a most beautiful lie

True love will triumph in the end - which may or may not be a lie, but if it is a lie, it's the most beautiful lie we have.
- John Green

People say that love conquers all. But they don't really believe it. I think they can't bring themselves to really believe it. It makes them think of corny teenage dramas and the inspirational posters that are tacked up anywhere and everywhere that teenagers might frequent, apparently in the hopes that that idea will sink down into our brains and make some sort of impact.

People also say that it's what inside that counts when they know everybody judges a book by its cover, and that beauty is relative even though they know societal perceptions of beauty are shaped by a media that is so hopelessly skewed toward the newest celebrity that it will never escape.

People say a lot of stuff that isn't true. But, for once, I think they may have hit upon something that is beautifully, wonderfully, amazingly true.

Love does conquer all.

True love.

Love that is willing to give itself for its object.

Love that would expend itself merely so that another might live.

Christ's love.

And I suppose, in the end, even if I'm wrong and other people are right, and God's love isn't real despite everything I have faith in...

It'll still be the most beautiful lie we have.

- Kyla Denae

this thing we call life

The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don't always soften the bad things, but vice-versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant.

Sometimes, to soften a vernacular phrase, "crap happens." There's little we can do about it--it simply seems that life enjoys throwing curve balls at us with every ounce of force and gumption it possesses. It sometimes seems that, somewhere, there's this maniacal child in charge of fate, and some days it just wakes up with this itch for mischief. It's sitting there, looking at the smooth, uneventful flow of a human life, and all at once... it gets a sparkle in its eye.

Heh, how can I mess up these people? it asks itself. And bam, suddenly a life is filled with everything awful.

Since becoming involved with people online, I've discovered (at the tender age of twelve, most prominently) that not all people have had a life like mine. Not everybody has grown up in a family that loves them, where they are taken good care of and nothing really vexing or emotionally draining comes along. As I've gotten older, there have been more instances where true hardship has come along, but it's never been anything like some of my friends have faced.

In the past year, I've had two internet friends who have contemplated suicide. I have had friends who have struggled with their sexuality, with peer pressure, with cutting, with abusive situations, with things that boggle my mind. One lesson I've taken from this is that people are strong. Even when they're at the end of their rope, when they're not sure how they'll go on another day...they are strong. Human-kind is so much more amazing than any of us realize. We can do things we never thought possible with the simple release of a simple hormone. We can toil on through hardship and suffering and pain just because some deep, latent impulse tells us we should.

And not only that, but we are able to rise above those things. Yes, it is difficult. It's always difficult. But that's what makes us so amazing. That difficulty only makes us stronger. That difficulty oftentimes makes us want to just try harder. That even though we have no idea where to go next, we go.

I think this is because, deep down, every human knows that Life is out there. That Life, at the bottom of it all, is wonderful. And all of us realize that there are things that make it worth living even in the darkest times.

There's something that wants to hear a baby laugh

and feel tears come as we kiss the one we love

and whirl around in the rain

and stand on top of the largest building in the world and realise that living is amazing

and look down at a waterfall and be amazed

and stare into a bonfire

and do something ridiculously absurd

and just, in the truest sense of the word

simply

beautifully

live.

So yes

Life is a whole bunch of good things and a whole bunch of bad things, all piled up together. And neither of them necessarily outweigh the other. But the bad things aren't at all more important than the good ones. Because, in the end, the good things are the ones we will always remember with a little glow of exultation.

Because we are alive.

- Kyla Denae

boy crazy christianity

This post is liable to step on some toes, just like many other things on this blog. You have been warned.

It's something I've come to observe often in the Christian circles around me, especially in the college-hunting crowd (and the college-going crowd, as well). It seems that so much of life for Christian girls is oriented around finding a guy. We're told we should pray for a pastor or missionary to marry. We're told that we need to go to college to find a husband. We're told that we would make wonderful missionary's wives.

Before we get off on the wrong foot, let me just say that I understand the whole helpmeet thing. I understand that women were originally created to work in partnership with man, to form a whole that mimics Christ's interaction with the Church. I understand the desire to get married, even; it's one I share. But I think this focus undermines something very important--that young women can serve God in their own right, not just through their prospective husband. Christian girls are instead pushed toward marriage with a fanatic zeal that I have labeled 'Boy Crazy Christianity'.

During a brief time where I was praying about whether to go to college or not, I looked into my options. Wanting to be a missionary, I examined the different missions programs that various colleges offer. To my surprise and dismay, the vast majority of colleges (or at least, the majority of ones I'd consider going to) offered very little in the way of actually preparing a young woman to be a missionary. Rather, so many of them focused on a narrow swathe of ministry that is specifically designed for her to accompany a man.

When you consider the many women who have formed vital parts of missions work through the years--Gladys Aylward, Mary Slessor, Amy Carmichael, and (in more recent times, and someone I've met personally) Jan Johnson, this seems to me to be a very great flaw in Christian education.

Now, I understand a woman is supposed to be quiet in the church and not take authority from the men (whatever interpretation of that you take). But then again, what if a woman missionary goes somewhere where there is no church? Is she to wait for a man to join her before reaching out to people--even men? (It's interesting to note that 'taking authority over man' is never interpreted to mean that women are not supposed to witness to men.) What about children's ministry or a ministry that focuses specifically on other women? This is, of course, taught in Christian schools. But from what I understand, it is always approached from the perspective of there being a man and some measure of safety involved.

Another aspect of this phenomenon is the fact that, for many young Christian girls, it is expected that their life will be a quest for marriage. Many young women that I know are only going to Bible college to find a husband. In fact, this is such a common reason for going to Bible college that those institutions have come to be nicknamed the "Christian dating services". Whether it be in church or elsewhere, young women are constantly told that their sole function in life is to get married and have babies. Yes, they might work a job--but only if it helps their husbands (a moot point for me as, when I have children, I'll be quitting any job I might have held, unless it is ministerial or home-oriented, in which case my children will learn the value of hard work by my side).

I got to wondering why this idea is so prevalent. I couldn't help wondering why so many young women are chained to the idea that they must get married before they can serve God, even though there are many stories that prove that is untrue, in the Bible and out. So, in the interests of starting conversation, why do you think this is? Or do you simply disagree with my premise? Do tell.

- Kyla Denae

priorities and futures

People say that there are many things that shape us--our family, our churches, society at large, what sort of foods we eat, what books we read, etc. Those things shape us, but I believe it is our priorities that show what sort of shape we've been made into, if that makes sense.

For the past three years, I've been meaning to find lucrative employment of some sort. Being a teenager without a stable source of transportation, I necessarily fell back on the classic job of teenagers everywhere: fast food or bagger at a local grocery store. Of course, I find neither of these options particularly thrilling. Actually, they don't attract me at all. The only real job that actually appeals to me on any level is opening a coffee shop or working at a second-hand bookstore that doesn't see much business, that way I can spend most of my time curled up in a corner reading books I've never seen before. That is my dream job.

Actually, I lied. My actual dream job is somehow earning money by traveling. I wish I could get paid for just going places. I wish a paycheck would materialize in my bank account just because I traveled to the Great Wall or went to see the Tower of London or a Mayan pyramid. I wish spending time with the kids at my Good News Clubs would bring in a paycheck.

Basically, I just wish I could subsist on love itself. I wish that all of those times when I'm so deliriously happy that time could freeze and I wouldn't mind at all could somehow be transformed into everything I need to survive. I wish that God would work a miracle for me and birds would bring me food every morning, wherever I am.

My priorities have never been with making money. Yes, I understand money is important. I know it's necessary. I'm learning that more and more as I get older, as I'm suddenly about to graduate and turn eighteen and leave my family and look for life's purpose. I'm realizing that, someday, I'll get married and there will be kids and a house payment and a car to put gas into and utilities to pay and clothes to buy and animals to feed and doctor bills to be paid and responsibilities and little minds to shape. I'm realizing that life can't ever be like I want it to be.

But I still can't force my mind to really wrap itself around that concept. I still want to just set out one day, and just walk across Europe with a camera and a notebook and just write down everything I see and take pictures of people that are going about their lives and will, at some point, wonder what in the world this crazy ginger woman is doing taking pictures of them. I want to go places and meet new friends and learn new languages and get laughed at when I can't pronounce simple words properly. I want to experience every culture on earth and find true love and see a child find a true home and kiss the face of orphans all over the world and adopt one of them--or ten of them.

I want Christ to be my number one priority. I never want a job and the pursuit of money to mean more to me than that. I want to be able to leave everything at the drop of a hat and simply go somewhere because I feel like I should. I want to be able to go dance in a meadow at completely random times just because life feels so good and it would be a shame to waste it.

I never want to be one of those stuffy people who are so set in their ways that they can't live. That they can't breathe. That they can't see beyond what they themselves have seen. I want the world to be my backyard.

Most of all, I simply want to spend every moment being, and being for a purpose. I want to be for the cause of Christ. That is my priority, and I like to think it always has been and always will be. That is who I am, and what I will be.

- Kyla Denae

open doors

I hear so many Christians say they're pro-life. That they don't want young women to get abortions. That abortion is the most heinous thing that anyone can do. I would agree, in some aspects. I agree that abortion is terrible. But I have to wonder, just a little, what people actually do to help make the situation better.

Do they think that lobbying the government to make laws against it will stop it?

I predict that outlawing it will do just as much as posting a link about stopping Kony on Facebook.

Do they think that somehow telling the government it should stop will make young women magically have other options?

Yes, and we all eat rainbows and ride unicorns to work every day.

And so, without the government to help us, what is left? Why, simply what has always been here: people. People banded together for a purpose, people who know what they want to effect in the world and who will, come hell or high water, make it happen. People who are willing to look past the outer and see the inner. People who are willing to do what Jesus did and help people no matter their current position.

That is why my door will always be open to anyone who needs help and a listening ear. Who needs more help in our society than young women who have no one else to turn to, and helpless children that bear the brunt of societal pressures because of their origin?

I call for all those who claim the label of pro-life to do the same.

- Kyla Denae