She has a goal to not just take turns spewing words, but to understand the heart, soul, intentions, and expressions of others.

I have noticed that she stays uncommitted to deciding what I’ve said until she checks with me to be sure she’s accurate. “Did you say … ?” “Do you mean … ?” If she’s in the ballpark, but still not accurate in her understanding of what I am trying to convey, she takes the time to get it right.

Then she responds with her view of it, or simply lets it be, depending on the content.

That is listening. Truly listening.

From all my weeks of noticing listeners and non-listeners, I have realized that there is power in listening.

  • The power to gain wisdom.
  • The power to gain knowledge.
  • The power to gain understanding.
  • The power to be empathetic.
  • The power to avoid harm of others.
  • The power to validate someone.
  • The power to alter someone’s course in a positive direction.

Listening well — truly listening until you understand as best as possible — is powerful.

And although it shouldn’t be, I’ve realized also that it is rare.

Maybe it’s rare because it can’t coexist with selfishness. Maybe people are generally too selfish to listen to others. It does require setting aside agendas, time, focus, and existing biases and opinions, to be a good listener. So yes, there is a cost to being a listener.

But there is also a great gain to listening well.

  • People heal under the power of being heard.
  • People trust under the power of being heard.
  • People realize their value under the power of being heard.
  • People find solutions to long-standing issues because someone listened, understood, and unveiled the fix.
  • People go on to pass those gains on to others who need to be heard.

Don’t take it lightly, listening is powerful.

Now go start that assignment.

  1. Pay attention to all of the people you speak with for seven days, and note how many people actually listen to understand.
  2. Pay attention to yourself in those interactions, to note if you listen to understand.

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Turning Lead Into Gold

Cindi Gale

Philosopher’s Stone

Van Morrison

Out on the highways and the byways all alone
I’m still searching for, searching for my home
Up in the morning, up in the morning out on the road
And my head is aching and my hands are cold
And I’m looking for the silver lining, silver lining in the clouds
And I’m searching for and
I’m searching for the philosopher’s stone
And it’s a hard road, It’s a hard road daddy-o
When my job is turning lead into gold
He was born in the back street, born in the back street Jelly Roll
I’m on the road again and I’m searching for
The philosopher’s stone

Can you hear that engine
Woe can you hear that engine drone
Well I’m on the road again and I’m searching for
Searching for the philosopher’s stone

Up in the morning, up in the morning
When the streets are white…

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Connect To The Vine

Cindi Gale

If there is one thing you learn in life, let it be this:

The Vine and the Branches

John 15  “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2 He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. 3 You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4 Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

5“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit;apart from me you can do nothing.6If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such…

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Don’t Be Them

Should you ever find yourself the victim of other people’s bitterness, smallness, or insecurities, 

remember it could be worse …

You could be them.

This quote is making the rounds on Facebook. Coincidentally, a chapter of my current read, The Brothers K, elucidated the same point.

Though I thought myself a baseball non-enthusiast, author David James Duncan has made me care about what matters to the Chance family—that makes baseball paramount. Papa Chance once played professionally. To the lustful coaches at the Chance kids’ high school, his four sons are viewed as a steady supply of potential star players for their teams.  

Oldest brother Everett has already graduated. “He made up in desire what he lacked in ability,” is the best the coaches can say about Everett —they’ve already forgotten his name and call him Herbert. Currently excelling at the varsity level are the next two Chances, Pete and Irwin (Winnie).  

I am smitten with the wise words of the youngest of the Chance boys, the bespectacled Kade:

To reach the crappy little ballfield where we JV B-teamers went about the blooper-riddled chaos which we, with the crazed optimism of young Zen students, also called “practice,” you had first to traverse the football field and the quarter-mile cinder oval where the track team worked out, then skirt the varsity baseball team’s posh diamond. So every day, if I dawdled along slowly enough, I got to sneak a look both at Irwin—the new Washington State prep record-holder in the javelin—and at Peter—the two-time All-State center fielder—before slinking off to my Sorry-State career as a B-grade first baseman.

Like all earthly pleasures, though, dawdling had its price: those wide-open, grassy expanses were, for me at least, a psychological minefield. The “mines” were a number of adult American males, all of whom happily barked in reply to the name “Coach.” The “explosions” were caused by the coaches’ unending readiness to ignore the “Comparisons Are Odious” adage. It was my being one of the family Chance brothers that brought on the comparisons. And it was my athletic abilities that made them odious.

That I wasn’t ashamed of my baseball prowesslessness is, I think, eloquent testimony to the noble character of my family. I was close to spastic on a ballfield, and they all knew it, but with Papa’s eternal minor-leaguing setting the cautionary example, my family had become as athletically tolerant as Babcock (the dogmatic pastor of their mother’s church) was intolerant.

“Who’s that sorry little tortoise?” the varsity track coach, Bobby Edson, bawled into the face of the JV A-team baseball coach on April 20, 1966—a date I remember perfectly because (1) it was Hitler’s birthday and (2) it was the day I hung up my mitt, cap and cleats forever. Bobby Edson, like most coaches, was a kind of mystic: he believed the cosmos was endowed with an ineffable muffling system that rendered all the racist, sexist, tasteless, and denigrating remarks made by coaches inaudible to the students about whom they bellowed them.

“”That there, believe it or not,” bawled the JV skipper (another muffler mystic), “is the youngest Chance brother.”

“Naw!” Edson blored. “I mean that fat kid, with the goggles. The one gapin’ at my Winnie tossin’ his javelin out there.”

“Yup. That’s Toe’s youngest. Katie, they call ‘im. Appropriate too, I hear.”

“Think he might firm up any?” Edson wondered. “Wasn’t Winnie kind of a chunk at that age?”

I felt their eyes on my back now, probing my bike tires, X-raying my infrastructure, analyzing my aura for signs of “Late Bloomer” potential. “Nope,” the JV CAT-scanner finally sighed. “Winnie’s a rock. Always has been. Damn nice kid’s the rap on Katie there. But no speed, no suds, no arm, no nuthin’.”

……. The three coaches called Kade over and tossed around blithering insults, not-so-subtle sexual innuendos, and general idiocy. Kade stood under the banal barrage of degradation, bound to politeness and submission to authority figures, and tried to hide the slow incineration of his face.

And now the best part, the thing I want to share today: Kade’s moment of awakening, an enlightenment possible for us, too ……

Then a wonderful thing happened: for maybe five full seconds the coaches went dead, and the day grew not perfect, nor still, but still enough to hear perfectly the singing of a thousand red-winged blackbirds in the swamp beyond our diamonds—a choir, tremendous, convening there daily, their ecstasy reduced to white noise by our first catch or throw—till this moment: the coaches’ decommissioning: a word … and their song came raining out of the cottonwoods, innocent, joyous, pouring over anyone willing to listen. The rush of understanding was too quick and condensed and physical to call a “thought”: I simply knew, via song, sunlight, redwings and cottonwoods, that there was a world I was born to live in, that the men I was standing beside lived in another, and that as long as I remembered this their words would never hurt me again. I knew—the redwings were all telling me—that there was ancient ground here, and ancient songs, and that if I laid my mitt, cleats, and uniform aside I could stand on that ground, and maybe learn to sing on it too . . .

I felt free to like all three of these men now, because I’d realized I didn’t have to become them. I was standing right next to a world in which Everett was Herbert, blacks were Jabooms, Pete and Irwin were heroes, and I was a no speed, no suds, no arm nuthin’. But I was not standing in it. Some simple shift inside me had turned their words into the harmless white noise, and the blackbirds’ singing into the heart of my day.

Ospreys eat fish. Deer eat foliage. Switch their diets and they’ll die.

I gave my first unguardedly friendly nod ever to each coach, told them I had to go, walked back to the locker room, took off my baseball uniform, put on my street clothes, and set out unencumbered into the singing, the cottonwoods, the entire spring day.

(Excerpts from The Brothers K, by David James Duncan)

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Irresistible Destiny, Part Two

Cindi Gale

Destiny by definition:

1. something that is to happen or has happened to a particular person or thing; lot or fortune.

2. the predetermined, usually inevitable or irresistible, course of events.

From experience, I can verify the irresistible aspect of destiny. It beckons. It takes me forward despite all of my human shortcomings and fears. I do not want to resist it. I could, I know, and thereby prevent a whole chain of events from transpiring. But I don’t want to do that.

Why allow myself to be taken forward into the unknown, into a wilderness, even into a wasteland?

Because I sense something wonderful ahead. From what I’ve stumbled upon so far in this new, unfamiliar wilderness, it is good. Very, very good.

“Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in him.” (Psalm 34:9 NIV)

Despite the challenges and insecurities, I choose to proceed in the unknown. Why?

Because I am…

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The Empowerment of Truth

John 8:32 – Then you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Is it scary to hear the truth? Often it is. If you’re praying and asking for the truth in your circumstances, be prepared that the truth might be tough to take. Nobody wants to realize truths like:

  • The person you love is using you.
  • Your spouse is cheating on you.
  • That woman posing as a friend intends to steal from you.
  • The person you fully trust is committing fraud and extortion against you.
  • A person you thought was above that level of cruelty, lied to turn your children against you.
  • A trusted friend or family member abused your children.
  • Your loved one is racist, or militant, or deceitful, and they feel no guilt about it.
  • Your friend or family member is blindly and wrongly loyal, and an accomplice in harming others.
  • The person you trusted is a manipulator.
  • You have been fooled; you have been manipulated.

Truths are not always good news. But if it’s true, staying blissfully ignorant is not in your best interests. Being a pawn of some thing, or some person with selfish intents is not a good place to be.

Whether we like the truth or not, it is empowering to know it. With the bad news, you need a strategy. You need to look out for you, as well as others involved. If a thing or a person you trusted will throw you under the bus — if they will use and abuse you — you have some big decisions to make. Wise decisions.

To learn truths like that is a blow. God knows how much it hurts. But it’s best for your well-being that you know the truth. If he has shared it with you, he knows it is bearable. And don’t forget the silver lining, that empowerment I mentioned before. This is the point when the power is shifted from your “user and abuser” to you. Be patient, restrained, righteous, and wise with that power.

Brace yourself for the unexpected. God may disclose the source of your trouble as spiritual.

Ephesians 6:12 – For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

1 Peter 5:8 – Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.

If that’s the case, stop accepting your circumstances and start resisting.

James 4:7 – Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

You need to take action instead of acquiescing to evil circumstances—you have God’s blessing and direction to resist the current that swept you away. You can get out of the harmful river and be free of it.

raging river, for blog, cropped

Once you get yourself to safety on the riverbank, study that river and see that it didn’t really hold you in it. You just thought you were captive there. Knowing the truth made a monumental difference. You are not a victim. You are free. It is the river that is powerless to keep you in it, or to force you back in.

Let’s go back over this. When you’re in the cruel current, it tells you that you can’t get out. You think, “It’s fate. It’s from God. It’s in my DNA. I am powerless.” You believe that. It pulls and threatens and overpowers you till you are swallowing water and gasping for air.

But once you are out of its pull — often it only takes a mental shift — you see it doesn’t have the power it appeared to.

You are on solid ground with a gentle breeze and warm sun on your head, free of the raging water. It isn’t drowning you anymore. You can’t believe you ever fell for the philosophy that it was your lot in life to be in that horrible river.

Now you know the truth. You are free, and standing on solid ground.

As the old hymn goes, “On Christ the solid rock I stand. All other ground is sinking sand.”

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When there’s no way TO IT but THROUGH IT, Just DO IT

This gallery contains 6 photos.

Originally posted on Cindi Gale:
? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIQVZH48P-k You can be perfectly centered on your God-led road of life and still have trouble on that road. Sometimes it is through a vast, fearsome valley that you must travel. I can attest that it is dark, overwhelming, and intimidating in the valley. Promises and hope for your…

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A New Thing

Cindi Gale

Could it be that in your quest to make a difference or leave your mark on this world, you are in fact on the cusp of realizing it, yet it doesn’t seem so? It was put this way through the prophet Isaiah: “For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?”

Perhaps the bigger the “new thing”, the more time needed to be able to look back and see what you were a part of.

As long as I’ve known him, my stepfather, Vern Wilson, has been casual about his seventy-five years as a musician. Actually, I doubt he’s ever called himself a musician, he just says, “I played with ___ band in this town,” as we pass through on drives, or “I never learned to read music, I only play by ear.” Only play by ear – I wish I…

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