REGRET.

"At such a time, it seems natural and good to me to ask these questions; What do I believe in?  What will I fight for?  and What will I fight against?"  --John Steinbeck, Author, East of Eden

On November 19, a great conversation began based upon a Facebook status that I had posted.  The status read as follows:

"If you went up to Jesus and said, 'What do you think about homosexuality?', Jesus' response would have been, 'what do you think about love of God, love of neighbor and care for the poor?  You are asking the wrong question because your are focused on the wrong issue.'"  --Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, Great Figure of the New Testament

Many people from different walks of life shared their voices and opinions regarding this statement.  You are more than welcome to check out the responses on my Facebook page and comment yourself.  This dialogue has prompted me to begin approaching the vast rift that exists between the church (especially but not exclusively the Southern Church), and the homosexual community.  Again, I do not know all the answers, and my guess is neither does the reader.  In lieu of that, I am hopeful that we can continue the discussion in a manner that respects every individual's sacred worth.

It was a beautiful night in May of 2013.  Perfect in fact.  It was as if this very evening was designed by God for something very special.  This was the night I would go on my first date with another man.  Yes, I was quite nervous at first, however, I was comforted in the fact that to everyone else, we simply looked like two buddies having beer and shooting pool.  Something seemed so fluid about the evening and we really had no desire to forsake each other's company.  We continued our time with a walk along the nearby river.  It was in these moments, that for the first time ever, I felt normal.  I felt at ease.  I felt comfortable.  I felt, shall we say, NATURAL.  As we sat on a bench under the stars, I very quickly began to realize that my life would never be the same after this night.  I also knew that with this transformation, I would have to ask and answer a lot of questions.  Most every question that began to race through my mind was was a question regarding my faith.  How do I reconcile this with scripture?  Why would God make me this way if he didn't intend for me to be this way?  How will I deal with the people in my past that will despise this path in life and do they matter?  And the most obvious question, how could I for the first time in my life feel so right and natural, yet be told I am so wrong and artificial?  I did not begin seeking those answers immediately, but was keenly aware that the time for that journey would come soon.

For those of you who are not aware, I was raised in the United Methodist Church and served nearly ten years in Student Ministry.  I have wonderful memories that flood my heart as I think back on those years.  Most all of them involve first -hand witnessing of student's share Christ's simple love with one another.  I think back to Whitney who' family lost everything in Hurricane Katrina, and upon coming to Shreveport, our students fervently embraced and loved her.  I think of students giving up their Thanksgiving Break to do hurricane relief.  I am reminded of students who used their Christmas Party in the cold with nothing but a 50-gallon barrels of glowing fire so they could get a glimpse of what Christmas looked like for the homeless.  I remember students walking through life together and kneeling at many an alter together to pray and convey their love for one another.  I am proud of the role I had the privilege to play in these student's lives, but I do have one regret.  I led as a hypocrite in one area.  I possessed a nature that I was preaching against.  I was homosexual and actively sharing with students and many others that it was an immoral practice that was not conducive with being a Christian.  I certainly developed a great stash of grace-filled explanations for homosexuality, but I believe these explanations to be incorrect now and I believe I led many people down a road that combats against sharing a faith journey with gay men and women.  This is my regret.

That same man I shared my first date with recommended a great book to me.  It is within chapter 13 of East of Eden by John Steinbeck that I found some of the most important questions a man or woman of any orientation can ask themselves; What do I believe in?  What will I fight for? and what will I fight against?  These are questions for which I seek answers daily.  I believe in a God that places sacred worth on every individual that draws breath.  I spent many years leading people down a road that implied otherwise.  For this I am sorry, and against this, I will fight.  Until next time…

Seasons.

"Good seasons start with good beginnings."  --Sparky Anderson, Second Baseman & MLB Manager

There is something in the air.  It looms and slightly reveals itself,  just as leaves falling subtly reminds you that fall and winter are coming.  I've had many seasons in my life.  Some have been tough.  Some have been joyous.  Some have been a mixture of both.  All I have grown and learned from.

It find it difficult to believe that it has been six months since I shared the burdensome and peace-stealing secret of my sexual orientation with my friend Kendra, and in turn opened the flood gates and began to be authentic with my closest friends and family.  SIX MONTHS.  This past six months has been the best, toughest and most educational of any I have ever experienced in my life.  I could spend my time this week telling more stories of my journey, but if you don't mind I would like to use this week's post to share with you some of the simple life lessons I have taken away from the last six months.  They may not all be relevant to your life, and you may even disagree with them, but they are very simple things that ring true in my heart and have brought me this far.

1.  Honesty is at the core of a life well-lived.

2.  It is of little value to give love to others if you aren't able to actually love yourself.  I haven't made it yet.  This is a constant journey for me but I am happy to at least be on the correct path now.

3.  You will have critics in your life.  You aren't guaranteed that everyone will like you nor will they like all of your decisions.  Some critics will love you through them.  Some will bail on you.  Simply follow your heart and allow it to filter out the unnecessary things or people.

4.  We all have limited space in our lives and hearts for meaningful relationships.  Do not give that valuable space to people who tear you down or see you as something less than themselves.  Fill that space with people who will build you up (even through tough love and accountability) and want to be a resource to your life.

5.  People will only value you as much as you value yourself.  

6.  There are some shady folk in this world.

7.    Not everyone is meant to be in every season of your life.  This doesn't diminish the impact they had on your life.  Sometimes things simply change.

8.  Patience is a virtue. One I don't have but desperately need.

9.  It is ok and in fact a good thing to talk to someone and seek help in life.  Very few journeys are meant to be taken alone.

10.  The most valuable thing in your life is your family.  I have seen my family reconcile and live in peace in a way that I never could have fathomed.

11.  Don't try to change the world.  Just seek to be a better you and the world will have no choice but to be changed.

I feel the season in my life changing once again.  I would be lying if I told you it wasn't scary.  The reality is, I have no idea what will come with this new season nor where I will be when I go through it. What I do know is this; the people in my life know the best me to date and these lessons I have come to realize will get me there just as all the seasons that have come before it.  I believe this next season will have a great beginning (Just like those Auburn Tigers!  War Eagle!)

Photo credit:  Gary Parker

Beside Me...

"Do not walk behind me; I may not lead.  Do not walk in front of me; I may not follow.  Just walk beside me and be my friend."  --Albert Camus, French Nobel Prize winning author, journalist and philosopher

Thanks everyone for letting me take last week off.  I was having trouble putting my thoughts together, and I value this forum enough to not publish sub par posts for the sake of posting.  This past weekend I celebrated my 32nd birthday with many dear friends.  Some drove hundreds of miles.  Some drove ten minutes.  One even flew in from Brooklyn, New York and dealt with bomb threats at the Birmingham Airport to be here.  This was a bright reminder of how great life can be when you surround yourself with people that walk beside you.

It was a quirky coffee shop.  Artbeats was the last type of place you would expect to find in small-town South Arkansas.  It was overflowing with all sorts of eclectic and brightly colored treasures that meant nothing to me, but you could tell they were the heart beat of this quaint hole in the wall run by quasi-hippies.  It was on a fall evening at this very place that I met one of the truest people I have ever known in my life.  Jen, like me was from a bigger city far from El Dorado, Arkansas.  She was a few years my younger, but there seemed to be a strange connection between the two of us.  After that first meeting, we began to see each other all over this small town.  Before we knew it, this strange chemistry had drawn us into a wonderful and loving friendship.  It was slightly ironic.  I was a Student Minister at First United Methodist Church and Jen, as my stepmother called her was my free-thinking "Agnostic friend with Buddhist leanings."  She was socially liberal, slightly communist and very open-minded.  Somehow, these things added tremendous value to our friendship in an intriguing way.  The thing I found most valuable in Jen, was her honesty.  She was blatantly truthful in every component of her life.  She lived life to it's fullest and never compromised this truth to appease the common thoughts of those that surrounded her.

Over the past few months, and especially this past weekend, I have noticed something very important;  I have amazing friends.  I wonder sometimes if I take that for granted.  In continued transparency, I have a confession.  Since coming out, I have had this desire to meet and develop friendships with the homosexual community.  Upon first thought, this doesn't sound like something worthy of the word confession, so let me explain.  There have been times where I have even felt without friends because I had begun to let my identity become wrapped up in my sexual orientation.  I began to forget all the amazing friends I had, because I didn't really have a group of gay friends.  I was doing the exact thing that I had committed not to do; let my homosexuality define me as opposed to defining it.  This doesn't mean I don't desire new friends in all walks of life.  It simply means I will no longer look past the ones that exist, nor will I continue to place friends in sub-categories.  I look back on that thought process and see it as a simple desire to know and relate to people in a similar way, which I think is a reality homosexuals and heterosexuals alike are prone to.  Just one more commonality that we all share as people with our own unique journey.  After going through a "whoa-is-me" night, dealing with these very struggles, I took a trip home to Mobile, Alabama.  Someone asked me why I was going home.  My response was simple; "I need something true in my life right now, and family is the only thing I can think of."  On this trip home, I began the process of realizing how fortunate I was to have the valuable relationships that are already present.  I began to see that a friendship is not something that should need forcing or pressure.  It does not require begging or even hoping.  A true friendship simply "is."  They are organic and honest.  Authentic friendship is strong enough to create itself.  It does not need our help.  Like a tornado, it develops and exposes everything in it's way.  It takes one's life back to the basics of a simple love for one another.  It prompts us to remember the value of life lived in community with one another. After it has torn through, in place of destruction, it leaves nothing but actuality, enthusiasm, and recollections that the best of photos and scrapbooks could never do justice.

I want to invite you to look around and be reminded of the value your friends bring to your life.  You will see them.  They are the ones still standing with you after the storm.  They are the ones that are were beaten and battered by the wind and rain because they stood in that storm with you.  They are the ones who have helped you carry your burdens, celebrated your victories, and embraced every moment of that journey.  

Jen and I, had not seen each other in about 5 years.  After I told her about my birthday weekend, she simply responded by sending me a copy of her flight itinerary from New York City.  I could not be more humbled to have such a friend as this and all the others who have chosen to walk this path in life right by my side.  Until next time...

Thank you so much to all of the friends I have had in this 32 years of life.  You have been supportive and loving.  You have embraced and loved me not in spite of who I am, but because of who I am.  Special thanks to the folks at Dram Whiskey Bar, Lake Heather Reserve, Innisfree and especially my dear friend Trip at Oscar's @ Birmingham Museum of Art for making it such a memorable weekend for all of us.