Finding God in a Gay Bar

I have decided to occasionally re-publish some of the posts from my original blog that I started when I made the decision to come out.  The following is one of my favorites.  It was originally published in April 2011.

I have recently had occasion to reflect on why I began blogging and why I continue to blog.

I am not an expert on anything - except my own feelings and experience.   When I began blogging, I decided that this would be a guiding principle for my writing.  As I began my journey out of the closet, I would write about my own life experience, my own feelings, my own thoughts.   In other words, my blog would be very personal. 

I began writing as a means of letting out thoughts and emotions that I had kept bottled up inside of me for most of my life.  There was something very therapeutic about spilling all of this stuff out onto my computer screen.  Whether or not anyone read it was, in a way, irrelevant.

But, amazingly, people started reading my scribblings.  I discovered an online community comprised primarily of “MoHo’s” (a term which I frankly dislike, referring to “Mormon Homosexuals”), and it gradually discovered me.  What had begun as a journaling exercise turned into an interactive experience as people commented on what I had written.  I was thereby able to engage with others to examine my own experiences and learn from others’ insights. 

More importantly, however, I quickly began to feel that I wasn’t alone in what I was going through.  I learned not only that there were others “out there” who had gone through experiences similar to mine, but also that there were others “out there” who cared about what I was passing through.  This support was critical to me in those early days of venturing out of the closet.

Eventually, I started writing about not only my own experiences and feelings, but also about the experiences and feelings of others who had shared these with me, either through comments on my blog or through private correspondence.  In so doing, I tried to remain true to my original guiding principle of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings – without trying to impose judgments or commentary on larger issues. I also tried to give back, in some small way, to a community that had provided such critical support to me at a time when I desperately needed it.

I very quickly came to the realization that a second guiding principle of my writing would be that my blog would be about a journey.  I had and would try to continue to have no preconceived ideas.  I had no idea when I started where the journey would take me.  I still don’t; and that’s ok.

Upon reading the foregoing paragraph, Wes Hempel, a gay non-Mormon artist whom I had struck up a conversation with via email (and whose artwork graces this post), agreed to preview this essay and provide comments.  He wrote:  “I don't know if you know it, but that's as beautiful a definition of "faith" as I've ever seen.”  Not for the first time, I was blown away by the insight of this gentle and insightful man, which caused me to look at myself and my journey in a new light. 

Friends such as he are one of the great blessings that have come into my life since beginning my journey.  He went on to share with me some of his favorite quotes, which I will in turn share with you, each a jewel, each standing like a guidepost, pointing to further light, knowledge and understanding, down the road and over the crest of the hill.  Tomorrow!  How I look forward to greeting you and discovering what you have in store for me!

“It may be when we no longer know what to do,

we have come to our real work,

and that when we no longer know which way to go,

we have begun our real journey.”

~Wendell Berry

“Belief...is the insistence that the truth is what one would...wish it to be....

Faith...is an unreserved opening of the mind to the truth, whatever it may turn out to be.

Faith has no preconceptions; it is a plunge into the unknown.  Belief clings but faith lets go...

faith is the essential virtue of science, and likewise of any religion that is not self-deception.”

~ Alan Watts

(as quoted by Fenton Johnson in Keeping Faith)

“‘When you no longer have any fixed self and are completely open to everything,

that is when you are transformed to an awareness of spontaneous compassion.’”

~ Brother Anthony Distefano in Fenton Johnson’s Keeping Faith

Needless to say, Wendell Berry’s quote resonated deeply with me.  And the two quotations from Fenton Johnson’s Keeping Faith prompted me to add that book to my reading list. 

I wouldn’t have believed, last October, that I would be where I am today; I could not have foreseen it.  But I believe I am where I am because I tried to be open to what life had to offer me each day as I journeyed through it.  I suppose this is what Fenton Johnson might characterize as faith.    

Moving along, I also determined that a third guiding principle of my blog would be a conscious rejection of what I perceive to be a very Mormon tendency to view life as a collection of blacks and whites, of dichotomies of good and bad, desirable and undesirable, jointly exhaustive and mutually exclusive – a tendency, I might add, that tends to follow some people even when they leave the LDS Church.  One goal of my blogging is to deliberately challenge such tendencies and to reject categorization and labeling – of me or of anyone or anything else – and “prescribed” ways of thinking and acting.

Of course, I’m not the only person who has perceived this aspect of Mormon culture.  I absolutely loved the following passage from an e-mail I received from Wes Hempel, who made the following observations about Mormonism: 

“What strikes me is how insular the Mormon religion is and how black and white the thinking.  The belief that the church must be either divine or man-made is a trap many fall into.  Of course it's man-made, but that doesn't mean the sacred isn't there.  One can find God in the Mormon Church (just as one can find God in a gay bar).  It's a combination, that's the beauty of it.  It means, even as a church member, you have to keep seeking, winnowing.  You have to stay alert.  Religion becomes its own opposite when authorities claim they've the answers and then set themselves up as God's arbiters.”

Obviously, I borrowed Wes’ phrase as part of the title of this post. I did so because it so aptly described what part of my journey is about, i.e., not having preconceived notions about where I might find “truth” or what it might look like when it’s “found” or how it might be collected, labeled, categorized, collated and synthesized.  As Wes wrote in another e-mail (he’s an amazing writer as well as a gifted artist): 

“The most important truths resist conceptualization.  But where truth is elusive, it's also malleable.  It's shaped by creative and innovative inquiry, and it slips through the fingers of those who try to grasp it.  Part of the problem is language, of course, which works metaphorically.  If there were a direct correspondence between words and the things they signify, we wouldn't need writers.  Those in authority like to believe they own the truth.  But its best champions are the wordsmiths.”

I also decided I would not engage in polemics.  That well-known savant, Wikipedia, defines polemic as follows:  A polemic is a form of dispute, wherein the main efforts of the disputing parties are aimed at establishing the superiority of their own points of view regarding an issue. Along with debate, polemic is one of the more common forms of dispute. Similar to debate, it is constrained by a definite thesis which serves as the subject of controversy. However, unlike debate, which may seek common ground between two parties, a polemic is intended to establish the supremacy of a single point of view by refuting an opposing point of view.

Again, unfortunately, the tendency to engage in polemics seems to be prevalent in the Mormon culture and persona – even (again) among those who have left the LDS Church.  I, however, am simply not interested in arguing with anyone or trying to prove a point on the pages of my blog (or on other blogs, for that matter).  There are plenty of other blogs that have these attributes.  Rather, I wanted my blog to be experiential, anecdotal and, hopefully, authentic.  

Earlier this year, one of the highest compliments my blog has ever received was expressed by a private correspondent in these words:  “Rather than an antagonist dismantling, your postings talking honestly about your own experiences provide readers something like a vicarious therapeutic experience.  Along with the concrete help the blog offers, readers can imagine, just by reading of your own experience, different possibilities for their own.  It's courageous and, I think, deeply spiritual work.”

These comments set a “bar” for me.  I had begun blogging as a means of expressing my own thoughts and feelings, as a means of self-medicated therapy if you will.  During the ensuing months, however, it gradually become apparent that what I was writing was resonating to some degree with others.  So I determined to try to live up to what my correspondent had so generously written about my blog. 

This I have tried to do, but there have still been times of discouragement. It seems like at each such time, I have received a message of encouragement from one of my readers, such as this one I received just this past weekend:  “Thank you for your openness! Thank you for writing what so many feel inside … Your writing is not a rant. It's not hurtful. It is open, honest, authentic and oh so true.” 

This is my goal.  This is why I blog.