My Story

An Introduction and a Statement 

I want to talk about the two parts of my life that I think about more than any others. I have been avoiding writing this for a long time, mostly because I've been afraid of the consequences. However, I have felt nearly compelled to write it, so here I am. 

They may seem silly or obvious or inconsequential to you, nevertheless they are real and intense for me.  So intense that, as I write this, my hands are shaking and my heart is hammering against my chest.  The fear of being vulnerable and then getting hurt fills me as I weigh speaking or staying silent - a fear that pinches my throat and make breathing and thinking difficult.  Anxiety over misspeaking rattles inside me as I struggle to find the right words to adequately and accurately express my thoughts and feelings.  My fight/flight/freeze instincts are kicking in and I have to consciously keep myself in my chair, will myself to keep writing, and fight my instincts.  Instincts that tell me to run away from this post, discard it, or "take a break" (read hide) from it.  However, I believe that there is value in doing difficult things, so I shall sit here in my discomfort and ask your indulgence as I struggle to express myself.  

The things about which I feel I must speak may seem silly or obvious or inconsequential to you, nevertheless they are real and intense for me.  To give appropriate context for why I want to talk about this, I have to say something that I have avoided saying publicly for years now.  Here it goes... 

*Takes deep breath*

I'm gay. 

I can hear that echoing in my mind and in my heart.  I have resisted saying so because, for a long time, I didn't want it to be true.  I didn't want to have that be a part of me.  I wanted to be blissfully and blessedly normal.  I thought that, if I denied or ignored it long enough, it would go away.  And, for more years than I care to admit, I have hated myself for it.  Let me explain why I think this is.  To do so, I will have to talk about another part of me that, by all measures, doesn't get along with my sexuality.  It is my membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  Let me provide some context here.

Context And Research 

Christianity in the United States

Some estimates show that about 70% of the nation belongs to one Christian denomination or another. This is no real surprise as many of the original colonists came here from their respective countries to practice Christianity the way they believed to be correct. Their views on Christianity and its attending doctrines and practices were, at their core, rigidly holding to old dogma that had been part of Christian culture since the early days of the Catholic Church, including strict rules about the roles of men and women.

In the early days of the faith, the leaders set up a way to keep their “flock” in line by creating an “us-versus-them” mentality and encoded it into the doctrine and policy. Many of these polices are fairly clear-cut, detailing what is required to be considered a member according to the doctrine. Other church policies were adopted from the political government for, at one point, the political government adopted early Catholicism as the religion of state. Since the majority of Christian churches find their roots in the Catholic faith, it is safe to assume that many Christian policies and practices are a direct callback to this era.

Later on, Roman law was used as a basis for and heavily influence Canon Law, or the laws and policies of the Catholic Church. Together, these have, “been used as the cornerstone for punitive civil laws of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and into the present day."  Laws governing marriage, child custody, military service, employment, housing, insurance, and health benefits just to name a few all have their origins in Roman and Catholic policy books. This fact has led to the entrenchment of Christian culture into nearly every facet of modern US culture.

Christianity, LGBT, and Homophobia

Due to Christianity’s dominance in western culture, the LGBT people have been pushed down and oppressed because of their “unnatural affection” (Romans 1:26-27). Homosexuals and homosexual behaviors, by many Christian sects, are considered abominable (Leviticus 18:22) and, for some more radical sects, they may even warrant the death penalty (Leviticus 20:13). 

To be clear, I do not believe that all Christians or Christian groups believe that homosexuals and homosexuality is a punishable offense. There are those who are at least tolerant, many more who are supportive, and there are protections against such drastic actions. However, the fear of persecution still haunts LGBT people when they approach Christianity. For LGBT people growing up under the Christian umbrella, practices and beliefs about homosexuals are well ingrained before they know what they are. They have already swallowed homophobia before they had a chance to inoculate themselves. 

The homophobia, which for our purposes here is defined as "the dislike of or prejudice against homosexual people", that is exhibited by Christian culture possibly has very simple and relatively harmless origins. It is possible that, due to the relatively small beginnings of the faith, it became imperative for those within it to reproduce to perpetuate it. This would make homosexuality especially undesirable, as homosexual relationships would not yield children of themselves, and, therefore, homosexual behavior required specific attention and condemnation. Nevertheless, the homophobic patterns within Christian culture are damaging to all people. 

Although much research has been done on homosexuality and religion individually, there has been little done on how the two coincide.  Christian beliefs about homosexuality contribute to the negative thoughts and internalized homophobia held by many gay men. Bozard and Sanders discuss how, “Christian sexual minority youth frequently experience conflicts between their religious and sexual identities that complicate or prevent utilization of their religion as a source of resiliency."  Joshi also notes that “Christian groups have the power to define normalcy” and, therefore, what they say becomes what is acceptable.With these ideas and theories circulating about Christianity’s oppressive nature, many Christians feel they are being picked on by those who support the LGBT and other minority movements. This phenomenon is known as Christian fragility.

My Story 

I grew up in an actively Latter-day Saint household.  There was never any discussion of “other lifestyles” without their swift condemnation.  Therefore, until I was in junior high, I had no idea what “gay” was except that I did not want to be it and the church did not support it.  These teachings were accompanied by the modeling of appropriate responses to stereotypical homosexual behavior, which would often become the butt of a joke or warrant commentary such as, “did you see that guy? He was floating so far off the ground!” Circumstances that were considered undesirable would often warrant the exclamation, “that’s so gay!”  Perhaps the most damaging message came from a discussion of some sort of homosexual behavior seen on television.  Commenting on the show, the phrase, “ugh, it [gay behavior] just grosses me out” was said over and over again.  When I asked why, the response was, “it is just gross, disgusting, evil, and wrong.”  By 12 years old, I had been programmed to think homosexuality and the people who “practiced” it were not only bad, but evil.  This was my normal, and, consistent with research, it was set by my Christian parents.  I had begun to internalize homophobia without even knowing what homosexuality was.

This familial culture made it necessary for me to hide my growing homosexual feelings.  I had become curious about what “gay” was and, not surprisingly, my parents found pornography on the computer—another LDS taboo.  They needled me asking if I was gay.  However, the questions were asked in such a way that any answer but the negative would have been incorrect.  These conversations were also focused around my parents and their needs and not about me.  To their credit, they did say that they would love me no matter what.  This gave me hope that, somehow, everything would be alright.  I was still terrified that someone might find out about me, so I pretended to be straight as much as I could, even without knowing I was doing it.   

Eventually, I got so good at shoving my feelings down that I managed to hide in the closet so well that I lost myself.  I thought I had “recovered.” I served an LDS mission and grappled with my sexuality the whole time, and my missionary work suffered from it.  However, after serving the whole two years without too much of a problem, I figured I would be OK to follow the LDS template of getting married and having children.  I started dating my girlfriend from high school and, try as I might, I did not feel comfortable pursuing anything more than dating.  I began slowly coming out to close friends who I felt I could trust and get their perspective on my conflicting LDS and LGBT identities.  They were kind and full of love.  There was also no question as to what they wanted me to do—maintain activity in the church.

I wanted to hear this because it made me feel terrible.  I wanted to feel bad, because it was the template I was given for the appropriate treatment of homosexuals—belittlement and scorn.  This led to a deep-seated self-hatred and negative feedback loop.  Consistent with what Bozard and Sanders found, my religion ceased to be a source of strength for me.  Instead, it became an albatross I hung around my neck to drag me down.  I would seek out homosexual pornography, belittle myself for it, tell my bishop and my pornography addiction specialist at LDS Family Services who would both belittle me for it, and I felt terrible.  But, it filled an unknown expectation, and—although I did not get any better and I felt less than human—somehow that felt right.  I felt alone and that I would always be alone—especially with the secret I was guarding so closely from so many.  

It was also about this same time that I met my first boyfriend.  I was attracted to him in a way that I never experienced and, although I had felt excited in a similar way before, this time was different.  I did not want him to just like me, I wanted him to really like me.  When we started dating, I was scared—I had never done anything this against the rules before, and it was thrilling and terrifying.  I told my bishop about the kiss I had shared with him and my conflict between my feelings my boyfriend and my feelings for the church.  He gave me his “best speech”, released me from my calling, took my temple recommend, called my testimony into question, and told me that the kiss could count as a “whoopsie,” but that everything thereafter would be on my head.  I didn’t go back to that ward and was hesitant to go back to church at all.  

My parents were, understandably, against this decision.  They wanted me to follow the teachings of the church, even to a point of "helping" me to comply.  Our relationship deteriorated as our perceptions of each other shifted.  I felt that, to them, I had become a rebellious child who needed correction and they became punitive and controlling tyrants forbidding me from seeing my boyfriend. Their treatment felt unfair and restrictive when, as a 23-year-old man, I struggled to find my sense of self and establish autonomy.  As I pushed back on this treatment, their trust in me dwindled to nothing and they refused to let me see my boyfriend.  Eventually, I found myself without a home, felt I had lost my family, felt betrayed by my faith, with very few friends.  And, yet, somehow this felt correct.  I felt that I deserved this.  The homophobia I had been so carefully taught was satisfied with what had happened to me.

Homophobia is not always blatant.  It has subtler forms, usually along the lines of, "you're not really gay" or "your feelings are the product of exposure to homosexual pornography.  Other times it is small comments like “can you not be so obvious about it?”  Or when some say they love me “despite my sin.” Or when they say they are uncomfortable with me because I am gay.  Or when others discourage me from “acting out” on my feelings.  These things resonate with internalized homophobia, reinforcing what it has taught me.  

I had not thought much about how homophobia has impacted my life until the concept of internalized homophobia came up in a Reflexive Social Work class last semester.  I felt it resonate in every part of my soul to such a degree, it was as if someone had banged a gong as I was standing next to it.  I did not immediately know what to do because there were lots of resources available to discuss my LDS and LGBT identities individually, but hardly any of how these two interacted.  How could such shockingly opposite pieces of me get along?  I felt that I was too LDS to be gay and too gay to be LDS.

What Now 

As much as I would like to say that I have a cure for this systemic homophobia, I have none—none that will affect the wide and sweeping change that is so desperately needed to help the millions like me.  None that can be implemented to fix everything all at once.  However, I believe that there is hope—hope that, at some future date, no one else will have to hate themselves for who they are.

Valhalla: A Reblog

PROMPT: Valhalla does not discriminate against the kind of fight you lost. Did you lose the battle with cancer? Maybe you died in a fist fight. Even facing addiction. After taking a deep drink from his flagon, Odin slams his cup down and asks for the glorious tale of your demise!

Valhalla - https://www.historicmysteries.com/valhalla-odins-hall-of-the-slain/

A small child enters Valhalla. The battle they lost was “hiding from an alcoholic father.” Odin sees the flinch when he slams the cup and refrains from doing it again. He hears the child’s pain; no glorious battle this, but one of fear and wretched survival.

He invites the child to sit with him, offers the choicest mead and instructs his men to bring a sword and shield, a bow and arrow, of the very best materials and appropriate size. “Here,” he says, “you will find no man who dares to harm you. But so you will know your own strength, and be happy all your days in Valhalla, I will teach you to use these weapons.”

The sad day comes when another child enters the hall. Odin does not slam his cup; he simply beams with pride as the first child approaches the newcomer, and holds out her bow and quiver, and says “nobody here will hurt you. Everyone will be so proud you did your best, and I’ll teach you to use these, so you always know how strong you are.”

A young man enters the hall. He hesitates when Odin asks his story, but at long last, it ekes out: skinheads after the Pride parade. His partner got into a building and called for help. The police took a little longer than perhaps they really needed to, and two of those selfsame skinheads are in the hospital now with broken bones that need setting, but six against one is no fair match. The fear in his face is obvious: here, among men large enough to break him in two, will he face an eternity of torment for the man he left behind?

Odin rumbles with anger. Curses the low worms who brought this man to his table, and regales him with tales of Loki so to show him his own welcome. “A day will come, my friend, when you seek to be reunited, and so you shall,” Odin tells him. “To request the aid of your comrades in battle is no shameful thing.”

A woman in pink sits near the head of the table. She’s very nearly skin and bones, and has no hair. This will not last; health returns in Valhalla, and joy, and light, and merrymaking. But now her soul remembers the battle of her life, and it must heal.

Odin asks.

And asks again.

And the words pour out like poisoned water, things she couldn’t tell her husband or children. The pain of chemotherapy. The agony of a mastectomy, the pain still deeper of “we found a tumor in your lymph nodes. I’m so sorry.” And at last, the tortured question: what is left of her?

Odin raises his flagon high. “What is left of you, fair warrior queen, is a spirit bright as fire; a will as strong as any forged iron; a life as great as any sea. Your battle was hard-fought, and lost in the glory only such furor can bring, and now the pain and fight are behind you."

In the months to come, she becomes a scop of the hall–no demotion, but simple choice. She tells the stories of the great healers, Agnes and Tanya, who fought alongside her and thousands of others, who turn from no battle in the belief that one day, one day, the war may be won; the warriors Jessie and Mabel and Jeri and Monique, still battling on; the queens and soldiers and great women of yore.

The day comes when she calls a familiar name, and another small, scarred woman, eyes sunken and dark, limbs frail, curly black hair shaved close to her head, looks up and sees her across the hall. Odin descends from his throne, a tall and foaming goblet in his hands, and stuns the hall entire into silence as he kneels before the newcomer and holds up the goblet between her small dark hands and bids her to drink.

“All-Father!” the feasting multitudes cry. “What brings great Odin, Spear-Shaker, Ancient One, Wand-Bearer, Teacher of Gods, to his knees for this lone waif?”

He waves them off with a hand.

“This woman, LaTeesha, Destroyer of Cancer, from whom the great tumors fly in fear, has fought that greatest battle,” he says, his voice rolling across the hall. “She has fought not another body, but her own; traded blows not with other limbs but with her own flesh; has allowed herself to be pierced with needles and scored with knives, taken poison into her very veins to defeat this enemy, and at long last it is time for her to put her weapons down. Do you think for a moment this fight is less glorious for being in silence, her deeds the less for having been aided by others who provided her weapons? She has a place in this great hall; indeed, the highest place.”

And the children perform feats of archery for the entertainment of all, and the women sing as the young man who still awaits his beloved plays a lute–which, after all, is not so different from the guitar he once used to break a man’s face in that great final fight.

Valhalla is a place of joy, of glory, of great feasting and merrymaking.

And it is a place for the soul and mind to heal.

Cultivating Compassion

A quick note - This is an updated previous post.  I liked it so much that I wanted to give it a face lift. Cheers! Josh 

We Have A Problem

The world is missing something – something we used to have but, especially in recent years, have lost. Headlines are filled with its absence, overwhelming us with bombings, shootings, political turmoil, suicide, hatred, and bigotry nearly every day. I have had conversations (read arguments) about these topics that boiled with heated opinions, were choked with intense emotions, and, walking away, I felt generally agitated. Following self-reflection, I realized that this agitation comes from the lack of compassion I felt and exhibited in these interactions. I want to discuss the causes of the systemic compassion deficit and how to fix it.

Compassion Killers & Surface Conversation

Compassion is killed by 3 key things:

     1) Always speaking and never hearing

     2) Focusing on how we are different

     3) Failing to forgive

Because of our natural desire to belong to a group, these practices and patterns cause a polarization of people, of their feelings, and of their ideals; driving most of us to one extreme or the other on any given issue. When “hot button” topics come up, we avoid the conversation or try to end them as soon as possible. This avoidance of charged topics, especially in “polite conversations,” does us a disservice. Most – if not all – of these issues have their base in at least one of our personal passions. Deeming it “impolite” to talk about such things reinforces the ideal that we cannot express too much of who we are in fear of being rude. Our fundamental selves, therefore, become dangerous and unacceptable. Our conversations, therefore, become surface-level and trite, in which we learn nothing about ourselves or the other person that has real value. We, instead, choose to discuss topics that have little to do with our fundamental character and what makes us unique. Instead, we engage in small talk in which we reveal nothing about ourselves. This is safer, yes, but it prevents us from being truly vulnerable.

How Compassion Killers Work

Often when we engage in more serious conversations, we feel we have to defend ourselves from the proverbial “other.” Doing so, we use the compassion killers to insulate ourselves from harm. We sarcastically talk more and talk more about ourselves, focusing on how we differ from other people and, by so doing, justify our existence. We keep away from subjects that we feel would reveal too much of ourselves. These practices keep us from divulging too much of our true selves and help hide the parts of us by which we are embarrassed or of which we are afraid. When someone offends us or accidentally hurts our feelings, rather than admitting that the comment was hurtful, we shrug it off and pretend that it didn’t happen, or we cut the person out of our lives completely. We bury the hurt deep and practice a pseudoforgiveness – one in which we carry the hurt around with us, pretending to ourselves and others that it does not still bother us. We do not heal. We do not connect with others. We do not make room for others in our lives and hearts. And, inevitably, compassion ebbs away.

Compassion Cultivators

I want to present 3 solutions to counteract these killers – I will call them compassion cultivators. They are quite simple, yet rather difficult to do. They are the following:

     1) Listen and seek understanding

     2) Remember that we are more similar than we are different while celebrating difference

     3) Quickly and frankly forgive

These practices are simple enough but can be quite challenging to perform. They require that we are, at least sometimes, genuinely vulnerable. Vulnerability is, for me, the key ingredient of connection and compassion because I am genuinely myself. I show others who I really am. And, because I want them to be kind to me, I am kind to them. I am more apt to listen to what they are saying and ask clarifying questions to truly understand. I find things that we have in common and invite discussion about these topics and explore other things that we may or may not share. And, when I feel that I have been tread upon emotionally, I say so. This can be frightening, especially at the start, but it will ultimately lead to warmer, fuller relationships and bring an authenticity to our interactions.

Last Words

Dear friends, let us seek to live authentically and cultivate compassion in our interactions. Let us boldly practice vulnerability as we seek connections and cultivate compassion. Doing so will bring happiness and peace to our lives and help us to reintroduce the key ingredients to bring back what is missing from our lives – the hope that accompanies compassion.