An Interesting Evening
It is a little strange that I’m leaving to see Metallica in a little over 8 hours, and that is not the topic of this blog. Over the years, my faith has been all over the board, and anything but solid, but that is how I always viewed faith, as a journey, something that was malleable and changed as you learned a little bit more about the world. My boyfriend does not view faith in the same manner. In his world, faith is absolute. He knows what he believes, he knows he is right, and if you don’t agree with him then you’re wrong. Then again, he is a bit nicer about it when I don’t agree with him, but that is probably more about the fact that he loves me, and less about my faith. That being said, we had an interesting conversation tonight that I thought was worth sharing, if anything so I look back on this one day, and perhaps relive the revelation that I don’t always know what I think I know.
My boyfriend and I had just finished a long and arduous discussion that basically boiled down to, I do not clearly explain my feelings as well as he would like and it causes misunderstandings (that and when I feel attacked I make mean personally attacks that I really need to work on). I suppose the real argument was that I don’t assert myself very often and I’m not particularly selfish, which he doesn’t see as he makings of a partnership because I usually give him his way and if we continue on this path, he is going to one day just expect to get what he wants, and if I complain it is going to erupt into an argument. He has a point, I should probably be a bit more assertive, especially about things that matter. Ultimately, we don’t want to find out fifteen years down the road that we disagree on something fundamental and detrimental to our relationship. Something like faith.
We avoid talking about our faith, not because we don’t think that faith is important, but rather because we believe that our faith is so vastly different it could lead to conflict, and considering neither one of us is likely to change our minds in the course of a conversation, why bother? Leave it to me to have to seize onto this idea, in part because I know that before we met his faith was important to him. One of the first things we ever did together was go to church. Surprisingly, this was a productive conversation that led me to realize just how wonderful he really is, and how I should continue to thank God everyday for bringing him into my life.
You see sometimes I am guilty of seeing things that aren’t there. Sadly at times I am a negative person and assume the worst, even when I know I have some really wonderful people in my life. Honestly when we began discussing whether or not we take the Bible literally, I wanted to hide. It isn’t that I haven’t become comfortable with talking to him about most anything, it is that I knew we viewed this topic so differently, and the last thing I wanted to find out was that he took the Bible literally to the point where it mean that he thought I should be subservient. I am just not that girl. I love him, more than I have ever loved anyone or anything, but I could not do that. I would be miserable, and while I often give in on less important issues, one of the reasons I abandoned Christianity in the first place was my inability to deal with what I perceive as misogyny in the writings of Paul. The interesting thing is that while he takes the Bible as the literal word of God, and I take it as something that was inspired by God, our interpretations of what that means are similar.
I believe that certain parts of the Bible are meant to be literal, such as not murdering, and Jesus dying for our sins, but some of the Bible is not literal, in some cases, as in Genesis, it is God’s way of explaining very difficult concepts to people who had no frame of reference to understand. The stunning part is that because we both believe that the Bible is to be taken in context, we don’t really have the conflict I first expected us to have. Ultimately, only God knows how things really are, and we both except this point and choose to not condemn the other for such beliefs. He still can’t really understand how I can live without the Bible as an absolute and I don’t really understand how he can actually believe it is literal, but ultimately these aren’t important issues to the core issues of faith. We both love God and we both love each other, and for right now, that is all we need.
My boyfriend and I had just finished a long and arduous discussion that basically boiled down to, I do not clearly explain my feelings as well as he would like and it causes misunderstandings (that and when I feel attacked I make mean personally attacks that I really need to work on). I suppose the real argument was that I don’t assert myself very often and I’m not particularly selfish, which he doesn’t see as he makings of a partnership because I usually give him his way and if we continue on this path, he is going to one day just expect to get what he wants, and if I complain it is going to erupt into an argument. He has a point, I should probably be a bit more assertive, especially about things that matter. Ultimately, we don’t want to find out fifteen years down the road that we disagree on something fundamental and detrimental to our relationship. Something like faith.
We avoid talking about our faith, not because we don’t think that faith is important, but rather because we believe that our faith is so vastly different it could lead to conflict, and considering neither one of us is likely to change our minds in the course of a conversation, why bother? Leave it to me to have to seize onto this idea, in part because I know that before we met his faith was important to him. One of the first things we ever did together was go to church. Surprisingly, this was a productive conversation that led me to realize just how wonderful he really is, and how I should continue to thank God everyday for bringing him into my life.
You see sometimes I am guilty of seeing things that aren’t there. Sadly at times I am a negative person and assume the worst, even when I know I have some really wonderful people in my life. Honestly when we began discussing whether or not we take the Bible literally, I wanted to hide. It isn’t that I haven’t become comfortable with talking to him about most anything, it is that I knew we viewed this topic so differently, and the last thing I wanted to find out was that he took the Bible literally to the point where it mean that he thought I should be subservient. I am just not that girl. I love him, more than I have ever loved anyone or anything, but I could not do that. I would be miserable, and while I often give in on less important issues, one of the reasons I abandoned Christianity in the first place was my inability to deal with what I perceive as misogyny in the writings of Paul. The interesting thing is that while he takes the Bible as the literal word of God, and I take it as something that was inspired by God, our interpretations of what that means are similar.
I believe that certain parts of the Bible are meant to be literal, such as not murdering, and Jesus dying for our sins, but some of the Bible is not literal, in some cases, as in Genesis, it is God’s way of explaining very difficult concepts to people who had no frame of reference to understand. The stunning part is that because we both believe that the Bible is to be taken in context, we don’t really have the conflict I first expected us to have. Ultimately, only God knows how things really are, and we both except this point and choose to not condemn the other for such beliefs. He still can’t really understand how I can live without the Bible as an absolute and I don’t really understand how he can actually believe it is literal, but ultimately these aren’t important issues to the core issues of faith. We both love God and we both love each other, and for right now, that is all we need.