Disney Movie Marathon Continues!

I think this one might be better than "Tinkerbell and the Lost Treasure," though I like both of them (yes, I am five years old...deal with it). I like the lonely little girl who wants to learn about fairies, and I even like her father, who is so sure that nothing is "real" unless he can see it and touch it and measure it. I like the little girl's assertion at the end of the movie: "You don't have to understand. You just have to believe." It's very difficult to have faith, and harder still to hold onto faith when you don't understand what's happening in your life. I think these movies have lessons that adults could stand to learn as well. Plus they're so pretty! My inner five year old is pleased.

100 Horror Movies in October

Hello all. This year, I'm intending to try to watch 100 horror movies (possibly more, but 100 is the goal) throughout the month of October. This is all part of a yearly challenge at the DVD Talk message boards, which you can read more about here: 100 Movies, 31 Days, the 5th Annual October Horror Movie Challenge

Last year I got so sick that I missed out and only watched like, 33 movies. This year I intend to try and watch the full 100 (or more, but probably not). What's more, to keep up with my progress and make sure I meet my goal, I intend to do a short write up in this journal about every movie I watch. These will NOT be full reviews. If I give a movie a full review, it will end up here at Cinema Crazed with all my real reviews. Don't expect more than some snarky commentary here in this journal. I have to do 100 of these write ups after all, some of them are bound to be short. I mean, how much can I really say about "Happy Hell Night"? I guess we'll find out. I'll try to make the comments entertaining, though. I'm not sure if anyone reads this blog or not, but since it details my journey of understanding how faith and sexuality and popular culture intersect in my life, and horror movies have always been a big part of that, I figured anyone who reads this would want to take the journey with me this October. I hope it's a fun ride for all of us.

My DVD Talk List is going to be here: Edwardnortonfan's October Horror Movie Challenge List if you want to check it out. I tried to make it look all pretty and cool, and I'm sure I'll add some more bells and whistles as the month progresses. Anyone who wants to join me and try to see how many movies they rack up is welcome, even if you only plan to watch a few...I'm sure we'll have some fun discussions throughout the month. Happy Halloween, everyone (in my world, it's ALWAYS Halloween).

The Shepherd

Today hasn't been a good day. I wouldn't be lying if I said that it's probably been the hardest day I've had in months. It seems like all the stress is piling up and ganging up and attacking me at once, and I've been bottling up things that threaten to come to the surface and I don't know if they'd make me feel better or destroy me if I let them out. My boss called me worthless at work last Saturday even though I bust my ass and try to stock as much as I can, and last night he threatened twice to fire me because he said he knows someone is trying to get away with not stocking by saying things are "backstock" (what we call items that are already full on the shelves). I know this isn't true, but the morning people keep saying it's true about me (I don't know why they hate me so much) and you can say all you want "oh, if it's not true, he won't fire you" but Ive been fired before from a job when I was accused even though I didn't do anything wrong. I'm barely scraping by as it is. Losing this job would be devastating for me. Especially when I work so hard to do my job and do it well, and I'm so stressed out about everything else in my life that my job was the only thing that seemed to be going well. I don't need this stress on top of everything else.

So yeah. Bad day. And I'm so tired of trying to have hope in the midst of a sea of people who keep telling me to have hope like it's easy to do, or like it's not something I'm already trying with every fiber of my being, while I get sicker and sicker and still don't have insurance and still have so much debt and still see people losing hope all around me and giving up and dying, and I want to tell them to have hope, but I know how trite that sounds to me and I want to give them something real, so I try my best only to have people mock my words or tell me I'm a drama queen. I'm about to stab the next person who says something like that to me.

See? Now I'm threatening to stab people. I want so badly to be a good person. I want to be the kind of person I expect others to be. It's so much harder than it sounds, and I'm so tired of trying and failing. When the author Renee Alston wrote in her book "Stumbling Toward Faith" about her husband, her description of him touched my heart in so many ways that I read it over and over and over again to remind myself that there is good in the world, even when I can't see it for myself:

there was so much that was shattered and broken in me. i was distrustful and skeptical, and i pushed love away because i was terrified of it. the thought of being hurt kept me from taking risks, and kept my life protected and safe.

my husband came into my life with great gentleness. he never forced his way in. he never insisted that i give him anything that i couldn't give. he simply sat with me and waited with me and loved me.

i learned from him the wonder of being loved. he has stayed with me even when i have begged him to leave. he has respected me even when i have yelled at him and thrown things at him and refused to respect myself. he has held me when there were no words to be said, knowing that to say them would only trivialize my pain.

he walked with me through the process of intense therapy, of nights when i slept in the bathtub or the closet, too terrified to be with another person; too full of memories to be in my own bed. he has watched me sign "no suicide" contracts and visited me in mental hospitals. he has nurtured the small wounded parts of me and always believed i would make it.

i have held on to his hope for me when i have had none for myself. i have held on to his love for me when i have felt unloved and afraid. through him i have learned that there are places in me that love can reach. through him i have been willing to begin to be loved. through him i have learned the worth of letting people in. because of him i began to open up to others again, to be brave.

he has been the beginning of my ability to believe.

That description tugs at my soul. It reminds me of what I'm trying to be for other people, and for myself, a friend...someone who is there for people and tries to give them hope; and I keep trying to remind myself that even if it seems like it doesn't matter, it does matter. So many people gave up on me. I want to be the kind of person who will not give up on someone else. I honestly don't feel strong enough, like I don't have one thousandth of the resolve I need, and the light I try to shine looks so small in the face of the darkness. I try to remember that it's important that I'm shining a light at all, but it's hard to remember that when all I can think about is what a horrible job I'm doing and how messed up my life is (and how bad my grammar is when I keep putting prepositions at the end of my sentences).

Have you guys ever seen Pulp Fiction? There's this part I keep thinking about, where Samuel L. Jackson's character says this:

There's a passage I got memorized. Ezekiel 25:17. The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of the darkness. For he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you. I been sayin' that shit for years. And if you ever heard it, it meant your ass. I never really questioned what it meant. I thought it was just a cold-blooded thing to say to a motherfucker before you popped a cap in his ass. But I saw some shit this mornin' made me think twice. Now I'm thinkin': it could mean you're the evil man. And I'm the righteous man. And Mr. 9mm here, he's the shepherd protecting my righteous ass in the valley of darkness. Or it could be you're the righteous man and I'm the shepherd and it's the world that's evil and selfish. I'd like that. But that shit ain't the truth. The truth is you're the weak. And I'm the tyranny of evil men. But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be a shepherd.

Maybe that's it. I'm the tyranny of evil men, but I'm trying real hard to be the shepherd. It doesn't seem like enough, but it's going to have to be, because it's all I've got right now.

We are All Fags Now

Nifty title, huh? I think I have the evidence to back it up though, so please keep reading. Most of the time I rant about movies in this space (or books, from time to time) and I'm going to talk about a movie later, but first, I wanted to say a word about everyone's favorite pop culture icon, Fred Phelps. 'Who the fuck is that?' you might ask. Well, Fred Phelps is the pastor of the Westboro Baptist Church, that infamous little slice of fundamentalist frenzy that sends its members to picket at the funerals of famous gay people. Yes, I said “picket.” The church members carry signs that say “God hates fags” and “AIDS cures fags” and other fun things. Now as horrible as it might be to imagine picketing a funeral, a time of mourning, and pouring more grief on top of people that are already grieving, a lot of people (especially people in my small little backwoods community) wouldn't think this has much affect on them. After all, those people are many states away from us, so we don't have to see them, and we all know the bible does say something about gays being evil or something like that, so these crazy church people are only practicing their religion. It's not a big deal.

I'm not just being sarcastic, either. To be honest with you, as much as I wanted to vomit at the thought of someone picketing at a FUNERAL, I didn't think Fred Phelps and his creepy little church had much to do with my life, either. That was before Matt Webber. 'Who the hell is that?' you ask, 'Why the fuck do you keep throwing random names out there? We have no idea what you're talking about.' Well, let me tell you who he was. Matthew Alan Webber was a local soldier who fought in Iraq and died on April 27, 2006. I didn't know him beyond saying “hi” a few times, but in a town as small as this one, whenever local soldiers are overseas fighting, we see their names a lot. Local churches publish their names on bulletin boards and organize prayer chains, and when local soldiers die, everyone hears about it. When Matt died, people would come into work crying, because we all knew someone else who was still overseas fighting, and we all mourned for those who died. As much as it sucks living in a small town sometimes, this is one of the good things. Tragedies can connect us.

Something strange happened around the time Matt died, though. Remember Fred Phelps? Well, his church has decided that since God hates fags so much, that means God hates any country where a lot of fags live, so God hates America too (but...but...that doesn't make sense-hush, you and your logic, just try to follow this train of thought as it derails). So since God hates America (as we've established, because we're all a bunch of “fag enablers”) that means God hates anyone who fights for this country, so God hated the soldiers fighting for the USA, so God killed them, and people mourning the soldiers are mocking God, so they need to be told the “truth” and Fred Phelps and his church need to spread the gospel to those at these funerals. Again, kind of insane, but what does it have to do with us? Well, you guessed it, Fred Phelps showed up at Matt Webber's funeral to picket and protest and hand out “gospel” literature. We got warning about this a week or so in advance, and everyone at work was abuzz with the news, everyone wondering what kind of person would picket a funeral. When they found out that I knew who Fred Phelps was, they asked me about him, and I got to have several variations on the following conversation:

Them: Who is Fred Phelps?

Me: He's a pastor of a church that pickets at the funerals of gay people-

Them: Matt wasn't a faggot!

Me: Yeah, but since Matt Died protecting the U.S., and the U.S. has laws protecting the rights of gay people, Fred Phelps says God hates America, too

Them:..That's stupid.

Me: Yeah.

I have to hand it to people. As full as this city is of small-town rednecks, when Fred Phelps came here, no one took a shot at him. No one even threw a rock at him. The Mecosta County sheriff John Sontag (who knew Matt growing up, since he was Matt's rocket football coach) even said he'd have officers stationed around the high school during the funeral to protect the Westboro Baptist church protesters, saying: “We will protect these people, because that’s what Matt died for. He died so these scumbags can protest.” I personally think that's a laudable attitude, especially since I would have gone apeshit and at least thrown rocks at the protesters if I'd been at the funeral (this is why none of my friends would give me a ride to the funeral; they knew I'd go off on someone). I know, the protesters just want attention, I'd be giving it to them, it would be wrong to assault them, blah blah blah. I would probably have done it anyway. All my logic would have gone out the window the second I saw Matt's mother crying while people were standing across the street holding signs saying that God hates Matt. But no one from my area did that, and I admire their restraint. Score one for the rednecks.

The thing that stood out to me the most about this event was the conversations I got to have with people because of Fred Phelps' visit. Like I said, most people in this area have some idea that the bible says it's a sin to be gay, so on that basis, they can understand some church wanting to go off and preach at people about it, but that stance changes the second you start talking about protesting SOLDIERS. The grand majority of citizens in this area are military families, and we all know someone fighting overseas, so when the issue hits us closer to home, it's harder to be objective. I know people say it's a good idea to always be objective in debates and such, but I don't always agree. I don't think people really understand how hate poisons everyone it touches until they are confronted with it affecting someone they love. The people I talked with were shocked that someone would protest Matt's funeral just because he fought in a war representing a country that had laws protecting the rights of gay people. That's kind of what hate does, though. You start hating something, then you slowly begin to hate everything associated with it, and it spreads. I'm not a fan of arguing for a “slippery slope,” but this sure is the track that hatred seems to take when it infects people. For me, if anything good came out of Fred Phelps' visit at all, it was this: I got to talk to people, and they'd say “I can't believe he's protesting at Matt's funeral, that's so horrible,” and I'd say “He's done this to hundreds of funerals of gay people, too,” and they'd pause for a minute, then they'd say “That's horrible, too.” Yeah, it is. But I'm glad we all could learn something from it. Sometimes, when people are confronted with evil, they shrink away. Sometimes, they take the experience in, and they grow from it. I think the people in my town chose the latter path.

I recently watched the documentary “Fall From Grace,” about Fred Phelps and his church and how it got its start and how its teachings have spread, and it's pretty harrowing to watch. I didn't feel qualified to write a review of the movie, because I'd have a hard time being objective (there's that word again) but I thought I'd at least devote a post to the issue, because it's important to me. Watching the documentary gave me an inside seat to how hate spread throughout Phelps and his family and how it spread through their teachings and how it's grown stronger until it became what it is today; a monster that's so strong it even has his family protesting at the funeral of Heath Ledger, because he's an actor who portrayed a gay character. I guess no one is immune from the wrath of this God, because in Phelps' world, we are all fags now (well, at least we all have something in common, then). That level of hate must be difficult to maintain. I would do well to be sympathetic if not to Phelps himself then at least to the idea that it's not a good idea to hate so strongly that it ruins your entire life. So here's to taking baby steps toward not hating people. Here's to all the people whose funerals have been disgraced by Phelps' presence, and here's to Matt Webber, who even in death had a battle to fight against ignorance, and whose funeral helped a lot of people learn something. Even me.

"As far as I'm concerned, it's all hot. Just because I'm not sticking it in there doesn't mean that I don't find it beautiful."

The title of this post is a quote from Adam Lambert in his infamous Rolling Stone article. I read that quote, and I thought it was the most awesome thing OMG EVER, so I wanted to use it somewhere, but the thought crossed my mind that if I did, some of my friends would be pissed off at me. I've been this way all my life, always finding friendships with people who don't respect me, or who put me down all the time, or who just basically treat me like garbage. I don't know why it is. Someone told me that as humans, "we accept the love we think we deserve," and I think that for me, there's a lot of truth in that. Maybe a part of me thinks that I deserve to have friends who cut me off in mid-sentence to mock what I'm saying, or to roll their eyes at me and tell me "that makes no sense" when I speak (even when what I said makes perfect sense, thanks) or who tell me that I look like shit and they don't want to be seen in public with me, or who wait for me to tell a story that I think i s so beautiful it brings tears to my eyes to tell it, and then when I'm done roll their eyes and say "that was stupid." I could go on and on. I seem to have a talent for picking relationships with people who don't respect me (and most of them wouldn't even recognize that they do this if I tried to talk to them about it...I know because I HAVE tried).

Part of being self-aware is realizing that I need to change some things, but the hard part is knowing that I have to work on ME, because I can't change anyone else. I have so many issues that I don't know where to start some days, but until I'm capable of seeing any good in myself, no one else is going to see any good in me, either. So onward I go.

I wrote this message for a friend, and I posted it on a message board awhile ago, but just to remind myself (and because maybe some of you might want to hear it, as well) I'm posting it here, too. I love you guys.

Someone posted this passage from the children's story "The Velveteen Rabbit" the other day, and I haven't read or thought about that story in years, but when I read these words again, they hit me so hard that I cried, because they describe me so well:


"Real isn't how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It's a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don't mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn't happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You become. It takes a long time. That's why it doesn't often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very nappy. But these things don't matter at all. Because once you are Real you can't be ugly, except to people who don't understand."


So I was thinking about this the other night, in the midst of about a week without sleep (and with very little hope...it's been a dark week) and these words came to mind, so I started praying them:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

Recently, I've started praying the serenity prayer at work. Like I said, I haven't slept in days, and I'm so stressed out and such that it seems that drinking and drugs and razor blades have never been as tempting to me as they are right now. I was thinking how weak I was that the temptation had never seemed to bother me this much in the past, and I'd never been overcome with it like I seem to be right now. Then last night it hit me...of COURSE it seems like the temptation is stronger now than it was before. Before, I always gave in. Now, I don't do those things anymore, so I know what it feels like to struggle against something that used to rule my life so strongly. It seems harder now because I'm fighting, and fighting is always harder than giving in.

I actually cried, I was so relieved to be able to see it that way. I have such a hard time seeing myself in a positive light and seeing myself as strong, because even typing those words seems alien to me. I'm not strong. I'm not anything good or noble or righteous, not the way I should be, because I'm surrounded by tangible reminders of every ugly failure I've ever had. But the thing is, these scars make me who I am. I shouldn't have made them, it was wrong, it was bad, blah blah blah, but even if it was wrong, they're here now, a part of me, and scarred skin may be ugly, but it's also stronger than regular skin, because something about the process of knitting itself back together makes it tougher than it was in the past. I may be ugly, but these marks show that I have lived, and that I'm still here to tell the tale.

So I thought about the things I can change, like my attitude, the things I can't change, like the nasty comments and opinions of others, and how the hardest thing for me has always been knowing the difference between the two, because I want so badly for other people to like me and see something good and worthy in me that I always think if I try hard enough, I will be good and be righteous and people will see that and finally, I will be good enough. It never works out that way, though, and because of this, every negative opinion hurts that much more because it reminds me again how I've failed and how I'll never be good enough. But there again, that's looking at things backwards...if nothing else, people's negative comments should remind me that no matter what I do, someone somewhere is going to disapprove, and I can't live for the opinions of others, I have to live for myself, because I'm the only one who has to be around myself 24/7 for the rest of my life. And as I was musing on the words of this prayer, I started praying it, over and over (I do that sometimes, pray the "Hail Mary" or the "Our Father" because those are the ones I can remember, and they help me focus on God and keep going) and I realized that "The Serenity Prayer" is probably the best thing I could pray to myself at work and throughout my life, when I'm surrounded by other people and their opinions, things I can't change, and motivated by the desire to be whole and accepted more than any other thing. If nothing else, God accepts me where I am, and I'm doing everything I can to put one foot in front of the other and keep going and survive, and I'm feeling every sling and arrow because I don't have drugs or alcohol or anything else to numb the pain like I had in the past. I'm realizing how much pain hurts when you have to actually FEEL your emotions. But this is good. It means I'm still alive, still becoming. All things new.

Coming Out

Someone asked me to post my "coming out" story here, since I keep going on and on about how mine is different. It is. I'm not like most people; I can't say "well I realized that I was attracted to people of the same sex at X age" because for me, things didn't work out like that. Someone asked me to write "What the letters GLBTACQI Mean to You" and this is what came out. I apologize if it's incoherent (and it's going to have more profanity than I typically use in this blog, because it's been the sort of week when I use profanity quite a bit).

Yeah, so when I was younger, I realized that I never fit in and never belonged anywhere, and I blame my mom for a lot of that, because she never let me go to school or get out of the house and socialize and be around other people and learn their language. So anyway, I felt like an outcast, and when I was fast becoming a rabid reader in my pre-teens, I read every book I could possibly find about gay people. I figured I wasn't one of them (since, you know, I didn't want to have sex with women, but then I didn't even know how women HAD sex, and I didn't want to have sex with anyone, even though sex dominated my thoughts as a kid, it was a skewed view of sex as pain and degradation, so even though I felt like it was a part of me, I didn't want any part of it) but anyway, yes, I figured I wasn't gay, but I figured that everyone hated gay people and everyone hated me, too, so we had something in common, so I should read about them. So I did. that's when I discovered Harvey Milk, and how he was the first openly gay person elected to US public office (other gay people had come out and told people they were gay after they'd been elected, but Harvey Milk was elected when everyone knew he was gay, meaning he didn't hide it but he told everyone about it because he was loud and mouthy but most people seemed to like him anyway). I read about him, and I read his speeches, and I became obsessed with him ("yes you did," said Lillian's friends list, "and we're all still paying for that, so many years later") because he talked about hope like it was a real, tangible thing that could keep people going when they had nothing else, and I had nothing else (I wasn't even allowed to leave the house) so long before I discovered Jesus, I discovered Harvey Milk, and I tried to have hope that someday, I would be able to break free from my prison (because that's what my home life was) and live. It took me years, but I managed to do just that, and forgive me a moment of blasphemy, but I'd have done well to hang on more to the message I got from Harvey Milk than most of the messages I got from church, because churches fucked me over and fucked me up royally for years. But anyway, gay people were always important in my life, so it bothered me somewhere deep down knowing that I was supposed to believe that they were going to hell (well, if they had sex and were happy, they were going to hell...if they stayed celibate and beat themselves up over every homosexual thought, they could stand a chance of being righteous one day maybe if God chose to love them more than they deserved or something).

In college I really desperately wanted to go to the gay group on campus, but I was too afraid to go...I went to a few meetings, but I was so messed up that it didn't have much of an effect. The only thing that wore down the stupid walls I had built in my head was years and years of being around gay people (because I stand by this: I always did love them and never thought they should have to change, even when I tried to change myself in later years, even when I beat myself up for my sinful thoughts, even when I hated myself, I never hated them, and I hated myself for not being able to think what they did was sick and wrong like I was supposed to think...how fucked up is THAT?) And after years of being around gay people (and probably convincing every single person in my church that I was gay because I look back on my pictures from back then and I dressed like the biggest fucking dyke I've ever seen...but that was more to cover my body and not ever cause a man to look at me and think about sex, because that was a sin and that would send me to hell...just ask my church...) one day, after I'd walked away from the church and started kind of seeing this guy, I was watching an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer that I'd seen a million times before, when suddenly it hit me that I had a crush on one of the girls in the episode. Just like that. It never occurred to me before, but I think that's because I spent so much time in a screwed-up mindset about sex that I never thought there was anything positive about sex...I thought about it all the time, and I had graphic pictures in my head that nothing could erase, but I knew next to nothing about what sex really was and what it really could be...does that make sense? I saw that I had a guy who found me attractive, and suddenly I stopped thinking I was ugly and sinful and evil, and I stopped seeing my sexuality as something ugly and evil, too. So it wasn't until I had a guy who was sexually attracted to me, a guy I liked who was nice to me, that I could begin to see anything positive about sex, and it was then that I was able to open up to my crushy-gushy feelings about another girl (yes, I'm saying that it wasn't until I was in a sexual relationship with a guy that I was able to see sex with a girl as a good thing, yes, I know how stupid that sounds, this is why I've never said it before, no, I don't know why I'm saying it now...wait, yes I do...blame Dani).

So anyway, after this guy broke up with me, I got my first crush on a girl who I knew in real life, and then I had my first relationship with a girl, and even though it was messed up, I wouldn't trade it for anything, because it made me realize that there was always something missing when I had sex with a guy (I liked looking at him, I still like looking at guys and especially at naked guys but when it comes to actually having sex, I most certainly enjoy having sex with women more). So that's when I finally realized that I don't just empathize with the letters on that alphabet soup list, I'm ONE OF THEM.

That's the long answer to the question, of course. The short answer is that "GLBTACQI" means to me that we have WAY TOO MANY letters in our acronym.

This is the Way the World Ends

So some of you wanted to know what's going on with me. Well, for starters, my old campus minister gave me a ride home from the store today.

Those of you who remember my old campus minister might be cringing right now. You'd be right to do so.

I shouldn't have taken the ride, but it was raining, and...yeah, I shouldn't have taken the ride. Pneumonia is better than this. Still, it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

His kids were in the back seat (the two oldest, Nate and Sam, and man, they've grown...they're so cute!) so he couldn't get too in-depth, but I know this drill. I used to meet with him for "leadership training sessions" and we'd run into people he's met before, and he'd talk with them, all nice, and as soon as they walked away he told me everything that made them leave the ministry, and all the sad sins that ruled their lives since they left...so I'm sure he had some choice words for his kids after I left. But while we were in the car he just asked me how I was doing, and he said he's seen me around town, and it's sad for him to see people who used to be active in the ministry now involved in things that could damage their souls and the souls of those around them, and he remembered what I was like back when the campus ministry was the center of my life, and he hoped I'd return to God. I said that I was happier and healthier now than I'd been in college. Then he just asked me where I worked, and the conversation was over.

So why am I sitting here seething now?

Because I gave SO MUCH of myself to that church, and I got so little in return. I got insulted, told that I wasn't a good witness, told that I shouldn't cry in church because it ruined my witness, that there was something wrong with me, and that he didn't want new people coming into the church to see me. And even after all that, I still stayed and served and tried to change whatever about me wasn't worthy. I never quite made it.

Well then the straw came, the proverbial one that breaks the camel's back, and some of my friends might remember it (my friend Rachel should remember it, since she's the one who woke me up and made me see how bad things had gotten the night I left the church...I don't know if I ever told her that). See, the campus minister kept giving sermons about how he was proud of this guy in our church for "sharing the truth" and how for the first time in his campus ministry career, he found a good reason to read the student paper. You know why? Because this guy, Aaron, was the editor of the student paper that year, and he had badly written an editorial about why gay marriage was wrong, and suddenly every week, the campus minister found time to have "let's all praise Aaron" sessions, and I was getting tired of it.

One week, someone from my hall, an RA that I knew named Zach, wrote a letter into the paper saying that he didn't appreciate the "anti-gay marriage" rhetoric, because he was gay, and it wasn't just that the article was wrong, it wasn't written very well and the arguments in it were stupid (which they were...gay people can't bear children, gay people don't have sex the way most people do, the bible says it's an abomination and Romans says it's unnatural, blah blah blah please shoot me now). Aaron wrote a "response" in his "letter from the editor" section about how it's sad that people don't want to hear the truth, but that's not his fault, and if they have a problem, it's a problem with God, not with him. So I sat there thinking every week, "Dammit...I hope no one who's gay is sitting here listening to this, because they might think God doesn't love them" (yeah, I was thinking that, never underestimate the power of denial). But it ate away at me, and I didn't say anything, and then I finally wrote a letter to the editor myself, saying that it was one thing to share an opinion, but it was quite another to spout off without any love or respect for those on the other side of the issue. Aaron called me at home after he got that letter, saying it's unfair for me to attack the paper that way, and maybe I needed to talk to my campus minister if I was having problems with God's word. That night, I talked with some of my friends (Dani, Rachel, and Matt) and that's when Rachel told me that she hoped no gay people went to that church, because if they did, they must feel totally alone and unloved right now.

THAT hurt. I thought about that, and turned it around in my head, all through the church service that night. I thought about how before, the sermons were just hurting me, and I'd been hurt enough by this church not to really care anymore, but now I could see the impact their words and message had on other people, too. Zach was someone I really liked and respected, and he deserved better than that. I didn't want him to think everyone in the church felt the way Aaron did. That day, my letter was published in the paper (in spite of what Aaron said in his call) so I was prepared for someone to say something nasty to me at church, but no one did, no one even came up and said "hi" to me, and I had to hold back tears the whole time, because I knew what I had to do. So finally, after the service was over, I told my campus minister I didn't know if it was healthy for us to focus on "Gay = BAD" so much in every single sermon, because it's like we were losing focus on everything else (like, y'know, the gospel and other unimportant things like that). He replied that this WAS an important issue, people didn't realize how damaging homosexuality could be, even if it's genetic, that's all the more reason to fight against the temptation, gays are like alcoholics so why don't alcoholics get a parade. So I threw some really weak arguments at him (let him come at me today, I have way better things to say, but back then, I had nothing, and I ended up shooting blanks at every person who fired at me...I still have the scars, and I bet they don't have a goddamned thing). I told him that I don't think it's helpful to compare alcoholism and homosexuality, since even sociologists recognize that associating sexual orientation with sin can be harmful, and even some Christians believe that perhaps the bible verses used to condemn homosexuality could be interpreted differently, and that even if people aren't "born gay" that doesn't mean they shouldn't have equal rights, because people aren't "born Christian" but our rights are protected...

And he just said, "Lillian, it's sad what some people choose to believe" and walked away.

End scene.

Kind of anticlimactic for a conversation that put an end to five years of my serving in and giving all my extra money to his church, don't you think? Is this the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper? I thought I'd at least earned some yelling and screaming, for Christ's sake.

That's how it ended, and this is where it stands now, I suppose. I'm better off when I'm not in an environment like that, because I'll always be a freak no matter where I am, but it still stings (especially when something opens up the wound this way, and in a small town it's hard to avoid running into people who hate me...I know they still hate me even when I can't hear them saying it, but I can at least PRETEND it doesn't exist when I don't have to look at it).

Sigh.

I think a long bath is in order after I finish my laundry. Something to calm me down. I get my test tomorrow, so we'll find out what my cancer is up to in a few weeks. I'll just keep on trudging, I guess.

Reasonable Doubt?

I wrote this in response to someone who was mulling over the whole "Gay Christian" question. I admit...I can't be objective about things like this, because of everything I've been through, but I'm trying to figure out the truth, and for right now, I think that's enough (or I DON'T think that's enough, but it's fucking going to HAVE to be, because it's all I've got...if people are KILLING themselves over this shit, I can afford to spend a few nights lying awake pondering what I believe about it, right?)

So anyway, I wanted to share this, in the fullness of its brokenness, because it's so close to what I'm feeling right now that it explains at least SOME of what is keeping me awake at nights these days.

Here is what I'm suffering through. The God that I've always known has been attached to certain rules and regulations in my mind. It's been this way since I became a Christian. People can deny it, they can say that salvation is by grace alone, but even for the people who say that and are totally sincere when they say it, there's always a catch, there's always something looming in the shadows, hiding behind the bushes, ready to pounce after someone takes the plunge and chooses to have faith and accept that God is real. Soon after you come to “saving faith in Christ,” however you come to it, there is this expectation that you will be “walking in the footsteps of faith” (Romans 4:12) and “living a life worthy of the calling you have received” (Ephesians 4:1). There is some disagreement over how to accomplish these things, obviously, but the basic principle is always there: Though we are all saved by God's grace and not by anything we do, if you're really a Christian, you will begin to DO the “right” things; you will follow some path that proves that you're living the Christian life. Even the people who don't like James or don't like the way the book is used to, as they might call it, purpose a type of “salvation by works,” ascribe in some way to the idea that “faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead” (James 2:17). in other words, you can't just say you believe in Christ and His saving sacrifice, even if you do believe it, at some point, you have to start doing the “right” things and believing the “right” things, or your “faith” isn't real.

Ever since I've joined the Gay Christian Network (http://www.gaychristian.net) people have tried to talk to me (when I've been bold enough to ask the question at all) about whether physical expressions of love between two people of the same gender are appropriate, whether they can be right and good and blessed by God, and people have offered me resources and books to read, and I appreciate the help, but it always comes down to the same thing: whatever side I choose to believe, doesn't there eventually have to be one side that is right and one side that is wrong? What is going to happen to me if I am on the wrong side? I mean, in my case, I'm not in a relationship yet, and I may never be in one...and still I know how badly this is tearing ME up, so I can't even imagine how badly it's tearing YOU up since you're already in a relationship and you love that person and you don't want to hurt him. I mean, I see things splashed all over bumper stickers saying “love is not wrong” and blah blah blah, but at its heart, that's rhetoric and I know it...people who oppose same-sex marriage or whatever aren't really saying that LOVE is wrong, they're saying some of the ways people express love are wrong, or rather that homosexuals who express their love in physical ways are wrong, because even the most liberal of those fundamentalists I grew up with, the most loving and caring ones who say they only want what is best for me, are sending me literature that says that I can be gay and God will love me as long as I never act on it. It's too late for that, of course, but it's ok, God can forgive me as long as I ask forgiveness and never act on it again. I know they're sincere, and sometimes I really, truly, want to have fellowship with those people again and be accepted by their church again.

So what's the problem? Why can't I just go back to those churches and live the life they ask me to live? The problem is, I don't WANT to ask forgiveness and I don't think I need to, because I know that I loved Bailey (the girl I was with, the one who threw a whole wrench into the works and made me realize that I was gay) and the physical part of our relationship came as an expression of the love we had, so I don't want to apologize for that or ask forgiveness for something I really don't think was wrong. I don't think God would want me to do that, either, because He's got to know that this is how I really feel, and if I asked for His forgiveness for something I don't regret, it wouldn't be sincere. But do I really believe that God blesses this love? I tell people I do, and I'm not lying when I say it, I'm sincere...but then I also have doubt. I think, am I leading that person astray? Am I telling that person that God blesses same-sex love when really God doesn't, thus leading both of us astray? What if I'm wrong? I know many loving, committed same-sex couples, and I see their relationships, as loving and honest and real as any opposite-sex marriage I know, and I think, that's not wrong. God blesses that. But does He really bless that? Am I fooling myself? Am I claiming to have fellowship with God but really walking in darkness (1 John 1:6)?

I really, truly, struggle with this. I've been struggling with this for two years now. At one point, I had walked away from the church for good, because I could never be all that they wanted me to be, there were too many rules to follow that I broke every day by just being myself, and whatever I was giving up, I knew I couldn't live a lie anymore, so I could never go back to the church, and thus I had to give up on God, too, because whatever people say, the idea of God comes with all these rules and regulations that I could never follow. I missed so may things about this God, so many things that had defined my life for years, but I knew I could never go back. And then, suddenly, I realized how much I was missing out on. How empty I was without God, but I still thought I couldn't go back. I tried so many other religions, but nothing ever resonated with my soul the way Christianity did. I was part of a group of GLBTACQ students at the university in my town, and I would have to get my fellowship that way.

And then, suddenly, people in the group were telling me that they went to church, that they believed in God, that they knew that God loved them, that there were churches that accepted them and celebrated their love. This broke my brain. I mean, could it really be possible? When I was still in the church, I had heard that there were those who believed that God could bless same-sex romantic relationships, but the resources I got always said that these people were wrong, they always had a thousand scripture verses to back up their arguments (and not just the passages that people call the “clobber passages” either, these people had verse after verse about how God despises sin, these people were leading others astray, they were deceived and deceiving others with their lies about God). Now, after all these years, suddenly I was studying the bible again, coming back to all those familiar passages again, reading the words that had touched my soul again, and trying to discern if God could really accept me and accept my love for Bailey...and that's where I'm at now. And sometimes people throw books and essays and websites and other research in my face because they say that I need to read and decide what I believe so I won't be “double minded and unstable in all my ways” (James 1:5-8). But I feel like they don't get it. Yeah, I know, I've read all the stuff people are throwing at me and even more, but the point is...I don't know if I can believe it. I have way more than enough evidence for “reasonable doubt,” don't I? After years of studying, can I decide on just one answer and claim it as the truth when there seem to be so many more conflicting messages out there? What if I'm wrong? What if it's all a lie and I'm condemning myself to hell?

So...yeah. I find myself in this place, too. And I don't know if I have any answers, and that might make me double-minded and unstable. But here's what I believe (here's what I'm trying to believe when I lie awake at night rocking back and forth with doubt shaking me to the core). I was watching this episode of the television show “Law & Order” the other day, and in his closing arguments, the defense attorney for the murderer was talking to the jurors, giving the evidence that his client was innocent, that someone else could have committed the murders, and he said they needed to find his client “not guilty” because they had enough evidence to have reasonable doubt about his guilt. When the prosecuting attorney stood to give his arguments however, he looked at the jurors and said “But 'reasonable doubt' is not ANY doubt...it must stand the test of reasonableness.” It sounds silly, but almost felt like he was speaking to me. I have always been the kind of person to try and see both sides and to try and study and show myself approved, a workman who doesn't need to be ashamed because I correctly divide the word of truth (2 Timothy 2:15) but I also tend to forget that the verse right before that tells me to avoid quarreling over words (2 Timothy 2:14) and that I can't keep swinging back and forth between these two opposing viewpoints without driving myself insane. At some point, I'm going to have to decide what I believe and hold onto that, and when I doubt, not beat myself up but remember that the God who tells me to stand firm (1 Corinthians 15:58) also gives me the example of a man who was honest enough to admit that he did believe, but he needed God to help him with his unbelief (Mark 9:24) and that even if this is who I always am, afraid that I'm wrong but trying to stand for what I believe is right, that God can love me anyway. It sounds weak, even to my ears, but it's where I'm at right now, and I'm trying to believe that God loves me where I am. God is bigger than me. God is bigger than any person's belief or doubt, and if I focus on doing the good I know, the fruit of the spirit, I'm trying to believe that everything will fall into place, even if I never have all the answers...

Gay and...

Mouthy Annoying Christian? Really?

I was never one of those people who liked labels. They're stupid. I mean, useful for like, cans of soup and stuff, but, y'know, not so much for people because people don't fit into boxes (unless you bash them with a crowbar and make them fit and even then they tend to bulge out and leak and stuff). So I never ever meant to be one of those people who runs around on rooftops shouting out who I am. Even when I was a rabid fundamentalist who believed a bunch of stupid things (and a few true things, tossed in for good measure) I never liked running around and beating people with the bible. I want to have real conversations with real people, not slap labels on them or spew bumper sticker theology out of my mouth. But I always ended up in positions where I had to try and defend myself against accusations (because, y'know, Christians can be MEAN and I don't want people to think that of me...) so when I figured out I was gay, I resolved that I wouldn't run around telling people (and I was never going to buy t-shirts or bumper stickers or anything like that) because who cares? This doesn't define who I am, no one thing does, and I wasn't going to be all annoying about it (like those people who convert to some religion and then won't shut up about it). But again...I kept getting put into these situations where people had misconceptions about me, or they believed destructive things about themselves, or they hated themselves, and I always felt compelled to try and speak or write or take pictures or do whatever I could to continue the conversation and try to help people see things in a different way. I mean, some of the people in my small, backwoods town really hate themselves and think they're evil and think they're going to burn in hell forever. There's a counseling program run by one of the churches here that promises to heal you of homosexuality if you submit to God and follow their four week "Training in Righteousness" regimen. They call homosexuality an "evil soul tie" that can only be broken by the love of Christ.

...

In an environment like this, I can't just keep silent and not say anything. I mean that. Honestly, I've found some conversations to be more important than just words. Every second I can get people to stay with me and engage is another second they're choosing to live and not die (and I don't just mean physically...people who spend every second of their lives repressing themselves so they can fit into a church and beating themselves up for perceived failures are just as dead inside as any corpse...I know because I was one of them). I know this probably makes me sound like a drama queen, and I've accepted that a long time ago, but I can't help it. This is how I see things. Because of my position and the town in which I live, I end up talking about "gay" and "Christian" a lot more than I ever expected I would, and it makes me sound a lot more militant than I ever wanted to be, but if it helps people in small little towns like mine see that they're not evil and they're not alone, than that's more important than my ego. So I keep doing it.

Bridging the Gap

I'm going to be utilizing this space to blog more "professionally" than I do in my usual blog, and in 2 days, I'll be participating in the "Bridging the Gap" web blogging initiative. More information here: http://btgproject.blogspot.com/search/label/synchroblog

Trying to bring together gays and Christians isn't going to be easy. I wonder what everyone else's posts are going to look like. Certainly different from mine. We'll see what happens.