I Feel My Saviour's Love

I've been looking for something to dissipate the anger I've been feeling over the last couple days. Anger is poison when it isn't given vent. It's like a boil that isn't lanced, or an abscess that isn't drained. It festers and kills all the healthy tissue around it.

For the most part, I've held in my anger, not allowing myself to respond to the direct and indirect accusations, insinuations, and other contentious words thrown around, both at me and people I care about BY people I care about. I accept that, according to one of those indirect accusations, I might have carelessly started the fire, but I didn't want it to spread any further. It was my mess and I wanted to quench it and clean it up as ethically as I could.

However, holding in all that anger wasn't good for me. In the privacy of my own company, I ranted and raved, and spoke many of the angry things I didn't dare write, all to no avail. There was something unsatisfying about not being able to land the intended blows. "Be careful who you make your enemy, for you shall become them..." and I had. I had become one of those people that had sparked the whole incident in the first place, hateful and harboring resentment. I didn't want to be this person. I felt like I had lost myself.

And then the words came to me, like salve on a sunburn: "But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you [or unfriend you], do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you." (Matt. 5:44, with a small 2012 addition)

My Saviour's words restored my soul. Although I had been saying for the past week that love was the answer, I wasn't feeling it until His words brought it back to me. Suddenly, I had hope again, hope that the sharp divisions between myself and loved ones could be resolved, hope that the country could be healed instead of lapsing into secession, hope that we could survive the fulfillment of the dire prophesies for our future.

Now I'm grateful for the past two days. The adversity has given me strength and reminded my soul of its center. This is why I don't cut people out of my life when the relationship is rocky. Hopefully, their contact with me is reciprocally beneficial.

We all have beams and motes in our vision, but the Saviour's love makes them less blinding. I offer my thanks to you all, and I ask forgiveness from those I have offended as I let go of the offences that briefly took me down. From where I stand, I feel a little more all one peace. I hope you do, too.

(Also published to http://allonepiecesoapbox.blogspot.com/ )

Sound and Fury and Love

I expect that most people who know me would be surprised by some part of this post.

I am grateful for General Hospital. The last two episodes allowed me to cry. I spend so much of my time keeping a lid on my feelings because I don't believe in being ruled by them. The flipside of that is I often can't express my true feelings when I want to. Well-written dramas, like the current incarnation of GH, allow me to release some of the pressure from all that pent-up emotion.

Some people might ask why I don't just let go. All around me is the fallout from people who heedlessly act on their momentary emotional impulses, or worse, abandon Love and crush others underfoot to obtain their desires. I don't want to contribute to that.

I believe that kindness and consideration for the feelings of other people are manifestations of perfect love. The only way this world will be healed is through pure, perfect love. Every day, I try to love perfectly. I often fail, but I get up and try again. I look forward to the day when Love truly will rule the world. I dream of a day when children will not be bruised by the consequences of imperfect love. I will do everything I can to keep that flame alive until the source of the fire returns.

So, the point of this post? To express appreciation for something most people consider trivial, and explain why for me, at least, a soap opera is anything BUT trivial.

Hell is Holding On to Who You Might Have Been

I have a Saturday's Warrior complex.

Every day, Todd draws a picture of a man who's noble, strong, and makes all the right choices. It's the man he wants to be. A paper dream. But every day, he says to himself that it would be foolish to try to be that man because he'd most likely fail. Every day, Todd beats himself up for not being someone else.

Todd is a masochist, and so am I.

Somewhere in life, I was introduced to the idea that hell was a place you went to be tortured with the constant reminder of who you could have been if you'd only made different choices. Now, the upside to this is for Mormons, hell isn't a permanent place. Permanent hell, or "Outer Darkness," is only for those who've basically come face to face with Jesus, know with certainty the things that most of us have to take on faith, and then decide to turn against Him anyway. Mormon hell, or "Spirit Prison," is the place where unrepentant liars, whores, and other spiritual malcontents like me go to wait until they are resurrected, judged by God, and assigned to be servants of the Celestial pretty people. That doesn't make it any less painful while it lasts, but at least it doesn't last forever.

For the last two days, I've been in hell.

And I have a guy named Josh Weed to thank. In many ways, he is my living, breathing paper dream. I fully expect to have a Times Square-sized poster of Mr. Weed, and his pretty friend, Ty Mansfield, plastered to the wall of my cell in hell. Curious readers can peruse Mr. Weed's words here:

http://www.joshweed.com/2012/06/club-unicorn-in-which-i-come-out-of.html?m=1&fb_source=message

As I read about Mr. Weed's journey, events in my own life kept flashing in front of me, taunting me with what could have been if I had made different choices. I could have been him! I could have had that family, that joy, those children! It didn't matter that our circumstances were markedly different. I should have been more faithful! I should have had more courage! Weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth pretty much sums up what went on, so the prophet who described the pains of hell in those terms got it right. My knee-jerk reaction was to resolve then and there that I'd find the courage to do what needed to be done to reclaim what I'd lost. But just as suddenly, I realized I wouldn't be the only one in pain from all this. I have a boyfriend. This would affect him, too.

So I was in hell squared.

Last night, I went to visit my parents and my brother, who is in town from lands down south, to share The Weed with them and talk to them about it. Instead, I spent most of the time playing with my nieces. It was a much better use of my time. I began to feel some peace.

When I arrived home, my boyfriend had left me a note. In essence, it repeated what he'd told me when I showed him around my pit of despair. It said he loved me, and was thinking of me, and wanted what is best for the both of us.

This morning, I put my promise ring back on my finger and let my paper dream fade away. It's only hell while you hold on, and love really is about having the faith to let go.

And Ye Shall Know the Truth...

...and the truth shall make you mad.

I know I should be grateful. I know I should be happy, but like the stubborn, spoiled, petulant little child that I am, I'm so angry I feel like tearing myself in two with my own hands. Has anyone ever felt like that, where they're so angry and the only place they can rightly direct the anger is at themselves? And they want it to be bloody and messy? And fatal? That's how I feel right now.

This morning, on a whim, I decided to find all those unread messages in my Facebook inbox. Of the 25 or so odd messages, one came from a cousin-in-law sent to me over a month ago. Attached to it was the link to a blog written by a gay Mormon with a family. I read it.

I've heard that hope and despair can't exist in someone at the same time, but I swear that was my reaction. And then I got really mad. Mad that he'd waited ten years to talk about his life. Mad that his circumstances had been so favorable. Mad that after finally finding some peace, someone had come along and messed it all up again.

Honestly, though, in the end, I have no one to blame but myself, and that makes me maddest of all.

A Riff on Abinadi

Soon after Dad came home from the hospital, he and I had a conversation that was pivotal in our relationship. Never have I felt so accepted and loved by my father. Given our loving but rocky relationship in the past, this was no small thing. That's why it was confusing and hurtful (if not surprising) when, a couple weeks ago, Dad pointed me toward the cover article of the May/June LDS Living, written by the very-handsome Ty Mansfield and his lovely wife, Danielle. Mr. Mansfield is a self-identified Latter-Day Saint who struggles with "Same-Gender Attraction," and who also contributed to Deseret Book's most recent attempt to address homosexuality entitled In Quiet Desperation, published in 2004. The LDS Living article was largely positive, stressing honesty, openness, and respect for the agency of others. It reflects the shifting attitudes in the LDS community on how to treat people who identify as homosexual. That wasn't what distressed me.

Aside from the fact that I resentfully wondered where all this openness and compassion was twenty years ago, it was hard for me to read about another gay Mormon man's currently successful marriage. Mr. Mansfield's wife seems like a lovely woman, inside and out, and their son is adorable. Those closest to me know how badly I have wanted what Mr. Mansfield has. Countless times I've considered trying to make a heterosexual relationship work but have never been able to bring myself to attempt it because...well, with all due respect to Mr. Mansfield's advice to avoid labels...I'm gay. I'm not a full-on Kinsey Scale 6, but because of the potential hurt feelings and confusion living as a bisexual would entail for me, I choose...that's right, I CHOOSE ...to live as a gay man. Ever since I accepted that I was attracted to other guys, it has seemed like the way to live that is least harmful to others. As hard as it is for myself and my family, our pain is nothing compared to what I've seen when mixed-orientation marriages fail. (Am I the servant in the parable hiding his one talent in the ground? That thought often tortures me but belongs in another blog entry.)

Dad didn't intend to hurt me when he suggested I read about Mr. Mansfield's success, but his implicit suggestion that if I tried hard enough I could also have a traditional, Mormon, temple-sealed marriage sent me spinning into spiritual convulsions of self-loathing and soul searching.

However, last night, during another visit to my parents, Dad talked about giving the lesson in Sunday School. The lesson concerned the teachings of Abinadi in the book of Mosiah.  Dad quoted Hugh Nibley saying something to the effect that Abinadi's words contained the fullness of the Gospel, and, although it could have been all in my head, it felt like a little nudge to check it out. As I've been in the soul-searching mode, and the story of Abinadi has always been one of my favorites from The Book of Mormon anyway, very early this morning, I did just that. Here is what I found:

Mosiah 15: 2 - 3 contains an explanation of how Christ is both the Father and the Son. It has always taken some intense thought for me to understand this concept, but as I read and pondered this morning, the understanding I once had of this passage came back to me with something extra included. (Andrew, I think you'll like this.) Because Jesus was conceived by the power of God, being the literal son of God, he was more than a man. To put it in comic book terms, he was a demi-God, like Thor - man, but more than man. This is what gave him his power over sin and death. Because of His special "powers," he could satisfy the demands of justice and take on Himself our transgressions, allowing us to be born again spiritually through Him. He could also break the bands of death, opening the gates whereby we, too, can be restored to our physical bodies, therefore becoming our physical father as well. Even those who do not accept the spiritual rebirth are resurrected. We all become the children of Christ, and He is our father. There are other dimensions to this Father/Son/Father concept, but this will suffice for now, as it establishes Christ's power to lift us (ie. "save" us) and make us His.

Mosiah 15: 10 - 12 talks about those who are the seed of Christ, those who are spiritually born of Him. Abinadi says those who 1) have heard and hearkened to the words of the prophets, 2) have believed that the Lord would redeem His people, and 3) have looked forward to that day for a remission of their sins are the seed of Christ. Last week, Dad and I had a long talk about why he shared the Mansfield article with me, and one thing we discussed was my faith in the words of the prophets. As I read Mosiah this morning, it occurred to me that the purpose of prophets is to persuade people to believe in Christ and to have faith in Him. It is important to remember that, especially evident in the Book of Mormon, the B.C. prophets were getting the people to have faith in a person who didn't exist physically yet on the Earth. Nowadays, prophets are trying to persuade people to have faith in someone who existed here over 2,000 years ago. In either case, this is not an easy task. We don't readily believe in things we can't see.

How is this relevant to my discussion with my Dad? Well, as I understand my Dad, he feels I am disregarding certain words of the prophets, that I am being selectively obedient. My lack of compliance to certain commandments worries him. But if the main purpose of the prophets is to promote faith in Christ, then shouldn't I look to Christ first for guidance? Christ, Himself, said that if we love Him, we should keep His commandments, and what are Christ's commandments? Over and over again, Christ commands us to love God, the source of love and light, and to love our fellow beings. Even if I only focus on the second commandment, I am keeping the first because again, as Christ has said, if I've done it unto the least of my brethren, I've done it unto Him. Loving my fellow beings is loving God.

So what about the other commandments? What about the Ten Commandments, huh? Well, the Ten Commandments were God's way of getting the children of Israel to show love to God and each other. By keeping them from worshiping idols, He was directing them towards the source of love and light. Think about the other "gods" that have been worshiped by other cultures. A majority of them could not be considered sources of love and light. By instructing  Israel's children to refrain from stealing, adultery, coveting, and killing, God was establishing a code of mutual respect and love between people.

In the specific case of adultery, which I have been told would apply to me, there is usually a deep betrayal of trust involved, and great selfishness. I assert that loving, consensual physical relations between two people free from other commitments of exclusivity does not fall in the category of adultery. I might be a fornicator, but I've never cheated on anyone.

Avoiding malice and respecting others is paramount in keeping Christ's commandments. In short, if a prophet issues a commandment that I cannot connect to the two great commandments, I am less concerned about keeping it. I might reconsider that later, but right now, it's where I stand.

Finally, Mosiah 15: 26 - 27 talks about those on whom justice has a claim, those who mercy cannot save. Those that "rebel against [God] and die in their sins," that "have known the commandments of God and would not keep them" have no part in the first resurrection, when the spiritual children of Christ will come forth. (In verse 22 of Mosiah's 15th chapter, Abinadi mentions that those who have believed in the words of the prophets and kept the commandments will come forth in the first resurrection.)

Again, this is a passage of scripture that makes my dad worry for my soul. I don't feel he needs to be concerned as I'm not in any danger. The way I see this passage, Abinadi is talking about those who choose not to love God or their fellow beings. This doesn't apply to me. True, I stumble and make mistakes. I am capable of harmful selfishness, but this is where repentance comes in. Anyone who knows me knows that I would never knowingly hurt someone, and when I am made aware that I have trampled on someone's feelings, I do my best to make it right. Therefore, I am not one of those who is rebelling against God.  

It's been a rough few weeks. In a way, Dad and I have come full circle, from love to fear and back to love. This morning, I feel more love for myself than I have in months, and I have my dad's scriptural enthusiasm to thank. Although it's painful, every time I complete one of these eternal rounds, it helps me in my quest to become all one peace.

Brothers

My dad was born a triplet, though only two of the three survived infancy. From all accounts I've heard of their lives before I came along, they always shared a special bond, as twins often do. It's been deeply moving to watch that bond as Kay comes in to sit with Dad or check on him periodically. Their connection goes beyond brotherhood to something deeper, something more profound than I'll ever likely know. I'm so grateful Dad has had recourse to that source of strength as he's struggled to recover from what his body's been through in the last week.

How does this relate to the theme of this blog? My relationship with my father is elemental to my pieces, and finding peace with him is crucial to being all one peace.

Mirror, Mirror

At the gym today, a guy got onto the machine next to mine while I was in the final few minutes of my workout. Everything about his appearance screamed Peter Priesthood Return-Missionary, from his crisp T-shirt and haircut to the "7-Habits"-type book he had brought with him to read. I finished my workout, went to the cleaning station to get paper towels, and on the way back, caught myself thinking derogatory things about this perfect stranger. I mentally derided his time efficiency. What a show-off! Bringing a book about how to increase his productivity while exerting himself on a machine that climbed to nowhere obviously showed what a stick-up-his-you-know-what, self-righteous, pretentious...and that's when it hit me.

I cleaned my machine in silence, stunned by what I'd just heard myself think. I didn't even know this guy! Where was all this mental bile coming from? It didn't take much self-analysis to realize this guy was the embodiment of what I'd been told I was supposed to be all through my adolescence. In fact, from his appearance, he was what everyone I grew up with assumed I was. I had tried so hard to be this guy and failed miserably...several times. I resented his existence. He was too good to be true. No one was that guy. There was always some hideous flaw hidden under the perfect surface.

And I stopped myself again. Obviously my problem wasn't with this stranger innocently chugging away on his elliptical stair-climber, but with myself. If I truly want to be a happy whole, I thought, there has to be a reckoning and a reconciliation. Self-hatred often manifests itself in hostility to others. What to do?

As it is in most of life's dilemmas, love was and is the answer. I need to love both Peter Priesthood and myself. In fact, taking a page from His book, in loving and serving others, one finds love for ones self. I can address both the symptoms and the disease. The next time I catch myself thinking unkind or outright vicious things about someone else, I can stop and find love in my heart for them. I can find ways to serve that person, if it's merely through courtesy if not something greater. The next time I think derisively about myself, I can stop and find love for myself through service for others and in other ways. It really is that simple.

There is more that could be said here, but this is sufficient for now, as one more small piece of me joins the others in peace.

Ice Chips

The helpless feeling I mentioned in my last post was greatly ameliorated today by the several opportunities I had to feed my dad ice chips and bring him water to sip. It's amazing how much joy I find in being able to carry out the smallest acts of service for him. I'm grateful for the opportunity to give back a little of what Dad has given me.

Stirring the Pot

I had a discussion two days ago with an uncle in the EIRMC surgical waiting room while my dad was undergoing his second surgery in a week. Discussions like these usually cause my internal existential debate to erupt from a low simmer on the back burner of my soul to a rolling boil right at the front of the range. I think it’s an indicator of where my soul is that I’m not more upset. I also think that arching over the experience is the love my uncle was showing by just being there with my mom and me, which made the discussion easier to bear.

It all sprang from a conversation I was having with this uncle, whom I’ll call “Bob” for now, about his younger son, who is my age. “Bob” had decided not to go with this younger son on a motor bike trip up the Big Butte because his back was bothering him, and he didn’t want to take the chance of having it go out while he was in a remote area. This led to the topic of growing older, and my uncle threw out the term “safely dead.” Although it felt like a lure, I decided to take the bait anyway. Of course, to die safely, a phrase used by an LDS prophet, meant to be as obedient to the commandments as you could and repent when you fell short of that ideal, so that when you left this life, you wouldn’t be in danger of exclusion from God’s presence.

I watched him carefully while he said all this, trying to gauge his intent and decide what the best reaction would be. I know he’s not comfortable that I’m gay. “Bob’s” son has told me that he thinks I should be able to overcome being gay, if I even really am, so I was pretty sure this speech was for me. I think he was also gauging my reaction as well. When I didn’t get angry or combative, he went on to tell me that he personally believed that progression continued after this life and that we would be sent where we were most comfortable. He illustrated this by saying that he wasn’t a part of the bar crowd so he isn’t comfortable in their company and they aren’t comfortable in his. It would be the same way in the afterlife: people would keep company with those whom they felt most comfortable with. (This example also felt pointed. I don’t think he knows that I’ve been in a monogamous relationship for the last five months, and that I haven’t been part of the “bar crowd” for years now.) This was his way of telling me he still had some hope for me. It was very backhanded, but I appreciated the compassion he was endeavoring to show.

I don’t think this exchange would have registered with me at all if I wasn’t feeling so powerless at that moment. It was also painfully apparent to me that I couldn’t provide comfort in the way most meaningful to my dad. Because of my status with the LDS church, I can’t give him a blessing or utilize the Priesthood in any way. Feeling like a failure in that way is a constant, wearing thought in my heart. As many steps as I’ve made toward accepting myself for who I am now, the image of who I was supposed to be is still there, goading me and telling me I’ve fallen short.

Life keeps handing me experiences that don’t let me rest much until I truly am all one peace.