what i believe (today, anyway)

I had to write a statement of faith for the church I've been attending. It was nice to get to hear other folks' statements, and it was a good exercise to write my own. Even if, per usual, mine was way long in comparison. But it sums up where I'm at right now, though parts of it might not even apply later on today -- my heart swings that wildly. Belief. Who knew it would be so hard?

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I believe in God the Father,

a perfect parent, without any of the shortcomings of my earthly father and mother.

God is sovereign, yet unsearchable, acting or not acting in surprising ways;

some that I like and understand, some that I dislike and fail to understand.

I believe in a God who is neither safe nor predictable, yet is always good.

I believe that we, of our free choice, have disregarded God’s will and have fallen into sin.

The symptoms of our fallen condition are apparent everywhere:

In ourselves, in our internal struggles over right and wrong,

and in the fact that we far too often choose bad over good;

In our relationships, where we constantly are pulled toward selfish action,

and are consistently choosing to magnify ourselves to the detriment of others;

And in our communities, where we fail to care for those persons Jesus prioritized,

and are always looking for an “other” to exclude and be better than.

I believe in a God that was not content to let us stray away,

but sacrificed his own child for the sake of humankind

(a pain that, for any parent, is worse than one’s own death).

In the death of Jesus, the pattern of sin in the world was dealt a fatal blow.

Death itself was turned upside down, and began to work backwards,

allowing new life to spring up in the most unexpected places.

I believe in a God that never lets us go, no matter how hard we try to run,

Sending the Holy Spirit into the world to continue the work of reconciliation,

Comforting us when sin -- personal, relational, communal -- brings us pain

As well as when God fails to act to fix the broken things in our lives.

I believe the Holy Spirit is present in baptism and the Eucharist

in inexplicable yet powerful ways,

guiding and directing us even when we feel like we’re anchorless.

I believe in a God that does not fit into my boxes or categories,

Liberal in his love and mercy,

Arms wide-stretched to the poor and marginalized.

Yet God rufuses to coddle us, pushing us toward growth and change,

Calling us to be the hands and feet of the Kingdom of God,

Which, two steps forward and one and a half steps back,

God is surely bringing into the world. Even if it doesn’t seem like it.

I believe in God’s Church,

the universal community of believers at all time and in all places,

Headed by Christ, led by the Holy Spirit

Yet constantly screwing up, placing periods where God has placed commas,

Excluding certain races, genders, and sexual orientations where God has refused to do so.

Yet I still believe that the church is God’s chosen instrument

to bring God’s own Kingdom into the world,

Mirroring the brokenness of humanity,

Providing essential community,

And serving as a rather odd witness to the God that created the Church the way that He did.

I believe that God will one day,

In God’s own time,

Through a manner of God’s own choosing,

Probably in the way we all least expect,

Fix all that is broken in the world,

Right all wrongs,

Repair all wrecked relationships,

And will consummate God’s Kingdom in the new heavens and the new earth.

Lord Jesus, come and make it so.

Amen.

going mental

To some extent, mental "health" care got me into this mess. I'm not sure how this would have shaken out, but I do know that the pseudo-psychology of folks like Exodus International exacerbated this problem in my life. Their books, their preaching, their counseling, all encouraged me to hold on to the lie that I can be straight. To the clear detriment of my own mental health.

So when it comes to coming out of this mess with some semblance of health and wholeness, I'm more than skeptical about opening up to another person who may have an agenda and perspective that is not in line with my own. My psychiatrist is one matter: her care is primarily clinical/medical, focusing on levels of medication that even out the peaks and valleys. Let me tell you, psychiatric medication is a beautiful thing (despite some side effects).

But counseling... that's a whole 'nother beast. How do I open up to someone? I feel like I bottled up the gay-ness for so long, not telling anyone. Then I finally tell folks, and it becomes a battle to fight and a thing to change. I know a mainstream psychologist or counselor wouldn't do that, but there's a lingering mistrust of folks who get into the hard and dark places of the heart and have a lot of power to do what they will with that knowledge. I'm torn between obviously needing counseling, but being fearful of it at the same time.

coming out

"... you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:32, ESV

Coming out sucks. It's really hard. I'm in the middle of it still, having taken the summer off from school and just now being surrounded again by my classmates and friends. I told my family in early May, which was, surprisingly, almost a non-event. They took it extremely well. Better than I'd expected, for sure. My parents raised me more or less an evangelical. My brother fell away, so I expected he'd be fine. But they had all grown quite attached to my wife, so I was really surprised that they didn't argue with me more or attempt to convince me to stick with the ex-gay stuff.

Of course, I only see them a few times per year. Now, there's telling the folks I see every day. How I wish I'd done this earlier in life! As hard as it would have been to tell folks I'm gay, it would have been so much easier to deal with this at a simpler point in time. Now, it's not only telling them I'm gay, but explaining ex-gay and the marriage and putting up with questions that get at very strong emotions that I'm not wholly sure how to deal with.

I've told some folks, who have been supportive. I have to tell a couple of folks, Christian guys, who I know are going to be upset. Then there's just the whole mass of other people. People that ask me about my wife, that ask when I'm having kids, the people who just have no idea that a massive shift has taken place that puts me in an entirely different category. While, of course, remaining the same person.

So I'm thinking about an email. The thought makes me cringe. But it's quick, efficient, and allows me to really hone my message through several drafts. The problem? It's forward-able.

To whom might the email be forwarded? Well, my ex, for one. She has a rather different take on the whole thing. My story goes something like "I'm gay. I made a bunch of mistakes about that, and submitted to a whole variety of religious programs to attempt to change that fact, but they didn't work. I'm gay, woohoo, let's move on with life." That sounds a bit cold, but any simplistic statement is going to sound cold. Her story would go something like this: "My husband is making very bad decisions, partially caused by abuse and confusion in his childhood relationship with his parents." The whole abuse/confusion thing is part and parcel of the ex-gay movement. So, I'd really hate to start an email back and forth on the subject with her in front of some of my friends.

Another option would be the classic forward-super-personal-things-to-Above the Law-trick. The preeminent legal tabloid loves nothing more than to blog about salacious news items from top law schools. Mine usually doesn't make the blog, thankfully because our students are pretty well-behaved. And this isn't something so salacious as to be blog-worthy. But I can imagine my email being forwarded around, creating a bit of a controversial back and forth on the topic, which itself becomes blog-worthy. And me, the lonely originator, will be drug in as well.

These two barriers seem almost insurmountable, but I'm not sure they are. We'll see. Regardless, this coming out thing needs to get a move on. I can't handle being in the closet to anyone much longer.

buying back each day

"See then that you walk ... not as fools, but as wise. Redeeming the time, because the days are evil." Ephesians 5:15-15, NKJV

To make a very long, very complicated story overly short:

- I grew up a Bible-thumping, evangelical Christian. More conservative than my parents in every way, despite being homeschooled. Trying, in every area of my life, to achieve perfection.

- Yet what is the one way, in a small Southern town, to be absolutely irredeemable? By being a total homo, a gay boy, a musical theater-loving-anti-sports-academic-stereotypical fag.

- What does a perfectionist try to do? Someone who hates conflict? Change, of course! I surreptitiously read books, articles on the internet, participated in message boards, and prayed, prayed, prayed.

- How well did that work? Of course, I simultaneously struggled with gay porn and kissing random boys at musical theater church camp.

- Mostly, I just tried to ignore it. Being a perfect student in high school and college left me no time for relationships.

- I moved across the country after college for a job, simultaneously experiencing a newfound vigor for fighting my gayness while meeting a beautiful girl that I clicked with very much.

- We fell in love. I genuinely fell in love with a girl, despite having had no business doing so. But I was trying so hard to be straight. And I really loved the girl. Plus, Jesus really wanted to make me straight, right? And I'd have to try a lot harder if I was married, right? And who knows, maybe I'd really like straight sex. I just didn't know what I was missing. So, we got married. Big church wedding. The whole shebang. This was God's way of making me straight.

- Except that... it wasn't. I cried on my honeymoon because I could barely "get it up."

- Some random family deaths, a few shitty years and another cross-country move later, and the resolve waned. I did that which I simultaneously wanted desperately yet shouldn't have done. And then plunged even more seriously into the world of ex-gay therapy.

- Then I gave up. I just gave up.

- I don't want to be straight anymore. Well, I do, but I realize it's not going to happen. Either Jesus doesn't care, He doesn't care enough to make me straight, or He's just going to have to deal.

- This blog is about exploring how a floundering faith mixes with being gay, recovering from ex-gay theology, philosophy, and pseudo-psychology, and trying to be whole after feeling so empty for so long. Trying to buy back those days, one at a time. We'll see how it all shakes out.