I went to church today, July 25, 2010. One of my best friends, Freedom Gulley, is pastor of Progressive Open Door Christian Center here in Houston. It’s what they call an “affirming” or “radically inclusive” ministry (which always strikes me as bitingly redundant, since ministry should be affirming, but I digress). I do not consider myself a Christian….most of the time. I do believe in Jesus Christ and believe he led an exemplary life. I strive more than anything to be Christ-like. On occasion I am led, spiritually, to support Freedom’s ministry as his friend, and to be in the fellowship of Others who are GLBT in a setting where spiritual safety is guaranteed. As a non-Christian, there are still “ouch” moments, since I believe that Christ is one of many paths to God and that most of the people in the world (Christianity not being the dominant world religion) are not going to hell because they sought to live a good, kind, loving life but hold Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, or even agnostic beliefs. In fact, it’s perhaps radical to say that I don’t even believe in hell. We experience our fair share of it here. My take? Why wait for heaven when we can minimize our hell on earth. I believe God is watching those who wait on the Lord vs. those who work in the spirit of the Lord. It fuels my daily good and optimism to think that my rewards are daily blessings from God. I am blessed especially on days like today: money tight, some anxiety around love and relationships, and asking some real tough questions about what I should be doing to carry out God’s will.

Today was Spirit Groove Sunday at PODCC– a rather laid-back, fun, conversational dialogue led and facilitated by Pastor Freedom and, this Sunday (July 25th), Lady Winner A. Laws (Dallas, TX). Tracy “T.K.O.” Kennedy was a guest artist and provided a powerful introduction in song to the compassionate and ever-present love of God. A preacher’s kid, I felt right at home. My earliest memories are of singing “Yes, Jesus loves me” in my dad’s church; until convinced as a boy who felt early attraction to both girls and boys, that Jesus did not. The Jesus I loved with all my heart was dooming me to fire and brimstone for a compulsion I didn’t ask for and that felt as natural and normal as breathing. There began the spiritual suffocation, the spiritual schizophrenia. I sought to be whole.

In the service, asked if we felt that God loved us, I responded with two statements. The first was after relaying that I tried (unsuccessfully) to end my life as a 16 year old in Taylor, Arkansas. I’d done my good share of fasting, praying, tarrying, and self-rebuke. I came to the conclusion that 1. Suicide is a sin. 2. Homosexuality is a sin. And I somehow deduced that God might offer some favor to me for wanting so badly to “do the right thing” that he would cut me some slack on the suicide. More than twenty years later, it’s such crap when I think about it. Not such crap when you consider the teen suicide rates of GLBT youth who often have more courage or a better plan than I did at sixteen. In our Ellen and “How you doin’ gay friendlier reality, those rates are increasing.

My first statement was:
1. I realized that faith is when I trust God enough to believe that those who say I am wrong, are wrong.

God knows me, knows my heart, and I am God’s perfect creation. If there was any sin, it was to ever think otherwise– to work against God’s divine plan to do all the good I have accomplished… and then some, as a living testimony. If there is evidence that I have favor with God, it’s that I am still here: 11 years after one doctor told me I had a year to live because of a “full-blown” AIDS status. My first statement mirrored a second statement, taken from a HAIKU that I wrote in early 2010:

deliverance is
never again debating
that God loves me too

I appreciate the way Lady Winner Laws focused on doing more “listening FOR God instead of praying to God.” It reminds me of my years of practice with Zen Buddhism and the power of meditation and silence. The listening also manifests in our everyday activities– the manifestation of the divine in the seemingly insignificant things. This led to healthy debate about how the Bible is privileged as the Word of God, when Jesus said nothing about homosexuality, when there are more than 350 translations of the Good Book, when it is same-sex acts not same-sex love that is most often abjectified, when it is commonly suggested that God has no respect of person… though one thing is clear in most churches: People do! To the interrogation of Christians who say “you can’t pick and choose which scriptures you adhere to and which ones you don’t” Laws stated it best by noting that there are a whole host of Old Testament laws that most Christians no longer follow: “these ordained ministers are picking and choosing as well.”

I appreciate Tracy Kennedy’s assertion that the Bible is among sources of God’s message– imperfectly relayed through people and devices that are, well-meaning, but not always on-point. As a kid and adult, Logic has always balanced my intuitive and emotional side. Growing up in church, certain things just didn’t make sense. Moreover, certain things just didn’t feel right. It didn’t make sense that we should love our fellowman, just not a fellow, man. It didn’t feel right that “faggots and dykes” would burn forever in hell. Wouldn’t the faggots (burning wood) and dykes (water retainers) find a way to counter balance God’s disciplining and punitive vengeance? Seriously though, my love for God felt good, the fear of God felt scary. Fear became the common tool to motivate righteousness, not love. I can honestly say that I’m happy that my deliverance enables a pursuit of joy, freedom, truth, and love that kick fear’s ass every time. Praise Jesus!

Later in the discussion, I mentioned the term Jihad, as someone more interested in connections between different expressions of faith, as one who honors ancestral connections with the earth as what, to some Christians, be considered idolatry, and as a student of God who is humble enough to believe that there is something worth learning about all religions. Jihad is commonly known as a “holy war”, but I learned in Spring 2009 at a Humboldt State University screening of “Jihad of Love” directed by Parvez Sharma, that Jihad is more essentially about “struggle”. His brilliant film elucidated the courage that many same gender loving Muslims around the world rely on, THROUGH their Muslim faith, to sustain belief that their same-gender-loving is God’s will. I brought it up with reference to my friend Mechell Brown’s Facebook posting last week about some people in her life believing that homosexuality MUST be a struggle, if you believe in and love God. The only struggle I’ve had with my sexuality has been finding and sustaining the right mate (male or female).

In 1989, I struggled with the juggle of 15 or 20 or 25 pills….coke or water…or kool aid… in a shivering strong hand. Point guard on the basketball team. Soon-to-be Mr. Taylor High School. Exemplary student, athlete, youth minister, citizen, researcher, and West Point recruit. Though there have been some stumbles in faith over the years, some varied expressions of that faith, I have not, for one day since surviving 2 hours over a toilet and a suicide note I never got to leave, questioned God’s love for me. The proof is in the blessings I experience daily, often amidst hardships that some would have me believe occur because God is giving a sign that how I am living is wrong. Well, if punishment is reducible to gay people being unhappy and straights being in paradise, I’m on the wrong planet. I know plenty of gay gays and unhappy straights. I guess we bisexuals are in purgatory, huh? Nonsense! The God I serve is simply bigger than that– blankets us all in the experience of oneness with the universe understanding that everything is God. Every thing. At least that’s what I believe. I often feel closest to God when most vulnerable to being, believing, falling in love. I listen… And when it has failed, I don’t blame God, I recognize that God spoke and I ignored the feeling in the gut. I am learning patience now towards the pursuit of the long-term relationship I desire. I know that everything will be just fine.

It was a good service. I returned home, having rushed there on a near empty tank of gas. I ran out of gas (first time ever in life) on the way back and just two blocks from a Texaco. God is good to me. Lady Winner Laws perhaps summed it up best when she said: “don’t confuse disconnect with the church with a disconnect with God. I have never questioned God’s love for me.” And whether or not I get back to PODCC to stubbornly, if affectionately, remind my friend Pastor Freedom that he is loved and cherished, despite our differing beliefs, there is one thing I will never again doubt: God Loves Me Too!