For those that don't know, I'm in graduate school in Seattle. I currently flip flop between a Masters of Divinity and a Masters of Art in Theology and Culture. Maybe I will pick for reals sometime here soon. Or maybe I can do both (and be broke forever!).  Either way, it is finals week and I am attempting to condense what I have learned, unlearned, and where I find myself in my beliefs in 6-8 pages, double spaced. It's not an easy task but I am learning what is of utmost importance to me and that is helpful.

This post won't be comical or witty. Instead, I want to encourage us to think how, when, and to whom you can love better and more fully.  I struggle with this.  I want to react to people who see differently than I do and show them how they are wrong. Often, I want to convince them over to my side.  In the same manner though, I am shy. I do not like debate or to have to remain on a "side". I do not always like taking sides.   

While there may or may not be a right side, there is a different (or right?) way to love that looks more like listening than talking, more like hearing than saying, and more like humility than conviction. 

Here is a thought I had today about how I (and perhaps, we) can begin to see one another with different eyes and with a new imagination for what could be.  I want to imagine a response to exclusion that sounds like a welcome and while I do not know yet how to fully live that, it is important for me to try.

"We are always at fault of exclusion especially when it is done in resistance to a previous exclusion. Some denominations exclude women from church leadership positions and it would be understandable (perhaps even wise at times) to take a stance against them. However, if I do not make room for this voice in my conversations and posture, if I do not turn my stance towards rather than against, I am also cultivating exclusion. 

And I would suggest, perhaps I am at a greater fault than the original offender for I know the harm I cause."

 And This: My Finals Face.