WTF?

Well, friends, my blog has gone nuts. Or I have.

I thought I added one thing in the template, and I must have messed up something else. Because then, the whole thing was centered. All the text was realigned.

So, in trying to fix it, I lost some other formatting. Just one of those days. . . .

I'll try get things back in order, links back up, etc.

On another note, I've gotten over a virus but it left me with a bit of a cough. A friend has helped out and given me some "cough medicine." Home made.

Clear as can be, and with quite a bit. Helps the cough.

Living in the mountains can have certain advantages.

cheers, Joe.

Dear Anonymous 3 - Finding myself

This another post responding to a comment from an anonymous reader, left on this linked post.

I am sorry for your pain.. and i won't go into the rights or wrongs of being gay.. But one thing I do have to ask.. and perhaps you should as well.. You made a vow when you and your 'wife' got married. You have children.. you have a responabilty to them.. even though you have 'come out' so to speak.. does that mean you have the right to throw away the life you have, the one you built with YOUR wife? with your children? Does your happiness come before your families?? Is it really worth the destruction that your causing??not only to them.. but to your soul as well.. ?? Think about it. please
posted by "Anonymous"

You have children.. you have a responabilty to them.. even though you have 'come out' so to speak.. does that mean you have the right to throw away the life you have, the one you built with YOUR wife? with your children?

Yes, I have a responsibility to my children, which is a big reason I am coming out. No, I have not told them yet, but I will. I am puzzled by the punctuation of this comment because I am not sure which phrase goes with which. “Even though you have ‘come out’ so to speak ..” seems to be suggesting that I might be under the impression that coming out absolves me of all family responsibilities, that the result of my coming out would be the abandonment of my children. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Why would I see coming out as the responsible thing to do as a parent? Because children know more truth than they can express or even comprehend. As far as I know, they do not know (consciously) that I am gay. I would not be surprised if, when they are told, they said, “Well, duh, Dad. We knew there was a reason you liked to sing Broadway musicals with us. We knew there was a reason you like to dance so much.”

There is an old saying that comes (I believe) from the 12 step tradition: “We are as sick as our secrets.” And families are as sick as their secrets. To keep this secret and this secret life from my children is more hurtful, in the long run, than the trauma of my coming out. What life would you have me keep? What life should I not “throw away?” A life that looks great on the outside, a life that has the trappings of success, love, faithfulness. But a life that is so consumed with angst that I can only barely function sometimes.

When a family system is filled with anxiety, children know. They will begin to live that anxiety that goes unspoken, unacknowledged, undealt with.

It would be better for my children to have two households with healthy parents, than one with none.

Does your happiness come before your families?? Is it really worth the destruction that your causing??not only to them.. but to your soul as well.. ?? Think about it. Please

Yes, I can see how my coming out is a self-centered thing, but it is not merely selfish. This isn’t only about my getting what I want. Though the immediate time is quite painful, I believe it will be better.

Is it "worth the destruction?" I can only hope and believe that wherever their is death, new life will spring forth. There is no Easter without Good Friday; no resurrection without the cross.

This journey has been for me a profoundly spiritual one. From your comments, Anonymous, I’d bet you have a difficult time seeing that. I’m guessing that being gay is something of which you disapprove, that you feel my soul is in danger. Thomas Merton said, "To be born again is not to become somebody different, but to become ourselves." Yes, I know it is late, but I am seeking to become myself, to enter more deeply into the image of God in which I am made.

From most conservative Christians I hear a voice that says, "all you have to do is be like us." I have tried so much of my life to be someone else. One definition of craziness is to keep on doing the same thing, but always expecting a different result. It has been a long learning. Again, from Merton:

The first step toward finding God, Who is Truth, is to discover the truth about myself: and if I have been in error, this first step to truth is the discovery of my error.

I will end this series of responses with these words from Thomas Merton. I guess I'm on a Merton kick tonight. This prayer expresses profoundly my belief, my hope in God in whom I put my trust, and whom I seek to please above all:

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think that I am following your will

does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please
you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this
you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always
though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Grace & Peace, Joe.

Addendum

Comments I have received on my past three posts have been helpful and thought-provoking. I am grateful to all who have made comments and want to finish this "series." This is a bit of an addendum to the last post.

This quote from Rilke is one I have used and misquoted often. Now finding the "real thing" I am more amazed at it. Rather than my blathering on about it, I ask all to read it with great care.

...I would like to beg you dear Sir, as well as I can, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 1903in Letters to a Young Poet

As I struggle to love and live into the questions, I am praying that I live my way into the answers.

Grace, Peace, and Love to all, Joe.

Dear Anonymous, Part 2b

This is my second post responding to a comment from an anonymous reader, left on this linked post.

I am sorry for your pain.. and i won't go into the rights or wrongs of being gay.. But one thing I do have to ask.. and perhaps you should as well.. You made a vow when you and your 'wife' got married. You have children.. you have a responabilty to them.. even though you have 'come out' so to speak.. does that mean you have the right to throw away the life you have, the one you built with YOUR wife? with your children? Does your happiness come before your families?? Is it really worth the destruction that your causing??not only to them.. but to your soul as well.. ?? Think about it. please
posted by "Anonymous"

In my last post, I was writing about why I married, and I would like to finish that.

When I met my wife, I was working very diligently in therapy not to be gay. It was just a problem with relationships, so I thought. My therapist was a little less enlightened than I might now wish. But I thought I would “straighten out.”

I do not hate women, not do I find them unattractive. And I was definitely attracted to the woman who is my wife. And, (even though I would never have framed it this way at the time), I definitely wanted to be straight. And, I wanted children, a family, I desperately wanted to be able to have the family that I did not have growing up. I wanted to “get it right this time.”

I wanted to be successful, happy, normal, regular, ordinary. And, I fell in love. I did not marry to “straighten me out.” I married because I was very much in love with a beautiful woman. With all I knew of relationship, love, and “the way things were supposed to be”, I entered into marriage with the best of intentions, and the sincerest hopes.

I wish I knew why so many gay men marry. Why it is we seem to be able to be attracted to both men and women. Perhaps I am bi-sexual. But I have always felt the same-sex attraction to be stronger for me. With all the culture, society, the Church, etc., etc. telling me that marrying is the right thing to do, I felt I was doing the right thing.

Despite all the pain this is causing me and those I love, I refuse to think I “made a mistake” in marrying. My two wonderful and amazing children are a product of this marriage. And, my wife and I have had many good years together. I cannot wipe it all away as a “mistake.” Though it is very difficult to see God in all this, still I feel God’s presence very keenly.

For many years, I have prayed for me to change. I have prayed to others, I have prayed. But never (until recently) did I do the obvious: I asked God, “am I gay.” Never have I felt God’s condemnation, and now I feel God’s affirmation. Yes. I am gay. I do not understand. It is not (really) what I want. I so want to be that normal, ordinary, straight, regular, everyday.

So why break these vows? Why not just live as I have for the past 20 years. Because I am dying, I am committing suicide of the soul. The truth is the only thing that will set us free. I cannot go on living a lie.

Grace & Peace to all, Joe.

Dear Anonymous - Part 2a

This is my second post responding to a comment from an anonymous reader, left on this linked post.

I am sorry for your pain.. and i won't go into the rights or wrongs of being gay.. But one thing I do have to ask.. and perhaps you should as well.. You made a vow when you and your 'wife' got married. You have children.. you have a responabilty to them.. even though you have 'come out' so to speak.. does that mean you have the right to throw away the life you have, the one you built with YOUR wife? with your children? Does your happiness come before your families?? Is it really worth the destruction that your causing??not only to them.. but to your soul as well.. ?? Think about it. please
posted by "Anonymous"

But one thing I do have to ask.. and perhaps you should as well..

Reading this line leads me to think that you feel I have not asked myself any of the questions which follow in your comment. There seems to be an assumption on your part that my decision to come out was made lightly, without much thought for anyone else but myself. Truly, nothing could be further from the truth.

There have been years, years, of struggle for me on all the issues and questions you raise. And still they linger for me. This is no easy thing for me to do.

Are you thinking, “surely if he has asked himself these questions, then he would come to a different conclusion.” In other words, if I have asked myself these questions, then why have I not come to the same conclusion as you? Do you think that your conclusions, your answers are the only ones? Then you have found an answer and are simply trying to find questions to go with them.

Indeed, my decision to come out has been based largely ON these questions, because of my love for my wife and children and concerns for them.

.. You made a vow when you and your 'wife' got married.

First, I do not understand why you have placed quotation marks around “wife.” She is my wife; no need of quotes as if she is not really my wife. No need to put her down. This is not her fault. This is not about her. Yes, I know how greatly is effects her, but it is not because she is anything but the wonderful, loving woman that she is. I’m more than a little bit insulted that you would place marks around her like that.

Yes, my wife and I made vows to one another. And we made them with all sincerity and honesty.
I … take you … to be my wife. To have and to hold from this day forward. For better for worse. For richer for poorer. In sickness and in health. To love and to cherish. Until we are parted by death. This is my solemn vow.

I remember them well. I remember the day well. I felt from the depths of my heart that God was calling me into this marriage. I have no doubt now that that was the truth. Was I dishonest in my entering in to those vows? I do not believe so.

I have struggled with this sense of same sex attraction since I was about 12. But with no frame of reference, no information, I did not even know what was happening. When my first homosexual experience happened to me (and you can read about that, here), I was so devastated and lost. With no way to process it, to talk it out with someone, I had no where to turn but to God. And I did.

Close to the brink of deep depression (or worse), I asked God, “If you are real and if you love me, let me know.” And God did. An overwhelming sense of Presence and warmth filled me. I knew that I was loved and that I would “make it”. I would survive and be blessed. And I have been both.

I never dated but once or twice till I was in college. I had a very chaste relationship with a girl there, but it was unfulfilling. I was so inattentive, so emotionally unavailable. It was terrible for both of us. Through college, graduate school into my mid twenties, still I dated almost none. Still I was attracted to men. Still I had similar sexual encounters with men, always anonymous, faceless, purely physical, brief encounters.

When a man’s sexuality is awakening, he turns to others for help. If too shy or isolated for that, he can learn some things (however poorly) from television, from the culture around him, from watching others, from books or magazines. He can do all that if he is straight.

But if he is gay, if he feels that pull to other men that is different, then where can he go to learn about building healthy relationships? To whom can he turn to understand the wonders of his body, his mind, and his spirit as they blossom into that marvelous image of God in which he is made? How or where can a young man learn about being gay, or be around other gay men?

Today, there are some options, in some places. In 1970 or so, it was a different story. Where do you learn? Porn. “Adult bookstore” (in this case, somewhat of an oxymoron). Looking for love in all the wrong places. And you learn all the wrong things.

From this perverse training we learn that being gay is all about sex, lots of sex, seedy, dirty, empty sex. Is it any wonder that I (and many gay men) deal with such self-loathing? We are trained and taught in all the wrong ways to hate ourselves and what we do.

Surely this is wrong, I thought. I’m a selfish sinner. I must conquer this. I must pray, and pray. Dear God, change me, heal me. Make me someone else. Take this away from me. I try, I strain, I sweat. I ache. This is hell.

Why did I marry? Why did I even seek to marry? With several years of therapy, trying to repair me, I thought I would get better. I thought it was just a problem with relationships. I’m just running away from them by using this perverse sexual behavior to throw me off balance. But God kept pursuing me.

Maybe I am using this to get God to leave me alone? In Katzanzakis novel The Last Temptation of Christ, Jesus wants to make sure God will leave him alone, so Jesus uses his carpentry skills to become a cross builder for the Romans. I thought I was there, too.

This is turning into far too much. And yet I feel it is all part of my story. If “anonymous” never reads it, at least it has helped me articulate some things. Perhaps it will help others, too. I will write more later.

Grace & Peace to all, Joe.

Dear Anonymous . . .

Dear Anonymous: I want to respond to this comment which you left on one of my posts. I am continuing to give it serious thought and prayer. It may take several posts for me to accomplish that, but here goes.

I am sorry for your pain.. and i won't go into the rights or wrongs of being gay.. But one thing I do have to ask.. and perhaps you should as well.. You made a vow when you and your 'wife' got married. You have children.. you have a responabilty to them.. even though you have 'come out' so to speak.. does that mean you have the right to throw away the life you have, the one you built with YOUR wife? with your children? Does your happiness come before your families?? Is it really worth the destruction that your causing??not only to them.. but to your soul as well.. ?? Think about it. please

posted by "Anonymous"

I am sorry for your pain.. and i won't go into the rights or wrongs of being gay..

Dear anonymous,

This first statement would lead me to think that there may, in your opinion, be something “wrong” with being gay. You are right that the state or condition of “being gay” is a state of “being.” It is not some choice I made. Would you make such a “choice” to turn you family, career, whole life upside down? Would you choose potentially to alienate your family, friends, employer, etc.? I do not believe that “being gay” is a choice. In fact, in fifty years of life, it has been my experience that that I have not been able to choose otherwise. I’ve had therapy, prayer, exorcism, you name it. But it always comes back. It is always there. It is who I am.
Would you choose this kind of pain? Or choose the pain of living a lie? Would you choose the intense pain I am having at this present time? Or choose to spread it over your whole life, bringing you to the brink of suicide?

Assuming you are straight, may I ask about how you chose to be heterosexual? What influenced your decision, and when did you know it?

So many persons, perhaps you, think that “being gay” is about “having sex” with other men. I can’t deny that that is part of it, but certainly not the whole of it. Would you describe being heterosexual as primarily about having sex?

I acknowledge that I have a strong same-sex attraction. I desire to have a relationship with a man. But that desire involves much more than my genitals. I desire to have relationships with men in which I can be honest about myself. I am not talking about having sex. I am talking about relationship.

Sexuality is something that goes to the very core of our being. It is something that pervades all aspects of our lives. I can’t verify this, but I believe that a part of straight sexuality is why men play war and girls play house. Please hear I am not trying to make a sexist statement here. It is true that men and women are different. And the truth is there is difference even among men and among women.

And so there are many parts to “being gay” as well. I believe my particular sense of creativity and my aesthetic sensibilities come from that core of my being that is “being gay.” Why is it so many designers, architects, fashion folk, musicians, composers, writers, and artists are gay? Are all of them gay? By no means. But there is something there; it is part of being gay. Those are things that are not choices but callings, part of our being, be it gay or straight. Each brings a gift.

My sense of humor, and my very expressive way of lecturing/teaching etc. (which are a part of my profession) stem from that gayness that I did not choose. My love of music and its ability to move my soul at the deepest level are part of it.

One gift that has come from the fact that I am gay is my ability to relate in a deep way to those who feel exiled, downtrodden, abused, isolated, and cast out. That is not part of being gay, but only from being gay in a world that rejects you. I understand living in fear. I understand (if not first hand for myself, then from the experience of my GLBT brothers and sisters) what rejection, persecution, and self-loathing feel like.

And this brings me to my sense of belovedness by God. I can only speak from my own experience; that of others may be quite different.. I have always has a strong sense of God’s love for me. It is not God from whom I have felt rejection and condemnation, only the Church. And here I mean the whole “Church”, that earthly institution of many flavors and differences. But remember that this is the same Church that mounted the crusades and the inquisition; the same Church that supported slavery and the subjugation of women; the same Church that supports war and the easy lifestyles of so many in this country while much of the world starves. This Church that acts like the Pharisees and Sadducees that Jesus described, straining at gnats while swallowing camels.

I know what resurrection feels like and looks like. I have seen it, felt it, lived it too many times in my own life. If I had not known that sense of lostness, I could never feel so belovedly found.
This process in which I now find myself is a profoundly, deeply, immensely spiritual one. Please know that I have not entered into it lightly. Nor did I enter into marriage lightly, or becoming a father. I shall respond to those things later. For now this is enough.

Anonymous, I invite your comments, and those of others. I pray that we will all come to see ourselves walking in the light of God, no matter what our journeys.

Grace and Peace to you, Joe.

Destruction

Over the weekend, I received this comment to one of my posts. I am going to reply to it but only after some thought. I am sad that this comment was done anonymously, but perhaps he or she will have more to say later.

Grace & Peace, Joe.

I am sorry for your pain.. and i won't go into the rights or wrongs of being gay.. But one thing I do have to ask.. and perhaps you should as well.. You made a vow when you and your 'wife' got married. You have children.. you have a responabilty to them.. even though you have 'come out' so to speak.. does that mean you have the right to throw away the life you have, the one you built with YOUR wife? with your children? Does your happiness come before your families?? Is it really worth the destruction that your causing??not only to them.. but to your soul as well.. ?? Think about it. please

posted by "Anonymous"

Commence

Thanks to the many who have given supportive comment to my last posting. I am very grateful.

In so many ways, I know this is not “all my fault,” and yet in some ways it is. I take responsibility for my decision to come out. And I believe and trust that it is the right decision (most of the time).

I purloined this Thomas Merton quote from Grateful Bear:

“We are not persuaders. We are the children of the Unknown. We are the ministers of silence that is needed to cure all victims of absurdity who lie dying of a contrived joy. Let us then recognize ourselves for who we are: dervishes mad with secret therapeutic love which cannot be bought or sold, and which the politician fears more than violent revolution, for violence changes nothing. But love changes everything.”

from Thomas Merton’s “Message to Poets” in Raids On The Unspeakable

Love changes everything. I am holding on to that as it seems everything around me is or will be changing. I desire some of these changes but out of love, not violence. And yet it is the “violence” of all the feelings that I fear so much.

Also, from Timbo’s blog I got this bit of a quote.

It is an idea believing that whether gay or straight our sexuality is not a defining ending point, but rather it is a beginning to a fully integrated and healthy relationship to the planet, each other, and our creator.

It is a beginning. I’m ready; I think.

Cheers, Joe.

The picture is of the abbey ruins on Lindisfarne, UK

Mea culpa

Today it feels like a low front has moved in. No, not weather, but me. A depression front has settled in. I’m fearing it will sock me in for a few days, like a chunky fog that settles down over the river, between the mountains.

What did I expect my wife to say, “Oh gosh, dear. How sad. Go your way. Be queer, and have a nice life. See ya later.” Is there no wonder she is furious and crushed? The waves of intense rage will come out, sooner or later. And then it will be all over again with the children.

I am destroying many of her dreams. I am breaking up the happy home. I am putting all our finances at risk (and they are at best precarious). Yes, my dreams, my home, my finances, too. But I am the one making a choice. I am the one turning every thing upside down. Everything. It’s me. No one else.

She can be furious at me. I have no one to be angry at. It is me. My fault. Nowhere else to turn. No one else to blame.

I think I have some understanding of my wife’s feelings of being devastated, deserted, demolished. From her perspective, I am the offending party. I am the one getting us into all this. I am the one who spoke the words, who came out of the closet. Me. I did it. I must take the responsibility. It is not here fault. Not her. It’s me.

All this comes at me like things falling off the top shelves onto my head. Like opening the proverbial Fibber McGee’s closet. Crashing. On me. God, the pain.

I have long been one to admit his mistakes, to own up to the truth, to be responsible for my shit (and where it lands). It is that drive for the Truth that has led me slowly to make my way out of the closet. So I have no one to blame by myself.

And that’s the problem. I slide over the edge. I spiral down. The self-loathing, the inner punishment, the self-contempt. God, the pain.

I do not know what survival will look like. I do not know what the next step will be. I do know that I must let go of knowing and not knowing. Trust that there is One who does know. One who will know. And One by whom I am known. Fully known, and yet still freely loved.

I don’t do well seeing very far beyond the end of my nose, sometimes. To know that there are many of you out there who have been where I am, done what I am doing, or now doing it yourself, is comfort and strength. Pray.

Thank you. Joe.

Enquiring minds want to know

Some responses to recent questions:

• Is that really me in the profile picture? Yes. Summer of 2004
• No, "Joe"was a childhood nickname from my grandfather (for whom I was named). Since he and I shared the same name, he always referred to me as "Joe." And I like that name far better than my real one, anyway.
• Why the anonymity? It really is necessary for me right now.
• If any know more about me, please keep it to yourself.
• If you have honored me with more info on you, be assured it will go nowhere
• My feet really are that big. I make that comment only because 1. I trip over them a lot, 2. only open my mouth to exchange them, 3. buying footwear is a major pain and expense, 4. I am hoping you will think it's indicative of something else.
• Yes, I am in therapy and on 2 anti-depressants - Sometimes I feel like a toxic waste dump, but, hey, "Better living through chemistry"
• Have I? yes. All kinds? probably. Really? hey I am not proud of it. Will you? not like that I hope.
• Brian (sub saxe) please send and email address.
• Heretical one, thanks for writing.

Free Fallin'

You cross your arms on your chest and stand on the edge of some kind of elevated platform, exposed, alone. Standing on the edge you fall backwards. The moment of terror. Oh God. And then, folk on the ground, lined up facing one another, arms outstretched, catch you. From the beginning of the fall until you feel there arms on your back, that is the moment of terror. Are they really there; will they make the catch? Chris writes well about this in one of his posts.

You wonder if they will catch you. Do you trust them enough? Coming out feels like doing a trust fall, but with no assurance there is any one there to catch you. On this end, I have few if any friends to whom I can confide. It would seem very lonely indeed, except for my connections through the blogosmos.

I have felt richly blest to have many friends in the blogosphere. We have never met, face to face. We don’t even know one another’s real names or many details of our lives. And yet you have been catching me for some time now, and I thank you.

The roller coaster of emotions has left the station. As the ascent begins, you hear that clack – clack – clack – clack of the ratchets as the lock into place, preventing a back slide. You approach slowly the top of the arc. You cross the apex. Thedescentbeginsthe bottom dropsoutthefloorfallsaway. . . . . .

The pit of your stomach is somewhere near your ears. What next, what next. . . .

Terrifying, and exhilarating. Fear in the anticipation, fear in the execution, fear in the midst of it all.

Jesus said “fear not.” Y*W* G*d says, “I will be with you.”

Shalom, Joe.