I was speaking with a friend recently, one on painkillers from an impromptu root-canal, and we know how that makes for liberating conversation because both parties are drunk: one under influence and the other free to say whatever-the-hell because the other's drunk. I spoke at length about being gay and being in the early stages of a burgeoning relationship in which I've found myself.
I don't do relationships.
I'm good with people and great (?) with my friends (the ones who live near me - sorry all you imaginations from the past...=/) but that's where things end. I've been engaged and I almost died. I was going to write 'it almost killed me' but that takes all the personal responsibility out of my emotions and reactions to them. Both parents are twice divorced and aside from saying 'I'm not my parents' I'm finding myself becoming them both, except gayer.
For a long time I fought being gay. couldn't wouldn't oughtn't need-to mustn't holyhell I-DID-IT-YESSSS oh-SHIT-I-DID-IT-NOOOO and so on. I spent all my time thinking about it and hiding it and fighting it so I was never at peace. Which isn't God. It's not the thing that's the battle: it's holding onto your sword and power in the midst of ghost attacks (ghosts are nothing, btw). And then I stopped thinking about it. And then I was engaged.
I still think it was pushed on me, but that's to avoid the more appropriate and true understanding that I said yes when it was suggested to me. Again avoiding responsibility. Boo. Anyway, this unhappy state of affairs and the sad-sackness into which I descended came with a resurgence of gaiety that frustrated the hell out of me. At the same time I was growing into heights and depths of God: the spiritual loftiness of moving within and without, not being stolen from, hearing from the mouth of God words of peace and walking in them, as well as the depths of agony those glories touch. 'Even there grace can be found.' I came to consider gayness a separate thing from me which was incredibly liberating: it was like a lizard on my shoulder that told me things and I could shut it down with a wave of my hand. Unfortunately, when I was bored and alone any voice suggesting the thought of someone caring for me...touching me...strong hands and arms comforting me and taking away my loneliness...everyone knows how easy it is to revert to habit and jump into familiar courses. So 'it's not me, it's this lizard' was my go-to. A pet I didn't ask for.
Then it became like a badge pinned to my lapel. Not a point of pride (bad pun), absolutely not, buckets of shame in fact, but attached and worn all the time. I remember thinking it was just something about me, like my favorite colour. I think girls are pretty and appreciate their grace and some spark in them which men don't have, but my body is not attracted to them. If they're quiet and cute they're manipulative; If they want to talk they're needy; If they come onto me they're slutty.
It certainly sounds like I'm protecting myself from something, eh?
I speak like a misogynist sometimes because I think it's fun and ridiculous, but ... you know, but...
ANYWAY. Talking to this friend, I started going on about how I realized I didn't want to be married because of all the mindsets I had about relationship: man the home-builder, saviour of the family; wife the worker with ideas better than mine, emasculating me and growing bored and now I've driven this beautiful flower to it's own destruction...I give myself a lot of credit. Even dating, which is supposed to lead to the solidarity of marriage (see previous fun sentence), which is the goal, requires of me flowers, constant attention, careful pacing, both even-measure as well as wonderful spontaneity. I can't be all that, I'm not any of it I'm (sometimes) sure. I don't trust myself for anything. I doubt my skills, timing, ability, what God made me. So I doubt God, and run from both His face (peace, light) and simply walking everyday. I take respite in my head and turn away from the physical manifestation of what I most require: a soft, receiving heart.
Gay is easy. Guys are easy to win, and anyone who doesn't want me I don't want anyway. Girls are easy because I'm not worried about them - I usually define the relationship after I see the second downward glance and put-hair-back-in-place.
I hate gay because it's wrong - all mis-jive and vases acting like broomsticks, or vice-versa, or whatever: things trying to be something they're not. This is my perception and how my body, sometimes my heart, often my spirit, and my mind react to it. Love breaks down the judgmental barriers of wrong and right, and I'm learning to love myself. That's the second level of my judgement - the first being I guess I think God sucks and is always trying to shove a giant cock at me and I'm supposed to love it because I don't like lady parts and so there's no alternative. Abstinence. Asexuality.
Because that makes so much sense.
I think I'm broken, and I think a strong man, my image of God, will hold and comfort me and fix things. Me. Fill my dearth.
In my perception I cannot be that strong man for any woman because I'm broken. So I've renounced them because they only remind me of what I believe I'm not.
Strangely, gays act like women because the natural order to get a man is to be tempting and ribbonesque and lispy. But gays go for men, not guys who act like women... Well, it's all fucked from the beginning, seriously, so it's no wonder it doesn't make sense. Or just not to me.
So I come back to God: having fallen so far and and am now such a goddamn sinner despite knowing the truth, the way that begets the way and perpetuates life...I'm here. God's here. Freedom is here to do this or go after that or bow my head or spend my time on these things. I think too much. I don't know what awakened love feels like, particularly the romantic one...ones...but I do know my love for people is tremendous even when it wavers. Which tells me something about God. Love: affection, well-being, well-wishing, help, comfort, sympathy, (as I age) empathy, grace&objectivity (the same), support, strength, enouragement, and (above all?) truth. No faking no lies no tempering or beating around the bush. It's speaking as is on your heart: learning to speak with and likewise TO RECEIVE in all those same facets and aspects because we practice: at every given moment we're shifting into and out of some of them and so we preactice. We LEARN to hear this truth with grace if we're not hearing it with our ears; we LEARN to listen with the heart. This is how Jed and I have grown closer: we stopped getting caught on words and started listening for the hope. We're struggling and making our way even though we know of better ways, but we settle, each differently, on the peace of where we are and what we're doing, expecting more and changing line upon line.
Ugh.
We settle. I think I meant 'rest', but ...ugh. This is the call right here. It's a man who answers it. The impetus to run into the light and the danger, not fearing, but expecting a fight for a worthy cause. God is worth fighting for. Worth fighting into. 'The industry' is not. Happiness is not - but satisfaction is, because in satisfaction lies things immoveable, from which peace and steady Joy emanate. Happiness is superficial - necessary but only a sign, indicative of the soul's at-restness.
Church as I see it is not a fight. It's spoon feeding and conceptualizing and for beginners - no judgement.
I'm still loathe to say that because of how I think Jed hears it, but I can't do it. It's like sitting in on a Spanish 1 class for me: yes, I can learn things, no, it's not appropriate - there's a mismatch, a discordance - I'm trying to put the resources God gave me back into him instead of making them increase. Talents risked, not buried - though there's a season for everything.
Taking your faith for a walk is ... the point. You can keep it at home as long as you like and it might be fine, but for it to run and grow in the sunshine and air, to get healthy&hale, hearty&robust is to for you to know it's alive! The energy that comes with that is incredibly invigorating, too, expanding your worldview, capacity for love because your blood is flowing into and out of and with people and your location but it's not attached to anything and you no longer fear because you don't have things to lose.
All good talk. They'll know me by my works.
Ugh, forget them: I'll know my faith by my works.
