Blog vs Rant

This is supposed to be a blog, but today suffice it to say it is also a bit of a rant. Is it me or does it seem like the divide and discourse in this country and our community is as bad as it has ever been?

I know it is an election year, but this divide has been getting steadily worse since the beginning of the POTUS term and with every step forward the LGBTQIA makes.

The mess going on in Washington...and the awful things they are saying about and to each other, the news media behaving like vultures and people maneuvering for positions to be called a hero.

We watch with embarrassment the political fighting which stands in the way of making sure the folks of our country are protected, secure and safe...did you know our country has not had an official budget for 3 years!

How either of the leaders from the US House or Senate can stand in front of cameras and speak with any kind of authority is beyond me…the approval rating in congress in at 9% the last I looked.

The leaders from the religious right pretend to be good and loving and kind Christian folk, yet when one tries to work with them to find common ground one quickly finds there is no such thing.

If one does not accept their brand of theology it gets pretty ugly quick!

Of course in our own LGBTQIA community all one needs to do is look southwest of North Avenue or walk down Ponce de Leon and the divides in our community are evident. Funny it is not much different from other leadership, because our leadership has done precious little to make the divides less divisive.

Of course it is not all on the leadership of our community, cause folks, y’all ain’t to excited about changing things either.

So last night I came across these words; I have read these words many times before but last night they sort of stopped me in my thoughts:

"If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don't push your way to the front; don't sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand." (Philippians 2:1-13 (The Message))

Now regardless if one is a Christian or not...it seems to me this is a formula for working through most of our challenges...a way of peace, a way of strength, a way of walking the talk. A way in which everyone could walk away saying they had a hand in working through the challenge. I am sitting at my desk wondering if this country and it's leadership have become so jaded and drunk with power, they have forgotten the basic tenet of our country which says, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all... are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among the people, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it..." 

There are those who say this election is the most critical in our Country’s history. What we are watching and experiencing is something we have known for a long time...the politicians do not really care if you or I can pay the mortgage or rent.

They do not really care if you or I have gas. HIV only matters if a large block of voters suddenly die or there is oil in the country affected by the disease.

No, the only thing at stake is their position of power, money and comfort, and they would sell their own mother if they thought it would keep them in power.

The behavior in Washington and big business over these last months proves that all those "so-called Christians" have forgotten a key to their faith... "Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand."

So I write this to say; Shame on you Mr. President for playing the game, you were supposed to be different.

Shame on you Mr. or Mrs. Congressperson as none of you would know a compromise if it slapped you in the face.

Shame on you Mr. or Mrs. Senator, for acting like you are all that when people back home are laughing at you.

Shame on you State of Georgia, for being a bastion of hostility towards anything that is not the republican brand or in agreement with your particular set of religious beliefs.

Shame on you the conservative political right and the religious right for constantly beating us over the head with your brand of morals and practice of faith, telling everyone how to think and what the bible says.

Shame on you the liberal political and religious left for acting as if the other side is the spawn of Satan.

Shame on all those big CEO's and big business people who forgot why they were in business to begin with,"...that all... are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Shame on the LGBTQIA community for crying about how mistreated we are but doing very little to get past what divides us, we can and must do better!

Damn it folks, read this passage one more time:

"If you've gotten anything at all out of following Christ, if his love has made any difference in your life, if being in a community of the Spirit means anything to you, if you have a heart, if you care— then do me a favor: Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don't push your way to the front; don't sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand." (Philippians 2:1-13 (The Message))

Those in the know say the people are restless and angry…you think?

This is not the writing of an old tired bitter queen.

This is a wake up call. Things will only get better when we each take on the reality of those afore mentioned words.

Things will get better when we stop behaving like a bunch of children on the school playground.

OK, my rant is done…I have looked at the words again…I will endeavor to keep them in the forefront of my mind and actions. The question is: Will you join me?

“You Are God’s Child and You Are Not a Mistake!”

My Mentor of blog writing says one should never repeat a blog, but in view of some of the emails we received from young people this week at the church, I really feel a need to give this witness again.

The pain and anguish expressed in some of the messages give me pause and the recognition that despite vast improvement for our community, it is still devastatingly hard to grow up gay.

When I was a 13, during the month of January 1968 I wrote a paper for my 8th grade English class on why Dr. Martin Luther King was my hero. No big deal, except I was a white kid in an all white school.

As anyone who reads my blog with any regularity will tell you my grammar is awful and so it was no surprise I got an A for content but a D for grammar. With that paper my life became complicated. I was now known as a n***** lover.

There was no end to the jokes and nasty notes left at my locker or in my schoolbooks. It should also be noted at about the same time I had gone through a sudden growth spurt. So by the time the school year had ended I was 5’9” and 120 pounds.

I was kind of geeky looking to say the least.

At the same time I was part of a family who included a father who had a very strict definition of what it was to be a “man” and a mother who insisted on me having “school clothes” and “play clothes”. What was the problem with this? Nothing except when I went to school I was dressed in a freshly ironed shirt, a pair of dress pants and polished shoes, and a Princeton haircut.

Dressed this way amongst kids in blue jeans, tennis shoes and long hair I stood out as not being particularly “manly”.

For the record it should also noted at the age of 9 I had figured out that I was not same as everyone else when it came to issues of sexuality. I had more than a passing interest in men.

I couldn't understand why I felt about men the same way other guys were feeling about girls. My grandparents at this time had a foster child who was 14 and would later become their adopted son, my step uncle. Starting at the age of 10 while visiting my grandparents I would sleep in my step uncles room. I woke up one night and caught him masturbating.

Long story short I figured out in that time I was a homosexual. This probably would not have been a bad thing except for my step uncle taking advantage of my curiosity and literally raping me until I was 13 and he left for the army.

At one point he took me to a place no young person should ever have to go physically. The whole time he did this to me, he told me I was nothing but a fagot and if I ever told anyone I would be thrown out of the family for being a queer. I threw out bloody underwear that summer out fear of being found out.

There was no one to tell and no place to go for support or to get help. The only positive thing to come out of this experience was that I learned I would never make a person do something sexually they did not want to do.

So now let us fast forward back to the end of 8th grade school year. A friend of mine showed up to my house one day with some of his father’s naked girl magazines and a jar of Vaseline. We experimented that day. Compared to what I had already been through this was great and I had my first official crush.

That is until he told his friends.

The bullies came out in mass numbers. Much like how vultures circle prey which is about to die. Now, I was a marked kid…called a homo, fagot, pushed into lockers and cornered in the locker room. I was followed home with kids calling me names. Eggs were thrown at our house. We would get phone calls at our house asking for me because they wanted a blowjob. This went on the entire 4 years of high school almost daily. So my days in high school were spent in complete torment and fear that in the end no matter what I wanted to do or did I was a loser.

I was a n***** lover and a fag. Those days of high school were hard for me. There was no place to go for support or understanding of what I was feeling, who I was or any kind of acceptance. To many I was just at minimum weird and at worst a pervert. I later found out that my struggles and experiences caused untold grief for my family and especially my sister.

Ironic isn’t it, my sister was bullied because of her brother. While most sisters get to look up to their older brothers, mine probably spent most of her high school days wishing I never existed.

Those times made it difficult for my friends too. For the mention of my name brought laughter and jokes. I have often wished there could have been a different way, a better way. So why am I sharing this tonight?

Because the statistics around “bullying” are mind boggling. Very little has done to stop it or to provide support when bullying has happen.

Bullying Statistics, which is Home - Info on Preventing Bullying, Harassment, Violence , Online Bullying, and School Bullies gives the following information.

In recent years, a series of bullying-related suicides in the US and across the globe have drawn attention to the connection between bullying and suicide. Though too many adults still see bullying as "just part of being a kid," it is a serious problem that leads to many negative effects for victims, including suicide. Many people may not realize that there is also a link between being a bully and committing suicide.

The statistics on bullying and suicide are alarming:

Suicide is the third leading cause of death among young people, resulting in about 4,400 deaths per year, according to the CDC. For every suicide among young people, there are at least 100 suicide attempts. Over 14 percent of high school students have considered suicide, and almost 7 percent have attempted it.

Bully victims are between 2 to 9 times more likely to consider suicide than non-victims, according to studies by Yale University

A study in Britain found that at least half of suicides among young people are related to bullying

10 to 14 year old girls may be at even higher risk for suicide, according to the study above

According to statistics reported by ABC News, nearly 30 percent of students are either bullies or victims of bullying, and 160,000 kids stay home from school every day because of fear of bullying

Bully-related suicide can be connected to any type of bullying, including physical bullying, emotional bullying, cyberbullying, and sexting, or circulating suggestive or nude photos or messages about a person.

My heart is yet again broken by society’s inability to support the diversity of creation, to see the beauty of that diversity and to understand our real strength comes in that diversity.

How did I get through it? I really don’t know. I do not see myself as particularly strong or smart. I do know what it is to feel totally alone, unsupported and mocked.

Funny even today I can still feel that way. Maybe I got through this and lived to tell about because when I was at my lowest there was a United Methodist Pastor by the name of Rev. George Groh, who when he heard I was in trouble and seriously in the process of putting a bullet into my head dropped what he was doing and came to me. 20 miles he drove at 7 in the morning.

He came to me and in the midst of my hurt, anger and isolation held me in his arms and cried with me and in the end assured me I was God’s child and I was no mistake. As he held me, he listened to all my shortcomings and confessions. He cried as he listened to my entire story of the rape. He shared in my anger as I tell him of the days of high school. He held me tighter as I cried about being a failure to God and my family and again through his tears assured me I was God’s child and I was no mistake.

Then he pulls out his little pocket bible and reads to me the 22nd Psalm, the whole Psalm not just the part we hear read on Good Friday in church:

So, this is why I wrote this and now share again. To stand witness for our young people and say to them you can get through this.

To say to them you are not alone and the bullies are just that, bullies.

They pick on you because they can’t be honest and content with themselves.

I write this in the hope a message will go out loudly and clearly from other pastors and spiritual leaders who will walk the path of the Reverend George Groh, and hold these kids and look them in the eye and say to them; “You are God’s child and you are not a mistake!”

I write this because despite how it might feel right now, “tomorrow will be better”, I know because I have been there.