Wednesday, June 24, 2009 | by nathan

Bridging The Gap

This post is a part of the Bridging The Gap Synchroblog, wherein over 50 bloggers try to answer the question, "How can we embody mutual honour and respect in our conversations and relationships with those with whom we may disagree on the topic of homosexuality?”

As a writer, I regularly find myself irretrievably mired in some writerly muck or other, stymied by some untenable next plot point or struggling to overcome some barrier of language. More often than not I come to these roadblocks because I have written myself into a corner, or into a nice, crazy frenzy. I think that this is paydirt for Jesus. I think that when I get all good and frustrated is when Jesus rolls up his sleeves, rubs his hands together and says, "Good. Let’s get to work." 

They say that you can’t heal your own sick mind with your own sick mind, and so when I’ve reached some crazy-making bad place with my writing, I get up. I push back from the desk, stand up, and get out of my own head space for a little bit. I walk the dog. I weed the garden. I think of these as my "lifelines;" I phone a friend. I bake something. Then, if I find that I’m out of the rhythm of writing, I start by writing a letter to someone I haven’t seen in too long. I step back in, slowly, carefully, playfully.

Case in point: this is my fourth draft of a piece for the Bridging The Gap Synchroblog. Since my last draft I stood up, walked around in the summer sun, went to get some lunch.

Those of us on either side of this supposed "divide" over homosexuality can often feel like we’re beating our heads against a wall. Stubborn and convinced we’ve got something to prove, a mission to accomplish, we plant our feet and go at it, hurdling arguments across this great yawning chasm like cannonballs. "You’re trying to justify sinful behavior!" "You’re ignoring the Bible’s message of radical acceptance!" 

I don’t know how we reconcile our theologies of sexuality together. Maybe we don’t. But here’s what we can do: we can stand up, step away, and get out of this space for awhile. You can go ahead and think I’m wrong, and I can go ahead and think you’re wrong, and maybe in the meantime we can go feed the poor together. Maybe we can get together and take a carful of groceries to a hungry family. Then, if that goes well, perhaps we could go register some people to vote. If that turns out to be a minefield, then it’s okay; we just hit the reset button and find something else productive to do – cleaning up our neighborhoods, our shared space. Help some latchkey kids with their math homework. Volunteer at a food bank.

Let’s start there. Let’s leave our little verbal bombs and facial tics at home and just go do something good, together, that has nothing to do with this thing we think makes us enemies. Let’s promise not to browbeat each other, just for today. I’ll bring a sack lunch if you’ll bring some water, and we’ll work to alleviate just a tiny little soupçon of suffering, just for today.

I think what we’ll find is that we share more than we think. We share a basic faith in the value of showing up, for one, because at the end of the day it seems we will have done something. We share a faith in God, and we call that God Jesus, and, as Rich Mullins said, "If faith is all we’ve got then maybe faith is all we need." We’ll have dirt on our faces and sweat on our backs. We’ll have the sandwiches and the water, and this thing that we will have built – this good work, conceived together. Those things will be our sacraments, the holy things we share. Those will be our bridge. You can go live on your side of the "gap," and I’ll live on mine, but I’ll bring sandwiches if you’ll bring some water, and we won’t keep the world waiting for us to agree on this one thing before we do something amazing together.

Heaux-Meaux, This I Believe

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