How do we meaningly engage conversation around topics that are highly charged in our culture? Join our conversation with Anna Carter, the founder of Eden Invitation, a community for Catholics that promotes the fullness of personal identity beyond the LGBTQ paradigm. We talk about acceptance, relationship, and finding common ground under compassionate orthodoxy. ### QUOTES “One of the most critical things that is so simple yet so often overlooked, is the primacy of relationship with Christ in all these situations.” - Anna What does the human heart need above sexual fulfillment: love, belonging, acceptance. That doesn't mean accepting the entirety of the person. I feel acceptance and people don't accept every sin I commit. We do have bigger paradigms to operate under but all of a sudden our paradigm within this context just shrinks, and we think, I have nothing.” - Jason “If I love someone well, they stay. And I think that's the secret sauce of Jesus. It’s the woman at the well, Zacheus, the leper—all these people realize, this man is loving me.” - Jason Part of [this] comes down to the individual accompaniment. Asking people, how is your prayer? What is the question behind their question? What’s going on in other aspects of his life and the full context of his life?” - Anna “What would it look like if we suffered with those that are gender minorities? What are your pain points in the church? What are the expectations on your life? What’s hard? What is the suffering and how can I be in it with you?” - Anna “It’s easy to put a wall up when someone experiences passion in a way that we don’t understand. When in reality, there are scorching passions inside all of us. Am I willing to be in tune with my own? Am I willing to be in tune with the way I cry out and to look at you from that gaze of understanding?” - Anna “You can’t take someone into their story further than what you’re willing to go into yourself.” - Jason *### The Important Things: * 7:40 - It’s not just always about giving someone the right tools, it's the relationship that keeps us walking with the Lord. We have to let go and guide someone towards a deeper relationship. 10:21 - A lot of it comes down to the individual accompaniment and asking the questions behind their questions. What is their context? What other aspects are going on in their life? 12:15 - “I think we are guilty of the same thing we accuse the LBGTQ community of doing. Which is identifying by sexuality…. All of a sudden, everything we know about ministry gets tossed out the window. Everything we know about human development and human formation and spiritual formation, all of a sudden it drops out of our backpack and we don’t know what to do. Which is sort of identifying them by it. It’s saying, because you’re this, I don’t have ways to help you.” 14:00 - The principle is being confident in your life in Jesus in order to offer it to others. The second is giving people what they need from a human level: belonging, love, acceptance. 26:15 - What do we do when we don’t know how to engage meaningfully? You have to consider: the internal reality of the hearer, your own intention, and how culture has infused words with different meanings. But what matters most of all is the heart. What is the intention behind the language and conversation? 48:08 - Compassionate orthodoxy: It can be empathy and understanding. But it can also be suffering with—to love, and be called to charity. What are their pains in culture and the Church? We can find common ground in the human experience of being in the wilderness. Lists & Resources https://www.edeninvitation.com/ https://www.instagram.com/edeninvitation/ https://www.facebook.com/edeninvitation/ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCmgNJUWwpyki1JlCP2Rbg
