I'm Coming Out of the Closet

Coming out of the closet :) 

I have been struggling with whether I should come out of the closet about something.  It’s not what you think.  I still love Melissa :).  Seriously, though I have been wondering if I should publicly discuss something that I see happening in my life.  I have grown up in the “church culture” almost all of my life.  I took a brief sabbatical from it for a couple of years, and then took another sabbatical for about 6 months after Melissa and I were married.  In the last 7 years I have had an incredible ride in my spirituality.  I have learned things that I never thought I would ever allow into my brain, much less my heart.  I have also had something very fascinating happen.  I’ve started to become much more comfortable with ME.  I’m more comfortable in my own skin.  And I’m here to tell you that my own skin is NOT the typical “Christian” that most people in church would define “Christian” as.  I really tried hard to fit into that, but I just can’t do it.  And I’m not going to try to do so anymore.  I’m just not.  Don’t misunderstand me.  I love God.  I love Jesus.  I love Holy Spirit.  I love family.  I love my family in faith.  I do NOT love the practice of separating from people I don’t agree with.  I do NOT love the inability to be myself because I have to worry about who is going to be offended.  I have learned that offense is just way over rated.  Yes, it’s good to have convictions and beliefs.  It is not good to hammer someone else because theirs aren’t the same as yours.  Those that think they’ve got it all right are just wrong, because I don’t think anyone has it all right.  I’m not saying stand for nothing.  What I say is love everyone because love never fails.  And love isn’t some gushy, push over, emotional garbage.  Sometimes it’s very, very hard.  Sometimes it’s very, very determined.  It’s always very, very powerful.  I’m honestly sick of rules.  I’m sick of “nice.”  I’m sick of “powerless.”  I’m definitely sick of the rhetoric and the Christianese.  I’m most definitely sick of the “cookie cutter” people that congregate in a building and their one thing they have in common is what they stand against.  I am not going to partake in that any more.  I’m going to be myself.  I’m going to hang out at the bar and talk to my good friends there.  I’m going to be like a father to the waiter and the waitress and the bartender.  I’m going to be a father to my own children.  I’m going to speak to everyone whether it be the homeless vagrant, the governor, or the homosexual activist, with honor and respect, and I’m going to treat them the way I want to be treated whether that is returned or not.  I’m going to love myself.  I’m going to forgive myself.  I’m going to do those things because I and my fellow humans are all made in God’s image, and we’re all His kids, though many just don’t get that yet.  They simply need an introduction to the Person.  They don’t need ideas.  They don’t need sermons.  They need an introduction.  And introductions come through people who are real.  They come through those who have Dad’s heart, not through those that know concepts.  I believe that was the secret to Jesus’ appeal.  People saw the Father in Him.  He even said it Himself, “If you have seen Me, you have seen the Father.”  That was His appeal.  And since the Father is Love, then the Father is exactly Who people see when we love them.  I don’t get this right all the time.  I don’t get it right 50% of the time probably (and I think that is a generous estimate).  However, I know in my heart of hearts that love is the way.  Religion is not the way.  Concepts are not the way.  Incessant talking is not the way.  Knowing something about God or the Bible is not the way.  Knowing Jesus is the way.  He said that also, “I am the way, the truth and the life.”  Want truth?  Know Him.  Want life?  Know Him.  This is my core, and nothing other.  

Not Another

I can't write another poem

Another useless and meaningless meandering conversation of one with one

I can't read another verse

Nor can I hear one more sermon

Quote me another bumper sticker slogan

I might just let the dead bury their own dead

I might just stop asking all these questions and instead

Start releasing all my answers

None of which would ever make it from a pulpit

Many of which would plow your bedrock  bumper sticker slogans

Into fine grains of powdery dust

Leaving both of us coughing and gasping on the floor

You crying out for more

Me feeling the guilt from the lack of clarity, the abundance of confusion

Confusion is what typically comes upon entering worlds of complete unknown

A rattling is what typically comes when new things are shown

There is always quite the rabble

Followed by abundant amounts of ignorant babble

Followed by lynchings and shoutings and cries of “rebel”

Sigh…..

I have known each and all of these before and I know them even now

I often ask why these questions have to come across my brow

Yes, and even that is a question

The questions multiply exponentially like rabbits gone mad with fire

The answers they never come at the pace of my desires

Thus I am always writing like this, like a rambling fool

Like one that stares and barely contains his own drool 

I don’t grasp even my own being

Much less the breadth, much less the meanings

Of the universal One

Yet to grasp Him is precisely why I am here

That is precisely why no accusation, no lie, no fear

Can ever seem to stay with me long

There is this unfathomable ocean of Charity’s song

That continues singing out to me

She continues singing out through me

Charity has made all the difference

Judgment has a steady plot that counts the bread and casts the lot

But love is the only thing that never fails

So I look to the stars and I lift my sails

I smell the salt, I feel the breeze

I forget the pains of yesterday with ease

I simply keep moving toward that Northern Star

Where purpose, where meaning, where reconciliation are

I simply keep moving

Blown by these winds that surround me

I am blown by these winds that surround me

K, Duane Carter 4/24/14

Shed Light

It saddens me that Christians don’t even understand the cross.  The very thing that symbolizes “Christianity” is disregarded, it’s meaning and power are completely ignored, and it’s message is NOT distributed by the very ones that wear the symbol on their shirts, necklaces, and ear rings.  And what I mean by that is all of this negative “these are the things that are going to happen to America if we don’t change” stuff.  I particularly love the word “judgment” (which in most circles is the equivalent of the word “punishment”).  BUT, we have got to understand something that is foundational to the greatness of the gospel:  the judgment of God has ALREADY occurred, and it occurred at the cross.  God has ALREADY judged the world, and He has already judged the enemy and inflicted the penalty ON JESUS at the cross.  He’s not going to release judgment (and understand that I am using the word ‘judgment’ here in the context of ‘punishment’) because He’s already released that.  What He is waiting on is for those of us who call Him “Father” to begin to live like the sons and daughters we are.  He’s waiting on us to live like the free people we are.  He is waiting on us to love.  That’s it.  He’s not waiting on us to beg Him not to smash us.  Maybe we should begin to ask the questions like, “We’ve been praying these things for years now, so why aren’t things changing?  Why isn’t this working?”  The answer is NOT because we aren’t protesting enough, being vocal enough, or praying hard enough.  It’s because we aren’t praying God’s heart.  Yes His heart is restoration, revival, and reformation of the nations.  But this will happen in love, because love never fails.  Punishment fails because it’s based in fear.  So please dear children of God, please STOP using fear as a “motivator” because that isn’t motivation or encouragement, that is manipulation.  Don’t give me the “love can give warnings” stuff either.  That misses the entire point.  Yes, love can give warnings, and right now it is warning us that we must do things God’s way, in love, and His way is not filling people with fear about crises and storms and wars.  If people in the church can’t get it that we are to love others and walk in the authority He gives us in that love, then I tell you He is going to find people that will (remember the Jesus movement?).  There’s the warning.  If you’re sitting in the community of Christ and propagating fear, then continue to expect things to look like they’re getting worse.  If you’re determined to love and love deeply, then get ready for the world to  change.  Get ready to be able to actually see things the way God sees them.  He isn’t worried, nor is He afraid.  It is very easy for light to remove darkness, and the darkness has already been conquered.  Remember this short sentence which I think personally is one of the most powerful statements ever made:  Love never fails.  

Shed light.  Shed light by letting love loose.  THAT is what will bring change to this nation and to the nations of the world.