All about Love. ❤️🙏🏻🕯

Love. This is a topic that has meaning for us all.  Love can be a warm fuzzy, but it can also be something that is hurtful. This episode we talk about what love is and isn't.  We discuss how love has changed us personally and how differently we define it today. 

a queer chaplain 
Helping to lace one’s narrative with a spiritual thread.

Big shout out and Thank you to our monthly supporters. With your support we can continue to bring and upgrade Splintered Grace Podcast quality and reach.

To learn more or to join our Patreon go to patreon.com/bonnieviolet

a queer chaplain 
Helping to lace one’s n

Engage! Rate, Follow, Subscribe & Share
Book ME! - Keynote, Panel, Guest on Show, Officiate Wedding /Memorial in/out of drag.
Collaborate! - Join Team, Guest, Make a Pitch
Sponsor! Patreon, Venmo, PayPal

Transcript

0:03
[Music]
0:14
is [Music]
0:28
me [Music]
0:36
hi there how's it going good morning everybody welcome welcome to splintered brace or
0:42
splinter brace splintered it's gonna be one of those
0:47
mornings i think it's monday it's monday welcome to splintered grace my name is
0:53
bonnie violet and i'm a transgender drag queen and this is hi everybody i'm
0:59
tina frank and i'm a mature conservative christian and just in case you didn't know i'm
1:04
also a gardener so welcome we're happy to have you guys with us this morning and definitely how was your weekend
1:13
it was it was nice i was trying to think if there was really anything great to report the weather was kind of like off and on
1:20
icky this weekend so just spend a lot of time at home you know
1:25
i hope that means we'll get some of that icky we had we had cooler weather but it was still nice out
1:30
and i don't mind the nice except for it's february and now in arizona it's gonna get hotter
1:37
quicker i'm afraid so i'd like to have a few more cold days so i hope some of that comes my way right because you start getting warm by
1:43
like april huh or no no no no no we're going to have 80s next week
1:48
oh well hey i'm not ready i only be i mean i love the 80s i love the 70s but
1:54
i just know that after that then comes the 90s and the hundreds and i'm not ready for any of that
2:00
so if i can delay those 70s and 80s my hope is that those i'll delay those 90s and hundreds
2:05
yeah anyway how many how was your weekend i had a good weekend um i'm blessed
2:13
because my husband got to have a long weekend uh so friday saturday sunday and he's off today as well
2:20
so that's always nice to get to have a little bit of extra time you know we're all chasing after the the work that we do so
2:26
that's been nice we've been able to work on some projects at home and do a few extras so that's what's really wonderful
2:32
nice yeah we we enjoy that you know life can be busy sometimes and
2:38
to be able to just have a break and work on some things that we want to do not things that we have to do it's really just kind of nice
2:46
definitely so did you do anything for valentine's day i know some people are
2:52
calling it different things there's valentine's day there's single awareness day for single folks
2:57
for me i just call it love day but i hadn't heard of single awareness that's kind of cool um
3:04
you know we we we don't do much we did we did uh cook something special
3:10
um at home we're not we're not big on going out to restaurants on valentine's day so we we cooked and
3:16
did something special but something that we always try to do on valentine's day is to um not make it about us as a couple but
3:23
make it about the people around us that we love so we spent some extra time yesterday just reaching out to people
3:30
digitally or phone or whatever we could do to just say hey we love you happy valentine's day um because i
3:37
remember growing up i hated valentine's day unless it met the certain criteria that i
3:44
thought it should meet so i've been trying to break out of that mold the whole rest of my life yeah yeah so and
3:52
it's kind of nice and i think people some people are surprised by it and because they're not expecting it um
3:58
i'll just give you an example if you don't mind um we went to uh church yesterday uh our church does meet
4:05
on sunday mornings now we're very conscious of all that we all have our mass on and we do our social distancing
4:11
so we don't want to we want to make sure that we're responsible but we realize that there are some people that really need to have
4:17
a physical interaction um because the digital is really not not working for them the way it should so it
4:23
creates an opportunity there because not a lot of people come just a few people that really need to be outside their four walls i think
4:29
but it was cool because we targeted and i say targeted just because i just wanted to make sure that i i
4:35
wanted people to not feel alone on valentine's day knowing what that used to feel like for me
4:41
and so i just made sure that anyone that i knew was a widow anyone who's a single parent i went over
4:47
and said hello an extra hello and said hey how are you today it's so good to see you
4:53
um i don't know that's just my little my little part i guess no that's really kind thing to do these
4:58
holidays can i think that's why single awareness day is what it's been coined by single people because it's a day that like
5:05
you're reminded some people are gonna take that in a good way and other people might be like a little sad about it
5:15
yeah yeah yeah so yeah anyway so anyway that's what we did
5:21
yesterday and and i will say my husband is a mean cook on the grill yeah so um yeah we were able to uh score some
5:29
swordfish yesterday oh my goodness it was so good so we stayed home and we cooked on the
5:35
grill and um enjoyed our beautiful day nice and uh and celebrated so anyway it was fun nice
5:43
nice yeah i just decided it was the day of love and i was just gonna try to like
5:48
keep that in mind myself i didn't do a lot of like active like reaching out but for myself i just was reminded of like
5:54
i don't know just love it just in general you know yeah yeah that's awesome yeah yeah
6:01
so i wonder what everyone else was doing did you anyway i'm looking at the comments here i don't see anybody
6:07
and everybody's quiet today well maybe everyone's off work today
6:12
and so they're like sleeping in a little bit that'd be great doing other things yes all the
6:18
president's day sales isn't that today presents day oh yeah it is president's day so yeah and like for
6:25
for today too it's also so it's my mother's birthday and it's my two nephews birthdays oh
6:32
yeah it's your mom's birthday i forget sometimes with the all the little kids we have in our family how blessed are we
6:40
and i just lose track sometimes of all the extra birthdays outside of my own little little brood here yeah so that's awesome
6:46
so what a day of celebration yeah yeah you know um spencer i mean xander will be
6:51
six uh why oh my goodness why it would have been eight if i'm recalling correctly and
6:58
mom's the big six zero oh my god
7:03
wow like i was saying before we we logged on or got in other people's birthdays are
7:08
starting to have an effect on me right i don't seem to care about my
7:13
numbers personally but in comparison to the people around me i'm like wait a second
7:19
if they're 60 that means that i must be and it's just crazy
7:25
i can't believe those little boys that are so little that i remember being so little where six yeah
7:33
school are they in school it's in school yeah yeah oh my goodness yeah anyway yes
7:40
happy birthday donna birthday yeah and
7:47
it is yeah like i'm i'm going to be 42 in a couple weeks no way i know right it's just weird
7:53
it's weird it's it's a weird number know it's a good thing or a bad thing
7:59
but i don't know i just see people the way i see him you know and i don't i can't think of
8:06
you who's 42 oh my goodness i like impossible i kind of like getting older though like
8:12
i've like as i get older i'm happy with like the age that i'm at like i don't know why but i'm just like
8:18
really good with being in my 40s okay cool i mean
8:23
no i get it i i'm okay being in my 50s so right right just like it's with other people that have those
8:29
numbers i'm like what are you talking about right right yeah well and i'm sure my mom i mean my mom's
8:35
got like you know two kids that well my brother will be 40 this year i think he'll be 40.
8:40
so wow she's got two 40 year old children oh your mom doesn't look 60 so no
8:48
good for her yeah yeah yes so we were thinking we would talk about
8:53
loved well i was we were thinking i guess we would talk about love we do have a
9:00
comment that just came up so i'm going to go ahead and read it um anita woodward says valentine's was
9:06
super special as a child my mother made it super fun for us we made our own cards out of paper
9:12
dollies we made cookies and candies and played games growing up in the 70s was awesome it
9:17
came full circle for me to do it with my children and now they're adults and hopefully hopefully they will continue
9:24
that is amazing i love that i wish i would have thought of that when my kids were small we did some other
9:30
things but not that that much that's wonderful yeah i was trying to think like at home like i don't know when i
9:36
remember valentine's growing up it's you know like at school you know you pass out the little
9:41
valentine cards to everyone you know that sort of thing but mom's birthday with mom's birthday being
9:47
so close to valentine's i was always confused like which day was which because sometimes it felt like we
9:52
celebrated on valentine's and other times it was not so i always feel like i get confused every year oh that's funny
9:59
that's fine yeah i remember that you remember we had to bring a shoe box from home so you can decorate it and put all the
10:04
valentines in i don't think they do that anymore our little mailbox or whatever yeah yeah i don't think they do that anymore
10:10
at least i don't remember my grandkids telling me they've done that yeah i don't know
10:17
what a great memory what a great tradition to to send down the family that's wonderful
10:22
yeah yeah that's really cool well so what do you think i think of how
10:28
do we define love i think that's maybe a good place to start you know what what does love look like to us we both had shared previously that
10:36
um love is different for us now as adults and it was when we were kids what's so different you think
10:41
well i think i think the understanding that there are different depths and experiences with
10:47
love you know i think i think when you grow up i think maybe when you grow up or maybe when i was younger i thought there
10:53
was only a certain way that love happened and a certain way that love showed up
10:59
you know and so i think you know like this might sound whatever but i've loved i've had many of
11:06
lovers in my life like romantic partners that i would say that i loved them
11:11
um but i loved them all probably a little differently you know what i mean um i think there is something that's
11:18
almost more i don't know i wonder if every love that we have with another person is different
11:24
like i wonder if any love any two loves is the same oh
11:29
i guess i guess it depends on where the root of love comes from well yeah well i feel like so much of
11:35
love though there's like an intimacy to it there's a there's a sharing there's a vulnerability and i think
11:41
um that is probably unique between two people given their own experiences and how
11:47
you're going to react to theirs and vice versa and so maybe it would make everybody's
11:53
love unique you know like the love that i have with you is different than you know the love that maybe i would
11:59
have with another aunt not because it's better or worse but just because we're like two different people
12:05
yeah yeah that's good i don't no i i think that's good uh you know
12:12
love is defined by so many um i don't know parameters i guess
12:18
uh people people receive it and and i i feel sad when people can only define it by an emotion
12:25
so what you're describing i think is not that which is amazing because my definition of love is that
12:33
it's something that we choose and just like you and i have chosen to
12:38
love each other and the intimacy that we have now hasn't always been our life
12:44
you know um so i really think that love is defined first as
12:49
a choice a choice that we make to include someone else in our life so i
12:55
think there's a lot to be said about that and intimacy comes um and i don't know exactly this is how you
13:02
meant it but to me intimacy really has nothing to do with um [Music]
13:07
love actually it depends on the intimacy there's an intimacy that's an emotional intimacy there's an intimacy that's
13:13
about touch and so i think when we talk about intimacy we need to define what that
13:18
is so that when we're talking about love as a whole to see that comes with it is different i
13:24
think yeah but it's like is it there's the touch of the the body but there's also the touch of the heart
13:30
there's the touch of the mind there's the touch of so many other things that i think yeah that's probably
13:36
what maybe intimacy is is that touch of those those parts of ourselves
13:41
i i agree i agree so but i think sometimes we only pursue the intimacy of the physical touch and i
13:48
feel like we we can take on that if we don't have that then we feel like we're lacking and that's not true
13:53
yeah well i think well and that's like i mean even though we weren't like as close as
13:59
we are now did we stop loving each other i don't think so so it's like the way that we express maybe
14:07
expressed love was different but i don't think that you know i didn't stop loving you yeah i
14:13
didn't stop loving you either anita had a question do we love
14:18
differently because everyone's personality is different so we base it off of
14:23
um individual personalities i say no what do you think what do you
14:29
think um i think yeah i mean i think that
14:36
yes i think it's i think it's i think it is different a little bit um i think there's a uniqueness to it um
14:44
whether or not it's like super different i do think that there's like a uniqueness to it
14:50
i think the characteristics of our response can be unique but i think the love in
14:55
itself is is uh the same right so love is love
15:00
yeah and it's a choice yeah yeah you know what i mean and and and love is something that we pursue
15:06
even if we're angry at someone or even if we're offended by someone we can still choose to love that person
15:12
and to and to continue the the uh relationship may change
15:18
based on what that looks like but yeah i i say that the love doesn't change the interactions may
15:24
change but the love doesn't change because you know just like hugging someone not everyone likes to be hugged
15:30
i'm a hugger so it's hard for me to understand that but not everyone likes to be hugged but i can still love them without without that
15:36
interaction good question anita thanks so much for that
15:42
yeah and she said she said i love that emotional intimacy i need it all me too
15:49
yes we need it all and i feel like but i feel like you know i think i hear a lot of and i think this
15:55
jumps a little bit into that like the need of love or whatever you know i am i recently decided that
16:02
this year i was going to focus on accepting love in whatever form it comes because
16:09
i feel like i've maybe not allowed myself to receive love
16:14
because i i wanted it to show up in a certain way and if it didn't show up in a certain way then it wasn't really love
16:22
um and i think that there is a nuance because i think sometimes we can experience love and or think
16:27
we're experiencing love and it's abuse um but i'm not talking about that i'm just talking about the sense of like
16:34
um somebody loving me but not being able to
16:39
i don't know like um show up for me in a way that i would like whether it's
16:45
like i feel like i can't share all of myself with them or they're not showing up in my life on
16:51
the regular or they're not calling and asking me how i am that those those used to be
16:56
things for me that would say signal to me that you love me um
17:02
but that's not always like if that's all i'm looking for i'm probably going to like go without
17:09
because everyone kind of expresses love differently and um differently throughout life
17:16
too you know i feel like there's times when i might be really good at one action to say that i love you but that action
17:23
might go away at some point i mean that doesn't mean i stop loving you um
17:28
but yeah i don't know it's i think that there's a lot of i don't know um depth to love i guess
17:37
oh i would definitely agree with you there i would definitely agree with you there now as as i've grown up from that young kid
17:44
who thought that love was all about having a boyfriend or a girlfriend or whatever that was
17:50
um i realized as i became a believer in christ that the bible gives
17:56
us a great definition of love and how it's supposed to what it's supposed to look like and now if i and if you don't mind i'm
18:03
going to share i pulled a couple a couple of my favorite verses because i share these because this is
18:08
my testimony you know i can't tell you what looking for what i
18:14
thought love should look like um how it how it um negatively affected
18:22
who i was personally and and not that that pursuit was wrong but the way just like you had were just
18:28
talking about i had a specific idea of what that be to look like and unfortunately um during times like this
18:36
during valentine's day and things like that the world embraces an ideal of what that
18:41
scene needs to look like yeah not their fault they're just trying to sell some stuff totally again i totally get it but when
18:49
we get caught up in all that stuff um it can rob from us because now we
18:54
have uh fault size ideas of what things should look like and like you said we
18:59
miss we miss some opportunities that that were intended for us so as i became to know jesus as my lord and
19:07
savior and started to read my bible um i ran onto the scripture and i'm gonna just share it i'm gonna i wrote it
19:12
down because um i want to say it right because i'm really good at paraphrasing and i don't want to do that because
19:18
i i want it to come out exactly the way i received it so it's in first john chapter 4 verse 8
19:25
and it says whoever does not love does not know god that was hard for me because my
19:32
definition of love that put a lot of pressure on me yeah the rest of that scripture says because
19:37
god is love and i thought oh my goodness
19:43
i've never defined god as love and for as i've grown as a as a
19:50
christian woman i've always challenged with that if god is love what does that
19:55
need to look like in my life and it's been amazing to me how what
20:01
only that that changed my perspective okay so you know what i don't need love from you
20:06
i have love from god and i didn't need to learn how to receive that love from god and then all
20:11
these things and this criteria i have doesn't become as important now i'm still going to have to work through some
20:17
of that stuff because that's just who we are as people but if i can use that as my baseline
20:24
and move forward oh my gosh i can't tell you how free that was i can't tell you how free and that was
20:29
and then as i got mature and if you'd um god trusted me with some other
20:35
scripture as i was reading my bible and uh i ran on to first corinthians i think i was
20:40
um probably in the process of uh maybe even marrying somebody
20:46
i didn't always have this idea yeah well i knew god was love but i didn't have all this ideas so
20:52
it was later in life so is first corinthians 13 4 and 5 and it says um
21:00
love is patience patience exactly right love is love is kind love
21:06
is kind it does not envy it does not boast
21:12
it is not proud it is not rude it is not self-seeking it is not easily
21:20
angered and it keeps no record of wrongs wow what a what a road map now if i'm
21:27
going to say when i've said this a hundred times um in our conversations and on air as well that i want to be loved
21:35
i want to love people so when i say that this is what i'm saying that's how you
21:41
do it yeah and i need to be okay with that well here's the problem i'm not really great at all these things
21:47
so this is an area that i'm asking god to help me to grow in but to gain some perspective on on what love
21:55
it is the fact that i get to choose it because i can choose to serve god or not yeah and i get to choose that every
22:01
single day i can make a commitment to god yesterday but i have to renew that commitment today
22:07
if i don't then i can be outside of what god's law is and if i'm willing to allow god to
22:13
change me so that i can show it to you that's a whole nother ball game yeah so
22:19
anyway thanks for letting me share this my testimony of how i found and realized what god
22:25
and what love is so that i found a baseline and i can't tell you the peace that it's brought me over the years and
22:31
then forgot to entrust me with okay now you have it let me show you how to share it
22:37
right and how how how people to see that in you and and be drawn to the fact that
22:42
you love them and all this other criteria aside if i can do these things
22:47
then if i forget to call you i hope i'll have some grace right for sure yeah yeah yeah and like for me
22:53
it's you know part of my process of you know god in the beginning when i first started kind of seeking a
22:59
relationship with like spirituality and god and higher power concepts because
23:05
i was pretty hurt um initially so i had a really hard time um accepting like your god
23:12
um as like a god in my life and so in a lot of circles some people refer to
23:17
god as good orderly direction or um a gift of desperation
23:23
to me i know i had a moment like the way that god came into my life again or spirituality came into my life
23:29
was because i needed it you know like i needed i needed um i needed help and i needed
23:35
assistance like i i realized that i just could not do it alone um and and there was no need
23:42
for me to do it alone so i think like and so in the beginning god for me was just god was love so
23:50
if god is love then everything that is done with love is god so so that was like how i kind of would
23:57
determine how i would live my life if i if if god like if i were to have love
24:04
or if i were to put love over this situation what kind of actions would i take what
24:11
would i do what wouldn't i do those sorts of things so for me a lot of times still god or my
24:18
understanding of god or my utilization of god in my everyday life
24:23
is to kind of filter that you know to take love put it over the situation
24:29
and and it tells me what i do um and that helps me with politics that helps me with family and
24:34
it doesn't fix it like as i know what the loving action is
24:40
does not necessarily mean i'm gonna be able to take it um but i feel like that's what i feel
24:46
like that's how god can always be love in the sense that i can put it on top of something and
24:52
come out on the other end of it right a little bit better if i seek love through that situation yeah i agree this
24:59
is an opportunity for us to grow into these and all those things you mentioned about about god are all the characteristics of
25:05
who he is so every person that said all those things to you is correct yeah it's something something i'm um
25:12
learning and understanding and you guys feel free to um correct me because i don't think i know everything
25:18
but something i feel like i'm learning is that if i believe that god is love if someone
25:26
offends me that doesn't know jesus or that doesn't believe that god is love
25:33
is it fair for me to hold them to the same accountability as i do to someone who says that they
25:39
know jesus as their lord and savior yeah and i really realized that over my life
25:45
that i have chosen to be offended by people who don't have the ability to
25:51
love me because they don't understand who god is right or they don't have this they don't
25:58
have the same language right they don't have the same currency or the same ability
26:04
to connect with you and show you in the same way i i feel like i have a hard time hearing
26:11
that people don't have a city to love if they don't they all have the capacity to love
26:17
yeah but but the love of god is different than the love of the world
26:23
right i hear that for sure so so for me to hold into a standard of god's love when they don't love god
26:29
is unfair right it's a different understanding of of love and how love plays out in the world right yeah what
26:35
do you mean yeah no that makes i mean that makes a lot of
26:41
sense to me um and my and oftentimes the way that i see god
26:47
is or the way that i experience god is with my connection with others
26:53
you know i'm reminded of love i'm reminded of god higher power the divine however
26:59
people want to label these things or words they choose um you know like i often sometimes see
27:06
glimpses and notice god when i'm in relationship with others because
27:12
they reveal it to me they either reveal it by acting as if for themselves you know
27:19
like for showing love for showing grace for showing kindness for being honest um or
27:26
people can also reflect back to me how i am living um living into that as well yeah yeah
27:34
yeah that's amazing and i think relationship like like our relationship and the
27:39
relationships that we have i think those are opportunities for us to um experience love and to grow in love
27:46
you know our capacity for love i think needs to be on ongoing growth you know we always need to be
27:53
pursuing an opportunity to grow in love looks like my little brother um hey
28:00
he popped in here james says so um so if you have if you have no love is your heart um
28:08
if you have no love in your heart what does that mean what does that mean i yeah i mean
28:15
i think that it's a lie in the sense of that i don't think it's
28:21
true i think that we do have love within us but i feel like because we've been hurt we've been harmed because we're in so
28:28
much pain because we're so disconnected from our heart that we don't know that it's there and
28:35
that's and and that i think that a lot of us get to that space um where i know that i've been in that space
28:41
where i felt like i didn't have any love in me and i couldn't receive any love and and
28:46
a lot of that had come out of failed relationships um disappointments
28:53
times when i failed times when i didn't show up in a way that i wanted to and i just had to kind of like heal some
29:00
of those things so that i could get to a space in which i could connect with my heart again and allow others to connect with my
29:06
heart too so i say that in like in a lie in the sense of
29:12
it's like it can be somebody's experience so it's real but um it doesn't like i think it's in
29:18
there it's just being able to find a place in which we could break ourselves open and let some of it
29:26
out and we have to remember that that love is love is stable
29:32
you know and when we're when and and i say that only because life is unstable
29:38
so when we can find that stable space in in love and sometimes it has to be love for who
29:44
we are ourselves yes and and if we can find that stability and the love that we have for
29:49
ourselves and we can look at that in a lot of ways i know for me i had to look at first at okay i had to find some stuff in me that was
29:55
good that i could equate to love for myself that's not exactly the the long-term goal but that's that's a good starting
30:02
point and finding ourselves something that that that we love you know i was a single parent for a lot of years
30:09
for a lot of different reasons that we don't need to share right now maybe another time but there were moments when i felt lost i
30:16
didn't feel loved i was unstable and i had to remind myself that okay i'm okay i'm taking care of my kids
30:23
i'm working hard i have a desire to do the right thing but the important thing is that i had to find other people
30:30
that were already founded and grounded in a love that could share that with me in a positive way so that i wasn't always
30:37
looking at what i didn't have and the negatives and the experience the negative experiences that i had up to
30:43
that point and it's really it's it's not easy but i think there's a i think you're right the love that we
30:49
think we have or that we we feel or that or that we get from the world is a lie
30:55
if we can find a foundational love that's based on truth and and sometimes it's the truth of what
31:01
we're experiencing or what we need that's a good starting point and then to engage other people that have a
31:08
true stable truth uh pure love that can help you
31:14
focus on those things yeah well and i feel like i don't and this is like my if i look at my like progression of love
31:21
love was something that i used to seek from others in order for me to feel love
31:28
um and then i got to a point where unfortunately i couldn't get the love that i felt i
31:35
needed from other people anymore um and i needed to get to a space to where and
31:41
then for me i feel like that's where god came in that's where i started to experience god or some sort of spirituality
31:48
something outside of myself that wasn't people because people will let you down
31:54
people will hurt you you know and so um so that's just the reality of it so i mean i really only have a higher power a
32:00
belief in something outside of us because god i just hope that it's there because i can't rely on
32:07
us to like always make me feel um full of love or whatever you know and
32:14
then i feel like once there was that process now i'm at the place where i can love who i am i can love everything about me and
32:21
now i'm at a space again where where maybe i can trust loving others and and receiving their
32:27
love as well so i mean i feel like that's just been my trajectory of like going out and then hiding it or not
32:35
getting it and then going to like something bigger than me which was drugs and alcohol for a while and eventually
32:41
it became god you know um and then you know and then now i'm just kind of working on me
32:47
and now i have been working on me and now i'm at that point where i'm actually trying to
32:52
to connect with others yeah be a vessel be a vessel of love for the people around you
32:58
anita says uh it's hard to let love in when you have built a barrier made of past heartaches also even harder
33:05
to let love out that's good that's a good strong word anita thanks for sharing that with us
33:12
and i think often what it takes is a breaking um and it's not a breaking
33:18
apart you know i think a lot of times um the gift of desperation they've said you know
33:23
i had to reach so much pain and so much and i don't know if it has to be this
33:28
way but i had to reach so much pain and feel so like uncertain and whatever
33:35
for me to kind of break and oftentimes i felt like i was breaking apart like i
33:41
was falling apart but this was actually breaking open and i was breaking open
33:46
in a way in which i could let something else in um that that um i couldn't do before but i
33:52
had to break in order to like let something in and so i don't hope that that's not the process
33:59
that we have to like break and be in so much pain um i don't know to sometimes i think it's
34:06
necessary yeah you know and it's you're right it's it's no fun bug says finding your tribe
34:13
is amazing is amazing yeah and then marcus hey sis
34:19
what were you doing when you felt passionate and alive most passionate and alive
34:26
do you want to go first you go ahead okay well to me passion
34:34
doesn't have anything to do with love passion is a fruit of love when you find that
34:40
right person or the right group of people because i can be passionate about a lot of different people in a lot of different ways so to
34:47
me passion is not love you know i can be passionate about what i do for a living i can be passionate
34:53
about you know feeding the homeless to so to me passion is is a fruit of of love so when i find
35:01
that i'm the most passionate and alive it's actually um when i'm doing
35:06
the and fulfilling the purpose that god's given me and that would be for me not only um
35:13
loving on my family and those people that god puts close to me but being able to use my gifts and
35:19
talents inside my church or when i'm in a praise and worship session
35:25
church or with other believers where we're just pursuing who god is that's when i find myself the
35:30
most passionate and alive yeah and also more willing to
35:36
do the hard stuff you know what i mean yeah it's easy to do that when you're when
35:41
you're when you're feeling the passion and you're feeling the life you know you can kind of push through
35:46
some of those more challenging things yeah yeah the thing i think about like you know like
35:52
when you felt most like alive and for me i feel like oftentimes i use the terminology and a
35:58
lot of queer folks do the idea of getting getting my life or getting life for some from something so
36:04
when i feel like whatever i'm doing is is causing again causing me to lift up
36:09
and causing me to be excited about living and life and being a part of the world and you know
36:15
the first things that kind of come to mind for me was um i used to really love dancing on the
36:21
dance floor and that was a time that for me i felt like i was really alive and i could just let loose and at that
36:28
time drugs were part of that but because it allowed me to just kind of let go and just be free and just live
36:35
live my best life and do whatever felt good in that moment and i can still do that now without like drugs and alcohol but for
36:42
whatever reason i i needed something to knock me around a little bit so i could just open up and
36:47
not be so uptight you know and just kind of be loose so i mean like yeah and i'm like being able to
36:54
connect with somebody in a really meaningful way like that gives me life that helps me
36:59
give like gives me a passion to to want to do more of something or
37:05
as well so one of the things that came up for me um marcus how about you do you want to
37:12
share what um what you were doing when you felt most passionate and alive
37:17
um as we maybe wait for that answer i was curious um does does love hurt
37:23
[Music] are you asking me or are you asking everybody yeah
37:30
does love hurt oh sure um and i think um does love have to hurt
37:37
i think yeah i think so and and when you say hurt i think there's different levels of hurt i think with love comes
37:44
accountability [Music] and so i can lovingly hold you
37:50
accountable just like you can lovingly hold me accountable but i'm not going to be comfortable in that accountability
37:56
and it could be even something and you probably experienced that when you started deciding that you didn't want to
38:01
do drugs and alcohol anymore there was an accountability piece that you had to go through but it was a loving accountability but it wasn't fun
38:08
it hurt probably and it was hard and and it took relationships away because you
38:15
didn't want to have those relationships around you that were going to engage in those things you didn't want to anymore so yeah i think so even after we've
38:23
worked through some of that hard stuff if we're truly in pursuit of our best
38:28
the best person that we can be the best creation that god created there's going to be some more of that that has to
38:34
happen because none of us are there yet yeah so i i say the short answer is yes
38:42
right the the the hope then the encouragement is that god has promised that he'll be with us
38:48
every step of the way so as hard as it is his baseline of love is always going to be there and
38:55
ready to fill in those spaces as we'll allow it and as we tap into right like love is a sense of like the
39:02
hurt for healing um i think you know there's and so i think that's the thing that we learn
39:08
i think that is told to us is that love is just easy it feels great all the time it's
39:14
like you know what i mean and and so love does hurt but love is also not abusive so i think that's also something
39:21
to kind of keep in mind too is that you know because you're in pain in a relationship or situation
39:27
doesn't always mean it's okay is it is it a pain that's helping you heal is it a pain that's helping you grow
39:33
is it growing pain or is it you know not not good pain no it's not exactly
39:40
and and that's i think a discernment that we all build as we come to those those places
39:45
so yeah yeah definitely yeah i mean i feel yeah i mean if and yeah like there's a
39:52
part of me that like wants to be like do we have to hurt to heal do we have to
39:58
do we have to be in pain to do we have to suffer in order to like experience
40:04
gratitude and um joy you know what i mean like it feels like there's i've had to have those
40:11
experiences in order to have those other experiences but it's like there's a shorter route yeah well i
40:19
i will say though it seems like i have less of a tolerance as i get older so like i have a less
40:26
tolerance for pain so i can't do a lot of the same things that i did before
40:31
because i just can't deal with the pain and like i get hurt a lot easier which is helpful because then it causes
40:37
me to stop like to stop that thing or to change my direction
40:42
a lot sooner and at first it felt really weird because i used to just like
40:48
do and get over stuff and it was just like whatever and now it's just like it's it's
40:53
sometimes harder i'm almost more sensitive but but that's a gift if i yes like it's a
40:59
way of my body and my spirit telling me that there's something not
41:05
yeah well here like make some adjustments do something different yeah that's that's called becoming a
41:12
mature person right well it's uncomfortable
41:17
yeah well my hope is i mean i feel like you know i'm like a big fan of like the kingdom of god like
41:23
we're trying you know like the idea of getting to heaven without anyone else taking anyone else with me or i also
41:29
feel like part of the goal is to create heaven on earth as as we live as best we can and as
41:35
humans live longer we pass on hopefully to the next generation a little less pain and a little less
41:41
struggle so that hopefully maybe maybe they will be able to experience love
41:46
uh maybe they won't ever need to be healed wouldn't that be amazing wouldn't that be interesting yeah
41:52
marcus has a comment um marcus says showing acts of kindness without recognition humility at its best
42:00
agreed agrees wisdom marcus yeah humility is is such a um
42:08
one of those words it's one of the million dollar words that can be interesting to define it's right
42:16
up there with submission isn't it yeah well i think humility though
42:22
gets a let's say bad rap i think that some people only take their understanding of humility so far
42:29
i think a lot of people see humility like friend i will say i thought i was humble
42:34
because i wore cheap clothing i i didn't try to get to make too much money
42:39
you know what i mean like i stayed humble in the sense of i stayed small or i tried to stay small and try
42:46
not to be bigger than i was humility is about being right sized and sometimes that actually means that
42:53
you're meant to be bigger and that and stepping into that biggerness biggerness
43:01
i'm not i'm not the only one who's there right but that's also humility like that's the
43:07
other side of humility is being able to step into into that bigness and in that
43:12
bigness for me that's where god is you know like like i can only fully be in my business when i am
43:18
connect when it's not just me basically that's right um but i feel like that's where i'm called
43:25
now is to try to be in a in business and it's not in a bigness isn't taking up more space
43:32
it's just like it's in fulfilling the purpose god intended for you yeah well and even if i think about it
43:39
it's just being more integrated being more connected with my whole self instead of parts of myself and that that
43:46
doesn't make me physically bigger or like but it but it makes me
43:51
more connected with myself which allows me to experience myself more fully
43:59
okay right i i she sometimes just puts on these things
44:07
i'm not sure i was tracking completely but right it sounded really great
44:14
i'm sorry i was like i'm too i think i'm too simple-minded for but i'm not saying it's wrong i'm
44:20
just saying i had never considered it and i had lost lost track of it so no no
44:26
i'm not sure what what they're saying what is she saying
44:31
play back that tape yeah we'll be listening to that later going okay go deeper for me because i'm just not
44:38
sure i don't understand so anyway that's awesome well liz says um hi tuning in for a second love y'all hi liz
44:47
thanks for tuning in we appreciate you i guess in the idea of humility of stepping into
44:52
like a full a bigness is also just fuller like and for me like i think it's around being integrated because there's been
44:58
parts of my life where i've only lived in a part of myself like i've focused on say my sexuality or
45:05
or i focused on my spirituality or i focused on my job or i mean and those are just things that are coming to mind
45:11
but like getting to a space where you can have all those things at the same time and that you don't have to not do
45:18
one with the other does that mean you know yeah that says that says that that makes a little more sense yeah
45:24
because i want to be all of who i am wherever i am i don't want to be interested
45:29
exactly which is also integrity right it's a whole another big word lost in that well last flow so i
45:37
but thank you yeah taking the time to explain it to me because i understand now
45:42
okay yeah there was a little bit of like a um disconnection there for a second but
45:48
yeah i had i had a buffering on my screen i'm like okay well i'm just going to keep talking
45:54
sure oh so awesome yeah any other thoughts on love
46:06
i desire it ah i think i admire it i even desire a romantic love which is
46:12
something that i hadn't i kind of gave up on and so um and and just because i have
46:20
the desire for it doesn't mean it's gonna happen but i realized that and maybe it's kind of a little bit of like what james was
46:26
saying um in that idea like i gave up on the idea that i could have the romantic love
46:32
because i'd been hurt so many times i felt like i was unlovable i felt like i couldn't
46:38
show up in a way that somebody would love me in a way that i would want um which was all it's not true
46:47
but that's what i had to tell myself in order to be okay with not having it you know and once
46:55
i've been able to kind of get to myself and reveal i can i can say you know what i do have the desire
47:00
to have romantic love um and and maybe that'll happen um and i
47:06
believe that because i'm open to it it's more likely to happen than if i'm not which
47:11
makes total sense right so but it took me a little while to just admit that
47:17
yeah actually i do want to experience romantic love i don't need it um i would like it um and that's okay
47:25
because i think there was also a part of me that thought it was not good to have that kind of a desire
47:31
yeah say that i'm glad you're sad it's sad to say but
47:36
it um like it's sad for me to think about that now um but it was
47:43
it was where i was at so i get it oh just let me let me uh encourage you and anyone else
47:49
who's listening with all these things available for on how to find that perfect someone
47:56
i i just really believe and and it happened to me pursue the thing that
48:02
god's put in you and that person will present themselves in the middle of it
48:08
i i really feel like sometimes when we're out seeking that outside of what we do normally that
48:15
sometimes we get someone who doesn't enhance us we get someone who competes against us
48:20
yeah and i i really think that when we come together in in unity as a couple
48:27
especially that we need to be with people with someone who um champions the things that are in us
48:33
they don't have to be exactly like us they don't have to have the same dreams and hopes but they're going to champion that in us
48:39
you're in turn going to champion that in them and together those dreams are going to come together and they're both going to be intertwined
48:46
and successful as you come together as a unit so i just encourage you and anyone who's listening
48:51
don't look outside your normal passionate life that you have and those things that you desire and are pursuing
48:58
um to find that person because that person person's gonna be right in front of you when you're ready like you said you may not have been
49:04
ready but now you can actually say it you can actually give voice to it and you're okay if it happens or not to me
49:11
that's like okay that's definitely a an opportunity or a sign that you're ready to move forward
49:16
with a healthy strong relationship with whoever meets that criteria i don't hate
49:22
criteria but yeah i know i know what you mean though yeah it's like i'm i'm able to receive
49:28
a fuller you know again it's kind of like a you know i've settled for i've settled
49:34
for plenty of not so great romantic relationships and and it's not a value statement really
49:40
it's just like i'm i'm looking for something different to experience now than what i have in
49:47
the past um anita says ugh i don't want to leave but i have to go to work i'm so grateful
49:54
to be a part of this discussion thank you for spreading your love this is what my heart needs to progress
50:00
better than therapy big hugs from snowy idaho
50:05
thanks anita have a wonderful day at work yes and thanks for joining us we're here
50:12
every week every monday at 10 30 a.m pacific standard time
50:18
there we go like right in there right that's so funny right or if you missed as you can always
50:23
watch us afterwards on youtube twitch or facebook or listening to us on a podcast
50:30
wherever you listen to podcasts at splinteredgrace there i got it in
50:37
so now we don't have to say the thing you have to say it anymore
50:42
awesome all right we have a just about nine more minutes so did you ha i think you had said you want
50:47
you had something you wanted to bring up toward the end is it too soon for that or oh maybe it's just kind of a random
50:53
thought i thought i'd share as we're all just going out our day um i don't know i think it's fun just to
50:59
have something to contemplate uh personally for each one of us as we think about love you know love is such
51:06
an in-depth um i don't know word life culture i don't
51:11
know what it is but love is i don't know it encompasses everything it really it really really does it's
51:18
something that we all seek it's something that we all have to offer and and oh
51:23
you know what let's think about that for for a minute just kind of going back thinking about some things we've talked about
51:28
you know we were talking about um accountability and that love can potentially hurt and
51:33
that um there has to be hurt usually to move forward and grow in love
51:38
and our ability to love i was thinking about i know as a christian uh we're always praying for blessing oh
51:46
it's playing praying to move forward and for these these sometimes they're monetary things sometimes they're not monetary things
51:53
they're they're emotional things or whatever that is and i'm always reminded that along with
51:58
blessing comes a responsibility and i think sometimes when we're
52:03
pursuing love or we're pursuing the what we think love is we forget
52:09
that there's either an accountability or a responsibility that comes with that love and it's we always see the the good stuff
52:17
you know what i mean you don't ever see anything bad on a commercial right you don't see your cancerous lungs
52:23
at the end of the tobacco commercial you know you just see how the all the cool social things that that can do for
52:29
you the fine print yeah yeah with the fine print so i think it's the same kind of
52:34
thing you know it's okay we should desire and we should pursue those things but we have to remember that as we're
52:40
asking for these things including love including um different types of love and including
52:46
just being wanting to be able to give love like we've already just said that we want to do there's a responsibility that comes with
52:52
all of that and if we want to be blessed with the opportunity or the love or that that blessing then we have to also be
52:59
willing to take on the responsibility or the accountability that may come with things that are not
53:04
so wonderful yeah so i feel like the church jargon i know
53:11
we've talked about christianese in the past you know that the the blessing comes
53:16
with responsibility and i think it's important that as we represent um the cultures that we both live in that i
53:23
thought you know i just think it might be good to make a point there that it pursue the blessing all you want but also
53:29
understand the responsibility that comes with it you can't have one without the other and
53:34
so if you're not willing to walk in the responsibility there's a good a good chance you're not going to receive the blessings yeah
53:41
and there's a lot of um uh a lot of the circles i am you in order to keep it you have to give it away
53:47
oh that's true yeah it can't it can't be just yours to keep
53:52
that's a whole other topic right we'll put for me i feel like that's what like
53:57
spirituality is all about it's like that's kind of like the action right
54:03
um but yeah yeah it's not it's not about us that's how i wrap that up oh my life is
54:09
not about me yeah as much as i'd like to think it is right but you are a part of that oh
54:17
i'm a necessary partner god wouldn't have created me right right yeah but if i live only for my
54:22
self-indulgence or self-love to put it in context here
54:28
then i'm i'm not honoring the creation that and the other the other way that i think
54:34
is sometimes and this is just another way of us being selfish or self full
54:40
full of self is like i think sometimes we might think that we're doing something for everybody else um at the
54:47
price of ourselves and that really is also selfish actually it's just it's just the other side of the
54:54
coin yeah that's good um so we can either be so selfish that we're like loving
54:59
ourself and doing all of our stuff or we can be selfish in the sense that we're just doing something for everybody
55:05
else and we're not we're not attending to ourselves and because we're a big woman and we're offended by it
55:14
totally well we're sick again we're seeking yeah yeah it gets like that balance
55:20
yeah it's not easy but it's crazy because you think you're on the balance and all of a sudden it's like whoops
55:26
like crap you gotta get back on again it's like oh i gotta find that balance again yeah yeah for sure you know i don't know
55:33
whoever said that christianity was boring you know i i seem to have a lot of adventure um
55:39
in my life i'm sure it sounds like you've had a lot of adventure in your life to get to this point yeah
55:45
and to be able to move forward so that's amazing when i think just like everything you know
55:51
it's it's all how you use it and how you um it's all how you use it right on
55:58
because plenty of people use christian language and christian things to to be
56:04
harmful not only to other people but even to themselves you know and so it's all kind of how you use it you're
56:11
right it's like anything that that we have in front of us yeah i always challenge people when they
56:17
say oh social media is bad i'm like what's so bad about it yeah you know it can be bad it can't be
56:25
good just like we we have same thing with money or possessions or any of that stuff
56:30
yeah it could be bad or it can be good i feel like it's better to to like
56:37
i think a lot of things are created and for us for a reason so i think we're better off
56:42
trying to find the goodness and work through the i guess work through the better parts if you will like or
56:49
finding that i don't know like i don't think getting rid of something completely is usually
56:54
helpful it's figuring out how can this thing how can this thing be of use
57:00
instead of a positive way exactly how can this be useful rather than yeah causing harm with it or
57:07
whatever yeah it just being take taking away from yeah
57:13
i agree yeah so we are right at the end um i was thinking what do you think
57:18
about talking about fear next week oh okay i think that's a great topic
57:23
yeah fear it's it's exciting and yay right happy topic yeah yeah it's another those words like
57:31
love so yeah it'll be great i think so if you guys want to give us some feedback
57:36
on your fears for next week we'd love that and give us an opportunity to um i don't know just you know how to
57:43
engage know how to start the conversation and what kind of things you'd like to talk about that would be amazing
57:48
for sure come with prepared questions about fear or share something that you're going through that would be really great
57:54
um yeah so do you want to say goodbye yep so as we close out today i just want
57:59
to leave everyone with the random thought on love so something i've learned over time and i think it's something to be considered
58:06
is how do you define love is your love about you or is it about the people around you if
58:13
it's the latter i found personally that the first part of that statement is fulfilled
58:19
so happy best week and um think about it awesome keep it in our meditations all
58:25
right and we'll play that outro love you everyone everybody
58:32
splintered grace podcast is brought to you by a queer chaplain
58:39
follow us on all of our social medias instagram youtube and facebook at the queer
58:45
chaplain listen to us wherever you listen to podcasts
58:51
subscribe comment like and share feel free to tip us at venmo bonnie
58:57
violet and support monthly on patreon the song is original by steven sandov
59:04
the chasm between us rest in peace
59:19
[Music]