"Honestly, though, theatre's the best, isn't it? You get to come to places like this and sit in the dark for two hours and just escape. Instead of thinking about your own childhood problems, you watch a childhood fairytale come to life before your eyes. Instead of stressing about your own relationships, you watch two people from different parts of the world fall in love and make beautiful music together. Instead of worrying about the news of today, you hear about the news of yesterday delivered by overly attractive, hyper acrobatic 35 year old 15 year olds." -Neil Patrick Harris - 2012 Tony Awards
For the last fifteen and a half years, I have the amazing privilege to be immersed in musical theatre and just straight theatre. It has truly been an escape and a sanctuary. No matter what was going on in my life, I could always go to rehearsal, go sing, read a play, and just forget everything. There is a musical for everything - or at least a song for everything. No matter what emotion I'm feeling, there is a song I can listen to that takes me away from it all. I've never found another passion that can do that for me. I can't imagine my life without theatre. It has been such a huge part of me for so long, and I couldn't be more grateful. I went from ensemble to ensemble, and now I get to play Beth in "Little Women" , and I couldn't be happier.
I honestly do think it's made me a more accepting person. I know this is a really controversial subject, but I think it has made me unafraid to associate and be good friends with homosexuals. I am not looking to start an argument, so please don't take what I'm about to say the wrong way. The Catholic Church has perfect logic in saying that God's plan was for a man and a woman to marry. I do, however, believe that we can't shun those people who have chosen to live a certain way. We are charged by Christ to love everyone. We love even those who share different opinions. If a state allows same-sex marriage, though we may be uncomfortable with it, we can not simply say "I will never associate with a person of that nature, and I will not try to understand them" simply because of their sexual orientation. My main problem with many Catholics (I may be putting my foot in my mouth) is that they seem unwilling to even be near anyone who is homosexual. THIS is what I dislike. Though you may not think homosexual marriage should be allowed, we must try to be loving and charitable towards homosexuals. We must try to share the Word of God with them. But above all, we must rely on God's mercy to save them. Many of the Catholics that I have met simply say that homosexuals are automatically going to hell. Who are we to judge? I believe this even more firmly since studies are showing that it is NOT something you choose, as was previously believed. This leads me to say that we ought to be more accepting. Many homosexuals try to live normally, even get married to someone of the opposite sex to try and "get rid" of the "disease" that so many look down upon. Honestly, I find that more heartbreaking and wrong than them given equality... Maybe this makes me a terrible Catholic, I don't know. But seeing these people struggle so much with themselves and with others' approval makes me feel that we have to try to accept this. Anyway, that's what I have to say. If you disagree, I'm sorry. If I offended you, again, I'm sorry. I guess my main thing is that I just desire acceptance...and theatre has taught me that.
Theatre gives me a chance to use my talents for the Glory of Christ. That gives me more joy than anything. I am so thankful to have been involved in such a beautiful art form.
Hi Hannah :) I appreciate you being honest with your thoughts on your blog here, and I'm sorry if you expected people to be offended, or say or do something uncharitable. I find that people often oppose same-sex marriage or other controversial topics in a sort of knee-jerk reaction borne of fear; people like that will argue vociferously and uncharitably against practices like that, without really having anything substantial to say against it.
ReplyDeleteI do my best not to be one of those people, though I am still in the process of being perfected in Love (cf. 1st John 4:18) which is the process whereby all fear is removed from our being. I know what it's like to be maturing in life and in Faith, and in coming up against other ways of life and against the world, it can be difficult to sort everything out.
I am not intending to argue at all, but your thoughts have also made me think about what I believe and why I believe it. The way I see it, being a Catholic is not about being a good or a bad one; you could view it that way, but that is not the closest analogy. Being a Catholic is identifying God, who is both Love and Truth in the absolute, and allowing Him to conform you to both Love and Truth. It's a love story, but it is a love story of falling in love with Truth, which changes the person who falls in love with it. When the Catholic Church says that God's plan is (not was, *is*) that man and woman are to marry, it isn't laying down a stuffy old rule; it's saying that the Truth is that man and woman are definitively and specially designed and continually intended by God to be distinctly masculine and feminine, and in their complementarity, to complete one another and to so overflow with completed love and life, that life and love are born of them as a child, cementing all union. These are not rules, they are Truth and Life and Love, which is God Himself; if we want to be Catholic, we are desiring to be the Bride of Christ, which means allowing this Right Way of Being to be conceived in our hearts and be born of us just as Mary allowed Christ to be conceived in and born of her.
The Truth, Christ, calls us to be charitable toward all, just as the early Christians were charitable toward pagan rome, and its inhabitants who were notorious for their sexual deviancy in every perverse way, including pederasty, homosexuality, and other things which should not even be named. Being charitable means being restrained, kind, and not hating out of fear, because fearing evil means not being perfected in love. But most of all, being charitable means that we are to will their good; that is the deepest sort of love, and that is the love that God showed for us when He came in the flesh and died for us, to unite us to His love which we could not reach.
Again, we must distinguish between same-sex attraction and acting upon those actions; those who, for whatever reason, have a current same-sex attraction are not sinning; but those who act on it by committing indecent acts with the same gender are absolutely committing sin. How could we love them if we encourage or are indifferent toward behavior which separates them from the Love and Truth of God? Love is willing the good of the other, and that is not their good. Their good is not found in their will, but in their will being conformed to God's Will. We have to have Truth as our absolute loyalty, or we are not married to the Truth, who is Christ, and thus are choosing to not be Christians. We have to love them by being kind through pity, but we also have to have that pity be in harmony with the deepest level of love, which is to will that they conform not to their own weakness or desire, but to the blueprint of humanity that is God. If that's hard for them, they have an all the more sympathetic Savior, who bore the Cross of sacrificing His human fear for our Good, our the deepest, agape love.
ReplyDeleteI hope you don't take this negatively, Hannah, I only mean it to be conversational, as a brother to a sister in Christ. I do my best to live according to love and truth, and sometimes I fail; if I have failed, please tell me.. All I know is that I am following Christ, and in following Christ, neither Truth, nor Deepest Love, nor Kindness can be sacrificed, but all must be brought to One in perfect Wholeness of Being. We must not be swept along with the current of either popular thought or our own feelings, but rather, we ought to inform first ourselves and then society by adhering to unchanging principles, Catholic Principles, which boil down to clothing ourselves in our marriage garment of being wedded to Truth and Love, of being the Bride of Christ.
Thank you! Your points are very good and I appreciate them. I do agree with most everything you said. Maybe I am wrong in what I believe, but to me it becomes a matter of "love the sinner, hate the sin". Re-reading it now, I realize that my post was not entirely clear. "Some states allow same-sex marriage, and I believe that if that is the decision of the state, we ought to accept the decision" is the line that I feel should be (and will be edited). That was a poor way of phrasing my thoughts. What I mean to say is that if a state allows same-sex marriage, though we may be uncomfortable with it, we can not simply say "I will never associate with a person of that nature, and I will not try to understand them" simply because of their sexual orientation. My main problem with many Catholics (again, I may be putting my foot in my mouth) is that they seem unwilling to even be near anyone who is homosexual. THIS is what I dislike. Though you may not think homosexual marriage should be allowed, we must try to be loving and charitable towards homosexuals. We must try to share the Word of God with them. But above all, we must rely on God's mercy to save them. Many of the Catholics that I have met simply say that homosexuals are automatically going to hell. Who are we to judge? Again, THIS is what I have problems with. I realize that what I had originally written was ambiguous, and I hope this, at least in part, made things more clear. I sincerely hope that I did not offend you or lead you to believe that I am in any way against the Church, because that is not at all what I was trying to say. Thank you so much for your comments. This is a topic that I have no perfected my thoughts on, and so I apologize if it all seems a little shaky. But thank you! May God continue to bless you as you continue delving into His Word and His Love!
DeleteNo apologies necessary, Hannah :) you didn't offend me at all, you talk about homosexuality as comfortably as all Catholics ought to talk about it, and I appreciate that.
DeleteI think that at all times we should accept those with same-sex attraction as human beings and love them (fully), will their good by being honest that by acting upon their inclinations they will be moving away from God, and be willing to talk with them about God and His Word and His Love while showing them that love. We need to make sure we don't blur the line between attraction and action, though. Someone with a same-sex attraction who is not acting upon it (I actually have someone like that as a friend) should absolutely be able to become Catholic and be welcomed by other Catholics, despite mannerisms or other things that make them uncomfortable. But someone who is living in sin by acting on their desires cannot become Catholic, that much is clear from the Bible.
Just as an aside, I wouldn't be quite so quick to believe that all same-sex attraction is the result of being born that way. There is a lot of disagreement out there about homosexuality, and many times there can be psychological causes, not merely genetic ones; nothing is certain yet.
Might want to give 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 a read-through as well :) it showcases both the fact that homosexual actions are sin, and also God's mercy to redeem, if someone is willing to pick up their cross and refuse to act on their inclinations, similar to how we all have to refuse our own natural inclinations.
God bless and keep you always! :)
Thanks for your comments, and your respect! :) I appreciate it.
DeleteI do, though, think that since so many homosexuals try to rid themselves of the supposed "disease", that it is not something that is chosen, but rather something in that person's DNA. We don't will ourselves to become ill, or to be born with birth defects, yet when we do become sick, we do everything we can to get well. From what I've seen, the same goes for many of the homosexuals that I have come into contact with. They try to repress that part of them - some to the point where suicide becomes their only answer. That seems to make it clear that they are so unhappy that they were made like this, and have been so ridiculed, that they feel that hopeless. That doesn't sound like something someone would choose....but that's my opinion...as is all of this - haha.
Again, I really appreciate your comments (and that you read my posts!!) and your respect for my opinions. God bless!
yea... basically to fully love somebody is to want the best for them. Since loving somebody of the same sex is unnatural and is destructive it will hurt somebody. I read a really good article written by a gay Catholic and he was saying the Church says that gay-marriage is wrong so to protect her children. Just as a mother wouldn't let her child eat sand because she knows it will hurt him. Mother Church "outlaws" gay marriage because she knows it will be harmful. And obviously those who struggle with it must be treated exactly the same as somebody else. We don't attack people who struggle with [for example] lying because,well, we all have temptations. it's the same thing. I'll show you that article cuz it's really good
ReplyDeletehttp://allforjesusthroughmarywithasmile.blogspot.com/2012/03/good-article.html
ReplyDeleteThat is a wonderful article. Thanks! Here's the thing: She says "When I told my family a year ago, not one of them responded with anything but love and understanding. Nobody acted like I had a disease. Nobody started treating me differently or looking at me funny. The same is true of every one of the Catholic friends that I've told. They love me for who I am." THAT is what I feel the Catholic Church SHOULD be. So many of the people that I have met act exactly the opposite. All I saw at the lyceum (and I'm just saying this because this is what prompted me to think more about this) were people that were afraid to admit they homosexual marriage even existed. That, in my opinion, is just that - them being afraid. I can't get over that. We can't be afraid. It's silly, it's illogical. We may not be COMFORTABLE, but we have to try! I edited the one line of my post that I felt was most ambiguous. I'm not trying to say that the Church should support gay marriage. I am saying that if a homosexual comes into a church, we can't ban them saying "since you are a homosexual, you can't receive God's Word." That's what I've heard a lot. I guess I am just talking about homosexuality in general, and not homosexual marriage. Maybe that's where the problem lies. I think that we ought to love them even more so that they do not feel that they are hated or looked down upon. I've met so many who are afraid of even talking to a conservative friend about who they are because they fear being left without that friend. Or even their parents. I feel that if we call ourselves Catholic, we should be more than willing to share God's Love and God's Word with them. Again, I could be wrong. But that is what I believe. We can't judge a person's final place in Heaven or hell, either. That is for God to decide, and when we try to say that all homosexuals are going to hell (again, something I have heard many times) we take God's role into our own mortal hands. Then it seems to me that we are committing a sin against God and against our homosexual brother or sister. Anyway, that's what I believe. I hope I didn't offend you or change your opinion of me or anything like that! I really just want people to see that we can't just refuse to make any effort to understand our brothers and sisters simply because their sexual orientation is different; especially because it is not something they choose, but rather something they are born with. I hope this made some sense and didn't make you think that I hated the Catholic Church in any way! God bless you always!
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