"So are you with anyone right now?" He looked over the menu while casually asking the question of whether or not I was currently in a relationship. Why is it that this is one of the first questions a friend asks you when you haven't seen them for a long time?
I answered pretty straightforwardly, smirking a little to myself while perusing through the menu. "Nope."
He pondered my response for a moment, eyebrows knit together in thought but somewhat smirking himself. Then he asked, "Have you ever been with anyone in the time that I've known you?" I've known him for about... six years I guess, possibly seven or eight. We met in high school.
"Nope."
"... " He paused, and the same response seemed to take him aback. He tilted his head and looked at me with a skeptical eye, "...Are you a lesbian?"
"Nope." Answered in much the same way as before but I couldn't help but laugh a little. "I like men quite a lot and my door isn't even able to swing the other way."
It's conversations like these that make me ponder how odd it must seem to some people when you've never really been in a relationship before... especially when someone hasn't seen you for a number of years and your relationship status has remained the same. My friend didn't pursue the issue, which took me by surprise since I would expect someone to then ask why. But no matter.
What amuses me more, however, is that later today another friend of mine that I also haven't seen in three years asked me the exact same question of my relationship status. I wish people would stop asking me this question; I'm tired of answering the same way. But I suppose many people see it as an important thing to ask, and I can give them that.
At any rate, on an unrelated note I've been giving some thought to a hot topic issue that comes up a lot in Christian and non-Christian circles: Church & State. I'll be honest and say right out that I don't know a lot about the history of the whole Church & State thing. I will also say that for a while I figured that the seperation between the two was ridiculous... at least when folks here in America would rant about "God" being found on paper money and the pledge of allegience. I still figure that it's well enough to keep things the way they always have been, since no one is forcing anyone to worship God just by having His name in certain public places. I for one used to omit saying "God" when I was adamantly against God, but I didn't want to take it out of the pledge of allegience; I didn't care about that.
While I know a lot of the Church & State seperation is over the common school house, I'd recently been reading through the Church History book I'm borrowing and how Constantine established the Church as the rule over the State (in so many words).
I was apalled. Some Christians saw it fit to bring Law upon those who were not Christians, to punish and judge them as if they were God. Folks became stagnant or insincere. The name of Jesus was used for political gain, and prominent people in the church sought power more than anything else. Churches would be more extravagant than any other buildings. Although corruption was a danger before, it would seem that the establishment of the Church as the head of the State cast in its stones... nay, I'd say it had cast in its bricks.
On the flip side of things, the major persecutions of the Christians stopped in Roman empire. Christians were free to walk the streets and build their churches. They didn't have to live in fear like they used to.
But still, I'm left wondering that as comfortability was put into place if the temptation of stagnation was as well.
So, as I reevaluate the idea of Church & State and the seperation thereof, I would be more inclined to say that the seperation is a good thing. Then again, anything in history and anything that happens at all is done for a reason; God had His purposes of allowing the combination of the two forces. Perhaps for mercy's sake. Perhaps for something totally other. But you know what, I don't think what this nation needs is the joined forces of Church & State, but instead what we need is persecution. Is it weird for me to say that? Probably. I for one don't like the idea of being pressed on every side and having to choose between renouncing Christ or death; though I'd like to think I know which I would choose in a heartbeat. Maybe Christ would be more real and dear and tangible, and really the only thing that we can cling to for hope if we were given black and white choices. I hear stories and read stories about brothers and sisters overseas and I am humbled. Their faith is so much greater than my own, that they could take a beating and keep on going to the foot of the Cross, keep on speaking the words of the love of Christ and know they could be killed for it. It's amazing, and praises be that God is using them to transform lives.
I pray that He will keep them strong. It'll be great to meet them in the presence of Glory.
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