Rethinking the (my) Future

Sometimes when I get started thinking it might not necessarily always be a good thing. But, there are those rare occasions where it's actually a really good thing. I don't know what we'll get me started thinking sometimes, but on those rare occasions its action center and should be thinking about. Here over the past few weeks, some stuff is happening is pretty open my mind up to ideas I've never explored before. And for once, it's actually been a really good thing.

How to start? Where did I think my life was going to go? Well, since I was in high school I've planning on being a teacher, which is a good thing, and I keep hearing how we need more male teachers to be good role models for students, and I agree. So that's put me on a career path that has me right now in my junior year of college, a semester away from embarking on my student teaching experiences and after that probably getting a job as a teacher somewhere. Where will I end up? Probably at some small Christian school doing whatever they need, just standing in the background, not attracting much attention, but not causing any problems either.  Just being a good role model to the students and getting my job done.  I would probably end up getting married along the line, settle down and have a family.  Eventually retire one day, with whatever one can save for retirement working at a Christian school. That's what I thought I would do, and for all I know that might be what I end up doing. I don't know.

I've never really thought about the importance of my ministry outside of teaching. I just thought that my ministry would be primarily through my career in (what I thought would be) a Christian school. Missions? Not a chance. I'm not that kind of guy. I don't go out I'll make connections with other people easily. I just go out daily and get done the tasks I need to do.

A few weeks ago I was home on spring break. It was nice just relaxing, not having to do much to worry about school for a week. The nice thing was it was missions conference at my home church, something I haven't been at in a couple years since I would be down at school the last two years. So that was nice. I got to hear from several missionaries, their different perspectives and goals in their ministries. However, one of those three missionaries actually ready stuck out to me for reasons that I don't really expect coming into the conference. This missionary was part of a team that is working out in Salt Lake City, planting a church in that city. The fire, and the passion that this guy had for reaching the city was great, and I absolutely loved it. Their whole philosophy to their ministry, I just thought was amazing, I loved it, and I thought this is exactly what we as churches need to be doing right now. And so I left and went back to school, with all of this in the back of my head, but not really anything that's grabbing me, but I understood that this is something thy God is going to be using greatly in the future.

Fast forward a few more weeks on back in school, and it's time for our annual missions conference at college. The cool thing about this missions conference as opposes to the other two that I've been to at Faith, was how the focus of this conference was on building the church, particularly through urban ministry. Throughout that into entire week, listening to the speakers, I heard a marvelous passion for reaching the world by going to our own back door. Urban centers around the world are growing at unfathomable rates, and the United States is no exception to this. If we want to reach the world, we've literally just have to look out inter backyard, here in America, and reach our neighbor for Christ. After that who knows we're still take the gospel; it could be sent a neighbor down the street or to Beijing or New Delhi or the heart of Africa. That's how global our urban centers are now. And so throughout this week I looked at thinking to myself, "you know, I could actually see myself doing this."

Part three. I'm an elementary education major. I love to teach. I love working with kids. And after almost three years of classes for my major and all the headaches that accompany the homework for it, I'm pretty sure that I still want to do this for the rest of my life. One of the requirements that we have for my major is that I have to go out into schools and observe an actual classroom in action. See the teacher working with the kids, and even sometimes I get to work with kids myself. This semester I have had the awesome privilege to go to a school and inner city Des Moines. When I was first found out that I would have to go here, I didn't really like the idea. I've never really spent much time in the public school, and I really didn't think that I would ever have it do anything with the public school, among things I'd be part of the teachers union, I'll pass. Work with kids whose parents really don't care what's happening, I'll pass. I truly thought that a Christian school would be the only place that I could teach. I also had the opportunity to teach a lesson in this classroom that I was observing in. I mean, it's always a good thing to actually get practice teaching a real class if you want to actually do it for a living. I was teaching this lesson in the classroom the Tuesday after the end of missions conference. This was my third time back to school, and by this time I was actually pretty comfortable there, yet there's a few things that I'm not quite used to yet been I might not ever get used to, but compared to what I thought when I first found out I was going to have to come to this school, I was pretty comfortable. While I was teaching, I started to see the students differently. I'm not seeing them as inner city, underprivileged kids, even though they are, but I started seeing them as kids that are literally just looking for somebody to love them, to care for them, stuff that they might not be receiving at home. I start to see these students the same way that the missionaries I had been hearing see the people they work with daily: people hungering for something, but not knowing what.

Now, all the sudden, where do I want to teach? I could very well end up in a Christian school, and if that's God's will for me, let's do it: that sounds awesome. But maybe God has other plans for me. Maybe His plans are to teach in a comfortable environment. Maybe his plans have me somewhere where teaching isn't everything that my ministry is about. Maybe teaching is the job that I have to put me in a better position to minister and serve God, but my ministry isn't dependent on my teaching. Like I said earlier I always thought that I would end up with a wife probably have kids somewhere along the line and that I would just live that normal easy life that most (western) Christians think about. I'm not getting married any time soon, I’ve never even had a girlfriend. At this point there really aren't even any prospects. It is pretty clear at this point that it is not God's plan for me to have a girlfriend, let alone be married, at least not for right now. Possibly it may never be. That's something that can be tough to swallow, especially if you've spent you whole life thinking that way. The fact is maybe this is just a time that God is telling me that, "You know what Jeremy? You don't need another person your life. All you need is Me. Trust Me, do what I say, and you won't regret it." And maybe someday there will be a wife. Maybe there are kids. I may be better suited to do the kind of ministry that God wants me to do as a single guy than if I have a family. Maybe I need to not have those things holding you back from doing what I really need to do. And it's easy to say that. I've been saying that for years, well, maybe not, quite but you get the point. But the thing is now, I kind of actually believe it. And that's pretty awesome.

I don't know where God is leading me right now, and honestly at this point and don't care where He's leading me. If I'm serving Him and glorifying Him, that's all that really matters. I know God is helping me to realize through on number of circumstances, that I need to just learned a love and serve Him, and not worry about anything else. He will give me what I need when I need it. I'm a month away from the end of my third year in school. After that, I have one semester left on campus taking classes, and that all head off to do 14 weeks if student teaching. After that I get to walk grab my diploma, I have to find a job somewhere, some way, somehow. And the closer and closer it gets in that time, the easier and easier it will be to start to worry about what am I doing next. But right now I'm finding, that there's a pretty awesome plan for me, and I don't have to worry about it, because it's going to come at that time when it's going to be amazing.

The Marriage Debate

Within my circle of friends, I could quite easily be labeled as "liberal" for some of the things I am about to write.  On the other hand, to many in our society I will still be a pig-headed, ignorant, intolerant conservative.  I am about to put myself in a very precarious position, "No Man's Land."

This week, the United States Supreme Court is beginning another session, but two cases in particular are catching the public's attention:  Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor.  The first of these centered on California's Proposition 8, while the second deals with PL 104-199, better known as the Defense of Marriage Act.

Since the arguments in were the first heard in this session, I will give my views on this first.  Following is the full text of Proposition 8.

Section I. Title
This measure shall be known and may be cited as the "California Marriage Protection Act."
Section 2. Article I. Section 7.5 is added to the California Constitution, to read:
Sec. 7.5. Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

At first glance, there is nothing wrong with this.  I am a big supporter of traditional marriage.  I support many of the ideals that this law is based on.  I would love to see our nation define marriage as a union between one man and one woman.

I hold a strict interpretation of our Constitution.  I have a deep respect for the wisdom of the men that labored so deeply to see our current constitution come to fruition.  The story of how our constitution came to be is fantastic, and filled with so many compromises that in all actuality kept our country from breaking apart.  Now we take these compromises for granted.  We do not try to understand why our government was structured a certain way.  One of these great compromises was the addition of a bill of rights shortly after ratification, and the ninth and tenth amendments made sure to protect the rights of both the citizens and of state governments from encroachment from a more powerful federal government than the nation had experienced previously under the Articles of Confederation (more on this later.)  Nevertheless, these great men also could foresee situations when a state might not necessarily agree with another, and as such might not honor decisions and certifications made in the other state.  A well-understood modern example would be a driver's license.  Each state has different qualifications a person must meet in order to obtain a driver's license.  Because of this, Minnesota may decide that since drivers in Missouri do not have to take a driver's education course, Missouri drivers do not deserve the right to drive in Minnesota.  Then when a person with a valid Missouri driver's license is pulled over while driving in Minnesota, this driver could be charged with driving without a valid license.  As one can see, this could cause a multitude of problems, and this example could also apply to contracts, wills, and basically any other document that carries legal weight, including marriage certificates.  To avoid any of these problems, our founding fathers included Article IV, Section I of the Constitution:

Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State. And the Congress may by general Laws prescribe the Manner in which such Acts, Records, and Proceedings shall be proved, and the Effect thereof.

This part of the Constitution can applied to certain things such as driver's licenses and marriage certificates, so that a marriage certificate or driver's license issued in Maine must also be recognized in all other forty-nine states.

All this to prove that California's Proposition 8 is unconstitutional. "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."  Unfortunately, several states (including California) have issued same-sex marriage licenses.  California (and all other forty-nine states) is obligated under the United States Constitution to recognize these marriage licenses as valid.  Article IV leave no room for a state to declare another state's "public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings" invalid.

This very same logic led me to (painfully) vote against the Minnesota Marriage Amendment:  "Only a union of one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as a marriage in Minnesota."

Next on the table is the case of United States v. Windsor.  Again I must reiterate that I completely an unashamedly support traditional heterosexual marriage.  The main meat of the Defense of Marriage Act states:

Section 2. Powers reserved to the states
No State, territory, or possession of the United States, or Indian tribe, shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State, territory, possession, or tribe respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State, territory, possession, or tribe, or a right or claim arising from such relationship.
Section 3. Definition of marriage
In determining the meaning of any Act of Congress, or of any ruling, regulation, or interpretation of the various administrative bureaus and agencies of the United States, the word 'marriage' means only a legal union between one man and one woman as husband and wife, and the word 'spouse' refers only to a person of the opposite sex who is a husband or a wife.

Again at first glance, there is nothing bad here.  I still support many of the ideals behind this law.  But alas, when compared with the Constitution, which coincidentally is the supreme law of our nation, several key problems arise.  In the previous sections, I discussed the importance of Article IV Section I, better known as the "Full Faith and Credit" clause.  I am now going to compare this well-known clause with section 2 of DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act.)

No State . . . shall be required to give effect to any public act, record, or judicial proceeding of any other State . . . respecting a relationship between persons of the same sex that is treated as a marriage under the laws of such other State.
Full Faith and Credit shall be given in each State to the public Acts, Records, and judicial Proceedings of every other State.

Notice anything odd?  I thought so.  The language is incredibly similar, and I cannot believe this is a coincidence.  DOMA is saying that when it comes to same-sex marriages, Article IV, Section I of the United States Constitution does not matter! I do not know what you may think, but this is the epitome of unconstitutional.  There is no room for debate here.  The near mirror image of the language is blatant enough to make it as hard to hide as hiding Mt. Everest in the middle of Illinois.

In conclusion, the current marriage debate does not look good for conservatives.  39 states have some law in effect defining marriage in the traditional sense, but unfortunately, most of these states have laws that are similar to California's in how these states not only will not grant same-sex marriage licenses, but also will not recognize legitimate same-sex marriage licenses granted in other states.

Yes, we need to stand up and fight for traditional marriage, but we also need to understand that we have a legal framework that we must work in (the Constitution.)  If we begin to work outside this framework (DOMA, Proposition 8, etc.,) we must be willing to see the consequences, which will likely (and rightly) be the overturning of these unconstitutional laws.  I do not support same-sex marriage.  I cannot make this clear enough.  However, I also place a high priority on accomplishing goals in a legal manner.

We need to support passing marriage laws that define what marriage is, but do not give the state leeway to determine valid marriage licenses from other states (including same-sex marriage licenses) to be invalid or unrecognized in that state.

Please feel free to comment or message me with you thoughts about this.  I would really appreciate it, so long as you give some level of respect and don't use it as a chance to insult myself or my beliefs. 

Editor's note:
I originally intended to make several remarks about Section 3 of DOMA, but due to needing to go to bed immediately after writing, i scrapped this idea temporarily, but I do intend to update the post to include these remarks.