Appearing hostile

I'm sorry I get so worked up when it comes to political conversations. I am just wired that way, I guess? I wish I could discuss it calmly - partly cause then I think you'd take me more seriously and consider what I have to say - but apparently I am not able to keep it cool.

My friend in college one time called me out for it, and said I was hostile. She was implying, I think, that I was almost scaring her. I felt bad for that.

The thing is, I really don't think I'm committed to certain "sides" or "outcomes" like you think I am. When I talk to my Dad, he thinks I'm conservative. When I talk to my conservative friends, they think I'm a bleeding heart liberal. The truth is I'm an American, which means (or should mean) that I think for myself, so I find myself coming down on both sides of the aisle. If I seem to disagree with you, it's because I think it's being looked at too one-sidedly... so narrowly... and I am forced to play the devil's advocate.

Of course I usually do believe what I am advocating, but please don't pigeonhole me. Well, that's pretty much not worth saying because your mind has to make sense of me (and everything else it encounters) and so it will be forced to classify me somewhere. I'm a pro-lifer. I'm a Democrat. I'm (recently) a not-so-big-on-institutional-religion-but-still-desperately-need-Jesus-of-Nazareth kind of Christian. I care about the international arena generally, people in poverty specifically, and peace. But I also see the value of military protection and intervention, and though I'd love to be strong enough in myself to say 'we don't need military,' I'm afraid that we do.

And the more I learn about any one issue, the more confused I am about it. Knowing more seems to take me further from a conclusion. Isn't it supposed to work the other way? But I'm trying to remain engaged. I'm trying to recognize that I have a part in conspicuous consumption, and global warming, and racial inequality, and the ability of multinational corporations to be profitable and powerful and harmful.

I'm trying to remain engaged. I see why it's tempting not to be. Maybe part of why I get worked up with you is because you seem to want to disengage, and I can't let that happen to either of us. Disengagement is the problem for most of us.

Jesus wasn't engaged, my friends tell me. Are they right? Wheaton told me otherwise. I guess this is my newest question to solve. I thought it was so obvious that Jesus was engaged... the whole Roaring Lambs book... or the Scandal of the Evangelical Mind... or just the scary nature of the Christian subculture. Separate is not equal... separate is weird, Christians! :) But maybe Jesus wasn't so engaged with "the world" after all. See? I'm confused again.