Judge Me By The Size Of My Drama, Do You?

People, those of you outside of my inner circle, would like to think you know me. My inner circle doesn't even know everything about me yet and they are the ones who hear the most intimate details about my life. What people see, as I understand from their reactions, is someone who is a drama queen or a diva that has little to no bearing on reality. I challenge both the idea that I am a diva/drama queen and that I have little to no bearing on reality.

Firstly, I admit that I am emotionally high-strung at times. I can get very passionate about something without much provocation. Case and point, the death of Osama Bin Laden. I was so disturbed by the massive celebrations that were being covered in television news as well as various people on Facebook changing their profile pictures to the popular (but fake) picture of Osama's marred corpse. I was very relieved to know that this legendary figure who was responsible for the attack on 9/11 had been removed from the possibility of ever striking America again, but I was so overwhelmed by the things people were saying in their joyous reactions to the death of Osama that I reacted. How did I react? I was livid. I was so disgusted that I became infuriated with the carnal savagery of so many. I saw it as such a base level of immaturity, but when I look at it in hindsight so too was my reaction to them a very base act of immaturity.

Secondly, people who think they know me should not presume to. Ever since I began my Time of Consecration, God has been teaching and working through me on various levels. I'm not saying that I've got it all figured it out or anything. In fact, the more I learn the less I know and the more I realize that I have so much growing up to do. Thing is, most people know me as this ultra-conservative fundamentalist with quaint vestiges of traditional gentlemanly behavior embedded in my routine, but if you knew me as I am today you would know that I'm more akin to a Jesus-loving nature hippy. Heck, I'm evening doing my research so that I can become a bona fide vegetarian. The fact is, I look as the things I have said and done with such certainty that it was done by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit and I am horrified. I am literally horrified to think that at one time I used to think that America was a God-fearing nation founded on Christian principles. I am horrified that I used to openly mock the LGBTQ community and that I thought I wasn't a racist because I wasn't calling black people rude names. I was wrong. Dead wrong.

While my physical teenage years are beyond me, but spiritually I feel like a teenager that is just starting to overcome all the angst and hormonal imbalance to give rise to some more insightful and well-developed thoughts, feelings, and perspectives on life. I'm going through so many spiritual changes; so much growing, stretching, bending, twisting, prodding, poking, cutting off, and removing of the old self that I am bound to make a fool of myself on more than one occasion. I'm prone to mistakes and this spiritual metamorphosis I'm going through isn't going to make me look any prettier for the cameras in the short term... However, because I am renewing my mind to be that of Christ's mind I no longer think of just the image I have upon Earth, but the image that God sees of me. It isn't the most important to me that you accept me as I go through this change, as I realize that some people just wont. What is important is that I offer you the chance to understand what's going on.

Speaking of what God sees... I don't care about this reality half as much as I do about God's reality. Frankly, I find this reality fascinating and exciting, but wholly unsatisfying in the long-run. When I put this reality in perspective as God sees, as He chooses to show me bits and pieces of His perspective; I begin to understand how truly this reality is without an understanding of how to live life God's way. So people say that I'm out of touch with reality, and in response I say, "Thank you for your kind words. It's nice to know you're seeing such an improvement in my lifestyle." Granted, that's a little bit of verbal judo, but the point is that I don't care if people think that I'm out of touch with reality. There will always be people out there criticizing me for something they don't like and many of them will probably be holding on to things of the past that didn't sit well with them. I know that I have made mistakes in the past, and I will make more mistakes in the future. The important thing for me is that I keep going, keep growing, and keep holding onto the values which have kept me sane enough for the past year.

Ready for the most insightful portion of this entry? I've noticed a few people in particular spending an awful lot of time criticizing me. I'd like to point out that if I'm such a diva/drama queen then I am not worth all the time and effort you put into ridiculing me. Therefore, I am either not a not a diva/drama queen and you simply have strong opinions (as I do) about the issues I bring up or I am one but you are equally immature for spending your time trolling me. I'll leave it up to you to decide which of those two is the case. I'd like to add here that there are others who have made legitimate efforts to offer some "tough love" correction, to whom I do not intend this paragraph to be directed at.

Interestingly enough, I was going to write about the expectations that many young men have of their future marriage relationships and crush all those silly but understandable misconceptions about marriage. Unfortunately for the one or two people who I told about this idea, I had a strong urge to write this other stuff instead. My apologies, the expectations thing will come later.

For Narnia!
James