How do you know?

A while back, a friend was questioning their sexuality, and asked me how I knew I was gay. I replied with the text below. (for the record, he has since found himself a gorgeous lady-friend, and has never been happier)

Here's some of my story - a bit of my 'how do you know' together with 'when did you know'.

When I was about 8 or 9, I already knew that I was different, and somehow also I already knew that it was in my best interest to pretend I wasn't. At boarding school, I put up posters of Suzi Quatro (who I thought was just dreamy), and a picture of the Osmonds (don't judge me!!) - the Osmonds were on the wall because everyone else had them up. I even claimed to find Merrill the cutest (even though everyone else was crazy about Donny) just to be different in my own way.

When my school mates were itching to kiss the boys, I wasn't at all interested. I was into sports big time, county championships took up all my energy and a fair bit of my time. I was, I think, attracted to girls early on, but didn't seem to go through the whole teenage sexual frustration that some of my peers seemed to be going through.

However, when I was 14, I developed a serious crush on one of the school nurses. She was married with a child my own age and lived with her family on the school premises along with other teachers and school staff. I'm certainly not in a position to judge her, but her actions were fairly bad... she encouraged my attraction and suffice to say she was my first lesbian experience. In the end, her husband reported her to the school board and she was dismissed. 

Man, this is turning into an essay!! I've decided not to backtrack and delete all that - it's part of the whole journey. 

After that, I went boy crazy in a slightly deranged and self-destructive way. I had finally confirmed where my attractions lay, and being a good Christian girl (Church of England school - they call it Anglican here in NZ), I thought I was despicable. Even though I knew what I was doing was wrong, I thought that if I could be 'cured', everything would be alright between me and God. 

Over the next three years, I tried really hard to be straight, making out with multiple guys as my own conversion therapy attempt. But when I was 17, I fell head over heels with a girl from college who was gay. We had a non-sexual relationship, but it was very intense, and I knew then I could not pretend any longer. My sexuality was no longer in agreement with the God I was told to fear. I got kicked out of school for being "a deviant", and I turned my back on God and the church.

It took a long, long time to be comfortable in my skin. I passed my early 20s in a haze of parties, short-term relationships, and political rallies, fighting for lesbian and gay rights. I got into drunken fights on the underground, played around with drugs, and had heaps of casual sexual encounters. 

I was more settled in my late 20s and early 30s, and then I came over to NZ. 

About 10 years ago, I started thinking more and more that my childhood view of God was distorted, and to make that story shorter, I came back to Him about 7 years ago. Then I met my darling, and the rest is history.

I have absolutely no idea whether that answers anything for you. That you are questioning your sexuality at all is a huge step, because the actual heart of being different is always hard to identify, if that makes sense.

How do I know I am gay? It's a label that's been handed to me over the years to describe who I have sex with. But for me, it's a deep physical and emotional bond I have in having chosen a woman to be my mate. I used to say that I would fall in love with the person first, and if they happened to be a woman, so be it. That's not strictly true - I have loved some men in my life, and still have a close relationship with many today. But seeing as I am not physically attracted to them beyond that deep friendship says a lot in itself.

I had this saved in blogger for some time, just for safe-keeping. I found it again by accident today and thought I might as well pop it out on the interwebs. It might help someone, you never know...

Safety First

I sat in the chair

both familiar and unfamiliar

Too long apart

but the cushion 

willing to accommodate

my desire to be included

once more

You stood and started to speak

"We are in a sanctuary!" you said

"This is a safe place!" you said

Your roving eye

flitting on searching souls

never quite meeting the gaze

Your words

deliberate and soothing

with an overtone of the supercilious

The esses on the end of your sentences

elongated

like the hiss of a snake

You disengaged the safety

on the weapon of your original falsehood

and openly offered

to cure me of my brokenness

when I am not broken

Your mouthly barrel

delivering its vile bullet

claiming to fix my aberration

At first

I thought it just a flesh wound

Silent

recoiling slightly

but so far only immobilised

Until the full force of your insult

like a hollow point dum dum

exploded inside me

forcing me to move

and escape your interpretation of refuge

Gasping at the outside air

I lamented

"He said it was safe!"

and as the tears finally came

I whispered once more

"He said it was safe..."

Learning to Fly

Yesterday morning, our youngest cat, Bella, caught her first bird (that we know of). I say 'caught', but to be honest it was a fledgling blackbird which had probably fallen out of the nest, and it couldn't take off to get away.

Despite my yelling and manic waving, the young bird hopped towards the bushes, no doubt assuming safety there, followed quickly by Bella, and looked on by our other cat, Zac, who was probably wondering how the heck Bella managed to finally get a bird all to herself.

I slammed the slider (well, slid it shut gently - you can never be too careful with large glass panels), and grumped about cats being killers.

And then I got rather annoyed at the darn bird! I mean - why would you leave the nest if you can't fly??

That didn't last long, as it dawned on me (despite my anger at natural feline behaviour), that you really can't learn to fly until you actually leave the comfort of your warm, cosy nest.

**

Later on, I received a text saying that our eldest daughter's boyfriend had passed his restricted driver's license, and that she wanted him to give her a lift home from work.

My immediate reaction was "Aaargh!!" or something similar.

According to their youthful wisdom, it was 'OK' for a restricted driver to give their partner a lift home, and whilst the gospel of Wikipedia suggested this was correct, I decided to do some more research.

NZ Driving Law states that a person under a restricted license is not allowed to drive with anyone who doesn't have a full license (and must have held it for a minimum of two years), unless they are a dependant, partner, or spouse. Drilling down further, 'partner' means in a civil union or de facto - neither of which apply in the case of the teenagers in question.

Rather than say "No - you can't be a passenger in your boyfriend's car - what are you? Crazy?", we were able to make the law the bad guy, and reiterate that if there was any accident, she wouldn't be covered, and in all probability, neither would he. The fact that 'all their friends' do it all the time wasn't going to come into the discussion - it has to be her choice.

I'm not sure how she'll deal with this. I guess we'll find out in the next few days when the opportunity of a lift arises.

But I did think about her leaving the nest, and how we are hopefully giving her some of the tools to cope with her new environment when the time comes.

Giving her wings, so to speak.

Oh come on - you knew it was coming!

Vier Mauern (Four Walls)

I just finished reading Signal to Noise by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean. It's a graphic novel depicting the life of a film director who is dying of cancer, and is working on a movie in his head about the impending Armageddon as seen from the perspective of European villagers in A.D. 999 - worth a look if you're interested in this type of reading/viewing.

A total bonus in the book was a little-seen graphic poem which I've transcribed below. I hope you find it as interesting as I did. It speaks to me of a gated-community approach to Christianity - I have no idea if the writers thought of this interpretation... How do you read it?

Vier Mauern

Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean

O P E N I N G

“Something there is that does not have a wall.”

Robert Frost said that, but he also

suggested, in the same poem, ‘Mending

Wall’, that “Good fences make good

neighbours”, so what did he know?

T H E   F I R S T  W A L L

I wonder who built the first wall. What

was in his mind. Or her mind. Protection?

Privacy? Or something else.

We build our civilisations with walls,

giving us shelter and stronghold.

Keeping out ‘the other’: the elements,

wild beasts, people who are different.

Walls define us, as they divide us.

Walls separate people; and not just the

walls we build. Perhaps the walls we

have to be scared of most are the ones we

can’t see, that we simply believe in.

T H E  S E C O N D  W A L L

I had a dream about that when I was small.

In my dream there was one note; one musical

one; one sound; and when it sounded all the

walls everywhere came crumbling down. And

all the people everywhere saw…

They saw each other, doing all the things that

people do behind walls. Nobody had anywhere

to hide anymore.

I woke up then, so I never knew if it was a good

thing or a bad thing, not having any walls. Not

having anywhere to go and hide, and being

able to go everywhere; no pretending, no

protection, no secrecy.

T H E  T H I R D  W A L L

They tell me the Great Wall of China is the only human artefact that

can be seen on the Earth from space.

I’ve never see the Earth from space. I don’t know anyone who has.

I’ve only ever seen pictures.

They tell me that when you get that high, it’s hard to tell one country

from another. You’d think they’d be coloured in, like on the old maps

we had at school.

So you could tell.

T H E  F O U R T H  W A L L

When I heard the Berlin Wall was coming down, my first reaction was one of

relief; but then I thought, what if there was a young woman who had spent years

- half her life – painting something on the wall?

Painting a message, or a picture.

If every morning she got up early, and went out and painted just one or two

lines on the wall. Every day, in the rain, or the cold, sometimes in the dark.

It was her cry against oppression. Her protest against the wall.

She’d almost finished when they pulled it down.

People could come and go as they wished.  The wall she’d been protesting

against was gone, as was her creation, split into art-sized chunks, sold to a

private collector…

I wonder how she felt. I hope she wasn’t disappointed.

I would have been.

C L O S I N G

Maybe we should look beyond the walls.

Listen: painters and writers and music-makers and filmmakers and the

ones who paint graffiti slogans that blossom like bright flowers on the

sides of derelict buildings – all of you.

There’s a fourth wall that needs to be broken down.

Governments and official voices point out forever that good fences make

good neighbours, and tighten the border controls in an effort to make us

happy where we are.

But something there is that does not love a wall, and it’s called humanity.

Endtimes Craving

21st May:
What with all this talk of end times, and Stephen Hawking having a whack at heaven's existence along with God as a creator, it's making me wonder whether I should cram in some chocolate - you know, just in case?

Updated 21st October: Camping's keeping us guessing again - apparently, I didn't miss out on the Rapture last time, he just got his dates wrong (again). Today's the day folks!

How to be unashamed?

That's a question for me to answer - I'm struggling with this.

I'm not ashamed of being gay. I'm not ashamed of being a follower of Christ. I brandish Romans 1:16 as my banner. I can quote scripture that has shown me over the years how I am made with His plan in mind, with His loving hand on me. I am learning to walk with Him as my teacher, my unconditionally loving Father. But I'm not being totally honest to those I hold as friends. More specifically, my gay friends.

I tweeted today that one of the hardest things to do as a Christian was to tell your gay friends. I know so many of them are atheist or agnostic, and they've known me longer as gay than as Christian. I've never had a problem coming out about my sexuality. The church I currently attend knew about that before I first ever went there (a whole other story). And for some reason, that way around works for me. What I stumble on, is how to be totally up-front about my Christianity with my gay friends.

To all extents and purposes, my gay friends here (in NZ) are like my family; heck, we even say "He's family..." when talking about someone who's gay! It's a home away from home, thousands of miles from my blood relatives with whom I may or may not have a particularly close familial bond.

Over the past few years, there has been another family that I've grown part of. That's my church family, my homegroup, my community, and the trinity of faith all around me. These families are quite separate. I don't go to church with any of my gay friends. I don't talk about my Christian faith when I'm at events where there are primarily gay people. But it's worse than that.

I post a lot of links on facebook. I post links to blogs, news articles, videos, songs, a whole range of stuff. BUT, I'm wary of posting certain links because I worry about how they will be perceived. If I post a link to a Christian song on YouTube, I'll exclude (most of) my gay friends. However, I don't curb my enthusiasm for posting gay links to the whole of my friend list. Why?

I don't know yet. I'm working on it.

Someone asked me today if there was anything I needed prayer for. I'm guessing this is one of those moments. Maybe I need to make a video like this one - and then of course I'd have to post it to everyone...

So You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore?

Not a question I'm asking of you, but the title of a book which I've almost finished, by Wayne Jacobsen and Dave Coleman. I got to this book via another one (which is kinda how I find a lot of books - word of eyes, so-to-speak), namely The Shack (which I also liked very much).

This book, like that one, puts talk of God, Jesus, the Spirit, theology, religion and more into a fictional setting but with real implications - at least, there are implications for me and my journey as I seek to find Him in my every day.

I read a paragraph earlier today and immediately thought about sharing it - and even though putting it in here means it won't get much airtime, it's too important to squeeze into a tweet or facebook status. So here it is:

"Just like a butterfly taking wing from its cocoon, Jake. Isn't it sad that we thought we could press people into spiritual change, instead of helping them grow to trust the Father more and find him changing them? You can't press a caterpillar into a butterfly mold and make it fly. It has to be transformed from the inside." (p.133)

Speaks volumes to me. This whole book speaks to how I think of the church. I recognise, and struggle with, my own longing to be told/taught how to be a Christian. Yet how I also understand it can only come from me, when I fully open myself up to His possibilities.