This post is dedicated to the brave and wonderful people
who allowed me to include their stories as a part of mine. I write this in
hopes that this piece of my journey will help to break down walls rather than
create new ones.
Sex was a
concept I picked it up slowly in elementary school, starting with the words my
friends used, the movies I saw unwittingly at sleepovers of more worldly-wise
friends, and the giggles whenever our fifth grade teacher said “do it.” It was
in the same way that I picked up “gay”—first the language only, from my
friends, usually used as a derogatory term for the boys who pierced their right
ear or the girls whose hand-me-down clothes were a few styles too old. Then,
slowly, that it had something to do with girls kissing girls or boys kissing
boys.
My
parents cornered me in about fifth grade, on a car ride home, and started
telling me about menstruation and the reproductive system. When we arrived home
they were just getting to the juicy part and were going to show me some
diagrams in a book, so I excused myself to use the bathroom. I emerged and my
mom yelled down the hall, “Don’t you want to know how the egg gets fertilized?”
Embarrassed, I told them I was too busy arranging my Celine Dion and Backstreet
Boys cassette tapes.
Later,
when they were out, I snuck the book from their room and devoured it. I learned in depth about sex, masturbation,
pornography, and homosexuality, those fascinatingly forbidden topics. I still
remember the wording: “When a man and a woman are married, they go somewhere by
themselves and start kissing and hugging…” After reading it, I went to bury my
face in my teddy bear.
From the
book, from church, from my community, I drew the implicit assumption that it
was only between a married man and a woman that sex should occur. Implicit is
what it always was; for me there was never an angry sermon about gays
destroying the culture. At summer camp in high school, we had long and deep
discussions about sex and dating and relationships, which did not mention but
certainly assumed that everyone was straight. We now know from Facebook this
was not true.
I
realized my uncle was gay when I was 13, in a sudden burst of insight. My
uncle's partner (his "friend" I thought) mentioned in a card that
they were taking a trip for their anniversary. This was my first encounter with
real live gay people. By the time I got to high school, my straight assumptions
were entrenched enough that I was scared of the high school gay club, LeTsGaB.
Honestly, it was less repulsion and condescension than it was discomfort. I was
nerdy, quiet, and decidedly evangelical, and the gay club seemed to represent a
loud and proud discussion of sexuality I was not ready to have at all. My
church had never told me to hate gays, but it had certainly never told me to
love them.
So in
college, I made mostly evangelical friends, steered clear of yet another gay
club, and mostly tried to ignore the idea. Until senior year.
*
In 2008,
three women came out to me.
Kate was
a college friend. One night she asked me if we could talk. She told me she felt
terrible for not being honest. I had asked what she was doing over the weekend,
and she said she had a training for work. Another day, she told me she was
going into the city to meet some friends from her trip abroad. She was tired of
lying to me. The truth was, she was bi, and dating a woman for the first time.
She wanted to be out, but she was scared to tell some of our other friends for
fear of judgment.
I tried
to listen compassionately. I told her nothing changed about how I felt about
her. But I felt it would be dishonest if I didn’t share my perspective. I asked
her if she had a sense about how this new revelation about her sexuality fit
with her faith. She said she felt pretty good about it. I mumbled something
about how I still wasn’t sure whether or not it was okay to be gay. I told her
that I wanted to be supportive, but I was trying to figure out where I stood.
We
graduated a couple months later. I’ve seen her only twice since then.
A couple
weeks later I arrived at my fourth and final summer as a counselor at a
Christian camp. The whispered conversations of pain and trust and Jesus seem
even more beautiful five years later. The last two weeks, Lana and I were
counselors for Cabin 12, the oldest girls in camp. It was the clearest night of
the summer and Lana and I took the girls up to the soccer field to gaze into
the soul of the universe. I asked everyone to share about their relationship
with God over the past year. Each girl told a story, but Emily didn’t want to
talk.
“You
don’t have to share,” we said, “but this is a safe place.”
She
waffled. “I really don’t have anything to share.”
“Emily,
it’s okay, you can say it.” One of the girls encouraged her, and she continued.
“I mean,
I can’t have a relationship with God.”
I was not
the only one on the field to jump in immediately. “What do you mean? Everyone
can have a relationship with God!”
She took
a deep breath. “I mean, I’m gay.”
That was
not the explanation I was expecting, and I was silenced momentarily. The stars
were bright with beauty. The other sixteen-year-old girls began to respond with
acceptance and love. I was proud of them. I think Emily felt free.
When we
returned to the cabin, Lana and I met on the porch, as we did every night.
There were tears in her eyes as we prayed for the girls.
I sat on
Emily’s bunk and we whispered into the night. She told me when she first knew,
though in a way she had always known. She told me about coming out to her mom
and sister, but not her dad who would be furious. She told me it was hard
coming out to her girlfriends, because some of them started acting weird, like
they were afraid she would be attracted to them.
I prayed
for the Spirit to give me the right words, and the words that came were of
God’s unconditional love.
I woke
the next morning and I knew clearly that my role was simply to show grace. To
let her see she could reconnect with God. To emphasize that the central message
of our faith is God’s surprising, consuming, boundary-breaking love.
Lana and
I went out to the porch for our morning prayer. “I knew exactly what Emily was
going to say as soon as she started,” said Lana. “I knew because I’ve been
there, in that exact conversation. I’ve said those exact words.” She was quiet
for a while as I took in what she was saying. “And the hardest thing is that no
one knows. I couldn’t work here if they knew. And I can’t talk with Emily about
it because I signed a statement of beliefs.”
This time
I just listened.
When it
was time to pray, I prayed, thank you
God for your great love, greater than our love.
____
Part 2 is up! I would love to hear your thoughts.
Please keep comments charitable.
Wow, that is beautiful.
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