Listening

My husband and I live by a rule: If someone is acting like a decision is a do-or-die situation, it probably isn’t. We should be able to walk away from any offer and not miss out on anything that can’t be picked up later. There may be a price difference or a different type of variable we might miss out on. But, the majority of the time, the thing we want will be there. Or, we will find it somewhere else. We’ll get what we need. We believe that we will be okay.

This rule has saved us from lots of poor decisions: bad cell phone contracts, “deals” that appear to be good on the surface, rushed anxiety coming from our teenagers, and anything else that poses as something only available right here, right now.

Yesterday, we leaned on that rule again. We sat on a Zoom call, curious about a service. But, the person on the other side of that call asked us to sign up for something we couldn’t physically check out. There was no trial period. It was verbally described, but otherwise inaccessible unless we signed up.

We asked for time to think about it.

The person continued to pressure, touting the benefits of their service, slashing the price significantly, and insisting we’d need to sign up first to experience it.

We told them we’d think about it.

We ended the call and we let things settle. We talked it through. We looked at our budget. We looked at our schedule.

And, while many factors affected our decision, what killed it for me was the pressure coming from the person speaking. I didn’t want to spend time with them if this was an indicator of how my needs would be treated. I don’t care how much something costs. What I care about is being treated as a human and being given the opportunity to make the decision that’s right for me.

I emailed them back and said, no thank you. It’s not a good fit at this time.

This made me sad because their service is incredibly unique. But, I learned long ago not to sell myself to someone’s agenda, no matter how good their agenda may seem.

It’s Pride month. This week, I attended my first Drag Revival. I’ll be honest with you. I did not go because it’s Pride. I went because I wanted to see Flamy Grant: a Christan Drag Queen who believes in Jesus and … well is a Drag Queen. They are fascinating to me because growing up, I was told you couldn’t be gay and be Christian. Actually, typing this out, I’m laughing because I was taught that you weren’t really a Christian unless you believed specific things about scripture AND you behaved in specific ways. So, there were lots of people that weren’t “really Christian”. If you swore, or believed in evolution, or dressed immodestly, then you weren’t really a Christian. I’m not sure what you were, but the adults around me declared that you were not that.

Then, people like Flamy Grant and Semler show up in my life. Gay musicians who top the Christian music charts. They love God. They love people. When I talked to Flamy at the end of the show, they looked at me with so much kindness and respect. I blubbered out something stupid and we took a picture together.

I went to the Drag Revival to see Flamy. What I also received was the experience of love. I bawled when Derrick Palmer started singing “You Know My Name”, wept more when Pat Mathison sang “Goodness of God”, and was floored listening to Nina Na’shae’ Rose’ sing “His Eye on is on the Sparrow”. These are people that know rejection, what it’s like to be afraid, to be outcast, and to be feared. And, here they were singing about the goodness of God.

Could I do that? Could you?

And, which God would you believe in?

I’ve sat in church services, where everyone looks the same, dresses, sounds and talks the same. Where the church itself turns into a 3D printer of sorts - copies of person after person of The manufactured Christian. They sing about the love of God.

I don’t quite believe them.

Sitting in a room with queer people, trans people, people in drag, and allies, everyone looked different. No one looked even remotely the same. And, they sang. They sang about the love of God.

I believed them.

And, their belief helped me believe that for myself.

Flamy sang a song called “Desire of Your Heart”. It’s the love letter to their younger self, describing the pain they went through growing up and assuring them they’d make it. Those yearnings they felt when they were little would be fuller expressed in the adult they are today. They get to live out their desires. They get to live out their dreams.

They listened, they followed and they found themselves.

They are loved.

Today, while researching the need to step away and make a decision, I learned the term “Slow Processing Speed”. Slow Processing Speed is “the time it takes for an individual to perceive, process and respond to a stimulus”. The more I read, the more my eyes teared up. I didn’t know this was a thing. I thought this was just how I operated. I thought I was the only one. But, I’m not. It has a name and is not an indicator of my intelligence or ability to process an idea. It only means I need more time to get where I need to go.

The fact that I received this revelation today, while writing this post is not surprising to me. We are talking about listening. Listening to the body, our desires (even though I struggle with that word. Another post perhaps), and our emotions.

Growing up, I was taught that my heart was evil, my body could not be trusted and I was sinful through and through. I was not capable of any good thing outside of Jesus. Anything else that might give a signal in a different direction was not a good guide.

After listening to Flamy and spending time with the Queer community, I thought about this teaching that the body, heart, and mind are evil. And, I thought about the times when God feels so far away. I think every Christian experiences this. I remembered conversations where Christians didn’t understand why God wasn’t near and why God wouldn’t just “tell them what to do!!!” (typically with fists in the air). It was described as the Dark Night of the Soul and they were desperate.

What if God withdrew, not because you were doing something bad, or because He was trying to see how Good you could be without His presence?

Maybe, He wanted you to learn how to listen. What if He wanted you to know who you were? So, instead, He backed off a little, just because He knew how hammered you’d been by all the influences around you and wanted you to get close to the ground. Maybe He wanted you to hear and experience who you really were, without all other influences, even His.

What I’ve learned is that my body, heart, mind, and the speed at which I operate (hallelujah), are all guides for me. I have an internal compass that lets me know when things aren’t right.

When I experience hesitation with someone, I need to listen.

When I feel fear in a situation, I need to listen.

When I need to take a risk that doesn’t make sense, I need to listen.

It’s God and me. I don’t have to give up my whole self to live out my life. I can listen to God and my whole self. And, both are showing me the way.

I’ll be honest. Some days, I feel like I’m waking up to an alternative universe of what I thought my life would be like.

I’m worshipping with Drag Queens.

I find out I’m not stupid.

And, all the agendas that promised a specific kind of life fell flat.

There is a lot of rubble.

And, there is so much beauty.

And, God is still here. I’m loved and so are you. And, I think, this month of all months, maybe He just wants us to lean in and listen.

We can listen to those different from us.

We can listen to our bodies and help it find what it needs.

We can listen to the earth, the depleted soil, the devastated landscape and find some way to rebuild what we’ve destroyed.

We can listen.

We can be our whole selves.

Till next time…