Yearning and learning to love and be loved

The endless debate in the church over sexuality is wearing me out. I'm tired of it.

Leave the analysis to the sciences. It's not necessary to our faith to have a perfect understanding of why people are straight, gay, bi or whatever. It's enough to know that each of us is created uniquely, handcrafted by God.

Like any handcrafted items, no two of us are exactly alike. That's enough to know. God doesn't mean us all to be exactly alike, otherwise, He/She wouldn't have created so much diversity of life on this planet, never mind what else is out there.

That doesn't mean that some of us are more equal than others in God's eye. Unfortunately, we human beings are pretty quick to sort out who's more different than the rest of the (ruling) lot, and treat them as factory rejects.

While there's been a boatload of talk about sexuality, I haven't been hearing much about morality.

Let's spend more time considering how we treat each other, for that defines our morality.

People who go through relationships like potato chips are immoral. They're using and hurting other people, treating them as disposable objects, denying them the reflected light of God we are supposed to be to each other. Bi, straight, gay, whatever, it doesn't matter.

If we sit drawn up in our own meanness and tell others they can't have love because of who they are, we're immoral. We're denying God's children the light of God's love.

Our work as Christians is to shine God's love on each other, and on those who haven't yet come to see that love, so they might see. We can't live without love. The less of it we're exposed to, the less value we see in ourselves and each other.

God's love heals us and brings us to wholeness. It's offered to us directly from God and through each other.

If I see a straight or same-sex couple in a loving, faithful, nurturing relationship, then I must accept this comes from God.

If I see a straight or same-sex couple in an abusive relationship, or where one or both partners are indulging in outside sexual relationships, then something is wrong. Healing is needed, and perhaps the partner who is being exploited and misused may have to leave that relationship to get into the light of God.

To go through a string of such relationships is immoral. It's turning away from the love God wants us to accept.

This is why telling someone he or she is unloveable is such a sin. Heard often enough, the lie is believed, and its impossible to have a healthy relationship when we believe neither God nor anyone else could really love us. That's a tragedy. How awful to tell people they can't have relationships, then accuse them because they don't have it.

Unless we've been unbearably broken somewhere along the line, we all want to be in a loving relationship with another person. It's something I most earnestly desire for myself, and I know it will be a gift from God.

Who am I to deny it to someone else?

It is a sin the church's time and energy have been diverted from doing God's work to the topic of sexuality. I want to hear less about sexuality and more about God.