[yotlyolqualli]

Hello!

Some of you, who have read my other posts, know that I was raised Mennonite. I didn't want to "hijack" the other thread where I was posting, so I decided to post a new thread.


Helping me to embrace my sexuality and my faith, was, amazingly enough, the way I was raised. Mennonites are taught, even as children, to memorize scripture, to never blindly follow someone or someone's teaching. We're taught to always question, always search scripture for ourselves and a personal, one on one relationship with God was quintessential to the Mennonite faith and way of life.

Having been raised Mennonite, indeed living and practicing the faith for 30 years before I came out, made coming out a very scary and painful process. Not only did I have to come out to my family, friends and church, I had to come out to myself.

I had a hard time dealing with being gay, and in that fear, I ran, right into the worst kind of relationship, anyone can have.

However, it was that relationship that made me get a grip on my fear, a grip on the shame that flooded my soul and a grip on standing up for myself and getting out of that relationship.

My mother always told us girls, "you are no better than anyone else, however, you are also the daughters of the King of kings and Lord of lords and whoever wants to share your life with you, had better treat you as such!"

Those words and everything I had ever learned, scripturally, culturally and emotionally, began to move and breathe and syncronize.

Scripture is full of things that are to be condemned and things that are to be commended. There are certain scriptures that call homosexuality an abomination, I won't argue that point with anyone. However, while attending a very ultra conservative Anabaptist/Mennonite Bible college, one of my classes just happened to be, Christian ethics. In that class we studied the law of Moses and the scriptures that included the scripture that condemns homosexuality. The law of moses (not ONLY the ten commandments) but the entire law, found written in the book of Exodus, basically fell into three categories.

First, health... the law about seperating a person from the whole, if that person were sick... or not eating the blood of an animal (blood born diseases) or not eating an animal you didn't kill yourself (an animal dead by unknown means)... the list goes on. But these laws, and they were laws, were put in place to obtain and maintain health for the entire tribe of Isreal.

The next category, "Worship of God" this is where "thou shalt have no other God's before me" and remember the Sabbath and keep it Holy" falls under, and again, there are more such laws.

The third category, and this is where the homosexuality being wrong falls under, Procreation. God wanted the nation of Isreal to grow, so. "do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman" is the most used scripture, after Soddom and Ghomorah, to condemn homosexuality. But along with that was also such laws as "do not have sex with your wife 7 days prior, 7 days of and 7 days after her period. Why? Well, the one week out of the month where it was "lawful" to have sex with your wife, was also the week she would be most fertile. Again, the list goes on.

So, knowing that, things started coming into perspective for me. Add to that, the scripture in the New Testament, about living under grace, and not under the law, as well as other scripture, led me to the awesome and undeniably joyful realization that God created me, just as I am, and He loves me, just as I am.

I'll add more later, or even answer questions if anyone has any. My mind is telling me to stop thinking so hard....*S

BTW, just as an added thing... the "name" YotlYolqualli is made up of two words in the Nuahtl language. An Ute-Aztecan friend of mine, gave me this name, after I had made a ceremonial blanket for her, to take with her, up on the hill. Loosely translated, Yotl means essence of woman and Yolqualli means purity of heart.

Take care.