Happy Belated Coming Out Day

So I was sitting at work feeling down and eating popcorn when I thought, “Monday was National Coming Out Day. I should have at least acknowledged it on my blog.” Not that I’ve acknowledged it any year previously. I don’t imagine anyone who reads my blog has the slightest issue with homosexuality, so it wasn’t as if I’m offering a public service announcement. But there have been all those recent suicides as a result of bullying and those videos about how it gets better (which I think is a good all-purpose message for high schoolers in general).

I think, on the one hand, of how much more open society is about homosexuality than when I was a teen, and on the other hand how much more pervasive and violent bullying is among kids. As the openness has increased, the nasty vitriol of the opposition has increased. I witnessed plenty of name calling and taunting in high school, but if anyone was getting beat up or lived in terror of physical harm, I didn’t know about it. Not that a constant barrage of verbal abuse doesn't work its own damage. Of course I knew gay kids. Or, rather, I knew and didn’t know, because I had my own shit to deal with first and foremost, and what other people were up to definitely took a back seat to my own drama.

My parents partook of the general cultural homophobia. So my mom was gently homophobic (“What a shame!” would be her response) and my dad more vehemently so (“They recruit kids. They do disgusting things.”). From some comments my mom made (not always the most reliable source, my mom) I gather that my dad had been pretty concerned about one of my eldest brother’s friendships. That would have been back in the 50s, so I can imagine that didn’t go well. For whatever reason, their opinions did not rub off on me. I simply did not understand why anyone would be uptight about it. It seemed such an odd point of contention. I never at any point bought the religious arguments against it. This is one of those areas where I simply cannot see the opposition’s point of view, for that point of view has wreaked such devastation. If God himself came down and told me homosexuality was wrong, I would say, “What is WRONG with YOU?” Not that I was any sort of outspoken activist as a teen – I pretty much avoided speaking about anything, much less anything controversial.

I wonder what the gay kids at my school really went through. Maybe I didn’t know the half of it. Maybe the name calling was just the littlest part of what really happened. What would I have done if I’d fallen in love with a girl then? I don’t know. Such a possibility never even occurred to me, although I wasn’t exactly okay with heterosexual relations, either. I know I definitely would not have been out and proud. It would have been one more secret, like my depression and cutting.

I work for an organization that believes homosexuality is wrong. I’ve made a sort of pact with the devil, I guess, to keep employment, telling myself that it’s just one tiny aspect of the overall picture, not their main focus. I’m used to hiding what I think, about more than just this issue. I have my own closet, I guess. There’s a confession. I’m complicit.

For anyone who doesn’t know about the Trevor Project, here is a link. It’s a suicide hotline for LGBTQ (Q for questioning) teens.



Chris Colfer for The Trevor Project - It Gets Better from The Trevor Project on Vimeo.

Advent

I’ve been reading posts about Advent and wondering how to think about Christmas. I so dislike that little phrase “Jesus is the reason for the season.” If I am completely honest, I would not like Christmas nearly so much if there were not presents and trees, lights and decorations. Although I don’t like the relentless consumerism and marketing of the holidays, I really like many of the secular aspects of Christmas.

I’m not quite sure how to extract Christ from the sentimentalized narrative of events that I’m not sure even happened. Where I work, the thinking is that if the Virgin birth is not true, then Christianity falls apart. I don't know why. The story of a virgin birth really seems like something patched on later to explain how this man could be completely human and divine at the same time. But it’s a beautiful image – the soul of the world waiting for the divine to enter as one of its own, God binding himself in human flesh out of love for his creation, giving himself to his creation. Despite my prevarication, I don’t really feel hypocritical reciting the creed about Jesus being born of a virgin and that he died and rose again. I think so many things are true that aren’t literally true. Good fiction is true. Good poetry is true. And yet there may not be a single actual event in either. They transcend the literal and ascend to a world of – what? – archetypes? Platonic forms? The Christmas story is beautiful. It’s poetry, it may be fiction, it is a vision of what the world could be if we truly followed the law of love, it speaks of our greatest hope that humanity is good, because Jesus was a man and was good, because he championed the outcasts and afflicted, and we ourselves can nurture that goodness.

Dear Husband is frustrated at my lack of passion for Christ, as he puts it. He considers my sense of not fitting in to be of my own making. I do find it very difficult to engage. He loves our new pastor. I find his messages simplistic. Dear Husband thinks I'm antisocial. It's not that I don't think there are other people like me - I just don't think they're at our church. And, yes, I have my guard up based on what I hear people express. My husband fits comfortably into orthodoxy. He doesn't take issue with anything. When I hear our pastor say that doubt must be met with faith, I feel frustrated. It's like saying that hunger must be met with food, and yet the tables are bare. Dear Husband says I didn't really listen. Oh, but I did. I listened, hoping I would hear something startling. I am always hoping I will hear something that will touch me, stir me, invigorate me.

And that is why I am about to turn once again to a more formal style of worship. This next weekend I plan to visit an Episcopal church. I don't necessarily think that I feel completely comfortable there. I have so little experience with this style of worship. I've been to Episcopal/Anglican churches that were sadly out of touch. But I want to experience a little quiet veneration, a different rhythm, the Eucharist as a rite, ritual prayer. Dear Husband is beginning to think I'm a nonbeliever. In many people's opinion, I would be. Not in my own. I just feel tired.