Alone. Together. [Intersection 1]

Ready to not be alone together?

I remember my parents leading a youth group trip and I did everything I could to spend the day with Francisco. He was one of the teens in the group. I was 8 and the pastor’s kid. I remember getting so nervous every time he was around. I would fumble through words if we talked. I would lose all sense of space and walk into people (or walls...or poles) as I would stalk him from a healthy distance so he couldn’t tell that I was watching him. I remember feeling overwhelmed with the deep knowing that: I liked him. And if anyone found out, my life would be over.

I remember waking up in the middle of the night with this weight on my chest. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t breathe. As I came to, I felt the urgency to just repent. Right then and there. Repent for the way I desired to be fully known. Repent for my desire to be in a relationship with my high school crush. I remember crying for hours; hot tears pouring over scripture that affirmed my ‘unnatural desire’ to be with a man. God did not create me to be this way and it was 'his' desire that I like women. And so, repent. Repent. Repent. The crying continued until the next morning. It actually continued on for the following 8 or 9 nights. If I told anyone, I knew my life would be over.

This was it. I had finally told people I could trust. I told them about the assault. I told them about the masturbation. I told them about the sex and we had a plan. I would be able to go through prayer groups and healing teams to resolve the desires of my heart. And for a while, it worked. I was in relationship with healthy, married, white people who would act as mentors and accountability partners. I was serving in a ministry context where things were taking off. I was designing service experiences and leading worship and traveling and speaking and getting my name out there; I was living the life I knew I was always called to live. But if they knew how lonely I was. If I could actually tell them the truth. That, no matter how hard we were all praying, I still felt gay. I knew that if I told them the truth, my life would be over.

And, funny enough. It was over. As a matter of fact, it all came crashing down. Relationships fell apart. Opportunities came to a screeching halt. What were once healthy, life giving experiences turned into deep cuts marking my soul bare. Come August 2013, I lost everything.

I was alone. For real.

5 years later and we’ve still got the marks and bruises of these experiences. I can’t walk into a church service without the crying. The pain of all the expectation of being in ministry and the abandonment I experienced from leaders, partners in ministry...my friends. It all comes rushing back to me at the strum of the music.  I really do miss the worship. I miss the congregational singing. I miss the shared experience of song and unifying grace mediated through music. I really do miss it.

But I made it through. And I’ve told people. And people know. And I am accepted and honored. My relationship with my parents is strong. My relationship with my sisters is strong. I’ve got a core group of friends/family around me who encourage me and love me and remind me of my worth.

And I am no longer alone.

We could get into long discussions about the biblical and theological implications of queerness and Christianity and how I justify remaining a person of faith. And we probably will and I welcome us to. And if you need resources, I have them. And if you want to fight...well, take that somewhere else.

This is the first entry of many.

To start, I want the first declarative statement I make be this:
I made it through because I told the truth.
To use language that has dictated my understanding of faith:
The chains of bondage broke the second I told the truth.

I am gay.

I uttered the words and committed to them in my heart and it all went away. The perception. The disgust. The fear. The justifications and the rationalizations. The loneliness. All gone. Every chain that I was told held me captive, the words that others had spoken over me, washed away in the greatest display of mercy and grace and love and wholeness. The language of ‘ you’re condemned if you’re gay’, ‘you are unnatural’, ‘you have no place’, ‘you are listening to the lies of the enemy’, ‘God can’t love you if you’re gay’, or my favorite, ‘You’re going to hell for being gay.’ Those chains; wiped away.

The second I gave myself permission to be myself, everything fell away. Jesus' call became clear: to be myself fully so that I can see him. He can see me. And we can walk together.

I have decided to start this project because I realized that I’ve walked through some significant moments of pain. I have felt abandoned by many people in my life. I have failed relationships and relationships have failed me. But most importantly, I have had the privilege to encounter the beauty of storytelling and the crashing convergence of divine-ness in relationship to identity.

I felt alone a good portion of the 28 years I’ve been alive. I have gotten to the place where I have worked through the pain. I would like to, if you have me, share stories and memories and practice of and into living our fullest selves.

Thomas Merton shared, that “...salvation is in fact the problem of finding out who I truly am and of discovering my true self, my essence or core.” King David positions our interdependence with the divine that as we look to them, we receive what we need (Psalm 145). Jesus reveals that he came so that we may live life to fullest. Steven Herevia affirms all of that, adds an ‘Amen!’ and says, ‘Yes! Because I’ve lived it. I hope you get the opportunity to do so and more.'

So, are you ready to not be alone-together?