Love Actually …

Nguyen – Hello everyone,

This will be my first attempt in writing a relationship/religious piece. Here goes nothing …

First off, I am an atheist. When I told my friends that my girlfriend is Christian, my gang of misfit friends were not shocked or gasped, but rather they were happy for me.

One of her photo on FB: “I’ve been craving fries for weeks and this SUPER FANTASTIC, AMAZING labmate of mine went to get them for me!”

 

Plus, Wing posted a lot of pictures of me and her on Facebook, so there weren’t any surprises (even my non-technological uncle, knew I was dating someone). I wasn’t surprised by their reaction since I have very diverse friends with different cultural and religious background and they understood about equality and love through the lesson that was taught to them at an early age. When I meant early age I meant experiencing the great educational curriculum at York University. I can hold a FORK FINALLY!

 

Now, what does love actually mean?

Before I answer that, there were 1 or 2 friends when I told about my girlfriend being Christian, they mentioned something along the lines of “That must be so hard!” or “Hopefully, she didn’t force you to become Christian”. However, I feel like it wasn’t a burden or a struggle since Wing did not pressure me at all (e.g., going to church, pray, etc). Don’t get me wrong, her religious point of view was a challenge, in terms of debating certain aspect of life (e.g., death penalty, family dynamics, divorce, political wars, what if your children is gay?) or debating meaningless topics (e.g., issues of pornography, is the strip club establishment good? , does cats have more rights than dogs (joking)). Maybe, “her religious point of view was a challenge” was not the right way to put it. Since, it insinuating that her religious belief is the problem, but it’s not. It is more likely that her religious point of view was challenging my own views in a good and effective way, as a result, helping me and her grow as intellectuals and people-person.

My girlfriend is a protestant Christian. I learn a lot about the Christian faith (still continuing to learn from her).  During our relationship, I’ve gone to church more than I ever have in my  whole entire life. There were times when I do not want to go to church (e.g., boring or busy on my academics or just plain lazy); however, she understands. The reason I go to church because  I am in love with a girl whose worldview appeared different to my own. She makes me think critically and inspire me. Her cute laugh and persona brighten my day (or should I say every single day).  Before our relationship,  I thought we were different due to our different religious values, I came to realize that humans are more similar than different. We share common interest and we have moments when we discuss random topics such as politics, human rights, academics, the best boy/girl names, and best dog breeds (*cough* Border collie). We realized that what bring us together was not our religious/non-religious perspective, but love. We may disagree on a lot of things, but the important thing is that we both can express them safely and comfortably to each other…this is what love really is.