The Chains of Expectation

Expectations. Expectation is the lasso of our longing to reign in the beautiful dynamism of life during our time on Earth. Expectation is the language of that lasso that is expressed in institutions of any form: religious, socioeconomic, cultural, marital, etc. We chain ourselves to these expectations then wonder why oh why are we so complacent, so lifeless, so unsatisfied. We create these pictures in our brains of how each expectation should be accomplished or fulfilled and are dumbfounded at the injustice we feel when our expectations are not met, because we are all different and will add our spice to any understanding of an institution. Sometimes we go so far as to knit these expectations we have adopted from institutions or that quiet but very alive entity called "Society" and paste them onto our very character and are constantly frustrated or disappointed in ourselves because we cannot measure up. Then we become puppets to these lifeless, soulless entities and constantly look for anything that will give us what these lifeless, soulless entities cannot give us: LIFE. We are living breathing creatures who cannot get life from these soulless entities that we have given so much power. So why are people surprised that we get so much LIFE out of hearing anything that goes against them in the tragic, scandalous, or atypical stories in what we call "news." Why do we have this constant battle with our "sinful nature," to spend money we don't have, to go against the grain, to think impure thoughts about people who are not our spouses? Because we are chained by expectation and have forgotten how to embrace life as it comes, instead of trying to control it. Little surprises await us every turn if we can just allow ourselves to exist, to be, to embrace nature, love, and God in whatever form we experience him, her, it. We can offer each other and ourselves so much if we allow ourselves to be who we are instead of trying to react to the chains of expectation.

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.