Don't Call Me Broken

You Are Not Broken, Carmen.

Dear Carmen,

Some people throughout your life will tell you that you were born with a desire and nature to do evil, that you are flawed, and that you are broken. They will tell you that you need to be fixed in one way or another. You will have heard these things said, but I say to you that you were born with a loving and caring heart. A flawed diamond might be scuffed, but it is still a diamond. You are my diamond; beautiful and perfect. You were not born broken, Carmen.

If you have become broken, it was not because you were born into that state. You were born with a desire to seek wholeness. You long to break free of human limitations and to become more than you are, but that does not mean that you were broken. A perfect diamond is still a diamond even when it has become more after it has been set and made into a ring. The diamond was not flawed or valueless, but it became more than it was.

That is the difference between being broken and seeking wholeness. Seeking wholeness, I believe, comes from a desire to be closer to the original state of energy from which all things originate. I believe that God (whatever that looks like) initiated the complex beauty of the living organism. Even in that complexity, though, you are bound to the limitations of your human body. One day it will fade because flesh was not made to be permanent. Flesh exists as a state of energy; a state which enables you to be the self-aware creature you are.

One day you will die, and you will return to that original state of transcended consciousness. Some call that state Heaven. If the amount of energy in the world is constant, then God must exist in that energy. If that is true, then returning to that state will be a return to the presence of God. To be in Heaven is also to be in the presence of  God. If energy only changes states, then all the energy that has ever existed still exists today, which means God is here. Heaven is now.

You cannot have been born broken because energy is perfect, and you are energy in a perfect little bundle of humanity. Self-awareness may lead you to wonder about what comes next, about what happens when you die. There is no way to know, but I know there is something because energy does not disappear. Energy only transforms. You will be with God again. That I am fairly sure of because God is energy and you are energy. We are made in God's image because we are all a part of God's energy.

This might sound disconnected and random, but it is only because this is an issue the human mind has trouble making concrete. Religion has tried. Psychology has tried. We will always try, but we will always come up short until such a time as we are able to evolve past our current state of consciousness.

All this to say the following: Do not let anyone ever convince you that you are broken because you were born that way. You were not. You may have become so (I pray this never comes to pass), but you did not start that way. You were not born into an original state of brokenness. This is important to know because it means that you can rise above what ever brokenness you may be experiencing. You are not a slave to some unchangeable condition. You can become more than you are at any point in the walk of life. All you need to do is put in the effort.

You are not broken; you seek wholeness.

Your fellow in the search,

Dad

It REALLY Doesn't Matter!

I wrote a poem a few months back, which you can read here. Since then, however, my theology has continued to grow. You can easily see that I believed homosexuality to be sinful in the previous writing. I have since given up such thinking - and a great many other views which were limited understandings of God and humanity. So, I have decided to revise the poem to better reflect my stance on the issue. I will leave the original post up as a reminder that we all grow, and that we must embrace that growth, not hide from it.


Born this way or not?
It does not even matter.

For all the back and forth
Is truly silly prater.

To "love each other" is the mandate,
Which is impossible
When our relationship is based
On faulty doctrinal bull.

There is not one on earth who's apt
To look past a person's "flaw"
And love them wholly without judging
And direct conclusions draw

About how to change the inner self.
Evangelized they must be,
For if I cannot save a soul,
How Christian can I be?

But that is where the good news starts
Its not that we are broken
Evangelism is not needed
When only love is spoken.

When love is the glue
Which holds our souls together
There is no gay, no bi, no straight
Through which to spend forever.

I see a human who loves a human,
And that's all we really need.
For without love of every kind
In serious trouble are we indeed.