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 ;)