This post was born of a comment I made on Orlando's post about what being a progressive means to her, and Jason's post about the culture wars.

Personally, I don't know what I am anymore. This place and this election have me questioning everything I ever thought I knew, re-evaluating every position I ever thought I held, and wondering how, at the ripe old age of 56, my basic understanding of who I am can be so much in the air and so contradictory.

I personally used to like labels. I liked knowing I was a conservative. I liked knowing I was an Evangelical. Now I'm not sure I'm either, and I don't know what I am instead.  But I find myself needing to redefine who I am, and I no longer seem to fit into any of the clearly defined boxes into which I used to place myself.

I came of age at a time when women had few choices. I had no interest in any of the traditional female careers, so opted to get married and be a stay at home mom until my youngest was in 2nd grade. Then I let the "women's movement" convince me I was less than a whole person if I stayed home and was a wife and mother, so I opened my own business which I adored, and ran it for nearly 20 years, but it was pretty much at the expense of my marriage (which suffered greatly and took YEARS to repair.) Once my 1st grandchild arrived, I realized that family was where my happiness was to be found, sold the business and became a full time wife, mother and grandmother...thus coming full circle.

Both my daughter and daughter-in-law have careers they loved prior to having children, and now that they have lifestyles built around 2 incomes (you just about can't own your own home w/o 2 incomes, at least in CA.) wish they could stay home with their children. Neither are in fields where they can work from home.

This is progress/change, but is it good?

As far as the culture wars go, I do not believe they are over. There are still very strong feelings on both extremes, and getting to the middle is going to be difficult. I consider myself to be a tolerant person. I used to be sure of my positions, but more and more I can quite easily see both sides of most issues. I'm not sure how to bridge them all, but recognizing the validity of opposing positions is a necessary start.

I'm not fond of abortion, but don't want the government making the choice for my family. I feel like this is an issue best left to women, their doctors and their God.  Not all people are Christians, and it seems ridiculous to have laws that demand non-Christians abide by their beliefs. As a Christian, I'm still a little confused as to when life actually begins. Try as I might, I cannot find anyplace in the Bible that says it is at conception. And if it is, why do we not have Christian burials for the product of miscarriages in the 1st trimester?

I don't believe we "chose" who we love, but I am still resistant to the idea of gay couples adopting. I think that I think "marriage" is a religious institution, and all other unions are "civil," so maybe it's time for redefining our relationships. Perhaps all non-Christian unions should be called "unions," save "marriage" for Christians and make sure that all "unions" have the same standing under the law. I'm not sure where that leaves the adoption issue, but at least its a start.

I believe in God and His Son Jesus Christ, but the Christian community really turned me off w/ its performance in this election, and although I love God, have huge issues with my church family to the point where I haven't been to church in months. As Christians, we believe all sin is equal, so the lies that came from the right and the deaths that came about in the unnecessary war in Iraq should be as repugnant to them as the so-called "murder" of unborn children, but where was the outrage?

I believe we are our brother's keepers, but somewhere in the deal there has to be some accountability for one's personal choices. I can't turn my back on starving children or watch sick people lose everything as they struggle to pay medical bills, but I know that welfare is a form of slavery. I know that hard work and saving should be rewarded, yet I think those who makes tons of money have an obligation to the have nots of the world...where do you draw the line? Is it necessary to own 10 houses all over the world and fly around in private jets and have $100 dollar a minute massages, and caviar and $3500 jackets? Can you legislate against that? I don't believe in "forced" socialism, but shouldn't we, as individuals be a little more socialistic? Shouldn't we "self" socialize?

I think government should stay out of our lives as much as possible, and do only those things that we can't do for ourselves, i.e. defense, infra-structure, education, health care, environment, regulations that keep us honest (financial markets -duh, utilities, food/product safety) So in other words, so much for small government :-) !!!

So what am I? Or do labels even work anymore? Should we just stop trying to label ourselves and start realizing that unless we come together in the middle and learn to respect each other's differences, we are doomed? Seems to me like the time for either extreme has passed.

All I know for sure is that being a polarized country is getting us nowhere. There is no way in HELL we are going to end up on either extreme, so we'd best figure out how each side can get as much of what it needs as it can, and learn to live in harmony somewhere in the middle.

The alternative is that we WILL someday end up in another shooting civil war, instead of just the cultural one we're in now.