To all my American readers, a very happy Thanksgiving Day (and weekend). In spite of all of the problems we face as inhabitants of this little blue and green sphere rushing along through space, we really have so much. There is great poverty, yes, but probably more hope to overcome it than at any time in history. Same for disease, for malnutrition, and on and on. We have far to go, but we have come so far and, really, so fast. I don't think progress is inevitable, but nor is descent into the black night of chaos.
So enjoy your time away from work; I hope that you all have happy times with family and/or friends.
Thursday, November 23, 2006
dream on
Last night I had a dream in which I met the most amazing guy. He was cute, sang and quoted long passages of beautiful poetry to me that he had written himself. I was head over heels in love with this guy. And, oddly, his name was that of someone I knew when I was growing up...a son of one of my parents' friends, who was a little too old to play with my brothers and I.
I woke up, and in that awake time I thought, yeah, that's what I'm looking for...a guy who is artistic and attractive to me. It's nice to dream...and I hope I have more dreams like this ;) But time will tell whether this dream becomes reality.
I woke up, and in that awake time I thought, yeah, that's what I'm looking for...a guy who is artistic and attractive to me. It's nice to dream...and I hope I have more dreams like this ;) But time will tell whether this dream becomes reality.
Monday, November 20, 2006
gay adoption...to have or not to have, that is the question...
Over the weekend I attended a National Adoption Day ceremony at which my brother and his husband adopted two boys. Most of my family and all of my brother-in-law's family were there to show our support. Through the course of the morning, more than one person broke down in tears, including my father, a man not given to public displays of crying. My brother and his husband have worked very hard to get to this point; they will, I think, make great parents.
They were not the only non-straight couples adopting children at the ceremony I attended, one of hundreds that took place across the United States. But more sobering was a short event at the end of the morning, when they identified some of the many children in that city who remained to be adopted, who need loving homes and families.
One thing it caused me to reflect on was the whole debate about same-sex marriage. In a world where so many children need adoptive families, where are all those good Christian straight couples ready to adopt these children? If it is really such a disaster to have gay and lesbian couples adopting children, why don't those good Christian pastors (and religious leaders of all anti-gay-marriage advocates) step up to the plate to save these poor children who need so desperately to be loved in good homes? But I fail to see it happening.
No, they are too busy stopping gays and lesbians from forming lasting relationships with legal sanction and protections to be bothered with helping children who need good parents. And to add to it, better make sure that those gays and lesbians can't adopt children either, whether the biological children of their partners, or children that would never otherwise have parents.
The other thing it got me thinking about is the fact I'm in my early 40s and have no children, despite the fact that for years I desperately wanted to have children. I really would like to have biological children, but I am not willing any more to put a good woman through the stress and travail of marrying a gay man like me. Perhaps I can adopt. But I fear I have become too selfish as I have got older, too used to being free of commitments. Still, the biological imperative to have children still is there. Maybe some day I will be able to have or adopt children, like my brother and his husband.
They were not the only non-straight couples adopting children at the ceremony I attended, one of hundreds that took place across the United States. But more sobering was a short event at the end of the morning, when they identified some of the many children in that city who remained to be adopted, who need loving homes and families.
One thing it caused me to reflect on was the whole debate about same-sex marriage. In a world where so many children need adoptive families, where are all those good Christian straight couples ready to adopt these children? If it is really such a disaster to have gay and lesbian couples adopting children, why don't those good Christian pastors (and religious leaders of all anti-gay-marriage advocates) step up to the plate to save these poor children who need so desperately to be loved in good homes? But I fail to see it happening.
No, they are too busy stopping gays and lesbians from forming lasting relationships with legal sanction and protections to be bothered with helping children who need good parents. And to add to it, better make sure that those gays and lesbians can't adopt children either, whether the biological children of their partners, or children that would never otherwise have parents.
The other thing it got me thinking about is the fact I'm in my early 40s and have no children, despite the fact that for years I desperately wanted to have children. I really would like to have biological children, but I am not willing any more to put a good woman through the stress and travail of marrying a gay man like me. Perhaps I can adopt. But I fear I have become too selfish as I have got older, too used to being free of commitments. Still, the biological imperative to have children still is there. Maybe some day I will be able to have or adopt children, like my brother and his husband.
Thursday, November 16, 2006
belief and non-belief
The beginning of my coming out was the beginning of the end of my belief in the historical claims of Mormonism.
I was a convert to the LDS church in my late teens. I had grown up in a mainline Protestant church which my family attended regularly until I was 12. My father was agnostic, my mother descended from a long line of religious people, with some ministers in the further reaches of the family tree. I had a strong sense of belief in God from a young age. I started to read the Bible at about 7 years of age. I remember my grandmother's funeral just before I turned 8, and having this feeling that she was in heaven that I relayed to my grieving mother.
When I entered puberty, I started searching for a church. Somewhere I got the idea that there had to be one true church, one church that was more correct, more consistent with the Bible, than any other. I approached the matter from an intellectual point of view, meaning, I more or less assessed different churches by how well they seemed to me to conform their teachings to my understanding of the Bible. I guess you could call me a Biblicist (I think that is the right term for it), to some extent a literalist (I was pretty anti-Darwin, etc.). Anyway, I had a few encounters with Mormonism over this period, but it was not until I was 16 and almost 17 that I finally decided to really study it seriously. I had a couple of good friends who were LDS and who lived their beliefs, which impressed me and I think helped to soften my heart towards the church. The other event was an attempt to read the Book of Mormon that was positive and where I felt "intelligence" or "light" when I read portions of it (where I had tried before and only felt an empty feeling about it).
To cut the chase, I eventually took the discussions over a period of a couple of days, committed to baptism, but then had to wait to meet my parents' requirements. I attended church before and after my baptism faithfully, even had an unofficial calling as branch pianist (it was a small branch of about 25 members where I joined). I was ordained an elder 5 months after baptism, just after I turned 18. At 19 and a half, I went on a mission, served for 18 months (what I was called to do, although I could have extended but my branch president at home was against it).
My mission solidified and greatly deepened my commitment and belief in Mormonism. I was pretty orthodox; I loved Bruce R McConkie, tried to read everything I could, etc. Anyway, I was trying hard to be a faithful Latter-day Saint.
But I was also struggling with this feeling of sexual attraction toward guys.
That attraction first appeared I guess in early puberty in dreams. At first, I dreamt of bisexual threesomes. But the woman quickly dropped out of the dreams, and it was then just about the guy. My father also had porn around when I was a kid and teen, and when I could I would look at it; I was never interested in the women, but looked at the spreads of couples and focused on the men. I became intrigued by letters written to these magazines about guys having sex with their buddies and how great it was. This just fascinated me.
Meantime, I was a pretty straight-laced, repressed type who was almost anti-sex. I had crushes on girls (and probably on guys though at the time I attributed it to wanting a close male friend) but I was horrified by the idea of having any kind of sexual thoughts towards women because it was wrong, blahblahblah. I thought I was SO righteous and noble.
Anyway, after joining the church, I continued with this struggle. I was shy, and rarely dated; indeed, I have really only had 2 girlfriends in my life, both fairly serious but one ended when I left for the mission field and she moved away, and the other when she dumped me. My self-esteem always struggled with my small stature (5'5" and thin and not muscular at all, much less athletic) and I found the women I was attracted to usually saw me as a great little brother and friend but never as a potential romantic interest. After I got my first full-time job at 25 that seemed to change, but by then the gay feelings were get a little more insistent and I felt guilty about them which affected my ability to be open to being attracted back to some of these women (although most of the time, they were not my type; too often they seemed needy and clingy and that scared me).
My first real struggle with the gay feelings came a few years later when I was an elders quorum president and I went and bought gay porn and ended up released from my calling and put on probation for a couple of months. It was horrible although the process of being humbled was not a bad thing. But the idea that this total abstinence for two months from the m word and porn was a pipe dream. I got a new job and moved, and the "problem" resurfaced.
For the next ten years, I struggled increasingly with these issues. Through nearly all of it, the only person who knew what I was going through was my bishop at the time. No one else knew. I had been counseled not to talk to others about it. The secrecy really didn't help me much, but I felt trapped and obligated to live up to my strong convictions about Mormonism. I was a perfectionist in many ways, so when I "fell" I was very hard on myself. Lots of negative self-talk.
Finally, three years ago, after lots of changes in my life and another move (I'll talk about that some other time), I was in a new city and ward. My new bishop called me in, evidently to give me a calling, but when I told him I was strugglling with using porn and the m word, he concluded that I needed to be put on informal probation, to be prohibited from holding any callings, from praying or speaking in church, no taking of the sacrament, etc. An informal probation that seemed to have most of the restrictions of a disfellowshipment. Anyway, I could take the sacrament again if I could go a month without masturbation.
A few weeks later, I was struggling with digestive problems (acid reflux) and was put on some medication, including a pain killer that I think probably was a mild depressant. My bishop had referred me to and LDS social services counselor, who I met with and who was completely focused on helping me stop masturbating and using porn, with no insight on my sexual attractions. A few weeks after seeing him and starting the medication, I was feeling worse, and then right around Christmas fell into an episode of depression.
Depression is a terrible thing. I really didn't know anything about it, but I sure learned lots over the next few weeks and months. I had no energy, my body felt weighted down by lead, I couldn't sleep, my mind would at times race with uncontrollable wild thoughts, I could not use the computer for more than a few minutes without becoming really agitated, I couldn't read, I had no interest in anything that usually interested me. I had no sex drive at all.
I got medical help, eventually started taking anti-depressants, saw a great counselor, and started walking lots every day. It was hard, but after two or three months my mood was more or less back to an even keel.
However, in the process of all of this, I confronted the reality that many Latter-day Saints, including bishops, are really ignorant about depression. The anti-science/anti-medicine bias of many really bothered me.
But I also had to confront some things about myself. I came out to my parents on Christmas day. They are not LDS, and I have a gay brother, so while they were surprised by my revelation, they were totally supportive. The greatest blessing of my depression may be the way it has drawn me closer to them; not that I wasn't close, but in a lot of ways they really saved my life through that very difficult time.
I confronted the fact that during the depression I did not feel the spirit at all. Nothing. I was used to having spiritual feelings on a regular basis. Now, nothing. I couldn't understand this. I had always thought that the spirit was independent ultimately from the body and that while the body's condition influenced the spirit, if we were trying to live right we could still feel the spirit. It was not as if I was living any more unrighteously than I had before, so why now no spirit?
While I came out to my parents, by that I mean I said that I was "struggling" with gay feelings. I didn't want them. I wanted desperately to be straight. I didn't like that my parents were so supportive of me being gay. I felt like I was becoming some kind of battleground in this great war between the pro- and anti-gay movements. And I didn't want to be anyone else's battleground. But I didn't want to be gay.
A turning point that started the wheels in my head turning was meeting with a psychiatrist who specializes in gender identity issues. He pointed some things out to me that I had never thought about before that really made me think. At the time I met him, and all through the appointment, I was determined that at worst I was bi. When he had taken my history, he straight out said "you're gay". I resisted and argued with him. But he pointed out to me that if I were really straight like I thought and this gay stuff was just some temptation or something, why was it I only ever had dreams about sex with men? And he pointed out that real straight men do actually have to control their sexual attractions and feelings--how can you "bridle your thoughts" if there is nothing to bridle? At the time, I was dismissive, but over the coming months these ideas began to take root.
I moved again, back to where I am now, the city of my birth. I intended to return to church but in the end did not because I feared that the double issues of depression and sexuality would turn me into a battlefield in my ward that I didn't want to be. I wanted space to work through things myself.
I finally got referred to a psychiatrist here. He has worked with me ever since. At first, and for a long time, I fought with him over my sexuality and my religion. I was inactive, but still believed. But, over time, his challenging me forced me to confront myself, my beliefs about myself and about Mormonism and life generally. I also started studying some more about Mormonism in areas where I knew there were problems but had tended to be dismissive in the past, and I learned things that I had not known that put my faith in the church's claims in a different light. I also realized that my belief system rested on a lot of untested assumptions that, when challenged, were not so sturdy a foundation for my faith. I became more tentative about my beliefs, and eventually came to the conclusion that I could not believe in Mormonism's truth claims any more.
Eventually, I went to a coming out group and tried dating a few different guys. Some positive experiences, but in the end, no relationships developed, and I remained the 40plus year old virgin I have become. (Not that being virgin is all bad...in some ways, it makes me feel powerful).
Anyway, that is my basic story. With time, I will discuss certain aspects in more detail.
I was a convert to the LDS church in my late teens. I had grown up in a mainline Protestant church which my family attended regularly until I was 12. My father was agnostic, my mother descended from a long line of religious people, with some ministers in the further reaches of the family tree. I had a strong sense of belief in God from a young age. I started to read the Bible at about 7 years of age. I remember my grandmother's funeral just before I turned 8, and having this feeling that she was in heaven that I relayed to my grieving mother.
When I entered puberty, I started searching for a church. Somewhere I got the idea that there had to be one true church, one church that was more correct, more consistent with the Bible, than any other. I approached the matter from an intellectual point of view, meaning, I more or less assessed different churches by how well they seemed to me to conform their teachings to my understanding of the Bible. I guess you could call me a Biblicist (I think that is the right term for it), to some extent a literalist (I was pretty anti-Darwin, etc.). Anyway, I had a few encounters with Mormonism over this period, but it was not until I was 16 and almost 17 that I finally decided to really study it seriously. I had a couple of good friends who were LDS and who lived their beliefs, which impressed me and I think helped to soften my heart towards the church. The other event was an attempt to read the Book of Mormon that was positive and where I felt "intelligence" or "light" when I read portions of it (where I had tried before and only felt an empty feeling about it).
To cut the chase, I eventually took the discussions over a period of a couple of days, committed to baptism, but then had to wait to meet my parents' requirements. I attended church before and after my baptism faithfully, even had an unofficial calling as branch pianist (it was a small branch of about 25 members where I joined). I was ordained an elder 5 months after baptism, just after I turned 18. At 19 and a half, I went on a mission, served for 18 months (what I was called to do, although I could have extended but my branch president at home was against it).
My mission solidified and greatly deepened my commitment and belief in Mormonism. I was pretty orthodox; I loved Bruce R McConkie, tried to read everything I could, etc. Anyway, I was trying hard to be a faithful Latter-day Saint.
But I was also struggling with this feeling of sexual attraction toward guys.
That attraction first appeared I guess in early puberty in dreams. At first, I dreamt of bisexual threesomes. But the woman quickly dropped out of the dreams, and it was then just about the guy. My father also had porn around when I was a kid and teen, and when I could I would look at it; I was never interested in the women, but looked at the spreads of couples and focused on the men. I became intrigued by letters written to these magazines about guys having sex with their buddies and how great it was. This just fascinated me.
Meantime, I was a pretty straight-laced, repressed type who was almost anti-sex. I had crushes on girls (and probably on guys though at the time I attributed it to wanting a close male friend) but I was horrified by the idea of having any kind of sexual thoughts towards women because it was wrong, blahblahblah. I thought I was SO righteous and noble.
Anyway, after joining the church, I continued with this struggle. I was shy, and rarely dated; indeed, I have really only had 2 girlfriends in my life, both fairly serious but one ended when I left for the mission field and she moved away, and the other when she dumped me. My self-esteem always struggled with my small stature (5'5" and thin and not muscular at all, much less athletic) and I found the women I was attracted to usually saw me as a great little brother and friend but never as a potential romantic interest. After I got my first full-time job at 25 that seemed to change, but by then the gay feelings were get a little more insistent and I felt guilty about them which affected my ability to be open to being attracted back to some of these women (although most of the time, they were not my type; too often they seemed needy and clingy and that scared me).
My first real struggle with the gay feelings came a few years later when I was an elders quorum president and I went and bought gay porn and ended up released from my calling and put on probation for a couple of months. It was horrible although the process of being humbled was not a bad thing. But the idea that this total abstinence for two months from the m word and porn was a pipe dream. I got a new job and moved, and the "problem" resurfaced.
For the next ten years, I struggled increasingly with these issues. Through nearly all of it, the only person who knew what I was going through was my bishop at the time. No one else knew. I had been counseled not to talk to others about it. The secrecy really didn't help me much, but I felt trapped and obligated to live up to my strong convictions about Mormonism. I was a perfectionist in many ways, so when I "fell" I was very hard on myself. Lots of negative self-talk.
Finally, three years ago, after lots of changes in my life and another move (I'll talk about that some other time), I was in a new city and ward. My new bishop called me in, evidently to give me a calling, but when I told him I was strugglling with using porn and the m word, he concluded that I needed to be put on informal probation, to be prohibited from holding any callings, from praying or speaking in church, no taking of the sacrament, etc. An informal probation that seemed to have most of the restrictions of a disfellowshipment. Anyway, I could take the sacrament again if I could go a month without masturbation.
A few weeks later, I was struggling with digestive problems (acid reflux) and was put on some medication, including a pain killer that I think probably was a mild depressant. My bishop had referred me to and LDS social services counselor, who I met with and who was completely focused on helping me stop masturbating and using porn, with no insight on my sexual attractions. A few weeks after seeing him and starting the medication, I was feeling worse, and then right around Christmas fell into an episode of depression.
Depression is a terrible thing. I really didn't know anything about it, but I sure learned lots over the next few weeks and months. I had no energy, my body felt weighted down by lead, I couldn't sleep, my mind would at times race with uncontrollable wild thoughts, I could not use the computer for more than a few minutes without becoming really agitated, I couldn't read, I had no interest in anything that usually interested me. I had no sex drive at all.
I got medical help, eventually started taking anti-depressants, saw a great counselor, and started walking lots every day. It was hard, but after two or three months my mood was more or less back to an even keel.
However, in the process of all of this, I confronted the reality that many Latter-day Saints, including bishops, are really ignorant about depression. The anti-science/anti-medicine bias of many really bothered me.
But I also had to confront some things about myself. I came out to my parents on Christmas day. They are not LDS, and I have a gay brother, so while they were surprised by my revelation, they were totally supportive. The greatest blessing of my depression may be the way it has drawn me closer to them; not that I wasn't close, but in a lot of ways they really saved my life through that very difficult time.
I confronted the fact that during the depression I did not feel the spirit at all. Nothing. I was used to having spiritual feelings on a regular basis. Now, nothing. I couldn't understand this. I had always thought that the spirit was independent ultimately from the body and that while the body's condition influenced the spirit, if we were trying to live right we could still feel the spirit. It was not as if I was living any more unrighteously than I had before, so why now no spirit?
While I came out to my parents, by that I mean I said that I was "struggling" with gay feelings. I didn't want them. I wanted desperately to be straight. I didn't like that my parents were so supportive of me being gay. I felt like I was becoming some kind of battleground in this great war between the pro- and anti-gay movements. And I didn't want to be anyone else's battleground. But I didn't want to be gay.
A turning point that started the wheels in my head turning was meeting with a psychiatrist who specializes in gender identity issues. He pointed some things out to me that I had never thought about before that really made me think. At the time I met him, and all through the appointment, I was determined that at worst I was bi. When he had taken my history, he straight out said "you're gay". I resisted and argued with him. But he pointed out to me that if I were really straight like I thought and this gay stuff was just some temptation or something, why was it I only ever had dreams about sex with men? And he pointed out that real straight men do actually have to control their sexual attractions and feelings--how can you "bridle your thoughts" if there is nothing to bridle? At the time, I was dismissive, but over the coming months these ideas began to take root.
I moved again, back to where I am now, the city of my birth. I intended to return to church but in the end did not because I feared that the double issues of depression and sexuality would turn me into a battlefield in my ward that I didn't want to be. I wanted space to work through things myself.
I finally got referred to a psychiatrist here. He has worked with me ever since. At first, and for a long time, I fought with him over my sexuality and my religion. I was inactive, but still believed. But, over time, his challenging me forced me to confront myself, my beliefs about myself and about Mormonism and life generally. I also started studying some more about Mormonism in areas where I knew there were problems but had tended to be dismissive in the past, and I learned things that I had not known that put my faith in the church's claims in a different light. I also realized that my belief system rested on a lot of untested assumptions that, when challenged, were not so sturdy a foundation for my faith. I became more tentative about my beliefs, and eventually came to the conclusion that I could not believe in Mormonism's truth claims any more.
Eventually, I went to a coming out group and tried dating a few different guys. Some positive experiences, but in the end, no relationships developed, and I remained the 40plus year old virgin I have become. (Not that being virgin is all bad...in some ways, it makes me feel powerful).
Anyway, that is my basic story. With time, I will discuss certain aspects in more detail.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
attraction and non-attraction
Something that has always troubled me is the business of attraction. Both back when I was not out and was trying to date women, and after coming out, I have struggled with the problem of being attracted to people who are not attracted to me, and being attractive to people who don't attract me. It has happened so often, so consistently, with so few exceptions, that I have wondered at times whether something is fundamentally wrong with me that I am just clueless about.
Not wanting to believe that I am fundamentally flawed in this way, I have wondered if my problem is really that I don't really understand the role that attraction plays in finding a partner. From my observation of others, it seems to come really easily to many that they meet someone and develop a relationship. Are they "attracted" to each other in the sense I understand that term? On the other hand, am I simply putting too much stock in this concept of "attraction"? Is finding a partner really just a kind of a game of finding enough commonalities and being able to stand each other just enough or be attracted to each other just enough that you are willing to commit to be together?
And what makes one attractive to others? Why are certain types of people attracted to me and not others, specifically, but also, why are certain types of people attracted to certain individuals and not others?
Anyway, I'm curious to hear others' views on this question.
Not wanting to believe that I am fundamentally flawed in this way, I have wondered if my problem is really that I don't really understand the role that attraction plays in finding a partner. From my observation of others, it seems to come really easily to many that they meet someone and develop a relationship. Are they "attracted" to each other in the sense I understand that term? On the other hand, am I simply putting too much stock in this concept of "attraction"? Is finding a partner really just a kind of a game of finding enough commonalities and being able to stand each other just enough or be attracted to each other just enough that you are willing to commit to be together?
And what makes one attractive to others? Why are certain types of people attracted to me and not others, specifically, but also, why are certain types of people attracted to certain individuals and not others?
Anyway, I'm curious to hear others' views on this question.
Monday, November 13, 2006
The spirit of liberty
I think I may have posted this before as a comment somewhere, but I like the following quote enough to want to post it here early on. It is taken from a speech by Judge Learned Hand in a speech he gave in 1944. To me, it encapsulates the approach I am trying to take towards life:
"What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned but never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest."
- 21 May 1944, “I Am an American Day” ceremony held in Central Park, New York City
"What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which seeks to understand the mind of other men and women; the spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias; the spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded; the spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned but never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest."
- 21 May 1944, “I Am an American Day” ceremony held in Central Park, New York City
a beginning...
After lurking around in the blogosphere for almost a year, I have decided to take the leap. I will probably use this space mostly to rant about whatever topic has me worked up on a given day.
But first, a little info about me and where I come from...
I'm an early 40something gay guy, single, out for about 3 years. Before that, I enjoyed the life of a Latter-day Saint, aka Mormon. I was a total believer and tried hard to live my religion. Which meant, I had to closet my sexuality big time, both to my church community and to myself. It took an episode of depression to make me question what I was doing with my life, and to begin to think outside the paradigm that I had embraced for 20 years of my life.
While my belief in Mormonism has largely waned, I still sit at the margins (as I suppose do many whose lives have followed that path and then left it) with some wistful longing for what is past. I consider myself a Christian, philosophically and theologically perhaps closest to Anglicanism, though at other times I wonder if I am not becoming some type of "Deist plus" where the "plus" leaves room to add in something about a Jesus who might have been divine in some way. Ultimately, I am trying to avoid the dogmatism of my past (more a self-imposed dogmatism than anything; I can't blame it all on Mormonism) and to keep my mind and heart open, but I confess that it is hard after 40 plus years to pretend that I am a tabula rasa intellectually or otherwise.
I have a British heritage of which I am proud and for which I am grateful. I suppose that will not make me popular with some who see in that heritage only oppression and domination. I recognize and accept that it is a heritage that bears some dark stains and that has brought sorrow to many. But I nevertheless maintain that it has brought much good to the world, and it is to that good part of my heritage that I cling. And, again, I cannot divorce myself from a heritage that has formed me for so long and made my parents and their ancestors for a thousand years who they were and are.
I tend to be reserved and shy, but I can be the opposite in the right environment. I tend to do better at being outgoing in a formal, structured environment where there are clearly defined relationships; I tend to struggle a lot with unstructured group environments, thus my tendency to avoid gay bars (I don't drink, anyway) and clubs where I feel very isolated and alone.
Anyway, that's enough for now. We'll see how long this blogging lasts ;)
But first, a little info about me and where I come from...
I'm an early 40something gay guy, single, out for about 3 years. Before that, I enjoyed the life of a Latter-day Saint, aka Mormon. I was a total believer and tried hard to live my religion. Which meant, I had to closet my sexuality big time, both to my church community and to myself. It took an episode of depression to make me question what I was doing with my life, and to begin to think outside the paradigm that I had embraced for 20 years of my life.
While my belief in Mormonism has largely waned, I still sit at the margins (as I suppose do many whose lives have followed that path and then left it) with some wistful longing for what is past. I consider myself a Christian, philosophically and theologically perhaps closest to Anglicanism, though at other times I wonder if I am not becoming some type of "Deist plus" where the "plus" leaves room to add in something about a Jesus who might have been divine in some way. Ultimately, I am trying to avoid the dogmatism of my past (more a self-imposed dogmatism than anything; I can't blame it all on Mormonism) and to keep my mind and heart open, but I confess that it is hard after 40 plus years to pretend that I am a tabula rasa intellectually or otherwise.
I have a British heritage of which I am proud and for which I am grateful. I suppose that will not make me popular with some who see in that heritage only oppression and domination. I recognize and accept that it is a heritage that bears some dark stains and that has brought sorrow to many. But I nevertheless maintain that it has brought much good to the world, and it is to that good part of my heritage that I cling. And, again, I cannot divorce myself from a heritage that has formed me for so long and made my parents and their ancestors for a thousand years who they were and are.
I tend to be reserved and shy, but I can be the opposite in the right environment. I tend to do better at being outgoing in a formal, structured environment where there are clearly defined relationships; I tend to struggle a lot with unstructured group environments, thus my tendency to avoid gay bars (I don't drink, anyway) and clubs where I feel very isolated and alone.
Anyway, that's enough for now. We'll see how long this blogging lasts ;)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)