Long ago, Mr. Rogers sang me a lie. Merrily he would chorus: "Everything grows together because it's all one piece." My arms, legs, teeth and hair would grow together because I was all one piece. I grossly misunderstood that tune. Everything might have grown together, but it certainly didn’t grow as a harmonious whole like I expected it would. Most painful of all was the uneven growth inside me. My pieces had no peace.
By the age of five years, I desired to be physically and emotionally close to other boys. Shut out from their brand of intimacy at the age of three, my hunger for their acceptance grew as I grew. My inability to relate to them grew at the same pace. Growing up Mormon compounded my isolation, and the rites of passage that help children become adults were rendered less potent by the disparity between who I was and who I was expected to be. I was baptized, received the Priesthood, went on dates with girls, went to college, went through the temple, served a mission, and came home. These are the events that traditionally prepare a Mormon male for family life. The religious markers did their job well, but the personal ones passed by without making the changes they were supposed to. Being closeted denied me any investment in the experiences I did have so, emotionally, I stayed more or less a child. Parts of me grew while other parts remained totally stunted.
The uneven development of my emotional self began to manifest itself in my public life. I showed a marked inability to fulfill my potential, failing time after time to rise to opportunities presented me. At the age of 24, it came to me that I was spending so much energy fighting my nature that I had none left for anything else. I was spinning my wheels in the mire of straightness, gaining no traction because that wasn't my path. It took two more years after that idea hit me, but I finally gained the courage to begin following another path, one that didn't make me a square peg.
My new path, while facilitating emotional and personal growth, damned my spiritual progress. I was disfellowshipped from the Church. Disfellowshipment was worse than being excommunicated outright, because although I was not allowed to participate in worship services or other meetings, I was expected to attend. I agreed not to take the sacrament, the Mormon form of communion, or utter public prayers. It was a shadow state, somewhere between life and death and worse than either. I felt cut off from God and Christ. I was spiritually dead.
It has been a decade since I started the journey and I still find myself stumbling along on my uneven emotional legs, dragging an arm on the ground. It's a grotesque picture. Things are looking up, though. From August to January, I lost 50 lbs. and have kept them off for the last five months. I'm beginning to feel proportional again physically. Additionally, although I feel like a young twentysomething trapped in a newly middle-aged yet healthier body, my inner development has received a jump start as well. I might just make it to adulthood! Finally, after ten years of disfellowshipment and inactivity in the LDS church, my spiritual self has been given a new lease on life. For the past year I've served as organist for the local Trinity Episcopal congregation and I finally see that I didn't need to cut myself off from God as I had been doing. I've started taking communion again. I feel His presence in my life again and I'm realizing that it might just be possible for my life, the various pieces that make me who I am, to turn out all one peace.
No comments:
Post a Comment