Lately my soul has been troubled when I'm at my local church, and it's been a struggle for me to decipher the murmurs and cries of my heart to find the root of the problem. I feel a bittersweet isolation from the congregation I'm in: far enough away that I can guard my heart from those who would harm it, but close enough that I catch a glimpse of the fulfilling relationships achieved through true participation, sometimes even brushing that line myself, which itself brings a different kind of pain. This past Sunday I felt so uncomfortable that I had to leave before the service began, and I started to wonder why I bother going in the first place. I was at a loss to explain why the sadness in my soul felt so overwhelming.
Tonight I started reading Andrew Marin's excellent book Love Is An Orientation and as I read the first chapter the words began to shed light on what I'm feeling. According to Marin, there are nine fears about conservative Evangelical Christians which cause a disconnect between LGBTQ communities and the church:
1) how can I possibly relate to Christians in a church setting?
2) will Christians always look at me as just gay?
3) will I be able to be like everyone else in church activities and groups?
4) do they think that homosexuality is a special sin?
5) do they believe that I chose to be like this?
6) do they think that I'm going to hit on them?
7) do they think that I'm going to abuse their children?
8) are they scared that I'm going to infect them with an STD or HIV/AIDS?
9) when will I be rejected and kicked out?
A few of these struck the right chord across the strings of my heart and the resulting resonance allowed me to hear my thoughts more clearly than I have in the past few weeks. The second fear pervades my interactions with those around me. My initial departure from the church I have spent my entire life at was both sudden and surprising, and the details were hardly a secret to anyone in the congregation. Now that I have returned, much like the prodigal son of Christ's parable, my stomach turns with every single hello. The voice in my head (quite likely the Enemy) asks "are they greeting the Colin they've always known or some homosexual pariah with no personality?" I give a shaky smile to those around me, and in the off chance that someone engages me in a conversation longer than a couple of sentences I spend the entire time trying to understand what they're saying over the blood pulsing in my ears. The faster these encounters end, the better.
The sixth and seventh are the reason I try to avoid all interaction with former students of mine, whether I taught them at daycare or in Sunday School. I think "well they must have fired me for some reason, probably because they think that gay people can't be trusted around the youth," and parents have to force me to acknowledge their child even though he or she is most likely a teen or college student by now. Don't get me wrong, I desperately want to see how they've grown both physically and spiritually so I can give praise to God for guarding them all these years, but the ninth fear is what gives power to the previous two. I'm worried that if someone believes six and seven, and if I'm seen interacting with any of the students whom I cared for like my own children, I'll end up being asked to leave and face yet another rejection. My heart feels to frail to handle another rejection like that, my faith not yet strong enough to recover from further harm.
At this point I'm going to step back to February when I was still working with Freedom Indiana in an effort to halt the bill known as HJR-3, a constitutional amendent that would have prohibited civil unions, commonlaw marriages, same-sex marriages, and anything that does not fall under the traditional definition of a Christian religious union between one man and one woman, or as we refer to it in the vernacular "marriage." I was a bit of an unexpected ally because although I opposed the bill as it pertains to government, I still maintained a fierce defense of the church's right to only perform those unions that its congregation feels are Godly. This opinion put me at odds with some of my fellow "activists," and at one point I received the following correspondence from a pen pal (does that term apply to Facebook???) in Belgium:
Dear Colin,
The reason why I contact you is because it's been almost 10 months I follow you on Facebook and I'm fascinated by your activism for our cause: equal rights! (I myself try to play a role, in the community as well as in public opinion and politics on a regional (for U.S., small scale) proportion). :-)) I have a personal question for you ( it's without judgement and is certainly not meant to offend you!! You're a great person in my opinion!!): how can you believe in God when you now what happened and still happens to all of our brothers and sister around the world? How can you still have faith? Take care :)) Tim.
(Sorry, last "now" =know)
To which I replied:
Tim,
Thanks for the encouragement, I can't believe you noticed what I do! To answer your question, it is very hard for me to see what happens to people around the world for something they can't change or choose :/ It hurts me to watch brothers and sisters in the church as they harm others, and I always stand up against it in my local church. I didn't go to church for years and I didn't pray either but I wasn't able to stop believing, I don't know how to do that. Something in my stomach tells me that God doesn't want this even though he allows people to do awful things and make bad choices. So I go to my church and try to have the same privileges in church as everyone else, and to make things better for other people like me. I don't know if that's a good answer or not, I'm sorry! Colin.
Jump forward to where we are today, as I was in the midst of puzzling over Marn's words and realizing how they had given substance to the voiceless thoughts in my heart. Feeling troubled and on the verge of tears I did what any other twentysomething does when they want to avoid feelings which might never be resolved: I logged in to Facebook and started scrolling through my feed to live vicariously through the (hopefully better) lives of my "friends." In less than a minute I came across numerous condolences that mention Tim; he committed suicide a few days ago.
Now, I'm not going to twist this into anything that isn't expressly communicated in the message Tim sent to me. I can't say it was a cry for help, or a desperate attempt to catch the God who was slipping from his grasp; by all appearances this was a question posed without any ulterior motives, and one that many LGBTQ people have. Still, my thoughts went back to it the moment I read of his death. What I realized tonight is that two answers to my biggest question (which happens to be the title of this note, for those of you lost after my ramblings) are in my response to Tim. The first and most basic answer is simply that even without God, I don't truly know how to "be" without God. Something never felt right, a part of me was never whole as it had been in the past. The second answer came from reading those messages tonight, and realizing that "I don't know if that's a good answer or not, I'm sorry" isn't sufficient. I need the interactions and knowledge I gain from going to church so that the next time someone asks me that question I can respond with "let me tell you how all these experiences have shown God's hand at work in our lives and proven to me that I have no true life without Him in it."
