scary

Sometimes, I feel like I live in a madhouse. I guess I'm finding out that I'm more conservative than I thought I was. There are a few people . . . okay, pretty much everyone I've talked to about this thing that's freaking me out (which I will not mention because I'm paranoid) is also freaked out by it. So maybe we're all conservatives on that account.

It just seems SO wrong!!!

And even though theoretically--and in other situations besides this one--I'm able to say to myself, "alright, they live by different value systems. We're not here to judge, we're called to love beyond anything else." My instinct in this case is to run, and to run as fast as I can in the opposite direction. Mind you, it isn't just based on this particular incident, but is true in other ways too. My instinct earlier was already to perhaps walk away slowly and unobtrusively, but now, it's just screaming RUN and damned be the consequences!!!

Let's just say that living in the Madhouse is . . . challenging, in many ways. I'm beginning to find out labels like "liberal" or "conservative" or "progressive" or "Christian" or "anything" no longer mean what I thought them to mean. Sometimes, they're pleasant surprises. Other times, I have to struggle really hard to keep my reactions to myself.

This is tough. Living in community is tough. Living with people who have very different value systems is tough. I'm sorry, I don't quite know how to work through this right now.