If you're ________, then you can't be _________ (Christian/Gay alternately)

Logic, the mathematical type, never made much sense to me.

I took a Logic (philosophy) course in college in order to avoid 3 quarters of tedious algebra (even worse). About 2 weeks into the class I couldn't take it anymore. One day, as our Professor, Dr."I'm from Romania (land of philosophers), and I have a chip on my shoulder because I'm stuck teaching morons at a tiny community college" prattled on about whatever, I raised my hand.

"Yes Miss ____?"
"Miller, Miss Miller. Yea, um, I have a silly question. Maybe not so much a question as maybe comment or critique." He lifted his chin in curiosity and I think I saw him cringe slightly.

I went on. "Well, I was wondering, just thinking actually. Trying to figure out how this Logic stuff works, well, because it's logic. Right? I was wondering if it's possible to plug an 'if/then' statement into one of your formulas, an everyday thing such as, 'if I study Logic every day, then I should pass this course'...I was wondering if you could prove it mathematically? I...I was just thinking it would make more sense to spend my time studying this stuff if I knew it was...practical...you know...uh...[I was losing steam as his face was turning the color of a ripe tomato] um...logi...cal."

I have difficulty heeding that little voice inside that cautions me not to say things out loud that could prove inflammatory by the sheer weight of honesty. He just stared at me. Fellow students turned to me with looks one might bestow upon a martyr just before her beheading. He completely ignored me. I took that for a "no" answer.

This is more like my level of logic... Enter, Cookie Monster-


When it comes to academia I might fall in the category of idiot savant. Which, according to Wikipedia (the most unreliable source of information imaginable), connotes "a lower than average general intelligence (IQ) but very high narrow intelligence in one or more fields." That about describes me. But I have many "narrow" fields.

Case in point, I received an F in my undergraduate Statistics course. This connotes that I may be an idiot. However, I was able to convince the professor, with whom I had an adversarial relationship, to give me a C- for my final grade. This connotes pure genius.

Our relationship began the first week of class on the day of our first quiz. I arrived characteristically late. She peered at me from her lofty professorial position and reluctantly handed me my quiz (as if she already knew I didn't deserve it). I sat down, pulled out my pencil, and, glancing at the quiz (written in a type of indecipherable Phoenician language I might add), pulled out my calculator with the conviction of pulling out a water gun at the O.K. Corral.

If you've taken a college Stats course you'll recall the complicated calculator with symbols & functions far more superior than your average checkbook calculator. I had a checkbook calculator. I was really embarrassed. But it was just the beginning of my humiliation.

"Um, Dr. [let's just call her Dr. De' Sade], could I borrow a calculator? I seem to have forgotten to get one of those fancy ones."

Every pencil stopped scribbling. Every head raised up to look at Dr. De' Sade. Then they slowly turned to look back at me. She stood there for an infinitely long period of time just staring at me. I squirmed in my chair and conjured a smile in an attempt to hide the cold fear that ran up and down my spine. It was like being in suspended animation. Like Willey Coyote just after he's run off the cliff. They all just stared. First at me, then at her, then back at me. Some of them mouthing, "Save yourself", others, "Run while you can."

"Miss _____?
"Miller."

"Miss Miller seems to have 'forgotten' to purchase her calculator," she said to the class, as if she were a sleuth presenting the evidence. "Miss Miller, please, give me a good reason why I should let you borrow my own calculator?"

"Um, because you want me to pass your class?" I wasn't sure.

"Perhaps." She wasn't sure either. Yet, she bequeathed me her calculator. The relief was palpable. Pencils returned to paper in earnest. I returned to my seat with that calculator, holding it as if it were an abacus. My relief was short lived. I was dumbstruck. I willed myself not to throw up. My head spun. I stared at that instrument of death for a good 10 minutes (I do not exaggerate) trying to find the "on" button, and another 5 minutes to muster up the guts to ask her how to turn it on.

"Um, Dr. De' Sade?" I finally said. She slowly looked up from her reading (probably the periodical Collegiate Mathematical Sadism Quarterly).

"Um. Well. Uh..."
"Spit it out Miss Miller."

"I don't know how to turn this thing on?"

Her subsequent grin, oozing with incredulity, turned into a laugh that was more diabolical than light hearted. But we all started laughing. Perhaps out of hysterical relief.

Thus began my love/hate relationship with Dr. De'Sade.

"Miss Miller, you entertain me!" I did indeed. I was a good source of endless entertainment for her. She harassed me with delight and regularity. I learned to return her favor in kind. I quickly began my own campaign of unequivocal character assassination. Our relationship became something of a sport. My classmates swiveling their heads back and forth from one to the other of us as if at a tennis match.

Examples are too many to number, but it usually looked something like this:

"Miss Miller you seem to have fallen asleep in the middle of your last test, for I have no other way to explain why you would have completed only half of the questions." At which point everyone would laugh and turn to me in expectation of my return volley.

"Well, Dr. De' Sade, other than the fact that your questions conjure images of waterboarding (with, I might add, the same goal), I'm sure my falling asleep had a lot to do with the fact that this class is the most boring class I've ever taken. How about you try 'teaching' the material. I hear that helps students learn." Ah, the memories. What fun we had.

Oddly, she is probably one of the safest people I've ever known. Ours was an open relationship. There wasn't much left unsaid.

Our story doesn't end there. Eventually, the inevitable final exam came along. I failed it miserably. I mean a big, fat F kind of failing. Which meant I failed the class. I envisioned having to take the class again and sincerely thought of slitting my wrists. Not because of Dr. De' Sade, but because I hate math with great passion.

So it was with great determination that I entered her office with my exam in hand. She peered up at me in the same way she did the day of the famous calculator debacle -humored by me in some way I'll never quite understand. I plead my case. "I know I suck at math, but I'm good at so many other things. You've got to do something! This is a tragedy of great proportion and I'll slit my wrists before I ever have to take another one of your classes!"

Her response wasn't merciful. It wasn't even compassionate or kind. Yet there was something in her response that was affirming, even egalitarian, and it taught me a great deal about how to procure allies. Her response was simple. "If giving you a passing grade means I'll never have to see your face in my classroom again...then I'm passing you. Let's just your final grade is C- and call it even. Now get the hell out of here before I change my mind."

A "thank you" was not appropriate in the context of our relationship. I turned to her at the door and said, "You're a complete pain in the ass, but I really like you." All she said was, "Same goes with you." And that was that. From that day on, anytime I passed her on campus we just smiled at one another as if we belonged to some secret society and no one else was allowed in.
_____________
Why do I tell you these stories?
First, Cookie Monster taught us the fundamentals of critical thinking, deduction, and logic. Sesame Street serves to teach children the fundamentals of life in a format that is developmentally appropriate. You and I should not, at our ages, find it necessary to think about people or issues like we do plates of cookies. However, we all have relationships and issues in our lives where our critical thinking ability actually hasn't moved much beyond the fundamental building block "one of these things is not like the other." If we stay stuck and don't develop as a critical thinker we may find it difficult to allow seemingly incompatible things to exist in the same context together. I think Cookie Monster wants us to move beyond 4 year old thinking.

Still, others of us stay stuck in the fantasy that rigid certainties supersede the real and prevalent ambiguities and the messiness of being human, complex, and emotional. We take this to a new level when we believe that ambiguities and messiness do not exist in monumental proportions in the Bible. It is not wisdom OR logic when we try to plug life and relationship issues into a formula and expect mathematical answers with all the certainties and proof therein.

In the end, my moral is rounded off to the nearest decimal...my relationship with my Statistics Professor. There is more than one way to get a passing grade. Oh, wait. No, that's not it.

Relationships are not determined by "if/then" formulas. If they were, then I'd still be trying to finish my bachelor's degree, and certainly not sitting here with an M.A. under my belt as well. There are more facts and variables. My stats class is only one example of the creativity with which I made it through academia. By thinking outside the box and procuring allies, I was able to concentrate on my many strengths in spite of my glaring limitations.

If I assumed that my professor really hated me because I was mathematically inept, then I would never have learned another lesson in the thousand ways to love. If I had believed that my professor was indeed diabolical, then I never would have believed that she would give me a grade that, by all means and purposes, I did not deserve. That I received that grade is incompatible with the way things should be done. One should work for what they receive, right? One of those things does not look like the other. Logic fails.

Here's my non-linear summary. It just isn't logical to believe that two seemingly incompatible things cannot exist at once in a person. Look at Jesus for example.

Here's my point, two things that many people believe are completely incompatible in a person are homosexuality and God's active Will and Holy Spirit. I have no idea how to explain that they DO indeed coexist. I don't know how to explain why I know I'm gay. I also don't have the language of logic to explain how it is that the Holy Spirit is in me in the first place. Nothing that doesn't sound absurd. Jesus, the cross, rising from the dead. It is all senseless. Crazy.

God can, does, and will continue to work for, with, and through gay people who love God back. Don't ask me for a formula that proves the statement. I just know it. I know it the same way I know a lot of things. I know it in the same way I knew that Dr. De' Sade really actually liked me. That she was an ally despite the evidence to the contrary.

I can't say the same for professor Romania. But I did apologize to him for my pointing out the foolishness of his field in front of his entire class.