The Best of America

The words came out of my mouth without thinking.  I was at a Pride Fest in a large out-of-state city.  It was a gloriously beautiful Sunday afternoon.  My friends and I were seated on a blanket underneath some tall shade trees, eating a delicious lunch that had been lugged around the city all morning in a backpack by my friend.  We had come just from the Pride parade.

As I looked around, I saw thousands of people.

There was no violence.

There was little visible presence of state authority.

There was no fear.

No one was telling anyone what was right or wrong.

No one was trying to tell others what or how to think.

There was no judgment.

There were many gay people around.

There were many straight people around.

There were old people.

There were children.

Diversity was everywhere.

Tolerance was everywhere.

Acceptance was everywhere.

Here, I thought, is the best of America.  Here, the ideals of America are not being sung about, not being preached, not being lauded or paraded, worshipped and idealized.  Here, the ideals of America are simply being lived. 

Thus, I said to my friends, almost absent-mindedly:  “This represents the best of America.”  An America I can be proud of.  An America I believe in.  An America where ideals are not used as weapons by one group of people against another, but are respected as shared beliefs of which none are owners and all are stewards.

Questions and Answers

The past is gone forever.

The present is sometimes enigmatic.

The future is unknown.

Old answers no longer work. 

But did they ever, really?

New answers are elusive.

But are there answers?

Old questions, asked in youth, are sometimes frightening in later life.

I thought I knew all the answers.

But only because I ignored the questions.

Now I am living the questions.

Old answers no longer work. 

The illusion of comfort and knowledge is gone.

I stare at the canvas.

It stares back at me.

Creation is so much more daunting that conformity.

“Not My Will, But Thine, Be Done”: But What Is Thy Will?

This is another in the Gay Gospel Doctrine Class series of posts that takes a lesson from the LDS Church’s (Adult) Gospel Doctrine class and presents it from a gay perspective.  Today’s lesson, written by Utahhiker801, is based on Lesson #25 in the Gospel Doctrine Manual.

The title of this week’s Lesson 25 is, “Not My Will, But Thine, Be Done.”

In contemplating this lesson, I thought about the many times when I turned my will over to someone else; I did what others asked of me because I thought that’s what I should do.  As a child, it was always very important for me to be good.  I was the Deacon’s Quorum president as well as the Teacher’s president and 1st assistant in the Priest Quorum (I guess that’s not so hard living in a ward with few youth).  In high school, I was on the seminary council.  I was able to serve a mission in what many would consider an exotic and incredibly challenging country.

Now, please bear with me for a moment.  I’m not saying these things to aggrandize myself, just to show that for me, as I was growing up, doing the right things was very important.  I was the good kid.  And despite doing all of these things, I constantly felt unworthy.  I had feelings that I thought no one else shared.  I was sure that if I continued to do the things the Lord wanted me to do, I would be able to over come them.  If I followed the Lord’s prophets and apostles, I would be able to achieve the goal of eternal salvation in the Celestial Kingdom.

I believed that doing the Lord’s will and putting that in front of my will would lead me to peace and happiness.  “With God, nothing is impossible.”  And yet, my goal seemed very elusive. 

I read with interest about Invictus’s experience on his mission where he felt that God loved him and didn’t care if he was gay.  I spent most of my mission time just trying to run away from those thoughts while at the same time seeing men who were some of the most physically beautiful examples of perfection I could imagine.

I never thought to ask God if it was alright that I was gay.  One of my references was the pamphlet my dad gave me called, “To Young Men Only” so I felt that the Lord’s mouthpieces had already spoken on the subject.  Why would I even think to ask if it was alright?  I instead gave myself repeated emotional floggings where I asked myself, “Why is this a problem for me?  I should not be attracted to guys.  This isn’t what the Lord wants for me.”

I have recently begun to think that perhaps the better way to address my concerns is to take it directly up with God.  There is too much cacophony in the world, even within the LDS Church, of people claiming to speak the will of the Lord.  And I, the former Deacon and Teacher’s Quorum president, 1st Assistant in the Priest Quorum, missionary and three-time Elder’s Quorum president, have begun to come to the conclusion that maybe I have been supplanting my will with the will of others and not necessarily with the will of God.  Because of this, I find that I have a need to self-correct, to change directions, or even – biblically speaking – repent.  If I only do the things others tell me to do, then I have abandoned my person responsibility to decide, actually decide, what it is that I believe and the direction I should go and the kind of person I should become.

I’m not yet ready to do everything I believe I should, and I have far too many inner conflicts to sort them out quickly, but I am moving forward with a clearer sense of honesty.  I still find myself with moments of uneasiness with my progression, but think it’s ultimately a better path for me.

Ed. Note:  Wow!  Utahhiker801, this was amazing.  Thank you for sharing your thoughts and heart with the rest of us. – IP

Simply Saturday

For Utahhiker801

You can tell more about a person by what he says about others than you can by what others say about him.

AUDREY HEPBURN

People who do not love themselves can adore others, because adoration is making someone else big and ourselves small. They can desire others, because desire comes out of a sense of inner incompleteness, which demands to be filled. But they can not love others, because love is an affirmation of the living growing being in all of us. If you don’t have it, you can’t give it.

ANDREW MATTHEWS

Magical Powers: The Cost of Being Chosen

It was another “secret” destination – something I hadn’t planned on or expected during my recent trip out of town for Pride weekend. I don’t know what exactly precipitated it. I was sitting in a reading by Armistead Maupin, and something he said triggered the realization, which was stunning.I could not believe I had never considered it before.

This realization explained much of why I had done what I had done – why I had married, why I had repressed my homosexuality, why I had remained active in the Church.

I was a golden convert. When I heard the message of the restored gospel, I readily embraced it. Doing so gave me a sense of purpose at a point in my life when I desperately needed one.

But it went beyond that. I also joined the Church because of the Mormon ideal family.  I wanted that.  I came from a dysfunctional family in which there had been a lot of divorce, and I wanted the family that I had never had a child.  This desire became problematic, which I never fully realized or understood until shortly before coming out, when I realized that I had tried to re-create in my own family, then “fix”, the family I never had as a child (a complex topic for another post).

I also thought joining the Church would get me out of homo hell.I  believed what the Church taught about homosexuality.  I believed it was a weakness, a predisposition that could be controlled, then eventually overcome, as long as I was faithful.

Then there was the whole matter of being elect. I was introduced to the Church by someone who thought I was special, golden, elect. This person told me, among other things, that I must have been tremendously valiant in the pre-existence, someone who therefore had a great mission to fulfill in this life. 

This person in turn introduced me to a “perfect” family who proceeded to “fellowship” me. This family also thought I was someone special. They welcomed me into their family circle and showered me with love and affection.  I also met other church members who were incredibly warm and welcoming.  I had never before in my life experienced anything like this.

I used to say that I was loved into the Church. I said this in a positive way, as a compliment to the Church, as a means of demonstrating its truthfulness. After all, “ye shall know them by their fruits.” What I now realize was going on, however, is that I was basking in the attention given a new convert. And every new convert – let’s face it – boosts existing members’ belief that the Church is indeed true: after all, if other people are joining the Church, it must be true, right?

I was deathly afraid of losing this newfound love and affection. In particular, I was afraid those who had introduced me to the Church and those who had fellowshipped and welcomed me would discover my deepest, darkest secret – that I was a homo, a queer, a fag. 

I also believed, because I wanted to believe it – passionately – that I was special. I believed that I was valiant in the pre-existence.  I believed that I had a great mission to accomplish in this life. I believed it when she who had introduced me to the Church – a middle-aged woman of great faith who was charismatic and forceful – told me that I had a calling as a father. 

I believed it because I wanted desperately to believe it. I believed it because such beliefs would allow me to treat the same-sex attraction with which I had struggled for years as merely an attempt by Satan to thwart the great mission that was mine to accomplish in this life. Such beliefs allowed me, even propelled me, to believe that homosexuality was no more than a “thorn in my side” – a weakness akin to a predisposition to alcoholism -  that would propel me to greater strength. I also believed that I was strong enough – or could be strong enough through prayer and righteous living – to overcome the attractions I felt.

As to my mission in life, I am embarrassed to admit this, but I truly believed that I had the potential to rise to great heights in the Church. I looked into my future and saw offices such as bishop, stake president, maybe mission president and perhaps even more. These expectations were fueled by those who had introduced me to the Church and by members who made comments like, “I’m sure I’ll read about you in the Church News someday.”  They were also fueled by my patriarchal blessing, which spoke glowingly, e.g., of the “great work” that Heavenly Father saw in me.

What were the effects of these expectations? They significantly raised the cost of ever leaving the Church. I had to believe that the Church was true, for it provided the reason for believing that I was special, that I was better than other people, that I had almost magical powers, that there was a whole world, Harry Potter-like, beyond the ordinary one in which others (mere Muggles) functioned.

Such expectations, which became aspirations, also significantly increased the cost of acknowledging that I am gay, which would result in the collapse of the entire structure of my life post-baptism. There was a cost of being special, and that cost was to enter upon a “career path” that required keeping up appearances and complying with a code of conduct. One false move, one careless admission, could mean time in the penalty box or, even worse, that I was out of the game.

However, there was also a toll that was being incurred, day by day, month by month, year by year, as I struggled to maintain this outward persona. It was a dreadful toll, being exacted not only from me, but also from my wife and children. Eventually, I reached a point where payment of this toll was demanded, and the cost exceeded that of any benefits accruing from the path I had so diligently tried to walk.

All of these thoughts and more passed through my mind in a matter of moments as I sat listening to Armistead Maupin. Suddenly, with great clarity, I understood much about myself, about things I had known but had buried deep within me. 

Then, just as suddenly, I understood that these realizations were a gift from a part of me that wanted me to forgive myself for not coming out earlier in life; for I saw even more clearly why this had not been possible: the person I was would never have permitted it.