HURRICANE is winding down. This blog was an invaluable part of my coming out process. But its moment is passing as I find myself on ever more solid ground as a out gay man. It occupies a space in the blogosphere that corresponds with a space where I no longer live: gay, married and Mormon.
But before I go, I am going to write a series of posts on themes that are important to me at this stage of life: integrating and reconciling the past, covering, and belonging.
I have written on this blog about integration in the way that many gay people talk about it after coming out. Bringing my identity and my sexuality into alignment lifted a dark fog from my mind. Integration is an essential part of the coming out process. But that's not the integration I have in mind now. Over the past few weeks I have intensified a different type of integration process. This one involves reconciling my current self to my past self. Part of that has been forgiving, myself and others, and essential to forgiving is recognizing and celebrating the good things about my old life. With my immediate family, that is easy. My love for my children knows no bounds. My friendship with KK remains strong and an important part of my life, and I value the good things that came as a result of our marriage. Other relationships, such as those with parents and old friends, are also worth holding on to and strenthening, and I am striving to do that. I have struggled more with forgiving other presences from my past. In particular, I have felt anger and bitterness toward the LDS Church. But lately I've found myself forgiving there as well, and remembering the good things that came from my Mormon experience.
HURRICANE is not my first blog. I had another one that I called Outer Boroughs in a nod to my place of residence at the time I was writing on it: Brooklyn. I used it to write about politics and culture and religion and the Mormon experience. After my faith fell apart, I took the blog down. But a few months ago I went back and read some of the posts. I still like many of them. They don't reflect my current reality or my current faith for the most part, but I think they reflect the kind of Mormon I was and they honor the good that Mormonism brought into my life.
So in this, the first part of my HURRICANE benediction, I share a handful of my blog posts from Outer Boroughs that I think capture who I was then, and who I hope in many respects I still am now:
Confession
Civil Breakdown
Convert Soul
Is God a Muskie?
Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spirituality. Show all posts
Friday, March 02, 2007
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
New Perspectives
Last Saturday night, J and I were out with a couple of his friends, one of whom is a faithful and believing Catholic. Talk turned to religion and J, who was raised Mormon, asked her, "So, you believe that the Catholic Church is the one true church?" She looked at him as if he had asked her the question in Lithuanian. Then she looked as though the question had never crossed her mind.
Having spent the last year attending a church where no one is invested in whether or not it's the one and only true one, the question seemed odd to me as well. But I also understood that it made perfect sense, as I have sat through many testimony meetings in my life (not to mention Sunday School lessons, priesthood lessons, and sacrament meetings). Belief that the LDS Church is the only true church is integral for Mormons, and for many of us who were Mormon it is hard not to think about religion in other terms. So it is often surprising to realize that many people of faith and spirituality do not think in those terms at all. For our Catholic friend, her faith was not in a church that she considers to be the only true one or the guardian of ultimate truth. Rather it is a vehicle for cultivating spirituality and compassion.
I know many Mormons who are like this as well, to be sure. Indeed, I think the Mormons with whom I always have always felt most comfortable, both when I was a Mormon and since leaving the church, were those who don't seem particularly invested in the idea of a single true church at all. They practice their faith as though the Mormon Church is a right way rather than the only way. But J wasn't like that and even now in the post-Mormon phase of his life he couldn't really understand why anyone would be committed to a church they didn't think was God's True Church. For him it had always been the Mormon Church or no church. Always, that is, until our friend gave him that puzzled look and talked about her faith with us.
The next morning, J and I went with a group from my church in New Jersey to Sunday services at Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan. J had been to services with me in New Jersey before (reluctantly, though he has since admitted that he liked it more than he wanted to), but he seemed to approach this experience with a new found openness. As he let go of the idea that there is or should be a single way or that churches themselves should proclaim such a thing, he seemed to discover that perhaps there were ways for him to connect to his spirituality that he thought he had rejected--that is, sitting at church on Sunday morning. I think it was a remarkable experience for him.
It reminded me of my first visit to Union Congregational, where I felt a sense of divine love and acceptance and connection that had been sorely lacking in my life to that point. I don't want to toss the baby out with the bath water as I move forward with my life. I'm still much more of a Christian-y agnostic than any kind of true believer, but that does not preclude me from embracing the support and meaning I find in church community and the sprituality I find in the beauty of Christian worship. I also am still deeply moved by the compassion and concern for the downtrodden that I find in the teachings of Jesus. The United Church of Christ, to which my congregation belongs, proclaims that God accepts us all where we are. I can't believe in things I don't believe in--and I am grateful to have found a reason and a place to to worship God in a setting where I'm not expected to.
Having spent the last year attending a church where no one is invested in whether or not it's the one and only true one, the question seemed odd to me as well. But I also understood that it made perfect sense, as I have sat through many testimony meetings in my life (not to mention Sunday School lessons, priesthood lessons, and sacrament meetings). Belief that the LDS Church is the only true church is integral for Mormons, and for many of us who were Mormon it is hard not to think about religion in other terms. So it is often surprising to realize that many people of faith and spirituality do not think in those terms at all. For our Catholic friend, her faith was not in a church that she considers to be the only true one or the guardian of ultimate truth. Rather it is a vehicle for cultivating spirituality and compassion.
I know many Mormons who are like this as well, to be sure. Indeed, I think the Mormons with whom I always have always felt most comfortable, both when I was a Mormon and since leaving the church, were those who don't seem particularly invested in the idea of a single true church at all. They practice their faith as though the Mormon Church is a right way rather than the only way. But J wasn't like that and even now in the post-Mormon phase of his life he couldn't really understand why anyone would be committed to a church they didn't think was God's True Church. For him it had always been the Mormon Church or no church. Always, that is, until our friend gave him that puzzled look and talked about her faith with us.
The next morning, J and I went with a group from my church in New Jersey to Sunday services at Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan. J had been to services with me in New Jersey before (reluctantly, though he has since admitted that he liked it more than he wanted to), but he seemed to approach this experience with a new found openness. As he let go of the idea that there is or should be a single way or that churches themselves should proclaim such a thing, he seemed to discover that perhaps there were ways for him to connect to his spirituality that he thought he had rejected--that is, sitting at church on Sunday morning. I think it was a remarkable experience for him.
It reminded me of my first visit to Union Congregational, where I felt a sense of divine love and acceptance and connection that had been sorely lacking in my life to that point. I don't want to toss the baby out with the bath water as I move forward with my life. I'm still much more of a Christian-y agnostic than any kind of true believer, but that does not preclude me from embracing the support and meaning I find in church community and the sprituality I find in the beauty of Christian worship. I also am still deeply moved by the compassion and concern for the downtrodden that I find in the teachings of Jesus. The United Church of Christ, to which my congregation belongs, proclaims that God accepts us all where we are. I can't believe in things I don't believe in--and I am grateful to have found a reason and a place to to worship God in a setting where I'm not expected to.
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