Fill my cup to overflow.

another summer at camp. another season of service there.
this time was different, even with the understanding that nothing can occur the same twice, this summer at camp was particularly different. this was my first summer as a full-time staff member with all its great stresses, joys and responsibilities. on top of that i was solo leading which becomes tricky when you are taking care of 6 thirteen year old girls, not to mention the other girls that are in activities that you are leading. many times i lost my campers or "misplaced them" as i put it, but we always seemed to find each other again. up in the pioneer circle i stayed and took up home there for the next two weeks after arriving at the beginning of august. in those weeks i learnt so much from Holy Spirit. about Him and about His word and about our relationship together. and about service. i felt many times Him calling me into His presence for Him to be able to work in me and through me to both campers and other staff. the craziest experiences.

i think one of the major things ive learnt was about the verse from Matthew,

"The first shall be last and the last shall be first"[20:16].

that is what i am focusing on in this post.
i always looked at that message as a direct instruction to all of God's people, telling us that if we want to serve and be filled by Holy Spirit, we need to be last ALWAYS and allow others to be first before us. so that is how i had started to work this summer, forcing myself to be last in order to serve God and others in the [best] way.

i realized about 6 days into the first session that i was not filled enough myself to then serve others and fill them up. my own cup had not been filled to overflow. during a staff bible study, the directors mother, who lead the study, brought up this verse in her teaching and the imagery she exposed us to changed how i interpreted that passage. she told us to imagine a ladder, like many things that God does, He works in seasons, and so, like a cycle, or circle or servant hood, He calls us to be last at times [at the bottom of the ladder] so that we can serve others as our cups have been filled to overflow and we can use that fullness within us to uplift others [that strength]. then she told us that God also calls us into times of being first [at the top of the ladder], to allow others who are overflowing to uplift us and for us to be filled more and sustained by others and their service. then when we are filled we return to the bottom knowing that we may have to go back to the top again. this repeats. and that can look different to everyone. from this bible study i recognized that God was calling me to serve myself, to become first so that i could be filled by others who had received God through them to speak words of truth to me. i still served at the camp, but i allowed others to help me more then i had before in the session.

God uses us to fill each other until we overflow. until Holy Spirit spills over the lips of our cups, until we are quenched.

opinion.

So recently a rainbow stripe of road (crosswalks) have been painted down a main street in Toronto (Church st.). Some say for pride or awareness of the LGBT community but I believe it is doing two things only. Producing Toronto with more tourists and making a public spectacle out of LGBT. We as a community have taken this issue, a once anti-gay society and have become more respectful, understanding, kind and have provided a safer environment, but we’ve also taken this issue, this one thing and publicized it to such an extreme that it has lost its once powerful meaning to me. Why must we parade around Toronto, calling it a pride parade, wasting tax dollars to put on such a pseud and using even more money to paint a rainbow up a street? How does that make sense? But that has become the norm now with this ONE topic.

What if we did that with all our issues in history? All the ones that have been overcome, just like this one? What would our cities look like now? For slavery, if we hung nooses from lamp posts and trees as a constant reminder of where we’ve come, or if we plastered the streets with posters professing women’s rights and we had a separate booth for women to vote in during elections as a reminder… because that is what this rainbow road is, a reminder, a permanent reminder, but why is it necessary and why is it more important than all the other issues in history? It isn’t necessary to any degree, our day to day lives are the reminders of where we have come from. Every time we see a person apart of LGBT voting or parenting an adopted child or with a marriage license, those are all reminders enough! We have come very far as a people, just like when I see my black neighbours put up their Ghana flag and no one defaces their property, or my black friends and classmates who are able to sit next to me and not get beaten or harassed or how my mum was able to vote this past election OR my two close friends who are lesbian and bi-sexual were able to attend prom together without being kicked out, separated or alienated. None of these people have to continue to perform extreme acts to show that they have rights, they just go on with their day and that is enough.

After saying all of that I am not suggesting that gaining these rights was done so easily by just going on with your day. In history, drastic things were often the only way to gain respect and power, but now being 2014, already succeeding in providing a better space for everyone we still feel it’s necessary to paint on a rainbow! It’s overkill. It’s not an action for gaining acceptance, it’s just a symbol after the fact.

Now for those who are reading this and are questioning my part in all of it, freeze for a second and let me finish. I believe we as a unit of different orientations, races, religions, cultures, social classes, etc, are all ONE and that is an important fact for anyone to remember, and as for me, a heterosexual female, white, Christian, I am a constant ally to many varieties of people who are at all opposite to me, which doesn’t mean beneath, or undervalued, just opposite… like a Homosexual, male, Nepali, Muslim. However, going back to the rainbow road, it should not have been done. The rights of the LGBT were already fulfilled so this in no way was a form of protest, to try to accomplish something, it was just an act that wasted funds, an impulse. LGBT have rights! They can get married, have pensions and benefits, can adopt and are protected by the government from any anti-gay propaganda in Canada, etc.

As an ally I used my voice to explain to people how the LGBT need to be treated as equals that was the whole point! Now, as an ally I feel like a hypocrite to the LGBT. I say over and over “equal”, being “equal”, “equality is important”, but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. They have parades and flags and rainbow roads. How are all these extra things allowing the LGBT to be treated equally? I’ve asked some of my peers who are a part of the LGBT, what they think about the parades and the road. They say that they are more embarrassed NOW to say they are LGBT because they don’t want to associate their personal orientation and life choices with such unserious gimmicks. They said it is taking their “rights” too far. Being straight, if there was a parade for that, it would probably be seen as unneeded, stupid and laughable. Well… in an “equal” way, so would a gay pride parade and so would a rainbow road! If it isn’t looked at as that, are these two varieties of people really equal?!