spirituality

love trumps faith

~ GennaClaire ~ Leave a comment
Photo by tyler gebhart on Unsplash

“And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”

1 Corinthians 13:13

Curious as it seems, the Bible tells us that love is more important than faith. The first and second greatest of all the commandments. And the cornerstone of the entire religion.

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In the 2016 election, 81% of the white evangelical voters cast their ballots for Trump.

Still today, they’re as faithful to him as ever; their support of late at an all-time high. They claim Trump stands for Christian values, but his adulterous indiscretion with a porn star is “Between him and God.” They believe he represents the Christian family but ignore as he rips immigrant families apart. They applaud him for keeping his campaign promises, regardless of how those promises hurt others. They think he follows the Christian faith; they have forgotten about Christian love.

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I liked going to church growing up. I liked the performance of it, the fellowship, the tradition. The candles and the stained glass. The robes and rituals. Above all else, I liked the hymns.

Our church had an organ. The choir led the way in song. The congregation followed. I read along in silence, baptized by each word. Poetry set to music, haunting and true.

 

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Last week I ended up behind a Jeep Cherokee on my way in to work. It was polluted with bumper stickers that ranged from rainbow-infused “Love Wins” and “Proud Democrat” to messages of equality and hope and peace and kindness.

On the way home from work, I ended up behind a Ford F-150 with a single bumper sticker. It read, “Trump 2020: Make Liberals Cry Again.”

A cross hung from the rearview mirror.

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“Here Is Love Vast as the Ocean” was one of my favorite hymns. It captured the might and relentlessness of God’s love. It summed up my belief system better than any Bible verse or parable or Sunday school lesson ever could. It all comes back to love.

At 22, I got those words inked into my rib cage, just beneath my heart.

—

Yesterday, the supreme court ruled in favor of a Christian baker who refused to make a cake for a gay couple. The baker insisted gay marriage went against his religion.

Even more than faith over love, now we’re talking about faith against love. It’s religion I can hardly recognize, much less call my own.

—

Outside of funerals and weddings, I don’t go to church much anymore. After watching evangelicals use Christianity to stand by Trump, I doubt I ever will.

But I still have a tattoo on my ribcage. And I still have a hymn in my heart.

So here is love, vast as the ocean. May it one day be the greatness of faith.

The Spirituality of Raspberries

~ GennaClaire ~ Leave a comment

My dad once told me, while looking up at the tops of the Georgia pines in our front yard, that the green-on-blue combination of trees against sky is proof of God’s existence. He said it could not possibly have happened by coincidence.

It’s too thoughtful. Too beautiful. Too perfect.

Raspberries are my proof. If you’ve ever picked one off a wild bush in summertime and plucked it in your mouth, you know: something like that doesn’t just happen. It’s intended.

I’m sure my dad would agree.

From a young age, Dad raised me to experience the world around me. He showed me how to appreciate the smell of snowfall. To love the constricted feeling in my lungs when I breathe in my first blast of winter air each year. He offered me the bird names. The bird songs.

Because of him, I can tell you the difference between a blue jay and a bluebird and an indigo bunting. And what the temperature high is for Anchorage, Alaska on any given day.

As we chat on the phone during my commute, Dad asks how the jonquils he planted at my first home are doing. Have they come up yet? And he’ll make an extra call in the evening just to tell me to go outside and look at the full moon. Does it look as yellow in Charleston as it does here?

Because of him, I love the warmth of a fire. The sound of fat raindrops pounding a tool shed. The soul-cleansing that is wading chest-deep in a clear stream. The subtle sweetness of nectar from a honeysuckle flower. The intricacy and wonder of seashells.

Of his two daughters, I’m the baby. I’m the carefree spirit. I’m the keeper of the bird songs.

In my 30 years, he’s shaped the gentlest corners of my being. He’s molded me into someone who laments the passing of orchids. Someone who stops halfway through her run to take in a marsh view or a fading sunset or a grazing deer. Someone who’s thankful for every clear starry night, every low-hanging moon, every first frost, every last jonquil. Someone who can’t imagine seeing the world without her father’s eyes.

Someone who finds faith in the treetops. And raspberries fresh off the bush.

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faith > fried chicken

~ GennaClaire ~ 1 Comment

I have a tattoo on my ribcage. On the left side to be nearer to my heart. It says “Here is love vast as the ocean.”

The opening line from a hymn. A hymn about love.

Those seven words sum up all that I believe. Love is the core of it all. Even the good book itself says love is greater that hope or faith. And the stories written of our King are not of condemnation and judgment. They are of breaking bread with sinners and healing the lame and feeding the hungry and giving sight to the blind and casting out no one. And love. And love. And love.

Those red letters, all those precious words He spoke, they tell us to love.

I will not argue with you about Chick-Fil-A’s right to freedom of speech. I will not debate gay marriage. I will not discuss who should make up a family unit.

The reality is, I’m too busy loving all of God’s children. I do not have time to build walls around them. To isolate myself from them. To suggest they do not deserve what I have done nothing to earn.

Nor would I even want to.

Here is love vast as the ocean. Written on my ribcage. Written on my heart.