Copyright 2008-All Rights Reserved
When I identify as a Lesbian, the first thing that people usually want to know is what does your family think? The family. Or your friends. Or some aspect of my community.
These questions come up because people are aware of the social stigma associated with same sex attraction, with love between two people of the same gender. It's a stigma that grows out of socialization that that has trained us to take the attitude that only heterosexism, love between people of the opposite sex, is “right” and valued as good. The questions come up because of "learned" homophobia, the fear of and condemnation of same sex attracted people, both externalized and internalized. Homophobia is an ugly and toxic force to be reckoned with. One that is as destructive as racism, as sexism, as classism. Like the others, it thrives on ignorance and shame, on hatefulness and misinformation.
This past fall 2008 semester I taught an English Literature class. With this course, the instructor gets to choose the material and focus of the class. I decided to do a course I called “Out of the Closet: Literature by Black Lesbian, Bisexual, and Gay Authors.” This wasn’t the first time I’ve taught it. It’s always interesting. The students learn about writers and their characters—about people who have, more often than not, been “disappeared” out of literary courses and academic study. They learn, through the work of talented and distinguished authors, about what life is like, really, when you are bisexual or transgendered or lesbian or homosexual. They learn and I learn—as an author, teacher, and human being.
The first novel we discussed was The Color Purple.
One of the major themes that Alice Walker’s novel explores is love. Love across the spectrum or continuum of what humans know as love. Love between family members, between women as members of a sisterhood, love between men and women, and love between two women. Intimate love. What society would call Lesbianism.
It’s obvious that there is a deep relationship going on between Shug and Celie; they openly sleep in the same bedroom, the same bed with each other. To complicate matters even more, Shug would be labeled Bisexual because she sleeps with men…with Albert, Celie’s husband, and has children by him, as well as with Grady, for another. Another major theme, then, is sexuality…Bisexual and Lesbian sexuality.
And just what is the community’s, the family’s reaction to this relationship between Shug and Celie? In the novel, you might expect to find some family or community reaction, or homophobia, to Lesbianism, but the author does not explore the community’s reaction. Religious, community and family censure in the form of social stigma and homophobia does not come into play in this novel which is set in the early 1920’s in rural Georgia. The author does not explore it directly. What about internalized homophobia? That is self-hate, self-loathing because you are same sex attracted, because you are a same gender loving person. Well. The two Lesbian lovers don’t suffer from it. Shug certainly does not, nor does Celie.
I believe the author’s depiction of these two women argues against social stigma, homophobia, and internalized homophobia. Celie and Shug’s behavior, their attitudes about themselves and their love affair, their personal values and view of God and the world defy the negative… the internalized homophobia, the stigma, the ugly light that some would cast on a same gender loving relationship.
What’s valuable to me about this novel, about teaching it, about reflecting on its themes of love and of sexuality is this: I see Walker’s characters as open doors that invite us to walk out of one place and into another where we examine old ideas and redefine others.
The novel invites us to question: What are our philosophies, ideas, beliefs about what we call God? What is love? What do we value about love? Is it possible that God is love only when it comes to heterosexual love?
The novel invites us to rethink and reshape ideas that some believe are engraved in stone. Celie and Shug ask us, as readers, dare us to redefine our whole notion about love—what it looks like, behaves like, what we think about it, and our attitude toward it.
Love, Walker suggests, is the most precious thing. No matter what package it comes in. I agree.
Showing posts with label Progressive Christianity. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Progressive Christianity. Show all posts
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Testimony- Part 4
Copyright 2008-All Rights Reserved
I’ve been in Alcoholics Anonymous since June of 1988. Spirit stepped in and led me there too. Not just led me and dropped me off at the door, stayed with me throughout. The first months were terrifying; yet I knew I was not alone. For the first time in my life, I knew that Spirit is here with me always. I learned that recovery, like life, is a journey, not a destination. I have learned that more is revealed every moment in life if I am open to the revelation. I always say that both Unity and A.A. were and are the twin bedrocks of my recovery. At Unity, recovery work is encouraged and celebrated. What I found amazing early in my recovery was that Reverend Bean’s sermons and teachings mirrored, clarified and underscored the 12 steps. It was one more wondrous sign from Spirit that I was definitely supposed to be at Unity Fellowship Church.
What attracts me still to Unity is the fact that we are Progressive Christians. I still shy away from describing myself as a Christian because so many people use the label in a loose and trite way, and because so many who characterize themselves as Christians do things that give the label negative connotations. Too many people who name themselves Christians do it, I think, to be part of the crowd, or for the sake of religiosity—just to show off, or to justify their evil ways. Still, in these times, it’s necessary to draw the line in the sand and say that I am not of the Fundamentalist branch of Christianity.
I am a Progressive Christian. That means I embrace a dynamic, ever-expanding concept of God—not bound by an image of a White man with white hair and a white beard dressed in flowing robes. For why should God be a man—or a woman, for that matter, when Spirit is every thing? I embrace a dynamic concept of Spirit not bound by the limited knowledge of people and Biblical authors of the past. Nor am I bound by the text of sixty-six books which comprise a larger book called the Bible which was written, edited, and censored by people—not God. I am a member of Unity Fellowship of Christ Church, and that means, among other things, that I am a questioner and an independent thinker. What I read in the Bible—like any other book I read—is subject to my critical scrutiny, interpretation, analysis, and evaluation. I am not a Biblical literalist or fundamentalist. I am a Liberation Theologist. That means I reject religious dogma, philosophy, teachings, and canon (religious principles) that oppress, limit, censor, and seek to have power over and control both people and ideas. That also means I am aware of and respect the many paths to spiritual enlightenment. I do not believe there is only one true religion. I do believe that Spirit is present in all things—to big to box into a single religious category or label with a single name. Spirit is ever expanding, waiting to be discovered anew each moment.
I am an African-American Lesbian and a Progressive Christian. One does not contradict the other. And no one can tell me it does. Because I stand on my life’s experiential journey as testimony that God loves and cares for me, no matter what my sexuality. My life is full of stories and experiences that testify to the truth of that. I thrive and flourish right now under the love and care of Spirit. I have not been crushed under foot because I am a Lesbian. Nor do I expect to be relegated to hell because of it when I make transition. My life is a journey. My experiences allow me to discover Spirit everywhere. God brought me to this place to learn more. And I must go on.
(end)
I’ve been in Alcoholics Anonymous since June of 1988. Spirit stepped in and led me there too. Not just led me and dropped me off at the door, stayed with me throughout. The first months were terrifying; yet I knew I was not alone. For the first time in my life, I knew that Spirit is here with me always. I learned that recovery, like life, is a journey, not a destination. I have learned that more is revealed every moment in life if I am open to the revelation. I always say that both Unity and A.A. were and are the twin bedrocks of my recovery. At Unity, recovery work is encouraged and celebrated. What I found amazing early in my recovery was that Reverend Bean’s sermons and teachings mirrored, clarified and underscored the 12 steps. It was one more wondrous sign from Spirit that I was definitely supposed to be at Unity Fellowship Church.
What attracts me still to Unity is the fact that we are Progressive Christians. I still shy away from describing myself as a Christian because so many people use the label in a loose and trite way, and because so many who characterize themselves as Christians do things that give the label negative connotations. Too many people who name themselves Christians do it, I think, to be part of the crowd, or for the sake of religiosity—just to show off, or to justify their evil ways. Still, in these times, it’s necessary to draw the line in the sand and say that I am not of the Fundamentalist branch of Christianity.
I am a Progressive Christian. That means I embrace a dynamic, ever-expanding concept of God—not bound by an image of a White man with white hair and a white beard dressed in flowing robes. For why should God be a man—or a woman, for that matter, when Spirit is every thing? I embrace a dynamic concept of Spirit not bound by the limited knowledge of people and Biblical authors of the past. Nor am I bound by the text of sixty-six books which comprise a larger book called the Bible which was written, edited, and censored by people—not God. I am a member of Unity Fellowship of Christ Church, and that means, among other things, that I am a questioner and an independent thinker. What I read in the Bible—like any other book I read—is subject to my critical scrutiny, interpretation, analysis, and evaluation. I am not a Biblical literalist or fundamentalist. I am a Liberation Theologist. That means I reject religious dogma, philosophy, teachings, and canon (religious principles) that oppress, limit, censor, and seek to have power over and control both people and ideas. That also means I am aware of and respect the many paths to spiritual enlightenment. I do not believe there is only one true religion. I do believe that Spirit is present in all things—to big to box into a single religious category or label with a single name. Spirit is ever expanding, waiting to be discovered anew each moment.
I am an African-American Lesbian and a Progressive Christian. One does not contradict the other. And no one can tell me it does. Because I stand on my life’s experiential journey as testimony that God loves and cares for me, no matter what my sexuality. My life is full of stories and experiences that testify to the truth of that. I thrive and flourish right now under the love and care of Spirit. I have not been crushed under foot because I am a Lesbian. Nor do I expect to be relegated to hell because of it when I make transition. My life is a journey. My experiences allow me to discover Spirit everywhere. God brought me to this place to learn more. And I must go on.
(end)
Testimony- Part 3
Copyright 2008-All Rights Reserved
Eventually, I found Jewel’s Catch One—the premier West Coast bar for Black people who were “in the life”. At the Catch, for the first time, I saw Lesbian women and Gay men, and Transvestites gathered under one roof. And that was an eye-opener. For my experience, thus far, had never incorporated a whole culture of sexually diverse people—and even cultures within that culture. Put plainly, I had never seen groups, crowds, of Black folks like me in a public space who weren’t hiding their sexuality. It was a new and fascinating experience to be in the Catch. Evansville had nothing public like this—nor did Knoxville when I was growing up. In early 1987, it was Henry, a bartender at the Catch, who told me about this church for Gay people and that the minister was a Black, Gay man who was “out”. The name of the church, he said, was Unity Fellowship Church. An “out” Black, Gay minister? How daring could you get? I was intrigued.
And so I went. I went guided there by Spirit at the end of a long, long journey. And for the beginning of another one. When I walked into the Ebony Showcase Theater, I saw 20 or 30 people there seated on old, folding chairs; some I knew from the Catch. The place was bare-bones, tattered and worn. There was a small stage with dark curtains that looked a bit shabby. On the stage was a beaten-up podium. Angie Vaughn, who had been leading a ritual called “Testimony”, asked us to stand and welcome Reverend Carl Bean, the minister. He came out from behind the curtains and that was the first time I laid eyes on the person that Spirit had sent to change my life—and the lives of a whole lot of other people. He was wearing a plain black robe –a rather short man of indeterminate age, with a round face, whose eyes and mouth were smiling.
I can’t recall the details about that first church service, yet I remember the feeling I came away with. It was like coming home. It amazed me. And I went back the next Sunday and kept going back every Sunday because I knew without a doubt I had found a place where I didn’t have to hide who I was. I didn’t feel like an outcast, like an “odd duck”, or like I had to be perfect. An important part of the liturgy of the service was the Affirmation, and every week, Reverend Bean told me, and all of us, that God made us, loved, accepted and wanted us just as we were. That we were Spirit’s divine offspring. That we—whether Homosexual, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, or Heterosexual—we were not a mistake—not some monstrous perversion, not some flawed piece of trash. That God is love and love is for everyone—not just a few. That God makes no difference between us and straight folks, or White folks, or rich folks. I found myself weeping silently during the Affirmation. It was like a healing balm to all of us, like a salve that helped to staunch the bleeding and close the wounds we harbored deep inside ourselves.
I was beyond excited. I just had to tell one of my friends back home about Reverend Bean, the church, the sense of belonging and community I had found. I told Judy that we didn’t have to feel shamed anymore because we were Lesbians. I told her that God loved us and we were not mistakes and that we didn’t have to be afraid of what other people thought about our sexuality. And I told her I was coming out to my other friends in Knoxville and my aunts (who were my late uncles’wives). Now that was going to take courage. But I wasn’t afraid anymore. And I didn’t want to hide any longer. When I told the aunts and the friends, they said it didn’t matter to them. You could’ve knocked me over with a feather. Here I was prepared to be berated and ostracized. I had steeled myself for it. What I got was a lot of love and acceptance. That taught me that you can’t predict outcomes and to trust Spirit’s guidance.
I looked forward to going back every week, not only for the Affirmation and sense of community, but for the sermons! Although I felt let out of the cage, I didn’t grasp, at first, that I had been oppressed through the theology of religion. I knew I was being set free when Reverend Ban challenged us to interpret and think about the ideas in the Bible. He was “teaching” us in his sermons. Really teaching us. That alone threw me into the heights of delight. Here was a preacher who actually taught something—not someone who just expected you to swallow his Sunday morning “lecture” without thought or question. Reverend Bean expected us to actually “read” the Bible verses along with him as he focused on them during the sermon. He exhorted us not to be intimidated by Fundamentalist, literal readings of the Bible, and he preached that we should not to be afraid to consider that the Bible was not inerrant. What’s more, he characterized Jesus as a rebel, a paradigm-shifter, and a radical thinker—and backed it up with evidence from the text. I didn’t know then that Unity was a church of Liberation Theology. I hadn’t a clue what that was; nor did I realize that I was hearing the ideas of Progressive Christianity, but I knew a rebel and a sure-nuff radical when I heard one in the pulpit. I was thrilled and I was smitten. Spirit had finally led me to what I was reaching for all those years ago in Baptism class. You couldn’t have pried me away. I decided to become a member and did so on July 19, 1987.
(end Part 3)
Eventually, I found Jewel’s Catch One—the premier West Coast bar for Black people who were “in the life”. At the Catch, for the first time, I saw Lesbian women and Gay men, and Transvestites gathered under one roof. And that was an eye-opener. For my experience, thus far, had never incorporated a whole culture of sexually diverse people—and even cultures within that culture. Put plainly, I had never seen groups, crowds, of Black folks like me in a public space who weren’t hiding their sexuality. It was a new and fascinating experience to be in the Catch. Evansville had nothing public like this—nor did Knoxville when I was growing up. In early 1987, it was Henry, a bartender at the Catch, who told me about this church for Gay people and that the minister was a Black, Gay man who was “out”. The name of the church, he said, was Unity Fellowship Church. An “out” Black, Gay minister? How daring could you get? I was intrigued.
And so I went. I went guided there by Spirit at the end of a long, long journey. And for the beginning of another one. When I walked into the Ebony Showcase Theater, I saw 20 or 30 people there seated on old, folding chairs; some I knew from the Catch. The place was bare-bones, tattered and worn. There was a small stage with dark curtains that looked a bit shabby. On the stage was a beaten-up podium. Angie Vaughn, who had been leading a ritual called “Testimony”, asked us to stand and welcome Reverend Carl Bean, the minister. He came out from behind the curtains and that was the first time I laid eyes on the person that Spirit had sent to change my life—and the lives of a whole lot of other people. He was wearing a plain black robe –a rather short man of indeterminate age, with a round face, whose eyes and mouth were smiling.
I can’t recall the details about that first church service, yet I remember the feeling I came away with. It was like coming home. It amazed me. And I went back the next Sunday and kept going back every Sunday because I knew without a doubt I had found a place where I didn’t have to hide who I was. I didn’t feel like an outcast, like an “odd duck”, or like I had to be perfect. An important part of the liturgy of the service was the Affirmation, and every week, Reverend Bean told me, and all of us, that God made us, loved, accepted and wanted us just as we were. That we were Spirit’s divine offspring. That we—whether Homosexual, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, or Heterosexual—we were not a mistake—not some monstrous perversion, not some flawed piece of trash. That God is love and love is for everyone—not just a few. That God makes no difference between us and straight folks, or White folks, or rich folks. I found myself weeping silently during the Affirmation. It was like a healing balm to all of us, like a salve that helped to staunch the bleeding and close the wounds we harbored deep inside ourselves.
I was beyond excited. I just had to tell one of my friends back home about Reverend Bean, the church, the sense of belonging and community I had found. I told Judy that we didn’t have to feel shamed anymore because we were Lesbians. I told her that God loved us and we were not mistakes and that we didn’t have to be afraid of what other people thought about our sexuality. And I told her I was coming out to my other friends in Knoxville and my aunts (who were my late uncles’wives). Now that was going to take courage. But I wasn’t afraid anymore. And I didn’t want to hide any longer. When I told the aunts and the friends, they said it didn’t matter to them. You could’ve knocked me over with a feather. Here I was prepared to be berated and ostracized. I had steeled myself for it. What I got was a lot of love and acceptance. That taught me that you can’t predict outcomes and to trust Spirit’s guidance.
I looked forward to going back every week, not only for the Affirmation and sense of community, but for the sermons! Although I felt let out of the cage, I didn’t grasp, at first, that I had been oppressed through the theology of religion. I knew I was being set free when Reverend Ban challenged us to interpret and think about the ideas in the Bible. He was “teaching” us in his sermons. Really teaching us. That alone threw me into the heights of delight. Here was a preacher who actually taught something—not someone who just expected you to swallow his Sunday morning “lecture” without thought or question. Reverend Bean expected us to actually “read” the Bible verses along with him as he focused on them during the sermon. He exhorted us not to be intimidated by Fundamentalist, literal readings of the Bible, and he preached that we should not to be afraid to consider that the Bible was not inerrant. What’s more, he characterized Jesus as a rebel, a paradigm-shifter, and a radical thinker—and backed it up with evidence from the text. I didn’t know then that Unity was a church of Liberation Theology. I hadn’t a clue what that was; nor did I realize that I was hearing the ideas of Progressive Christianity, but I knew a rebel and a sure-nuff radical when I heard one in the pulpit. I was thrilled and I was smitten. Spirit had finally led me to what I was reaching for all those years ago in Baptism class. You couldn’t have pried me away. I decided to become a member and did so on July 19, 1987.
(end Part 3)
Testimony- Part 1
Copyright 2008-All Rights Reserved
I was raised as a Methodist—not C.M.E., not A.M.E., not United Methodist—just vanilla-plain Methodist. My mother’s adopted father was a Baptist preacher, I’m told, and my father’s father was a Methodist preacher. When they married, my mother joined Vine Avenue Methodist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. When I was born, I was christened at that church and was made a member when I was an adolescent. I didn’t want to join the church, but I was expected to. I registered my protest with my mother but I knew that I was captive to my family’s reputation (my parents were teachers), and to the expectations of the Black community. In that era, the fifties, good little middle-class adolescent girls were taught to conform to and expected to tow the line set by community values. I could see that my protest was in vain, and so I grudgingly went to the baptism preparatory classes that were supposed to teach me about being a church member.
I can’t remember a thing I was supposed to have learned about the Methodist canon or liturgy. The dominant impression I remember of the classes is that they were painfully boring, and you were not to ask any questions. Only occasionally were questions invited, and then only the most insubstantial were welcomed. That was not a situation that I could thrive in because I was a Black girl who always questioned everything. The church adults frowned on this, and probably tried to get my mother to stamp out this annoying characteristic. She didn’t. Frankly, I don’t think anyone could have. I still ask questions today and think that people who don’t ask questions are dangerously conformist, dependent, non-thinkers.
Later, after I had done my duty and joined, I encountered only one adult church member who was willing to listen to and answer my questions, and who actively encouraged us teenagers to ask them. She was Leontyne Kelly, the wife of one of the many ministers who pastored our church. This was, of course, before she became the first woman bishop, I believe, in the Methodist denomination. Unfortunately, the Kellys didn’t stay with us long.
And so, it was back to Sunday school lessons heavy on men I felt no connection with who lived light-years ago in the past—Moses and his tablets, Joseph and his coat of many colors, David besting Goliath with a stone. It was back to Sunday morning sermons preaching dogma which never even mentioned what was happening in Montgomery after Rosa Parks wouldn’t get up—sermons that never characterized Jesus as the radical boat-rocker, and liberator, who came with new messages of love and freedom, messages which mostly didn’t conform with the theology in the Hebrew’s Torah and the letter of their laws. No, we didn’t get any of that.
We also didn’t get any fire and brimstone preaching on Sodom and Gomorrah, the sin of homosexuality, lesbianism, transsexualism, or bisexualism. If we had, I think I would’ve remembered because I knew for sure, by the time the hormones kicked in (around 7th grade)that I didn’t want to be with boys, that I liked girls. That I was "funny, as they used to say in the street vernacular. On that taboo subject, no preaching at my church, and for sure, no questions entertained by anyone in Christendom, as far as I could tell. That kind of sexuality was a grievous sin. Heterosexism reigned. Amen. Case closed. I promptly went into the closet and tried to make myself comfortable.
Through the public school years, I learned to equate not only my Methodist church, but all organized religion with people who conformed unquestioning to the rule of the majority; with people who never walked their Jesus talk; with people who couldn’t explain why I liked girls and why that was supposed to be wrong if God made me; with people who were silent on contradictions in the Bible, and where the story of Adam and Eve came from when there was nobody, at dawn of human beginnings, who was writing down words to convey ideas.
By the time I finished my undergraduate degree, I had tuned out, turned off, and dropped out of organized religion.(I had also begun, though I didn’t know it then, my twenty-seven year journey into alcoholism.) On the trip home from my Indiana University graduation, I told my parents I wouldn’t be going back to our church. By then it had been relocated and renamed Lennon Memorial after my uncle Frank gave a huge sum to the church with the provision that its name recognize his long-dead son. Moreover, I told them that I would never again—on my own—join another church. I’m sure they were saddened as well as aghast at my announcement for they were very active church members. I’m sorry they didn’t live to see me become a member of Unity Fellowship Church, Los Angeles.
My mother died when I was a first year student in grad school and my father remarried. After I got my Master’s at I.U., I moved to Evansville, Indiana . Those were the days when I was drinking every day, closeted and desperately trying to be heterosexual. Maybe I hadn’t been preached at and damned to hell for being same sex attracted, but I’d gotten the message loud and clear in every other way that I’d better hide my true nature. So I began to play the straight role. While my friends—those straight and those not—got married, I found a way, without really being aware then of what I was doing, of avoiding the marriage trap. I’d find myself “attracted” to men who were already married or about to get married. Then, I could conveniently “fall in love” and be in a relationship that could never go down marriage lane. It worked. But at a price.
(end Part 1)
I was raised as a Methodist—not C.M.E., not A.M.E., not United Methodist—just vanilla-plain Methodist. My mother’s adopted father was a Baptist preacher, I’m told, and my father’s father was a Methodist preacher. When they married, my mother joined Vine Avenue Methodist Church in Knoxville, Tennessee. When I was born, I was christened at that church and was made a member when I was an adolescent. I didn’t want to join the church, but I was expected to. I registered my protest with my mother but I knew that I was captive to my family’s reputation (my parents were teachers), and to the expectations of the Black community. In that era, the fifties, good little middle-class adolescent girls were taught to conform to and expected to tow the line set by community values. I could see that my protest was in vain, and so I grudgingly went to the baptism preparatory classes that were supposed to teach me about being a church member.
I can’t remember a thing I was supposed to have learned about the Methodist canon or liturgy. The dominant impression I remember of the classes is that they were painfully boring, and you were not to ask any questions. Only occasionally were questions invited, and then only the most insubstantial were welcomed. That was not a situation that I could thrive in because I was a Black girl who always questioned everything. The church adults frowned on this, and probably tried to get my mother to stamp out this annoying characteristic. She didn’t. Frankly, I don’t think anyone could have. I still ask questions today and think that people who don’t ask questions are dangerously conformist, dependent, non-thinkers.
Later, after I had done my duty and joined, I encountered only one adult church member who was willing to listen to and answer my questions, and who actively encouraged us teenagers to ask them. She was Leontyne Kelly, the wife of one of the many ministers who pastored our church. This was, of course, before she became the first woman bishop, I believe, in the Methodist denomination. Unfortunately, the Kellys didn’t stay with us long.
And so, it was back to Sunday school lessons heavy on men I felt no connection with who lived light-years ago in the past—Moses and his tablets, Joseph and his coat of many colors, David besting Goliath with a stone. It was back to Sunday morning sermons preaching dogma which never even mentioned what was happening in Montgomery after Rosa Parks wouldn’t get up—sermons that never characterized Jesus as the radical boat-rocker, and liberator, who came with new messages of love and freedom, messages which mostly didn’t conform with the theology in the Hebrew’s Torah and the letter of their laws. No, we didn’t get any of that.
We also didn’t get any fire and brimstone preaching on Sodom and Gomorrah, the sin of homosexuality, lesbianism, transsexualism, or bisexualism. If we had, I think I would’ve remembered because I knew for sure, by the time the hormones kicked in (around 7th grade)that I didn’t want to be with boys, that I liked girls. That I was "funny, as they used to say in the street vernacular. On that taboo subject, no preaching at my church, and for sure, no questions entertained by anyone in Christendom, as far as I could tell. That kind of sexuality was a grievous sin. Heterosexism reigned. Amen. Case closed. I promptly went into the closet and tried to make myself comfortable.
Through the public school years, I learned to equate not only my Methodist church, but all organized religion with people who conformed unquestioning to the rule of the majority; with people who never walked their Jesus talk; with people who couldn’t explain why I liked girls and why that was supposed to be wrong if God made me; with people who were silent on contradictions in the Bible, and where the story of Adam and Eve came from when there was nobody, at dawn of human beginnings, who was writing down words to convey ideas.
By the time I finished my undergraduate degree, I had tuned out, turned off, and dropped out of organized religion.(I had also begun, though I didn’t know it then, my twenty-seven year journey into alcoholism.) On the trip home from my Indiana University graduation, I told my parents I wouldn’t be going back to our church. By then it had been relocated and renamed Lennon Memorial after my uncle Frank gave a huge sum to the church with the provision that its name recognize his long-dead son. Moreover, I told them that I would never again—on my own—join another church. I’m sure they were saddened as well as aghast at my announcement for they were very active church members. I’m sorry they didn’t live to see me become a member of Unity Fellowship Church, Los Angeles.
My mother died when I was a first year student in grad school and my father remarried. After I got my Master’s at I.U., I moved to Evansville, Indiana . Those were the days when I was drinking every day, closeted and desperately trying to be heterosexual. Maybe I hadn’t been preached at and damned to hell for being same sex attracted, but I’d gotten the message loud and clear in every other way that I’d better hide my true nature. So I began to play the straight role. While my friends—those straight and those not—got married, I found a way, without really being aware then of what I was doing, of avoiding the marriage trap. I’d find myself “attracted” to men who were already married or about to get married. Then, I could conveniently “fall in love” and be in a relationship that could never go down marriage lane. It worked. But at a price.
(end Part 1)
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