Fear Exposed

Fear. Fear binds us so close to ourselves that we become nearsighted. We are only able to focus an inch in front of our faces while we seek that which will ease the pain fear inevitably causes. Our self prescriptions vary depending on how we choose to handle our fear. We may want to escape or run away from our fear. We may want to sit with it because we find sadistic comfort in its familiarity. We may want to numb the pain it causes. The bravest of us look it in its ugly face and recognize it only becomes something that can choke us when we give it permission. We are more powerful than we think we are. May we react to the love we feel for people we care about instead of our fears of what they may or may not think of us. May love be the lens we look through - not the lens of fear that makes everything blurry and ugly. Why do we place these chains on ourselves? Why are we sometimes so convinced there is no other way to live? May we refuse to let fear distort our ability to see the beauty of creation and community that surrounds us and suffocate our ability to love.

Hide and Seek and Apologies

   I feel like up to this point in my blog I have explained what being a Lesbian in the Bible Belt was like from childhood to high school, and from my marriage until today. I have intentionally skipped my years in college because they were emotionally and spiritually the hardest years of my life. Of course there were sparks of joyful experiences, but most of these were tinted by hatred for that key part of myself - my "homosexuality," my longing to be loved, held, and cared for intimately by another woman. Even the term "homosexuality" fills me with feelings of unease, bitterness, fear, and intense sadness. I spent YEARS wasting my life by hating myself for having this "homosexual struggle." Through this selfish hating of myself, I drug myself and those beautiful women I intimately loved, and the men I tried to love, into a vortex of pain. My hatred of myself, and my longing to be loved, left a black hole in my heart that could never be filled. I prayed as hard as I could and the hole continued to exist. I believe that this is because I refused to love and accept myself, so how could I fruitfully love and accept others and accept God's love. How could I? I have heard all of my life that part of the "Christian life" is learning how to "die to yourself." I believe this phrase has the possibility to turn into a false humility that makes it okay for people to hate themselves so that they feel "unselfish," and therefore a "good Christian." I certainly subconsciously felt this way in high school and most of college. My lack of acceptance of myself in my entirety and this longing to be loved in a way that was impossible without the fruits of the wholeness of self love, twisted my relationships into a near sighted game of hide and seek. I was stuck doing both hiding my true desires from my peers, family, and God, while quietly seeking a way to be loved in any way I could. All of my friends know and knew me to be an affectionate person. I feel loved most through physical touch. This doesn't have to be sexually. I love cuddling, holding hands, and/or hugging any of my friends: male, female, gay, straight. My gay friend Jon always picks me up in a bear hug when he sees me and we always hold hands and giggle about my "small hands" and his "big hands." My heart smiles and feels loved in these seemingly simple gestures. However, we all know that cuddling can indeed be sexual, and in college when I felt my female friend enjoying my physical affections more than platonically, the split occurred. I lived a double life. My same sex love life was water, my trying to be straight life oil, and they could never be mixed. One life I constructed because I grew up believing it was the only way I could live - the "straight" way, the "right" way. The other life I wanted, but couldn't have - it was impossible. So into the shadows my female lover and I would hide for a while, letting our love swirl around us - comforting that piece of ourselves we dare not share with anyone else because we would be condemned, seen as disgusting, unwanted and unloved by our peers, family, and God. Oh but when our love swirled and held us like a blanket, when sparks flew during a kiss, when we finally felt connected to someone and fully loved, it was sweet, intense, beautiful, and painful all at the same time. We both knew the magic would end. We would be forced out of our love blanket and reminded that all of those beautiful feelings were "bad", "unnatural," and "sinful." We would pray, sometimes cry, and make promises to God and each other that "it wouldn't happen again." Even worse was that during most of these times I was living my double life and would go hang out with my boyfriend at the time and try to live a "normal life." In my short sightedness during that game of hide and seek I hurt my female friend and lover and could not stop myself from falling into her arms and starting that excruciatingly terrible cycle all over again. Sometimes we would let one of our friends in on our "secret sin" and let them "keep us accountable." James 5:16a says "Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so you may be healed" (NRSV). Unfortunately a few times I have confessed, my ex lover or current lover and I were incredibly shattered and hurt by that Hag called Gossip. She rips trust into a million pieces and destroys bridges between people with the ferocity of Godzilla. Sometimes her wrath is irreparable, and this I mourn intensely. Every person who I have irrevocably hurt with my actions during this time of self hate and hide and seek, where bridges are ash that have been blown away by the wind, have left a hole in my heart. Those who have chosen to erase me from their life, and there have been many, I can never apologize to. In my whole life, I have never wanted to hurt anyone, but because of my feeling forced to conform to a lifestyle that is different from what felt natural to me, and because for a long time I didn't know what I wanted from a lover because I was so used to having others telling me what I wanted, I have hurt so many. For any of you that read this, I cannot express how incredibly sorry I am.
   To those who believe in a "hierarchy of sin" and those who believe my lifestyle of monogamous, loving relationship with my wife is a sin (which I indeed do not believe love of any kind can be a sin nor in a hierarchy of sin) - what is more sinful? 1: Living one whole life where I love myself, and love my wife so a double life is unnecessary, or 2: Lying to myself, peers, family, and God by trying to do what Bible Belt Society says and marrying a man only to more than likely cheat on him with a woman and continue that same cycle expressed earlier eventually being so unhappy, scared of being "found out," and hate myself so much for all of the hurt I cause my family, potential lover, and myself that I either think about or complete committing suicide?
   The more society, our families, and the church frees us to be who we were created to be, the less people we will inadvertently hurt, including ourselves.

The Bipolar Stereotype of the Gay Christian

   To many of us living in the Bible Belt, the term "Gay Christian" causes the brain to cease processing and turn to mush, therefore even a semblance of a definition for this phrase is unable to form and feelings of disease, disgust, fear, and/or anger arrives and settles in. This leaves the "Gay Christian" in a dangerous predicament, especially if we have lived and/or grown up in households where the environment is one that creates the same brain mushing sequence to happen when we hear it ourselves. To deal with such internal angst of "Being Gay is Wrong," and "I really love Jesus," and "Oh God, I'm a homosexual!" a split occurs. The newly self discovered "Gay Christian" feels he/she must choose  Jesus, OR choose to live the stereotyped "Gay Lifestyle." Sadly, the stereotype of the "Gay Lifestyle" is reinforced in many Christian households with like terms such as "sodomy," because of the Bible story of Sodom and Gomorrah where Lot chooses to act hospitably to angels when they enter his home, and protect them from sexual passion/hate filled people of Sodom at the expense of his daughters by offering them instead of his gentlemen angelic visitors when the men outside beg Lot to bring his visitors out to rape them. Here is a question, why would Lot offer his FEMALE daughters, if the men outside were GAY? Wouldn't the more logical people he could offer be himself or his male servants if the men outside were gay? Food for thought. Along with this stereotype of the "Gay Lifestyle", many Christian households also throw homosexuality in with the term "sexual perversion", and classifies same sex attraction as solely "lustful". Therefore, since many "Gay Christians" who choose to be honest with themselves and their family find themselves ostracized by their Church family, and sometimes their blood family, why is anyone surprised that many find themselves in the welcome open embrace of the bar/club dwellers, and the sexually promiscuous? (Am I judging these people? Certainly not! They are often the most welcoming and non judgemental people I know - these two traits being ones that Jesus portrayed, hmm.) Oh, but for the "Gay Christian" who feels he/she is "choosing Jesus" over his/her "sin!" They choose "celibacy" which can work for some who agree with St. Paul that marriage is only a way to stay sexually moral, or sadly they choose to be straight in effort to be loved by their church family, blood family, God, and themselves and end up locking a piece of themselves-of their identity-into the dungeon of their self loathing while their partner and children wonder why they are not fully capable of loving and being loved.
    So, here is my question to the ones who have experienced the "Gay Christian" brain mush sequence, and to my homosexual brothers and sisters who love Jesus, but want to be free to romantically LOVE a person they are naturally attracted to: Why can't there be another way? Can we not find the middle road? Can we not LOVE Jesus and LOVE a same sex partner? Can we not live the way Jesus taught us to live and love "1 Corinthians 13" style our same sex partner? Why not? Does it really bother the God of the Universe who needs nothing and is all powerful and LOVING for us to LOVE who we feel led to love? Are we really all that different from our straight Christian brothers and sisters when it comes to how we model our relationships? No my friends, we are not. Praise God that we have similar marital/financial/emotional/physical struggles, successes, and failures on this side of eternity. Praise God that we ALL have the capacity to LOVE the way God has taught us to LOVE: through his Son Christ Jesus. Praise God that God's divine love resonates in and through us all.

True Love Unveiled

What is true love anyway? Until we get married or choose to commit to a long term or life time relationship, true love exists in the realm of imagination. Whether the imagination is our own, or accumulated from the talented minds of the television, movie, and/or book industry, the idea of true love floats through our emotions and thoughts in the safe place of our subjective universe. We decide our fantasies, and our preferences are always met. We always get what the romantic side of our collective self wants in our true love imaginings. We are always appreciated, we are always held when we want to be, we go on the perfect dates, we are told we are beautiful, strong, wanted, and/or needed. When we date in the world outside of our imagination, our imagination becomes our veil we throw onto our new love interests true selves. We are then shocked by how perfect they then seem "at first" as we gush to our friends how wonderful our veil is, I mean how wonderful THEY are...little do we know, our veils make them seem so perfect. After a few dates, their true forms melt parts of our veils and we find they either really do fit some of our imaginings, or they do not and we decide to keep going on the romantic road together, or to go our separate ways. When we get married, or decide to commit to each other without marriage labels, our poor romantic imagination veils are unraveled. Our veils just cannot exist outside of our heads for long. So here we are, two people committed to each other, veils gone, and BOOM we exist in our entirety: passions, fears, desires, dreams, concerns, etc. We have each separately accumulated potentially different coping skills (or not), hobbies, likes, dislikes, depending on where our roads took us before our roads crossed. We stand before each other completely and utterly naked: mind, body, and soul. In this way, we sometimes wait for the one who's supposed to love us most in the world to judge us. Sometimes, we wait in eager expectation to hear those sweet words, "I love you no matter what." Sometimes, the most rare I think, loving our own emotional, physical, and spiritual selves enough to look at our equally naked lover in his or her eyes and simply exist together, one day at a time, constantly embracing the reality of the power of unconditional love shared.

When You Know, You Know

   When I was single in high school, I remember asking my married lady mentors, "how did you know that he was 'the one'?" The answer I was always given was, "when you know, you just know." This vague answer was extrememly frustrating to my angsty, longing to be romanced, and idealistic teenage self. However, it was the feeling I always sought in all of my romantic relationships. My first three years of college I was still trying to fit in and be straight. I dated some incredible Christian men before I came out as gay. I was convinced I was going to marry one in paticular. He was the kindest, most gentle, patient, and God loving man I have ever met. We talked about getting married during the romantic season of Christmas. We were going to have poinsettas everywhere because they are my favorite nostalgic plant, and our wedding colors were going to be red, black, and white. He knew I was "struggling with homosexuality" so black was symbolizing my "homosexual sin," red was to symbolize "Christ's redemption," and white was to symbolize "my new purity," because of our marriage. Being gay was "a choice" right? I was choosing to live "the way God wanted me to live" right? Our relationship was pefect on paper, but I couldn't make myself feel that "when you know, you know" feeling. He was tall, dark, and handsome, and everything I thought I wanted, but I could not feel physically attracted to him. I kept trying to justify this feeling by saying to myself, "but that doesn't matter as long as I love him right?" Oh, my heart was indeed troubled. Underneath all of the dreamy feelings many women have who dream about getting married, there was that nagging feeling that something was not right. My intuition screamed at me "WRONG WAY" like a car traveling the wrong way on the interstate. Thankfully, my Aunt had an unexpected conversation with me about the importance of having that "spark," that physical attraction, because that was indeed very important for a marriage. God interceded for me and my almost fiance' that day. I would have broken that incredible man's heart day after day, year after year, because I would not have been able to give him what he wanted, needed, and deserved as a married Christian man. Since I chose to end our romantic relationship, his heart only had to break once. We both felt the shatter of love lost and had to depend on God to put us back together. I still sometimes find myself mourning how much I hurt him, but I did not have that "when you know, you know" feeling that is one of the essential pieces of a lifetime commitment.
   I understand this feeling now, because I feel it with my wife. It feels like intuition, so it is subtle. It is the quiet and calm kind of beautiful, like a lavander butterfly that can be easily missed in our big world of distractions. It is like the small smile of a stranger who passes our way on the street. It is like a warm, waft of wind on a cold winter day. This feeling lingers when we argue, when we are angry with each other, or when I am angry at myself or circumstances outside of my control and I take it out on her. It lingers when we are annoyed by each others differing preferences. No matter how heated our arguments get, or how much I shut her out, I know deep in my heart that we will ALWAYS be together. The "when you know, you know" feeling is the essential piece I was missing in all of my other relationships. Because this feeling is not tangible, it is hard to describe, but I hope all of you beautiful unmarried people out there will be comforted by the existance of this "when you know, you know" feeling. I hope you will open yourselves up to trusting it when it happens to you. I hope you will refuse to settle as well as have the courage and self knowledge to feel it and embrace it when you have found "the one."

Blanket of Love

Love is the great weaver. Each person who has entered our lives and sparked her creativity are colors in our love blankets. When our lives cross, she weaves away smiling beautifully as our individual love blankets grow and become more colorful. The more we reveal about ourselves to those she shines on, the tighter she weaves. For those who have sections of love that has been unravelled, never fear. The great weaver is never finished. Embrace all of her weavings. We are never alone.

Exploring Shadows

Every now and then, my Jungian shadow tickles my feet and demands my attention. My shadow whispers encouragingly to shuck off my socially constructed mask and embrace myself in my entirety. I want to dance, to laugh, to drink alcohol, to sing, and to kiss. I feel passion for many, desire for new experiences, and anger toward anything that ties me down. I feel carnal, lustful, and I long to consume. I feel starved for loud, aggressive, and intense experiences. I want to drive fast, and kiss long and hard. My ears want to devour fast beats, and deep bass notes while my body dives into the sexual resonance of that music and dance until my body refuses to move. I want to look beautiful women in the eyes of their mirrored souls and show them how beautiful they are with my lips while holding them as close as possible.
   Ah, but as a married woman, what can I do with my tickling shadow? Many New York Times bestsellers reveal this as where the taboo/secretly desired affair would come into play, but alas the long term effects of such an affair (pun intended) is undesirable at best. After the usual "newness" and intensity that comes with any new relationship is gone, the commitment and companionship usually built in a marriage is absent. Then there are all of the broken hearts after reality kicks back in and responsibility is remembered. Or if one chooses the affair instead, there is a potentially broken family. Nope, just doesn't seem worth it to me. So then what?
   For me, the most important remedy for such internal angst is confessing to my wife. Confession, when confessing to an audience that practices unconditional love, is the most cleansing experience. I am so amazed that my wife still loves me after everything I have told her that goes on in the depths of my soul. We have an agreement that if we have a crush on someone else, we will tell each other. We understand that we are just human and we will have feelings of attraction, and if we confess, it's amazing how quickly the crush dissipates. It's like all of my feelings of attraction and infatuation build up like water behind a dam. I can release that pressure by opening the flood gates in an intense affair, or I can confess to my wife that my feelings exist, then a small hole is put in the emotional dam that lets the pressure out slowly. Then these emotions can flow back into the universe and back toward my wife since she has become my focus again via confession. Being honest in our relationship has been incredible. We vowed to each other that we would not take normal wayward human feelings personally. We embrace our humanity in its entirety and recognize our emotional/sexual waxes and wanes.
   Another way I embrace my shadow as well as my moral self is recognizing the importance of feeling sexy. A fiery affair can certainly make me feel sexy, but I love my wife and the life we have built together too much to allow that to be the only thing that makes me feel sexy. In my introspectional search for feeling sexy, I recognized that personal grooming/pampering makes me feel sexy. Simple rituals such as long showers, shaving my legs, and washing my face makes me feel sexy. I have just recently recognized the importance of the great feminine face washing ritual, and actually had to ask one of my very good friends who has the best complexion EVER to educate me. The vocabulary in and of itself is exhausting! Cleanser, toner, astringent (doesn't that just sound awful!), and moisturizer is about all I could remember during our first lesson. During our chat, my friend and I discussed how caring for ourselves is important because we value anything we spend time on, therefore we learn how to value ourselves which is empowering. This also reflects a relationship between our external self and our internal soul or emotional self. If we care for our external self, not for others to find us desirable, but because we yearn to value ourselves in our entirety, then our inner emotional self can breathe a sigh of relief from its greatest critique: ourselves. If we do this, we can experience a boost of self esteem and yes even a boost of sexual confidence.  I think Bible Belt Christianity's idea of "die to yourself" can be falsely interpreted as refusing to value yourself so you can value others. As I have said before in my blog, I believe it's important to love ourselves before we can love others well.
   Lastly, when my shadow tickles my feet, I am tempted to be deviant. I just want to rip myself from the invisible social rules I have entangled myself in and "let loose." Thankfully this comes pretty easily for me since I grew up in the Bible Belt Culture where being deviant can be as simple as cussing or even looking at someone worthy of respect the wrong way. So for me, when my shadow tickles me, a night out can satisfy my wayward desires. Going to a club or bar with my wife and some friends where there is loud music and riskay dancing, and what? Alcohol?! fulfills my desire to be deviant.
   The more I grow, the more I realize the importance of balancing the natural duplicity of my human nature. As humans, we are constantly experiencing light and dark emotions, a Jekyll and Hyde if you will. A vast amount of literature addresses examples of how humans handle the onslaught of these bipolar emotions but too often, in the Bible Belt especially, we just run away from emotions our culture has deemed "bad" so we must be "good." However, some will get tired of being so "good" all the time so they will "act out" by embracing their shadow fully. But in reality, we constantly exist with both light and shadow and have the power to choose which we embrace. Why can't we embrace both? Whatever happened to the Pauline idea of moderation? What's wrong with giving a big resounding "SHIT!" in our car after a bad day at work? What's wrong with consuming alcohol responsibly every now and then? I believe we can embrace our duplicitious humanity and still remain socially responsible. I believe we can learn to love ourselves better when we embrace all we are, then we can learn to love others in their entirety.
   So let's hang out with our shadow a little and find creative ways to satisfy our completely normal human desires in ways that won't hurt others or ourselves. Let's embrace ourselves and our humanity.