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.
Showing posts with label glbt. Show all posts
Showing posts with label glbt. Show all posts
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Thursday, July 9, 2009
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.
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.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
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.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
This is Not You
In further "Synchro-blog" news, I feel like I didn't address this issue in my earlier post so I wanted to do that now. I wanted to share these three images with you. The first two images are of protesters who stood outside the fence at the Grand Rapids Pride festival on June 20th, 2009. The third image is of some similar protesters who stood at the end of the parade route at Lansing Pride just a week earlier. For me, seeing these signs and hearing the things these people were saying through their bullhorns was saddening. I didn't come to Pride because I have any desire to be militant or yell at anyone or "push my lifestyle" on anyone. I came because in my small town, it's hard to find other people who are like me, and sometimes I need that to remind myself that I'm not alone. My "lifestyle" is pretty boring. I go to work, some home, watch The Golden Girls, eat, sleep, play with my cat, watch movies, and read books. That's how I spend most of my time. That I also happen to be in love with a woman is something that certainly makes me stand out in a lot of ways, but when people tell me that they abhor my sinful lifestyle, I have to wonder what they think I DO all day long that's so sinful.
By the same token, I look at these pictures, and I realize that my friends may be very different from me. Some of them disagree very vehemently with the fact that I do indeed love another woman, but regardless of this, MY FRIENDS ARE NOT THE PEOPLE IN THESE PICTURES. Even though we disagree strongly about scripture and how the bible should be interpreted and how it should be applied and what it might or might not be saying, my friends are not the people standing there holding these signs. Too often when we GLBT people complain about Christians, we act as though everyone we're talking about is holding one of these signs and yelling at us through a bullhorn, when in reality, that's not true. We can't ask them to see us as normal people and cry out that they can't put us in a box while at the same time we try to put THEM into a box. It just doesn't work that way. We have to respect them, even if we can't respect some of their views. My friends do this for me. We disagree on a great many things, but I love them, and they love me, and I know this because of their actions. Like the song says, "They'll know we are Christians by our love," and I know that these people love me because they have been there to listen and support and encourage me, and I know it's hard sometimes for them to do that, because they disagree with a lot of what I say. Before I begin to run around demanding acceptance from them, I need to love them even when I disagree with what THEY say. It's difficule (for me and for them) but we have to TRY.
When I was a kid in Vacation Bible School, I learned this song. The refrain goes like this:
"You can have a big box, you can have a little box, but if your god is in the box, your god is very small. You can have a plain box, you can have a fancy box, but if you think that god is in the box, you don't know god at all. you don't know god at all."
I'm smart enough now to at least know that God is never in the box (even when we take great care to fashion a box, with bright edges and narrow definitions and scripture references to back up everything we say, God isn't in that box). I need to stop putting people into that box, too. I wouldn't want them to do that to me.
For those of you who see pictures like the ones at the beginning of this entry and you want to scream and pull your hair out and shout "That's not me!" It's ok. I know it's not you. I know these people don't represent you or your views, and I'll try very hard to keep writing and keep speaking to you with that in mind.
Bridging the Gap: Synchro-Blog Entry "Common Ground"
My post today is part of a larger initiative of more than 60 bloggers all coming together to share their thoughts on how to 'bridge the gap' between GLBTACQI people and the church. You can check out the other links at: www.btgproject.blogspot.com
What I'm Doing
This blogging initiative is one I'm proud to participate in because it touches my heart in a unique way, and I'm excited to read what everyone else has to say on this issue, because for me, the realization that I was a lesbian is what brought me back to God, not what turned me away from God, so my journey is different than that of most people with whom I've discussed this topic. I always tell people that I think it might be helpful for GLBT people and Christians to try to focus on the ways in which we are alike instead of focusing on our differences, but that sound slike a cliche, and I don't think anyone understand how hard that is for me to say or what a difference it has made in my life. Perhaps if you understand more about me, you'll understand why this is so important to me.
Who I Am
Now here's the deal. I'm one of those people who's never fit into the church as a whole, no matter who I was or who I was trying to be. I tried many different denominations, and no matter what, there was always some reason that I didn't "fit in" at the church. I talked too loud, I laughed too loud, I watched the wrong movies, I listened to the wrong music, I wore the wrong clothes, I didn't seem to be able to believe the right things (or I shared my doubts about things everyone else seemed to believe without much effort). I never had any reasons growing up for why I was such a square peg in a round hole, so I spent my time trying to change myself to fit the environment I was in. I looked at the people around me and tried my best to dress like them and talk like them and modify my beliefs to fit what they believed. Much to my dismay, this never seemed to work, because I was always denying some part of myself that made me who I was. I'm the kind of person who can get more spiritual truth out of a zombie movie or an Elton John song than I can out of a sermon. I've always been this way. For whatever reason, God uses pop culture to speak to me, and that's something powerful, and to deny that is to try to suppress a part of me that is vitally important to who I really am. The point of this isn't to say that going to church and listening to a sermon is something that doesn't affect me at all, it's to say that whatever truth I need to see about God I see more clearly in the things that resonate with my soul, and it's not a bad thing to go to church or to read the bible, but to do those things purposely as a way to suppress the part of me that needs to listen to music and watch horror movies is to ignore a vital part of what drew me to God in the first place. Once I began to believe he existed, I could see him all around me, and I could hear him singing in the words of songs I'd loved since I was a child, and it was like I was seeing everything with new eyes. Then I learned that this music and these books and these movies weren't part of the life experience of most Christians, and in fact were thought to be sinful by the people in the churches I attended. I spent years going to rallies, burning my books and CDs, asking forgiveness for watching movies, and growing increasingly frustrated that no matter how I tried to change myself, I was still different than those I saw around me who seemed to seek God and instantly become able to blend in with those around them. I left church for good one year when I decided that I was never going to be "good enough" to fit in there, and I swore I'd never go back.
Who We Are
The thing is, when I was 25, I fell truly, madly, and deeply in love with another woman, and I realized that this was a problem for many reasons. I'd read all the bible verses that Id been taught to believe would condemn people to hell for feeling the way I did and acting on it. Oddly enough, I realized that although I'd pretended to leave the church and never look back, I still believed everything I'd been taught, I just believed that it excluded me from ever having a relationship with God, so I tried to live as though it didn't matter to me, when really, it did. I started seeking out other GLBTACQI (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Ally, Curious, Questioning, Intersexed...wow that's a lot of letters) people in my area, and when I met them, I started getting what I call "nudges from God," slowly leading me back to him. I talked with these people, over and over, and I learned that somehow, miraculously, many of them went to church, they believed that God loved them, and they didn't spend every moment worrying that they were going to hell because of who they were. this boggled my mind. Something that a lot of people don't understand is that I've felt like I was damned to hell and completely hopeless since I was four years old, long before I was ever aware what "gay" even was. I've never fit into a church, and for years, that had nothing to do with my sexuality, it was simply a side effect of how weird I was. I had never felt worthy of God's love, and it was only recently that "I'm gay" was added to my list of reasons why. It was a big reason of course, because I'd been taught that there was no way that someone could be gay, be in love with someone of the same gender, and still be a Christian. As soon as the idea that I could be both gay AND Christian was introduced to me, I was ready to read all the books I could find, revisit the bible verses I'd heard, and start listening to my Christian music again, because a small spark within me had been rekindled and I had hope once again that I was worthy to sing about God's love.
Who They Are
Trying to find a church that will have me while I'm on this journey has been difficult, but one of the biggest revelations for me is that this would always have been difficult for me, whether I'd been gay or not, because I'm a weird little person who doesn't fit in with most people, and that's who I've always been. In college, I hung out with a small group of similar weird people, and they're still some of my closest friends today, even though we're spread out all across the country and we have very different religious beliefs. Something that I've had to learn, over and over again, is that when dealing with other Christians, it's just as important that I accept them as it is that they accept me. Read that sentence again. I sure need to. I feel a sense of rejection whenever I end up not fitting in at a church, but the truth is, it's taken me years and years and years to get comfortable being in my own skin, so I can't possibly expect other people to be comfortable with me in five minutes (or even five months). If I come into every church situation expecting the Christians to be hostile toward me, for whatever reason, I'm going to be stooping under the weight of the massive bag of chips on my shoulder, and I won't have time to see those people as fellow human beings, with their own flaws and struggles and concerns and lives.
Common Ground
Mother Theresa has been quoted as saying "If we judge other people, we don't have time to love them," and I'm realizing more and more every day how that applies to my journey back to the church. If I'm going to get anywhere on this journey, and if I really think church is going to be an important part of this journey, then I need to cool down and start trying to understand who these other Christians are. They may not agree with my "lifestyle" (whether that includes who I love or what movies I watch or both) but I probably don't agree with everything they believe, either, and if we stand there glaring at each other counting all the ways in which we are different, we're never going to have a chance to find any common ground or any reason why we should love and accept each other. I'm realizing that expecting other people to understand and accept me hasn't worked in the past because I haven't been willing to understand and accept them, either. That hurts, because a lot of hurtful things have been done to me in the name of religion, and I feel like I'm trying to minimize the damage that's been done to me when I say that I need to try to look past their insults and understand them as people, but the truth is that no matter how badly I've been hurt, that doesn't give me an excuse to expect the worst from people, because I can't control what any other person does, I can only control what I do, and what I need to start doing is recognizing the beauty and importance of every person I meet, even when we disagree on just about everything. After all, I spent years wishing someone would look past all the labels and try to see me and love me for who I am; how can I refuse to at least try to do that for other people? This attitude has made it easier for me to at least try going to church and to at least try to understand people. It's helped me to understand myself a little better, too. That douesn't sound earth-shattering or monumentous, but it sure is a good place to start.
What I'm Doing
This blogging initiative is one I'm proud to participate in because it touches my heart in a unique way, and I'm excited to read what everyone else has to say on this issue, because for me, the realization that I was a lesbian is what brought me back to God, not what turned me away from God, so my journey is different than that of most people with whom I've discussed this topic. I always tell people that I think it might be helpful for GLBT people and Christians to try to focus on the ways in which we are alike instead of focusing on our differences, but that sound slike a cliche, and I don't think anyone understand how hard that is for me to say or what a difference it has made in my life. Perhaps if you understand more about me, you'll understand why this is so important to me.
Who I Am
Now here's the deal. I'm one of those people who's never fit into the church as a whole, no matter who I was or who I was trying to be. I tried many different denominations, and no matter what, there was always some reason that I didn't "fit in" at the church. I talked too loud, I laughed too loud, I watched the wrong movies, I listened to the wrong music, I wore the wrong clothes, I didn't seem to be able to believe the right things (or I shared my doubts about things everyone else seemed to believe without much effort). I never had any reasons growing up for why I was such a square peg in a round hole, so I spent my time trying to change myself to fit the environment I was in. I looked at the people around me and tried my best to dress like them and talk like them and modify my beliefs to fit what they believed. Much to my dismay, this never seemed to work, because I was always denying some part of myself that made me who I was. I'm the kind of person who can get more spiritual truth out of a zombie movie or an Elton John song than I can out of a sermon. I've always been this way. For whatever reason, God uses pop culture to speak to me, and that's something powerful, and to deny that is to try to suppress a part of me that is vitally important to who I really am. The point of this isn't to say that going to church and listening to a sermon is something that doesn't affect me at all, it's to say that whatever truth I need to see about God I see more clearly in the things that resonate with my soul, and it's not a bad thing to go to church or to read the bible, but to do those things purposely as a way to suppress the part of me that needs to listen to music and watch horror movies is to ignore a vital part of what drew me to God in the first place. Once I began to believe he existed, I could see him all around me, and I could hear him singing in the words of songs I'd loved since I was a child, and it was like I was seeing everything with new eyes. Then I learned that this music and these books and these movies weren't part of the life experience of most Christians, and in fact were thought to be sinful by the people in the churches I attended. I spent years going to rallies, burning my books and CDs, asking forgiveness for watching movies, and growing increasingly frustrated that no matter how I tried to change myself, I was still different than those I saw around me who seemed to seek God and instantly become able to blend in with those around them. I left church for good one year when I decided that I was never going to be "good enough" to fit in there, and I swore I'd never go back.
Who We Are
The thing is, when I was 25, I fell truly, madly, and deeply in love with another woman, and I realized that this was a problem for many reasons. I'd read all the bible verses that Id been taught to believe would condemn people to hell for feeling the way I did and acting on it. Oddly enough, I realized that although I'd pretended to leave the church and never look back, I still believed everything I'd been taught, I just believed that it excluded me from ever having a relationship with God, so I tried to live as though it didn't matter to me, when really, it did. I started seeking out other GLBTACQI (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, Ally, Curious, Questioning, Intersexed...wow that's a lot of letters) people in my area, and when I met them, I started getting what I call "nudges from God," slowly leading me back to him. I talked with these people, over and over, and I learned that somehow, miraculously, many of them went to church, they believed that God loved them, and they didn't spend every moment worrying that they were going to hell because of who they were. this boggled my mind. Something that a lot of people don't understand is that I've felt like I was damned to hell and completely hopeless since I was four years old, long before I was ever aware what "gay" even was. I've never fit into a church, and for years, that had nothing to do with my sexuality, it was simply a side effect of how weird I was. I had never felt worthy of God's love, and it was only recently that "I'm gay" was added to my list of reasons why. It was a big reason of course, because I'd been taught that there was no way that someone could be gay, be in love with someone of the same gender, and still be a Christian. As soon as the idea that I could be both gay AND Christian was introduced to me, I was ready to read all the books I could find, revisit the bible verses I'd heard, and start listening to my Christian music again, because a small spark within me had been rekindled and I had hope once again that I was worthy to sing about God's love.
Who They Are
Trying to find a church that will have me while I'm on this journey has been difficult, but one of the biggest revelations for me is that this would always have been difficult for me, whether I'd been gay or not, because I'm a weird little person who doesn't fit in with most people, and that's who I've always been. In college, I hung out with a small group of similar weird people, and they're still some of my closest friends today, even though we're spread out all across the country and we have very different religious beliefs. Something that I've had to learn, over and over again, is that when dealing with other Christians, it's just as important that I accept them as it is that they accept me. Read that sentence again. I sure need to. I feel a sense of rejection whenever I end up not fitting in at a church, but the truth is, it's taken me years and years and years to get comfortable being in my own skin, so I can't possibly expect other people to be comfortable with me in five minutes (or even five months). If I come into every church situation expecting the Christians to be hostile toward me, for whatever reason, I'm going to be stooping under the weight of the massive bag of chips on my shoulder, and I won't have time to see those people as fellow human beings, with their own flaws and struggles and concerns and lives.
Common Ground
Mother Theresa has been quoted as saying "If we judge other people, we don't have time to love them," and I'm realizing more and more every day how that applies to my journey back to the church. If I'm going to get anywhere on this journey, and if I really think church is going to be an important part of this journey, then I need to cool down and start trying to understand who these other Christians are. They may not agree with my "lifestyle" (whether that includes who I love or what movies I watch or both) but I probably don't agree with everything they believe, either, and if we stand there glaring at each other counting all the ways in which we are different, we're never going to have a chance to find any common ground or any reason why we should love and accept each other. I'm realizing that expecting other people to understand and accept me hasn't worked in the past because I haven't been willing to understand and accept them, either. That hurts, because a lot of hurtful things have been done to me in the name of religion, and I feel like I'm trying to minimize the damage that's been done to me when I say that I need to try to look past their insults and understand them as people, but the truth is that no matter how badly I've been hurt, that doesn't give me an excuse to expect the worst from people, because I can't control what any other person does, I can only control what I do, and what I need to start doing is recognizing the beauty and importance of every person I meet, even when we disagree on just about everything. After all, I spent years wishing someone would look past all the labels and try to see me and love me for who I am; how can I refuse to at least try to do that for other people? This attitude has made it easier for me to at least try going to church and to at least try to understand people. It's helped me to understand myself a little better, too. That douesn't sound earth-shattering or monumentous, but it sure is a good place to start.
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