Thoughts of a Doubting Christian ✓

My Story, Part Four

I was never one for cliques and in- or out-groups. According to my mom, the only class at my preschool without cliques was the one I was in, because I wouldn't allow people to be left out. If kids tried to exclude someone, I would either convince everyone to play together nicely, or I would play with the excluded kid, instead.

This followed me as I grew up. In elementary school, I would befriend the new kid(s) until they found a friend group they clicked with. Sometimes, those new kids would end up becoming a permanent friend of mine. In middle school, my lunch table had a huge row because I wanted to include this kid who had nowhere else to sit, but other people at my table found him annoying. And in high school, when I became section leader of the flute section, I made sure that nobody was excluded, which was difficult because the flute section always had the most drama in the band, next to the color guard.

My love for living creatures and desire for fairness and inclusion extends to matters of politics and social justice. I firmly believe in the equality of all people, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, social status, religion, nationality, etc. . . . we are all human, and we all have the right to basic, universal human rights without discrimination.

So, for example, I am a proud feminist — i.e., someone who advocates for the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes, and more broadly, fights for equal rights for people regardless of gender identity.

I also advocate for the queer community, communities of color, and most recently, animals. I don't know if I can go fully vegetarian or vegan (dietary restrictions), but I've been working to set aside a few meals a week where I don't eat meat. Once I live on my own, I'm planning on saving my money so that I can buy meat and other animal products from certified humane farms, instead of the horrible factory farms most of our products come from. Basically, anywhere I see injustice, I feel compelled to fix it!

Yet, it should go without saying that I am NOT perfect. I have privileges that prevent me from seeing the whole picture, for example, my white privilege. While I have been working very hard over the past couple of years to combat my implicit biases and negative assumptions, I am still a work in progress. As a white person, there are things that my friends of color go through that I will never be able to understand. The best that I can do is listen, learn, do my research, and most importantly, shut up when they're speaking.

The same goes for how I interact with other communities that I am not a part of, like people with physical disabilities or people of other religions. While I intimately know and understand the struggles of being a woman, being queer, and being a queer woman, there are other identities which I know less about.

(Speaking of which, I will eventually need sensitivity readers for some of my fiction works, as I want to represent characters of color and queer characters as accurately as possible! Keep your eyes peeled for chapter(s) in the future where I ask for people who would be willing to help me out!)

This is also not to say that I'm not a flawed human being outside of my privileges. I am very flawed! I try to be as self-aware as possible, which includes acknowledging when I've fucked up or when my behavior, traits, habits, etc. are problematic. So, don't feel afraid to let me know what you think in the comments — I'd be lying if I said that constructive criticism doesn't sting, but it's worth it. (Most of my readers have already been very blunt, so I'm not too worried about that. ;))

This section marks the last section of Thoughts of a Doubting Christian. Here, I'll discuss topics ranging from science to social justice to the meaning of life, wrapping back around to my discussions of religion and doubting in Part One.

Want to hear my thoughts on a particular topic? Let me know in the comments, and I might just do a chapter on it. :)