the showers of April

In the past month, I have attended a gay Anglican eucharist service and a lecture by an Anglican bishop in which he discussed the issue of sexuality within the church (writ large). It took me a long time to work up the courage to go to the eucharist service...it was my first time in any type of Anglican church meeting...but I felt very welcome and comfortable. I like very much the scripture-focussed liturgy and the music. But I didn't have the courage to go this month, and I feel conflicted about that.

Last week, the Community of Christ (the church formerly known as RLDS) had their biannual conference. It interested me to follow their proceedings, to see how liberal they have become, so very much like any mainline Protestant church, while they continue to believe in the idea of an open canon, of continuing revelation to the body of the church. In the course of the week, there was a posting of a session of their conference singing a song familiar to those of a Mormon background, The Spirit of God Like a Fire. I had not heard that song in a long time, but I found myself singing along. The song stirs me; I think it is the idea of God speaking again to humanity, the idea of a pouring out of spiritual gifts, of the building up of God's kingdom on earth, that is what appeals to me in the song, and is what appealed to me in Mormonism. It appeals to my idealism and my romantic side. I suppose that it appeals to the same part of me that is drawn to patriotism and nationalistic feeling.

There is good and bad in all of that. I think this type of idealism is good, if it motivates me to serve others, to try to leave the world better than how I found it, to reach outside of my own problems and my own selfishness to love those around me. However, there is a bad side to it...this idealism is very easily drawn into fanaticism, to self-righteousness, to judgmentalism, to blind obedience, and to living life in a bubble of unreality and denying "things as they really are" in favour of one's fantasy world.

I know that I struggled with those latter problems. I still have to watch myself on all of them. Having left activity in the Mormon church, I have had to come to grips with my own weakness and excesses and to try to change. Yet, at the same time, I feel this longing and nostalgia for my Mormon past, for its certainties, for that feeling of being part of something bigger than me and idealistic, a great cause. But I remind myself that I am not the first to feel this way, nor is this feeling one unique to Mormonism. I suspect that many who have lived through a historic event or sequence of events through which a worldview was overturned--I am thinking of the destruction of Nazi Germany in 1945, the fall of communism, and similar events--has this sort of mix of confusion, a sense of being lost, nostalgia for the past, and yet a sense of relief of having woken up from a long nightmare. I am not saying that the experience of being a Mormon is the same as having lived in Nazi Germany, but I would point out that for the vast majority of Germans, the experience of Nazi Germany was not a bad one at all...if you listen to the stories of these people, it always intrigues me how they so often talk about how wonderful a time it was. They ignored the bad that was going on at the margins of their lives, easily excusing it as being excesses of fanatics, or necessary if harsh retribution to those who were enemies of Germany...the Jews, the gays, the "feebleminded", those who did not fit into the mainstream of German society. I wonder if, in some ways, this is not typical of so many types of human experiences of which Mormonism is but one, perhaps mild, example.

It was hard for me to leave Mormonism, not just for the loss of community, but for the loss of my entire worldview and the end of my hopes and dreams. I think it is a type of grieving process, and it takes a lot of time. As I watch others in the gay Mormon blogosphere going through similar types of experiences, I feel a great deal of empathy for them, having passed through similar heartache. I wish that I were physically able to reach out and comfort these my brothers in their trials. Sometimes, I think we all need to have others help bear us up, lest the burden we are carrying causes us to collapse. But we can all make it, and things do get better.

I appreciate each of you whose blogs I read, for your courage to talk about your experiences, to share your feelings, to lay bare your hearts and souls. I admire your courage...some of you have passed through and some are passing through now some very difficult, painful times. I admire your integrity, your desire to do the right thing, and pray that God our Father will strengthen you to carry your cross. I am grateful for the encouragement so many of you have given me and the strength I have drawn from each of you that has helped me on my journey.

As a closing note, I have made a decision that I am going to attend the Affirmation conference in Washington, D.C., this October. Washington is about a 10 hour drive from where I live in eastern Canada, and it has a lot of connection to my Mormon past...it is where I received the endowment before my mission, where I attended the temple after my mission before the Toronto temple was opened. I know that for many of you in the west it will be difficult to attend given the distance and cost. But I hope that I will get to meet some of you, and that together we can strengthen each other and have fun together. We have a unique heritage as gay Mormons, and we should honour and celebrate it, and in doing so honour the value of each of our lives. Because each of us has value and worth as human beings, a worth that transcends everything else, and that we must never forget nor surrender to those who would marginalize us or label us as unworthy.