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One fun thing I like to do on the Google search engine is to type in the start of a phrase and watch it fill the rest in for you. I learn so much about what interests people in real time on the internet this way. If major influencers and entrepreneurs and corporations do it, why shouldn’t all of us, the insatiably curious, do it too? This morning I came across a term I had not heard: (hashtag)GirlDad. “Oh, this should be good,” I thought. As an advocate for dad’s rights, and for equality (not only to men as co-parents, but for everyone as humans), my curiosity got the best of me. I stood up with my back straight, bent my knees slightly, then leapt into the rabbit hole. I am working on an essay titled, “Fight Like A Girl.” It’s a play on words. This old saying was used to poke fun at boys who couldn’t do something well, or at least as well as a boy should. The old world shaming phrase of boys, by males, is by default demeaning toward girls. As young males, we had hoops to jump through to earn our way into that holy-grail construct called man-hood. Like all manipulation tactics, it was used wisely and misused widely. The effectiveness is a matter of perception. This is where my search begins. My search starts with finding stories of famous dads who are raising or have raised daughters. Honestly, I’m looking to smash the status quo by making an example of dads who raise their daughters to be dependent on a partner. My daughter is sitting next to me doing homework as I come across the term. So, I ask her what she thinks it means. “You.” She answers. “Aww. Thank you. But what does it mean?” I ask again. “That you’re a dad raising a daughter?” “Sure. I mean, I am. But this is a recent term used to describe a certain kind of dad.” I answer. For a second I feel like I’m actually hipper and more in-the-know than my teenage kid. “What does it mean, Dad?” “Let me look it up.” There is a small and not very fulfilling sense of pride when your kid asks you a question you don’t know the answer to so you have to look it up on the internet. Fleeting pride—A pleasing sense I’ll take any day of the week over the attitude I got in the preteen to mid-teen years for sure. I share two definitions with her. Being a #GirlDad means recognizing the worth of a daughter is equal to the worth of a son. And being a #GirlDad means contributing to the strides being made toward gender equality. The movement of #GirlDad demonstrates model examples of how fathers should value their daughters, and in turn, women. – Katie Winbauer. Bismark Tribune This article, which some say coined the phrase, was written to honor Kobe Bryant. “Wow!” I thought. “If the skeletons of his past in regard to treatment of women could be forgiven, anybody’s could, including my own.” I’m explaining my recollection of this to my daughter when she says, “Don’t you have an article to write GirlDad?” “Yes, honey.” I love my kid. Kathleen Odenthal, in an article titled “10 Reasons Why Fathers are so Important to their Daughters” (Holidappy magazine) writes: Being a father means being a role model and setting the standard for how their daughters will view other men. A father who shows love to the women in his life and is nurturing and compassionate can help his daughter avoid unhealthy relationships and friendships with men as she ages. In my ready-to-be-humbled experience, my truth is something of a mix of these two. Bear in mind, both are attempts to explain the importance of the dad/daughter relationship, as told by a woman. When I read the first definition I asked myself, “Don’t all men raise their daughters this way?” Personal Experience: When the sole responsibility of raising a daughter was placed on my shoulders, I had no education or experience or community (that I knew of nor could easily find) to show me how. I chose to ask for help, which is the same for men as asking directions, but there were and continue to be too few resources available. More than that, I had to trust in my almost non-existent intuitive sense. This is one hurdle dads are challenged to overcome. One which most of us haven’t been raised to overcome nor expected to succeed at. The premise of gender equality should be taken in the literal sense. We should want to self-correct when we find ourselves falling back on double-standards, or having it both ways. How do we know what is good for the goose unless we take a gander at honestly flipping scripts? In regard to equality and worth, I used to joke that expecting a girl to be as good as a boy is setting the bar too low for the girl! Perhaps my view is not the norm here. Before my daughter was born, I held no preference in regard to the sexual identification of my child. I still don’t. All I ask of her is that she makes the most of who and what she is. I don’t think the second definition correlates to the #GirlDad concept, but it came up on the Google search. There may be some truth in the idea that the way a dad treats his daughter will align in her mind with how she sees that she should be treated. Then again, there are so many exceptions to this. A dad who, out of love, is harsh and punitive with one daughter creates a confident, fearless warrior yet with a different daughter a broken, dependent, sensitive one. In reading the second definition, my overriding thought is, “No wonder there is so much angry vitriol toward men as fathers.” Where I feel called to advocate is for the many good dads who get lumped in with ALL dads, including those toward whom the dissatisfaction is directed. It is our responsibility to single these men out. I will never defend the men who are or have been abusive, negligent, belligerent, or ignorant of their children. Likewise, a man who does everything he can but falls short of societal expectations is not a loser, or idiot, or less-than parent. He’s a human. Without the hard-earned accolades of being an actual doctor or expert, I’ve only an opinion to lend. My non-certified schooling comes in the form of day to day responsibilities raising a daughter. If you value life experience, then you’ll like these. Nine Ways To Be A Better #GirlDad: 1) Tell your daughter how much you love her. 2) Nurture, encourage, and support her when it comes to ideas she has that are healthy for her, no matter what your opinion is on them. 3) Listen to her discuss her dreams. Watch her get wide-eyed and excited. Don’t shut it down by explaining the realities of why or why not. Share your wisdom, don’t preach it. Circle back another time for the ‘parentsplaining’ talk if you can see this turning out unhealthily for her. 4) Never compare her to other students, people’s kids, failures, successes, boys, or yourself. 5) Let her know she can do anything. 6) Applaud her strengths when she doesn’t expect it. 7) Spend time together on a project you know nothing about. 8) Listen to her. Have deep discussions where she knows she is being heard. Your wisdom is more useful when it is asked about. 9) Don’t Coddle. Enabling, and pedestal-ing are death to independence, confidence, and inner-strength. Do not lie to her to keep her from hurting. Every human thrives better with honesty than any other emotion.

I devote hours of my energy toward helping newcomers in different online platforms. This is my way of giving back. But it is also one of my protections against returning to the desolation of drug abuse. My personal path and story are actually not any more important or useful than anyone else’s. If you knew the humongous ego who was Paul Summers before I came to find a program of recovery that worked for me, you’d be surprised that I could ever be humble enough to type that last sentence. Growth. Growth is not just a word; it’s not some reward you earn for doing nothing. It’s not a concept you believe in and therefor you are granted. It’s a present that feels nothing like a gift. And it is reversible. On one of my social media accounts, it is clear in my bio that I am in recovery. Yet, I continue to get followers who are drug dealers. The most common are those peddling psychedelics and marijuana. Studies have shown that the latter has been proven to be addictive (and still illegal, federally). I found it appalling that dealers would friend or follow me. This made no sense, so I’ve dared to ask why. The responses I’m getting are defensive—the follower sounding dumbfounded that I am questioning their ‘good’ nature. Each one believes they have set up shop in order to ‘help’ alcoholics and addicts. How did they get this disinformation? Welcome to the era of what I call Recovery ‘Light.’ It’s not new. Hell, when I was steeped in active addiction, substituting one high for another was a path I believed would solve my slight issue–the addictive tendencies I denied. I tried many different times. I tried many different ways. I did not get clean until I … GOT CLEAN. My definition of Recovery ‘Light’ is when a person believes they don’t have a drug problem as long as they don’t do their DOC (drug of choice). This person has been convinced somehow that indulging in any mind-altering, addictive substance, as long as it won’t take them over and be a distracting obsession, is totally okay. Additionally, the idea is that as long as one isn’t creating wreckage and undermining self, it’s okay to use. These two assumptions are usually made without the clarity of being sober, nor with the help of a source outside themselves like the loved one, family member, or community most affected by their using. There are segments of the recovery community who are taking and being taken advantage of by this ideology. This does a great disservice to people in early recovery who have not yet committed to recovery. Those newcomers who are sensitive to being told the truth; those who dismiss concepts like abstinence and making amends as plots to bring guilt and shame-inducing patriarchal or religious disciplines; those who want to be in recovery and still get high—these are willing participants in Recovery ‘Light.’ I remember being in a meeting and hearing someone say, “I wish I could get loaded and keep my clean date.” Everyone in the room laughed. But it made me think … isn’t that the special secret wish we all have? Yes. Just like we wish we weren’t addicts and alcoholics. But we are if we say we are. I am. I don’t feel the least bit less-than by making this admission. It’s a testimonial I continue to make and feel safe doing so. What is dangerous is being suspicious that you might have a problem and being unwilling to admit that you are an addict or alcoholic. Personally, by admitting to having a disease, I gain the courage to work on beating the illness that all but destroyed a good twenty years of my life: the disease of addiction. I’ll never beat it, just like humans won’t ever entirely beat a virus out of existence. We can only work on building our personal strength a little bit at a time. A daily reprieve is a lot to be grateful for. The difference between those with the disease and those unlikely to have the disease is that those who can use casually and not obsess on their DOC to the point of hurting, stealing, undermining, and being enslaved by the compulsion to use more are not inflicted with the disease. Denial. Contained within this practice of Recovery ‘Light’ is a movement of non-addict/alcoholics pushing a ‘new’ concept called Harm Reduction. Just like Capitalism or Communism, Harm Reduction looks good on paper. Great keywords, too. Who wouldn’t want to be in a program whose ideology is reducing harm? Whose harm is getting reduced? My loose interpretation of this is that, by allowing a person addicted to drugs or alcohol some comfort as they withdraw from their drug of choice, the cycle of addiction will be broken. The notion is that, by eliminating the self-esteem breaking thoughts and feelings which come about when one is getting off of drugs, a person in recovery can heal faster and their transition off of chemical dependency will be smoother. That smooth metamorphosis, it is believed, aids the recovering person and increases the likelihood their recovery will be long term. I get in heated arguments over this. Partially because this is being pushed by the medical/medicinal community. I think that alone scares me enough to not give it a chance. If someone is making ongoing money off of people’s life changes and the possibilities they will become healthy, then they also potentially make money off you while you continue to be unhealthy. Studies are showing that, in the area of depression, many have been taken advantage of and over-medicated for decades. This is why and how I ended up in a twelve step program. I owed nobody anything. My success and/or failure was up to me. I came to realize I had the key to unlock the prison cell door I had locked myself into. I got out for free. There isn’t an easy way out, just as there was no easy way in. There is no quick fix. There is no participant trophy. You are either and addict/alcoholic or you are not. There’s no such thing as getting high on a drug you don’t care for when you are an addict. Any drug you can find is the drug you’ll abuse at some point. If you’re reading this and your experience so far is that you can’t stop drinking once you start, but then you try micro-dosing on mushrooms and you don’t want to drink anymore – well then, you’re probably not an alcoholic. But, if you start doing those mushrooms on weekends, then on Thursday through Sunday, then every day of the week, you are an addict/alcoholic. This current movement has come in many shapes and with many names over the past six decades. Social media is notorious for getting people convinced that the latest and greatest panacea is not another re-hashed snake oil from the Boomer Era. Eye candy distractions. Let’s look a little deeper. If you have a problem with meth, how can you stop? Meth addiction is weird. I was always able to stop for a few months, especially after a few weeks in a row of being up for more than three days at a time. I didn’t give a shit about losing a job or girlfriend or even the strain it put on my family. I didn’t feel much of anything while I was up. But when I came down, all those stinky feelings started oozing out of the pores in my brain. And when the body has had enough, you ride the discomfort out for a few days and start to feel human again. Then, you deal with the consequences and (usually) guilt of the neglecting of self. I probably vowed to stay off speed for three months about thirty times. I always came back to it. In the meantime, I was self-medicating. I was ‘reducing’ the harm in my head I had caused myself. I was using my best ideas to ease my worst thinking. The answer was inevitably to find a way to feel good. I’m no doctor. But a doctor or scientist will break it down to a brain cell level and tell you the biological reason we chase after that synapsis firing endorphin rush. Replacement therapy. If I can’t have my drug of choice, I’m going to have a melt-down. If I don’t have my drug of choice, I’m going to die. If I can’t have my drug of choice, people better get really afraid of what I might do. It’s no mistake that it is called our drug of choice. Nobody forces us to put it inside our bloodstream. We choose to. Therefore, we get to choose how we stop putting it in our body. We can titrate down. We can do replacement drugs like methadone or suboxone if you have an opiate addiction. For meth, it wouldn’t make sense to inject a person going through withdrawals with Ritalin. But if that became an actual practice, the idea would be the same. Make the coming down off of abused drugs comfortable and relaxing. This is a severe misunderstanding of addiction. The saying, “One is too many and a thousand never enough,” explains the disease. If I knew I could go to treatment (if I could afford it) and still get loaded, wouldn’t that, as a premise, undermine the very reason for going? Unless … Unless I didn’t really want to stop. But if I’m locked in a preferred state of mind for addicts … denial … and get some therapist or treatment center nurse with an Associate’s Degree telling me of an easy out, I’m going to go for the easy out. I’d gladly kick the can down the road. Because the nurse says it’s okay; that I’ll be okay if I’m on something while I get off something else. Good lord. That’s like saying, “I know I’m collecting better unemployment wages by staying home, but I really do want to work, but I don’t really have to, so I won’t.” That’s like saying, “I love and miss those little kids I lost custody of in the divorce so much, I’ll check in on them sometime in the next few weeks.” The most entertaining part of writing an essay like this is that it puts me at odds with educated martyrs of the medical profession. I ask you to take some time and look over their evidence, and the opposing evidence. Evaluate it all as best you can, but remember, you might just be an addict or an alcoholic. If you are, it means that you have a disease with is going to lie to you to keep you in a state of denial which will make you question anything which might potentially rob it from getting its next fix. If you try harm reduction and are still repeating the same behaviors which, in the first place, made you suspect you might have a problem – start questioning the validity of that medical practice. No one who wears a doctor’s office smock has ever resolved my obsession with drugs, including booze. After decades of overdosing, losing everything, destroying what I didn’t lose, hurting people physically and emotionally, moving a thousand miles away only to start using again within a month, losing jobs, and ultimately losing my daughter, I was ready to admit I had a problem and that no pill, powder, or liquid was going to solve it. I found the twelve steps (or they found me). I found a Higher Power I call God (or He led me) The program I work does not cosign any check I might be wanting to cash from the bank of bullshit. Today I’m accountable to the truth. But as an addict, that truth is often hidden from me. I can more easily see when someone is denying themselves their own truth, but I have a hard time seeing mine when I look for it. That is why the program is so useful, especially interaction with the others in it. The lies in our head are exposed. The program is simple, but not easy. It certainly isn’t as easy getting loaded on wine because you have a problem with heroin. I wrote this essay to share my experience that I’ve tried every combination and substitute that was available. Just because there are new drugs since I chose to stop fifteen years ago, doesn’t mean the truth isn’t still self-evident. The truth and promise of the program works because I work it. This means I get to take an active part in being okay, if not better than ever, but at the very least better than I was before. I had to work for it. Not one day of the over 6,000 days were given to me. Not one. I chose to see (finally) that my experience with harm was that I harmed myself, then anyone close. The only way that harm got reduced was when I chose to stop getting loaded.

Fourteen days? A hundred? In person or on social media, any time someone mentions how many days clean they have, ask them this question. Then tell them the answer. The answer is always nothing. Nothing is better than X amount of days sober. Even if it’s one day, the answer is nothing. We don’t accumulate days by keeping our eye on out of reach goals. This question of what’s better is almost as ancient as twelve step programs. Prior to the notion of recovery programs, an alcoholic’s attempt to curb their addiction must’ve been a very solitary affair. What, if any, support group was around for whom the sober person could turn to? Compared to today’s uglier side of social media, the shaming must’ve been horrendous. Add to that the shunning. Many must’ve seen obsessive using as the only place to find solace. Many likely turned to isolation, desolation, and suicide. History shows us how we are safe when we are pack animals. When we veer away from the pack, we take on the encumbrance of life-threatening challenges. A person wanting go get clean and sober today has the pack to turn to. For an addict/alcoholic, however, belonging to a particular pack can either make us better or make us worse. One pack wants to nurture us back to healthy sobriety by sharing the insights into what has worked for them through the trial and error experiences collectively learned from the pack as a whole. One pack wants to show us how to turn only to God and the Bible, asking that we trust in the strength which comes through faith. One pack wants to elevate or enlighten our cognitive process through pharmaceutical medication and behavioral therapy. One recently evolving pack asks that we abstain ourselves from our favorite substance to abuse while giving ourself permission to indulge in others. Each pack is prone to point out weaknesses of the others, yet some self-govern and are better at self-discipline in these matters. As in the difference between world religions, each pack has merit conceptually. It often boils down to the membership or flock or congregation. All have fallible humans. The practitioners have more to do with the imperfection than the programs themselves. We have the responsibility of choosing wisely then learning from our choices. We who seek recovery don’t have to live like lepers today. We can feel free to shout from the hilltop what we have accomplished; that we have earned another day free of the substance(s) we have been abusing to the point that we could no longer deny how we had allowed it to undermine and sabotage our life. For today, and today only, we are done. And because we don’t know whether or not we will make it through tomorrow until tomorrow is over, we can speak confidently out about our achievement with humility. Thus the answer. Nothing is better than a day ending victorious over our alcoholism. It may just be the end of one day to others, but to us it is a victory over unhealthy thoughts which lead to unhealthy behaviors which lead to being in an unhealthy predicament. This is a truth serum that has no anti-dote. There is no such thing as getting it half right. You either identify as an alcoholic, or you don’t. You either understand to the best of your ability that you are an addict, or you are not. Whether you have one day or 5,693 days. Each and every day sober/clean is an actualization of an intention to be healthier manifested. For us, that intention doesn’t usually begin internally. For most of us, it is external. An outcome reached through losing. Losing a loved one, a job, property, integrity, status, or health. Both impactful and repetitive losing can translate into a lifesaving course of action if we allow it to. Try it. Give yourself permission to be good to you.

If I were to say there is an informational pandemic, it would imply that there was a time when informative sources were reliable and now they are not. When it comes to information and resources to benefit solo custodial fathers, this is not the case. Information for single dads that is personalized (we are a marginalized class), consistent, and qualitative, has yet to be good. This is an illness; a woe upon society that has negative effects, long term, on children. Never underestimate the resourcefulness of a dad when it comes to the deep, emotional caring for his children. Most of us make due, encumbered by our own limitations. Still, none of us can do it alone. When the State of Oregon awarded sole custody of my daughter to me, my spirit soared. I finally had a fighting chance at protecting my little girl from the litany of no-shows, let downs, close-calls, and harmful situations she was exposed to thanks to her birth mother’s substance use disorder (SUD). As I’ve come to better understand addiction, I’ve learned an indisputable truth: every addict’s behavior comes as the result of making a choice. Having barely turned four years old, my daughter was far from completely being raised. It was a wakeup call like no other. As my fight to get protective custody came to a close, I found myself at the standing at edge of the unknown. “Watch what you wish for, you just might get it.” At the time, I had less than a year in recovery from drugs myself. As gracious as I was (still am) with the joy of fully being there for my child, I had to admit I was in over my head. Fortunately, I had faith in my Higher Power, support from my twelve step program fellowship, and the daily clarity of a clean mind. There were very few websites, forums, or books to help. Everything was geared toward women. My people were not represented. Realizing I can’t be a single parent raising my daughter alone, one of the first things I asked was, “How do women do this?” The National Center for Substance Abuse and Child Welfare tells us that 1 in 8 children in the United States under 17 is living in a household where a parent is struggling with addiction. Nearly 9 million kids (I’ve seen estimates as high as 26 million) are in this predicament. This means increased risk of neglect, chaos, poverty, substance exposure, domestic violence, and removal by state child welfare professionals. Speaking as an addict in recovery, none of those types of statistics mattered to me when I was using. Remember this if you are a dad wanting to protect your child(ren) from a harmful situation with their addled mother. Give yourself a break from negative self-talk when you get upset or give in to unreasonable demands, but please, get yourself some help. No one gets better unless they want to. The most frightening component you’ll face as a dad whose kids are enduring a parents’ substance abuse situation are the potential long-term effects. The likelihood your exposed children will struggle with drugs themselves or get into a relationship with a person who has a SUD increases compared to homes where no substance abuse is occurring. Over time, the effects will show up in our kids. They might express themselves by letting out feelings of powerlessness, self-hate, hopelessness, abandonment, worthlessness, depression, or anger. I’m dealing with the fallout of this today. On season two of the television series, The Flight Attendant, the main character Cassidy Bowden (played by Kaley Cuoco), struggles with alcoholism. The writers provide an accurate in-depth look at the conflicting voices in many an alcoholic’s head. There is an imaginary room called the ‘mind palace’ where our (I identify as an alcoholic/addict in recovery) demons and other personalities are represented (i.e., wild me, healthy future me, boring me, child me, etc.). As Cassidy opens lines of communication between her many selves, she comes to find that her substance use disorder was enabled by her upbringing–the lack of and/or overcompensation style parenting inherent to substance abuse. As she struggles with humility in her quest to put herself back together in sobriety, she has an unexpected meeting with her mother–the loving parent burdened with the brunt of alcoholic wreckage by both daughter and husband. Attempting to make amends by using her own interpretation of the twelve steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, Cassidy apologizes for the pain she has caused. In a moment of transparency, the mom, played by Sharon Stone, tells Cassidy, “I love you, but I don’t like you. I will not forgive you until you learn to forgive yourself.” The words of Sharon Stone’s character in the scene seemed blunt, but I knew it came from a place of love. My wife and I were in tears. My daughter left the room. I took into account that, now an adult, she has been burdened by years of intermittent interaction and emotional neglect by her substance challenged birth mother. This scene triggered too much emotion. The pain we leave in our kids is real. For a sole custody dad looking to explain the maternal absence due to substance abuse issues, the challenge is real, daily, and lifelong. Please consider this blog as a resource. Some of the books mentioned below might help, even though only one is written by a male. I work tirelessly to find ways men can be aided as single parents. We are a minority, yet rapidly growing number. Our role is of the utmost importance. I know firsthand that it takes time to sift through the tons of social material full of spiteful remarks, resentment, even hate. Most men don’t want to bother with the negative expression, but find themselves having to, especially when dealing with a system set up to favor a parent based on genitalia. Divorce puts the fun in dysfunctional. But it’s traumatic for kids. Both parents forget this all too easily. We move on. The kids don’t have that capacity yet. Some suggested books (apologies that no links are provided as this is not an endorsement): My Dad Loves Me, My Dad Has a Disease: A Child’s View: Living With Addiction by Claudia Black. 2018 – A story for children ages 5-12, with drawing exercises to help them work through their feelings of loss, loneliness, abandonment, and frustration over an addicted parent. Emmy’s Question by Jeannine Auth. 2014 – A story inspired by the diary of a young girl, and was endorsed prior to publication by the Betty Ford Center’s Children’s Program. I Can Be Me: A Helping Book for Children of Alcoholic Parents by Dianne S. O’Connor. 2009 – An illustrated book for ages 4-12, this story is aimed at helping children of addicts take off the masks that hide their true feelings and educates them about substance abuse and how the kids are not to blame for their parents’ behavior. Addie’s Mom Isn’t Home Anymore: Addiction is scary, especially when you don’t know what it is by Genia Calvin. 2021 – Addie is a young girl who doesn’t know who, if not her own mom, she can trust. This story helps a child overcome their fear of helping someone you love who can’t be helped. Timbi Talks About Addiction: Helping Children Cope with Addiction by Trish Healy Luna, Janet Healy Hellier, and Mackenzie Mitchell. 2020 – A story teaching that addiction is a disease and is not their fault. This book has been recognized as a resource in fighting the damaging impact of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) Floating Away: A Book to Help Children Understand Addiction by Andrew J. Bauman. 2019 – A metaphorical story told from the perspective of a child working through a storm An Elephant in the Living Room by Jill M. Hastings and Marion H. Typpo. 1994 – This illustrated story is one of the early Hazelden children’s books aimed at helping a child cope with alcoholism and addiction. I welcome your thoughts and encourage all dads to network. Let me know how I can help you. Please join my mailing list or leave a comment below.

Days and nights on end I try to come to terms with the vast, fast changes happening in the world today. The most visible is the push for all to accept all people and lifestyles of the LGTBQIA+ culture. Would I be revealing my age and faith if I am to say that this culture is making themselves a little hard to accept? Maybe the voice of the minority is speaking the loudest, but I don’t hear a lot of acceptance of others on their part. The more I stand outside this issue and stretch my observations for objectivity, the more I see the pushing of the culture as political and religious. I ask myself over and over why I’m feeling threatened by the rainbow movement when my lifelong actions have been nothing less than supportive. I grew up in a home where my mother wore the pants. Yet, because women in corporate America had a glass ceiling, she was denied her upward mobility. My dad, brothers, and I were deprived of the wage privilege our family bread-winner was owed and never given. Standing for equal wages came with the territory for me. I lived in the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco during the height of the AIDS epidemic and watched the inaction of government cause untold atrocities against humans because of their sexual preferences. Standing for all human rights, equally, is our responsibility. So, what is it that separates us? What is it that causes this presumption we can force others to see the world as we do, less they are shamed and kicked off platforms of communication? As I see it, politics and religion, old as humanity, are back to intertwine the innocents into yet another battle neither side can win. I appear to be neutral, post by post, as a way to seek asylum. By avoiding the actual stating of my values among fellow social media pundits, I get to hear the unabashed opinions of the spectrum of types I follow. Camps becoming more and more divided up thusly into two age-old groupings: Liberalism vs. Conservatism Religion (namely Christianity) vs. Non-religious However, this simplified polarity of ideology is broadened by camps which have their own divisions. For example, there are plenty of liberals who attend Christian churches and schools and have absolute faith in God and the Bible as the word of God. Just as there are conservatives who are Rainbows (I get tired of typing LGBTQIA+). So then, if we are truly living among each other, I must ask, where is all the rage and hatred and lack of acceptance coming from? A better question is, what if I could solve this problem by pointing out ancient scripture? Could everyone go back to hating greed and the real damage upon society that extreme wealth is wreaking? Would you accept my words? Why so or not? The words I have to share are from the Bible. My reasoning is personal. I’ve listened to the angry chatter. It comes from both sides and scares me equally. Rainbow liberals commonly hate Christianity because they feel Christians have excluded them from access to their God. Christians hate Rainbows (and Rainbows just might become a religion of their own) because they believe that the Bible clearly states that being gay or lesbian is sinful. It seems easy for the layman to look at the last two sentences and see how mistaken both sides are. However, these sensitivities to the issue are deeply entrenched, emotionally driven, well-worn, triggered neural pathways set firmly and not open to be easily changed. The Christians historically (the last two centuries) have owned the politics and laws and thus had the numbers. I don’t dispute that this power came from inhumane methods of control and manipulation. This absolute power, because of politics and laws and social media mores, has been dissolving. The Rainbows are now a loud, strong voice and will. They ARE to be heard. So why aren’t Christian seen as good listeners? Why aren’t Christians painted as tolerant, accepting, loving humans just as their leader, Jesus Christ, asked of them? Jesus asked two things of believers: Love the Lord your God, with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22: 36-40). I think it’s funny that the question asked of Jesus was what God expected of us, as if He and us are separate. We like to complicate the crap out of this, but simplified, no provision is made for certain hate or that certain people don’t qualify. Those are woman and man-made fallacies. I don’t know exactly how many churches I’ve walked out on because I discovered the pastor hated rainbows or other religions. Hated. Yes, hated. “Jesus never preached hate,” I may have mumbled under my breath as I left the pew during service. I’ve pulled my daughter out of Sunday school more than once because of misguided pastors. When explaining to the Sunday school child care person why we’re leaving before the service is over, I always expressed how I felt, but would not wait to engage in a discussion. Having minimal Biblical theology at my disposal to use as a weapon, I never dared to bring up my disgust for this divisiveness. That is, not until I heard this in church last weekend. Acts 2, verse 21: But everyone who calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved. Everyone? What about my gay uncle? What about my trans co-worker or my constant pronoun changing social media subscribers? What about all my brothers and sisters in recovery who have devastated their families and communities while locked in the state of addiction? What about the woman who owns her own business where she takes home seventy percent of the profits and pays the workers who build the products for her only five percent? What about the criminals? Everyone? The disciple Peter replies, “As long as they repent their sins, turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus for the forgiveness of those sins.” (Acts 2:38) Peter was paraphrasing the prophet Joel from about 800 years prior. “Then, after doing all those things, I will pour out my Spirit upon all people.” (Joel 2:28). In Joel’s prophesy, he stressed that the Holy Spirit would be given to all of God’s people—regardless of age, sexual identity, race, or economic class—no person who reaches out to God is beyond His power. I understand this to mean that I need to get humble and accept that I don’t control the world, outside of making it worse if I want to be immature and selfish. We all sin and have sinned. The shame is in telling ourselves that we are somehow above being accountable to our actions. It seems as though it serves us well to have some person or group to hate in order to ignore and excuse our own unhealthy behaviors. In fairness, I don’t know exactly how many close friends and acquaintances I’ve had over the years who have vocalized disdain for religious people. “They’re always looking at me. I know what they’re thinking. They are disgusted with me because of how I (insert made-up reason) look, act, feel, talk, think. It’s their fault the world is fucked up. Do you know how many wars began over Jesus?” I preached the same words to my parents. In my head, I was a victim of their generation’s hate, so I hated back. I was anti-family and pro-independence. Anything that appealed to my self-centered pleasure I sought regardless of who’s expense it came at. I thought that I was the master I was serving. Until I lost everything. Lost. Everything. All because of being an agnostic drug addict. I found myself praying for a way out. I was brought to who I came to know as the only power strong enough to save me. This time I accepted the help by first showing gratitude for the Power great enough to be changing my life, then by allowing into my head the possibility I had seen things wrong: that my way did not serve or benefit anyone whatsoever. Humbling. Wisdom comes through the perfecting of faith. My family of origin did not hear me. At an early age I leaned into the creative arts, fierce rebelliousness, and individualistic satisfaction. Connection, growth, commitment—these were enemies of my ideology. I’m writing this to say, if you identify with rainbow clan, I have lived among you. I don’t see anything wrong with how you live other than using Christians, conservatives, or republicans as your enemy. Teaching hate compliments no movement. Same goes for the religious clan. I don’t see anything wrong with how you live other using humans who express their sexuality and individual values different than you as unsavable sinners. Promoting hate lifts no religion. Both sides don’t have to come together, but neither is the authority on who has family values.