I lost a lotta love when I started to care for our LGBT brothers and sisters.

It was fine to talk about injustice and poverty and oppression, but apparently, I hit the “don’t wanna talk about it” button hard.
It is an issue we JUST DON’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT. But I need to…
And I’m not saying these things to bring up old issues…or to get more comments…but this has been in my heart for a long time coming.

I had someone tell me that they were sorry and that I wasn’t who they thought I was. Personally, these people had never known who I really was. Unfortunately, Facebook and the online world isn’t real life. I hope this isn’t damaging to the future of relationships. :/
Real people have real flesh on them. Not profile pictures.

Sure, they had seen me go to India and Chicago and write about suffering and injustice. It was okay to bring up these issues, as long as I kept away from those other moral issues…the ones that force us to become uncomfortable and hard.

I received personal notes from friends telling me how hard it is to be themselves with their parents. They fear being pushed away - they fear they won’t be able to be loved as much as they used to be. With these words, I hurt so badly.
I pray to be a generation that brings change - to offer hope after freedom from oppression and to offer our friends who are poor, the hope of a good God and a future of dignity.

But I’ve lost some love…in the mix there. I’ve lost respect — I’ve lost words of support because I’ve chosen to love on the ones who feel oppressed in my generation and generations before me.
I have family members that want to “sit me down for five minutes and talk” - which honestly, scares the living daylights out of me.
To tell me I’m wrong? To tell me they know what truth is? I’ve already been backed into a corner with scripture and I still can’t help but to wander.

I come back to this, because there’s something inherently wrong with this pompous spirituality. 
Jesus came for the sick and marginalized. 
He referred to the brood of vipers, not as the homeless, untouchables, or the culturally unaccepted - but to the church folk! (But this is up for interpretation - like all scripture has been over the past 2000 years -over and over and over and over again.)

I’ve been called a heretic for saying the poor will inherit the kingdom of God - or that God’s love covers all sin.

In the words of one of my favorite people.. “A good default is to love people, man…”
And in the words of sister Leah, “The world just needs good people.” The world just needs good people to love on others. You don’t have to be part of a nonprofit to do good…

But you know, this is just my journey. Five years ago, I would have thought I was ridiculous for believing what I believe now. Oh, what grace I’ve learned.
It is life and it is in these experiences that I have been pushed to dive in further to this Great Mystery.
It has taken me standing in front of angry homeless crack addicts, to the dying and destitute…to the trafficked and oppressed women made in the image of God…to the love between two human beings - such humanity has brought me into this mystery - and it has cost me…

Tears and anger and misunderstanding.
I am sorry I’m not who you thought I was - I’m not sorry, however, for believing in a love greater than my own understanding of the word.

“Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit.”
-Abbie Hoffman