Far more impactful than November 1st…

Tonight is bittersweet.  I’m less than 24 hours from a date that I have been both dreading and longing for.  It’s that way for many reasons.  I’ve been dreading it because it’s hard to say good-bye.  It’s hard to say farewell to what’s come before.  I’m not supposed to live in what I’ve known before…and I hope to not.  It’s a longing because I’ve wanted to move beyond and move past.  I’ve wanted to move far beyond what the United States will allow me.  I suppose this is the first step.  It’s not just about what my government will do for me, but it’s what I’m willing to do personally, in my own world.  Don’t ask for legal responsibility that is more than what you care to bear.  It’s not about romance and love.  It might be about intimate and non-sexual…so was the answer.  More importantly, it’s the hope to move beyond what I was once before.

I’m inclined to believe what people tell me…correction, I was inclined to believe what people tell me.  I think we all suffer this consequence in our even most intimate…..and non-sexual…..relationships.  What does that mean anyway?  Well so, what I mean is that we want to believe what people tell us.  I’m someone who wants to believe in the best for people and I’m hopeful.  I’m not hopeful enough to pay the price for what others are not willing to bear.  I’ve learned the hard way and I’m glad that I have learned.  There isn’t really a price that I’ve paid monetarily, but I’ve certainly paid what was important to me.

When you make an agreement it’s important to abide in it, not just for now, but for always.  It doesn’t matter if the first of the month falls on the wrong day or if the wind is blowing your dress in the wrong direction.  What  matters is that you kept your promise and your agreement.  If you can’t keep it, then you should try to work it out and come up with an alternate agreement.  If you are not able to do this, then you have suffered the worse fate.  You have suffered that others must carry your burden.  You have mandated that, since you are not able to, others will carry your burden.  No court or jurisdiction can remove this obligation.  It is woven into the fabric of you.  The fabric that you must choose to disrobe yourself of.  Clothe yourself in what you desire.

I look forward to a very late start to my day, maybe awakening to Syrah licking my feet.  Maybe feeling refreshed.  I hope for a journey to the bathroom as I prepare myself to face the day.  I look into the mirror and face me.  I’ve faced myself since 2003, honestly.  I didn’t always face myself so honestly.  I hope to have a wonderful Maryland blue lump crap dish at Sundance Grill, before I head on with the business of my day.  There is not much business that I will accomplish, but it will be all the business I intend to accomplish tomorrow.

Moving from one era to another must be trying.  When a structure is built in which you can be known and that is abused and misunderstood and all you’ve left to do is bleed to make it real.  I hope that I can make it real for those that will need it to be real one day.

Mykha’el, or whatever your name is.  I hope you are well and I hope that you have all the blessing that you open yourself to.  I understand that we don’t always do what we know is best, but I don’t understand why we continue to live in what we know is not best.

How can I blame you when I believed all of what you said?

Please watch the movie, “The Informant!”.  It is very well done and it tells a priceless story of what we continue to do to each other.  Tell lies and believe the lies we’re told.  From day one, so I’m told, we have believed the lies….and continued to lie ever since.

If you can stop yourself from lying…..you have done a wonderful thing for all of us who come after you.

I was sure that you’d walk away angry and never talk to me again

How can I be so sure that you’d walk away angry and never talk to me again?  Well, I suppose, now, it’s because you did, but if we rewind, I suppose it’s because there was never any trust that either of us would be there for the long haul.  When someone is more interested in their own personal sufferings, you and me included, they cannot continue on into wonderful blessed relationship.  From quite some time ago, we disagreed on forgiveness, but this wasn’t enough for me.  I figured that we could still make things work in some fashion, that we could continue in the way that we had.  I only found that the ice castles that I built melted when the light shown on them.  The warmth was too much and they could not hold themselves up.  I realised that you were not what I had purported you to be.  For this I apologize.  I still don’t think it means that you need to walk away angry and never talk to me again.

Garden to Prison?

What we might surmise is that a garden was all of what we needed to freely exist in community with each other.  No need for dictation out of a mentality of self-protection or protection of others.  Yet, when we chose that mentality, we were immediately banished from that garden.  When we gained that knowledge, it became dangerous for us to stay in that environment.  What I find interesting is how prevalent that dynamic exists in our society.  We have freedom, maybe true freedom, until we decide that it’s not enough.  In fact, we might even be thrown into prison if we bring ourselves too far.  We literally might be withheld from freedom that we were intended for.  It’s an interesting notion.  So, the law is very imprisoning as much as it is a governing factor in the essence of our being.  We must have it to survive and we rebel against it’s confines, all in the same breath.

Is it that you won’t obey?  Is it that obedience denies part of what it means to be free?  Is it that you can’t obey?  Is it that part of you will be be restrained by yourself into obedience?  Is is that we love freedom?  Is it that we can’t govern ourselves in freedom?  Is it that we love captivity?  Is it that we long to be withheld from the things that keep us captivated?

It is both and neither.  I suppose that’s my answer, though strange as it seems.  We must have both and we must have neither.  If it was made one way, then somehow it needed to be countered, so we needed both.  We needed to be how we were made to be and we needed to be governed.  That could not endure because it should be neither.  Love can be self-governance.  What I mean is that it may be that love is restrain.

We demand this all the time…that we must be loved in certain ways.  People want us to express love for them in certain ways.  They want to govern how we love them.  If freedom is so important, why can’t we impose our own version of love upon another?  Why can’t we will upon them that our means and expressions of love are truly love and that they are deluded?  We can’t because it violates the fabric of how we were intended to be.  The very fabric of this life was woven with the idea that love governs itself and that we don’t.  It is self-sustaining.  It’s really true that we can be deluded into thinking otherwise.  It is our knowledge that deludes us.  If we had not knowledge of otherwise, we might understand our fabric better and even desire to understand our fabric better.

To those who desire prison over garden, be free and do as you please.  It is that that you want and none other.  You may delude yourself and others and never understand otherwise.  Not that you don’t want to understand, but that you really don’t want to understand.  And to those who desire the garden, may you understand that living in prison gives us the opportunity to understand what makes our prison so.  It helps us to understand the fabric which we have woven ourselves into, the fabric that needs to be torn top to bottom and thrown away.

In The Air Tonight

I haven’t posted for some time, but wanted to take the time to express a few ideas.  For a long time I’ve wrestled with my reflective and contemplative nature.  I guess I should clarify though.  What I mean is that I wrestle with judgements from others about my reflective and contemplative nature.  I’ve heard things since I can remember and the comments always seemed to set me apart to a disadvantage.  Quite honestly, I enjoy my thoughtful, deep and provocative style of thought an conversation, I just don’t always bear the confidence to own it all very well.  I think that superficiality is quite a commodity this day and age and it sells well for getting into relationships and moving ahead in life.  Well, getting into certain kinds of relationships and moving ahead in certain ways…I suppose.

I began writing lyric quite often starting in 1997 and really enjoyed how I could express my thoughts in that form.  I say lyric because poetry doesn’t capture the fact that the poem is meant for music.  Maybe that’s not an important detail, but I believe it is.  Anyway, I’ve come to build my confidence in this matter, to a point.  It seems that I can still not get beyond judgements of others.  It seems I get set back and hurt so quickly.

I spent some time processing this and arrived at a few conclusions….

Maybe it’s not worth your time — This is rooted in wasting my time and the time of others in relationship and conversation that ends in futility and goes no where.  If time can’t be taken to appropriately define terms and talking space, then the investment is not really there.  The relationship suffers and no one is happy.

Maybe you just don’t get it – Maybe I just don’t understand being on the surface, maybe I’m not a creature of simplicity (except when it comes to cooking and choice of cuisine).  Maybe life would be easier and more enjoyable if I could experience it that way.  I don’t know because I am not.  There are lots of ways in which I don’t experience the world and I don’t think I’m at loss for that, but I think it broadens the diversity we can have in relationship with each other.  Inherintly, I don’t need more relationships that cause conflict.

Maybe I’m tired of being victimized — If someone doesn’t understand what I’m saying or doesn’t know how to make an investment in a relationship I appreciate the honesty in that fact, but certainly don’t appreciate arrogance and pride.  I have this shadow of victimization that has clouded my life for quite some time.  This is simply when conflict arises I must be made out to be the abuser or enemy of another.  It doesn’t lie in reality, but it lies in a perception of reality that lends itself to simplistic and superficial worldviews.  Again, life might be easier when lived from that perspective, but I don’t have that luxury.

All this being said, I have decided that my investments must be more solid, supported and well-founded.  I’m not sure what all of this means, but it means that if I want to build a life and have a home, I must find people that are doing that, not fantasize that they are.  It puts unrealistic expectations on the gift of what others are to me.  On the other hand it will mean a bit of letting go for me.  I will not stand around people who intend to make their point and move on.  Nor will I stand those who refuse to make a moderate level of emotional investment.  Unfortunately, there are many people in the world that do not want more than this, but I’m not one of those.  We can find our people and live our lives.

Thoughts on bridging two communities

Today I am participating in the “Bridging the Gap Synchroblog,” which means that I and about seventy other bloggers will be addressing the same issue of how to bridge the gap in our conversations with people about faith and sexuality. Be sure to check out the links to the other participating bloggers at the Bridging the Gap blog.

My interest in bridging goes back several years and starts with myself.  You could say that it started with me; it started with bridging within myself.  Having not come out until I was 24 and coming from a background that was fairly conservative, the notion of living as a gay Christian was unheard of.  In 2002 all of that changed.

What became important for me was having peace with each of these parts of me that wanted to take ownership of me entirely.  At some points it was trying to push down any sort of gay identity in hopes of having my faith soar and take over.  At other times it was allowing my gay identity to speak a whole lot to me and let my faith take a back seat.  I suppose that this echoes what I’ve seen in the cross-cultural debate, namely the broader gay community and Christian community.

While it’s true that not all gay people have difficulty accepting themselves and feeling accepted by others, it’s also true that many people in the Christian community don’t have difficulty accepting gay individuals.  I do feel that there are certain voices in both communities that claim to represent the whole and that do not, but that is another issue.

With respect to bridging, I’ve found that knowing the people with whom you’d like to put at a distance and disconnect from is powerfully humbling and extremely difficult.  Finding myself in both communities I see the reality of taking it day by day and challenging myself to accept the Christians that have difficulty with me because of my orientation and letting them be where they are and who they are.  Similarly, I can find it difficult to find acceptance among the gay community when you don’t subscribe to exactly the same philosophies and beliefs that they do about who you are as a Christian.  That I must believe a specific set of creeds in order to be at “peace” with being gay and being Christian is preposterous.  It actually sounds like another version of something that happens in the more fundamental and conservative traditions of Christianity.

I’m starting an organization called, Bridge Evidence Group (BE Group) and our focus is to help individuals and communities transform while focusing on being tangible to each other across this divide.  We want to create evidence of this transformation and tangibility in their lives.  I use the word create because what’s often lacking in bridging the gap is the understanding of newness.  The understanding of entering into a different space, a space that you have created for yourself or that others have created for you.  In that space you can become transformed and become tangible.  Some may not go beyond the conversation and discussion, but we want to create space for that to happen.

The body of Christ is profoundly transformed in Christ and we also become profoundly tangible in Christ.  I believe that Christ was the ultimate of becoming a bridge between any number of things that have gone to great extents to keep themselves separated.  Christ exemplifies bridging two communities.  I would argue that any connection in peace, joy, patience, grace, humility and love is afforded by Christ.  That He is in all and through all.  If we can create evidence of this within our own lives and communities, then we are joining in the expression that he has called us to.  Christ in us is what allows us to become united with what we have become so divorced from.

Exploration

So unusual in my style of blogging, I’d like to explore something.  I’ve been focusing on the lyrics of “Original Sin” by Jim Steinman, appearing on the album “Pandora’s Box” from 1989.

It’s perplexing to me because the song seems to have a depraved notion to it, but yet, a notion that I sense at my core.  Let me explain.  It’s like a driving hunger that goes unquenched.  It’s a passion deep inside.

“I’ve been looking for an original sin, one with a twist and a bit of a spin and since I’ve done all the old ones till they’ve all be done in, now I’m just looking and I’m gone with the wind.  Endlessly searching for an original sin”

This line really gets me recently because I think it can be evidenced in our interactions with others that we disagree with or put at bay for whatever reasons we have.  It’s not our reasons, it’s our putting at bay.

What I’m seeing, like one might see in a painting, is a driving to look for an original sin.  We’ll just say that original sin is not really to be taken literally.  Original sin may be pointing at originating desire.  This may actually be taken to mean something that originated a hunger for more.  This isn’t good or bad, it’s simply a force or a drive.

I do believe we were all created with hunger and drive, we need to endlessly explore how we move forward in that.  We can certainly demonstrate ways in which we should or should not move forward in our hunger and drive.

The next part, “one with a twist and a bit of a spin”, is almost like the heart singing without the mind to filter it.  I mean, how we might actually quench our original desires is to continually find twists and spins on them because otherwise they are like all the “old ones” as the lyric says.  We have done what has come before.  Maybe it’s hard to find creativity and newness in where we’ve been before?  Maybe the twist and spin helps us see something new that is really the same?

The whole idea of endlessly searching and looking is very pervasive in this lyric.  The focus is on the hunt, but it’s almost that the idea of the hunt is illusive to the one speaking the words of this lyric.  They aren’t really aware of how strong the hunt is for them.

Sometimes I have not realised how strong the hunt is for me, in my own life.  How I’m so driven after certain things in my personal life.  It’s like some of them go continually unquenced and I’m endlessly searching.

This is an interesting point for faith to intersect because my beliefs tell me that I will search no more and be quenched.  I have experienced this.  I’ve also NOT experienced this.  I’ve probably NOT experienced this far more than I have.

I can see how I twist and spin things to make it look like I’m in a new season or on the hunt for something new, but I’m not really.  I’m really just looking for the same thing over and over.

What that is, I don’t know, but it just won’t quit….

Funeral for a friend

I heard that “Funeral for a friend” was actually written for the author himself.  I’m not sure how true it is, but it was intended for his own funeral.  Never-the-less, it’s been about one month since my friend died.  It’s been a difficult mourning process, namely because of the long period of anticipation.  It was known for about 4 months prior to his death that he would die.  Though, not completely convinced he would die, it seemed the only way things would go.

It’s been great to have closure on this episode for one month so far.  I’m moving closer to a position of wishing the best for his future, whatever it may be.  Beyond the life he had, I suppose.  I think he would argue that it wasn’t much of a life, bent on being manipulated and controlled by others.

It will be interesting to see what the future holds, in whatever space he enters into, for him.  I do believe in existence after our time on earth.  When a body vanishes, the vessel has simply gone away.  I don’t think that happens immediately…for everyone.  Alas, I’m not here to debate those issues.  

I think it will be interesting to see how he would respond in the face of adversity, having done to himself what he has done to me.  I wonder how he would respond or how he would cope?  I think it’s something that could easily be explored to the open soul, but alas a dead soul is not open.

Empty soul you have drained yourself
Breathing air that corrupts your soul
Shade from the Sun cannot be dark enough
Cloudy days cannot bring the cover
                                                                                             – G. Gough

Hate breeds those who think difference
Is the child of disease
                                                                                             – B. Taupin

My funeral song, the song I chose for him, was a song he enjoyed.  It describes the demise of a relationship through the art and language of theatre.  I suppose the question is what was he in love with all this time?  To whom is the song being sung?

I’d say it’s himself, but in a distorted sense of love.  Breaking his own heart.  Taking his own love for granted.

The show is over, say goodbye.

You will be missed, may the life hereafter leave you more blessed than in your current death.

Say goodbye.

With You

What became evidenced was your desire to be in abusive relationships.  It’s not your choosing them directly, it’s your being a pawn.  It’s how you exist as a pawn to others, other powers, other’s dreams.

I’m not sure if you will understand how you exist in abusive relationships.  It’s only when you understand that you will be able to excercise your ability to make things different.  If it becomes clear that you cannot be controlled then someone’s interest in you might decline.

What I enjoy about you is not about how you can be controlled or abused, but how you can spread your wings and fly.  What I’ve found complicated is how strong of a concern I have for your being controlled and manipulated.  It digs at my soul and my heart.

My hope is that this reality might be different for you.  For others.

I remember you…

We spent the summer with the top rolled down.
Wished ever after would be like this.
You said, “I love you babe”, without a sound.
I said, “I’d give my life for just one kiss,
live for your smile and die for your kiss”

I am quite honestly, most passionately in love.
I thought about what to write for awhile.
I had to think long and hard for my audience.
It’s a quick witty audience.
An audience given to a good wine.

I did write a song and it was beautiful.
Quite honestly, among my best pieces.
I could try to be frugal with my words, but I don’t do that well.
I always relied on the wisdom of others for those tidbits.
Quite honestly, I’m so glad I met you and I adore you.

She might cast a glace toward me, but she’ll never see.
She may never know how much in love I am in.
He is unwittingly charming, always telling me what is fun a fabulous.
Her love has me tangled up in her arms.
How much I owe to her, how much I owe.

I’m listening to a piece I wrote about a friend that has passed away.
She was a wonderful friend and it’s been sad to not have her around.
I also attend a wedding tomorrow, I’m happy for the day.
Quite honestly I don’t dig lightly into the soil beneath.
The bridge may not be crossable if I do.

Only doors away did you dwell, your saddenned sould quenching life.
Only further removed did you become, only further apart driven your heart.
She is only lingering now.
She is only alone.
She won’t ever become what she was.

Sometimes I wonder just where I’ll be
a day or a year from this time….

Perhaps in Australia, or another place.
Certainly with no job or sense of dignity.
Dear me, I will get around though, I will get around.
I always have gotten around.
I got around when you didn’t know….

Mark and Martha.
Jane and Jack.
It’s not really free, but it doesn’t cost me much.
Especially when you find a minor after something diminished.
It’s quite quaint, our little home.

What I do know is that I might not come around to slap you….
…but, I do know, that someone will come around to slap you.

I won’t know who, I won’t know why.
I’ll feel sorry for you, well, not sorry.
I’ll feel hurt for you, I will probably feel the hurt.

Alone in my cottage that is my life, out in the woods, among the solace.
…possibly with my lover…

…we will understand what has happened.
…we will understand what you have chosen.
…we will understand what we cannot bear to watch.
…we will understand as the piano fades….

I wish you well, but I am leaving.

Angel Eyes

I think that when I look in your eyes I see forever
In a strange way, I can see to forever in your eyes

I can only tell you that I want to build something with you
I can only tell you that I want to build something for you
I only hope that you want to build something with me
I only hope that you want to build something for me

In every song I sing there is a thread of you, the hope of you
In each lyric I write there is a desire for you

In a strange way I can’t explain, please forgive me
But in the strangest way, I find myself wanting to hold you
I long to keep you close, like the father-son-spirit, close
It’s a dance and balance held delicately, held intentionallly

I never doubt you’ll love other than me, though you might be convinced
You may desire another, or even others and I will not stop that
I will slowly wait for you, for you my one love
You are not a lover like others, you are my love
My one love, the means of my unique expression, our expression

I don’t think that it will be understood and it will not be affirmed
By those who know us and those who love us they would gladly partake
They would gladly benefit the blessing that lay before us
For once I understand what it means, what it means to love

I had some of them say they found me fascinating, but never kept them
I had some of them say they found me loving, but never kept them
Some of them found me to be tempting and I did not give into their tempt
Some of them found me to be a wealth and I did not give up my treasure

I waited for you, it’s been a long time that I’ve waited for you
I only hope that you have waited for me and that we can wait for each other
We don’t wait for each other in the flesh, we wait for far more
We wait to be one with each other and to have each other as we are

Please don’t trivialize what I share with you, don’t keep you flame hidden from me
I ask with earnest prayer, I request with blessing that you allow yourself to be open
Travel with me, take that highway with only me

Hurt and pain only exist because we desire to be other than how we were created
Despair and lonliness because our futures did not meet
No hurt, no pain, no despair, no lonely can quench what you are to me
Not an idol, not a figure, not a representation, but a gift

You are a gift to me, not because of my direction in life or my taste
You are a gift because you are you and because I’m me
We are both a gift to each other and I realize that this may never gain ground
I understand that it may not….

I will  commit to be with only you
I commit to be with only you
Regardless of what you may desire
My committment holds strong and everlasting, LORD help me

We can only steer our course when we choose to do so
Other than that is demise and falacy

I love you and I will always love you whatever may come
I love you with other love, another kind of love
If you don’t understand me, then just love me as you do
If you do understand, then don’t cause me pain by staying away