Disavowing Family: The LDS Church, Gay Marriage and the Sins of the Fathers

My definition and appreciation of what a family truly is has changed immeasurably since I formally resigned my membership in the LDS Church four years ago. For the better. 

I now enjoy far richer relationships with my children than I ever thought possible when I was an active Mormon. The bonds that we share are not based on rituals and rote teachings but on genuine relationships characterized by unconditional love, acceptance and respect.

Unfortunately, the Mormon Church persists in insisting that was is genuine is artificial and that what is artificial is authentic. Yesterday, news broke that the Church is instituting a new policy that denies its rites and rituals to children of same-sex parents. 

I was immediately reminded of how I felt upon learning that my former stake president had told my daughter, in the middle of a temple recommend interview in advance of her upcoming marriage, that she could love me (even though I am gay), but she could not act on that love by supporting me in any way. In other words, she had been told something similar to what the Church tells gay people: "It's okay that you're gay. But you cannot act upon *it*." And what is "it"? Love.

My children are directly effected by this new policy. Though half of them have already left the LDS Church, our four younger children are still taken to church by their mother, and I have an adult son who remains active in the Church. If that son decides to go on a mission, he will now - in the language of the new policy - need to "specifically disavow the practice of same-gender cohabitation and marriage," and his request to serve will then have to be approved by the First Presidency of the Church. In other words, he will have to denounce me and my husband Mark and will be stigmatized, not because of his own actions, but because of mine. 

In Biblical terms, the sins of the father will be visited upon the children.

The same will be true of my younger children should they remain in the Church and wish in the future to receive what faithful LDS believe are ordinances necessary for salvation.

How sad is it that children be forced to pay the consequences of what the Church deems to be a parent's sin? I am past anger. I am even past disillusionment. I am just sad for what the Church continues to do to families. I am sad that it continues to disavow and turn its back on love. I am sad for my son, and I am sad for the pain that this new policy has already caused my other adult children (and you, too, Nathan). To them I say, carry on in love. Follow your path. Live your truth. Be proud of who you are. I love you.

The Great Canadian American Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is one of those holidays about which I have been ambivalent over the years. When I was quite young, the extended Broom family would gather on that day. Then, my grandpa died, my grandmother moved away and then we moved away. We then had Thanksgiving on our own. The last time was in 1970, for my parents separated the following summer.

After that, Thanksgiving was greatly reduced in importance in our family. My father moved to Ohio, and some Thanksgivings, particularly when I was in college, would find me and my little sister on the road to or from Ohio. And so it continued until my mission.

Presbyterian Church in Fort Langley in continuous use since its construction in 1885

My most memorable Thanksgiving was probably the one I experienced while on my mission in France. It had been arranged that my companion and I would travel from Brest to Rennes. Another couple of elders would travel from L'Orient, another city in Brittany, and we would meet the six sisters from Rennes at the chapel there. 

Fortunately, the sister missionaries would be taking care of most of the meal. I would bring a pumpkin pie, and (fortunately, as it turned out) another elder would bring an apple pie.

A few days before Thanksgiving, one of our "investigators" fell out of a second or third story window in his dodgy apartment in an old part of Brest and died. We were contacted and asked to conduct the "funeral." There were two other mourners - Jacqui's sister and another friend. It was raining. Jacqui was buried in a wooden box. We had witnessed the placement of the body in said box. It was one of the most depressing days of my life to that date. 

The pumpkin pie? I decided I would bring a pumpkin pie, even though there was no such thing as canned pumpkin in France or frozen pie shells or even Crisco shortening. I had found a recipe at a member’s house in Nantes that was based on French ingredients, so I decided to give it a try. I didn’t know at the time that one could make a pie crust from butter – all I had ever been exposed to were Crisco crusts – so I went to a market and bought some lard to make the crust. Then I bought a pumpkin to cook up. It was a disaster.  The crust tasted terrible, the pumpkin filling was all stringy and the spices were weird. Like I said, thank goodness for the apple pie from L'Orient.

Out for a walk

Nathan and Hazel

After I came home from my mission, I got married and moved to Vancouver. I learned that Canadians celebrate their Thanksgiving the second weekend in October because - as someone once quipped in a talk in our student ward in Vancouver - "most Canadians don't have much to be grateful for in late November." 

There were extended family get-togethers for Canadian Thanksgiving - as well as other holidays  - during the ten years we lived in Vancouver. And I was grateful for the opportunities these get-togethers presented for our older children to play with cousins and to experience aunts, uncles, grandparents, great-aunts and -uncles, etc. 

But when it came to American Thanksgiving, there was always an element of artificiality. I worked on Thanksgiving. Yes, we could have a turkey dinner in the evening (thankfulness to my former wife for preparing the meal), we could try to "keep the tradition alive" for my children. But it wasn't the same.

Hazel and her daddy, Cary

And that's the message for this year's Thanksgiving. It isn't the same. But yet it is gloriously wonderful. Two gay dads with our son come to celebrate the holiday in Canada with our daughter, her daughter and her husband. It isn't "traditional" in any way. (But who decides what "tradition" is?) But you know what? We get to cut through the crap and simply enjoy a meal together. So what if the side dishes come from Honey-Baked Ham and Whole Foods? So what if we don't use Great-Aunt Betty's dishes? So what? So what? So what?

Hazel wants her bow back from Papa Mark. He's reluctant to give it up.

Forget the Pilgrims and all that crap. Love is love is love. Thanksgiving merely provides the opportunity to share in that love. To bask in the warmth of authenticity.

It was a beautiful day. The Broom-Koepke-Stewart Great Canadian American Thanksgiving.

Our Daughter's Thanksgiving Tribute to Mark

We have a new tradition in our family. Every Sunday morning on weekends the Quads are with us, we walk a couple of blocks down to Sharon's Diner in Holladay to have breakfast. We know our usual waitress by name, and we are recognize as "regulars." It's so nice for the kids to have that experience - of going somewhere where somebody knows your name and where the waitress already knows what you want to drink and what you usually order.

This past Sunday, our daughter Rachel brought her camera along. She is an extremely talented photographer and videographer, and she produced a video about that morning. Out of the simple, she creates meaning and loveliness. She surprised us yesterday by sending a link to the video she had just completed. With her permission, I want to share it with friends, family and whoever else reads this blog.

This is what Rachel wrote in the email containing the link to the video:

"As you know, the song choice is the hardest. Throughout watching the footage, I couldn't help but think of Mark's diagnosis and the good news you just got on Friday. I realized when I watched the footage that the video captured a simple moment: a family going out for breakfast. But I felt like it was so much more. It captured, I think, the love we all feel for Mark, and the sense of 'family' we get from being around him. Hence why I chose the song, even though not all the lyrics apply to him (you'll see what I mean when you see it)"

Here's the video:

Thank you, Rachel.

I Miss You, Danny

Yesterday would have been my brother Danny's 58th birthday, and how I wish he were here with us still. He died when he was 44 years old in a hospital room in Columbus, Ohio. I can picture it as if it were yesterday, all of his family gathered for a vigil. Up to the very end, he was flirting with the nurses. Laughing as long as he could. But then, things suddenly changed and he was gone within a few hours.

Danny had a gentle heart, a heart that I know would have been accepting of me as I came out - I'm sure he knew I was gay when I was a teenager - but a heart that, so, so tragically, longed for love and acceptance - something that eluded him all his life.

My Dad holding me as a newborn, with Danny (left) and my brother Mike looking on.

Danny in the bedroom I shared with him in our house in Salem, Illinois.  (Note my bed was made.) 

Danny and I were constant companions when we were very young.  He was the very personification of the term “mischievous”: he got me into all sorts of trouble and, like most brothers close in age, we quarreled – and even fought – quite a bit.

Yes, that's me on the bouncy horse.

In our back yard in Salem. I was wearing Dad's old Army helmet. Danny was improvising.

Danny (center), me (right) and my best childhood friend, Chuckie Horseman

As we got older, we sort of came to a fork in the boyhood road, and he turned one way with his group of friends, and I turned the other with my group of friends. That’s the way it is supposed to be, I guess.

Dad took Danny and me to Colorado in the spring of 1973 to pick up our sister Karen from school in Denver.

Danny and me with Grandma Broom around 1973 or so. She was approaching 90 then. He had that incredible blond hair and, damn him, blue eyes. I was just brown/brown.

Dan, though talented athletically, never did very well in school. Unfortunately, he received no end of grief from my mother about this as well as his “antics.” Truth be told, she was cruel to him, something I'm sure she later came to regret, whether in this world or wherever she is right now. As Dan got older, he started to get into more serious trouble, which involved alcohol and then drugs. 

He eventually married (above), but that didn’t last too long. He was an attractive man, and with his big blue eyes – what my fraternity brothers would have jokingly called “bedroom eyes” – and his long eyelashes that he could bat at just the right moments as required, he charmed many women.

Unfortunately, Dan always seemed to pick the wrong kind of girl. To use a common phrase, he looked for love in all the wrong places, inevitably getting hurt after he had been used time and time again. I could see what was happening: he was trying to fill a gigantic hole in his heart that had been created when he was just a boy. He turned to alcohol to fill the void; he turned to drugs; he turned to women and "friends" who took advantage of his giving nature then left him. His hole was never filled, and he died as the direct result of the way he had lived his life, still looking for the love that had eluded him all his life.

He loved my children, his nieces and nephews, and I loved that he was able at times to visit, both in Vancouver and once we moved to Utah.

Dan and me shortly before I left on my mission to France in 1984.

Three generations of Brooms - Dad, Dan and me and my son Adam, in 1990.

Dan with Hannah and Rachel

Danny with Adam, Sarah, Hannah and Rachel in the late 90's

At his funeral, a song was sung by my sister Karen that poignantly reflected the tragedy of Dan’s life.  The words to the song have for years both haunted and inspired me. Inevitably, they made me think of Dan.  The song: “The Rose,” by Bette Midler. Here are the lyrics:

Some say love, it is a river

that drowns the tender reed.

Some say love, it is a razor

that leaves your soul to bleed.

Some say love, it is a hunger,

an endless aching need.

I say love, it is a flower,

and you its only seed.

It's the heart afraid of breaking

that never learns to dance.

It's the dream afraid of waking

that never takes the chance.

It's the one who won't be taken,

who cannot seem to give,

and the soul afraid of dyin'

that never learns to live.

When the night has been too lonely

and the road has been to long,

and you think that love is only

for the lucky and the strong,

just remember in the winter

far beneath the bitter snows

lies the seed that with the sun's love

in the spring becomes the rose.

I'm sorry Dan missed so much of his life. I'm sorry he looked for love in the wrong places. I'm sorry that he wasn't here when I came out, just as Dad and Mom weren't. They all never knew the real me.

But as I think of Dan, I also think of my dad, who never turned his back on Danny. Despite many disappointments, those two shared a sort of love that I think all of us kids knew was somehow special. So I also pay tribute to my dad, a father who has taught - and continues to teach - me much even though he is gone.

This part of this post is for my family. In the closing months of his life, Dan wrote a couple of letters to Dad and Ruth that bring (many) tears to my eyes even now.

"You know," Dan wrote, "I have let you both down so much. Ruth, I want you to know you have been more of a mother to me than the one that brought me into this world. For that, I want to thank you. Dad, you're a father anyone would love to have, and I'm proud to call you my dad ...

"[Dad,] you know it bothers me how much I let you down because, all I tried to do, was to make you proud. Instead I've been a failure. All my life I have always tried to please other people and not myself and ended up helping takers. The end result is that it has cost you. You don't know how much it hurts me to realize what I've done to you and Ruth ... I hope you can forgive me."

Dan, I love you. I'm sure Dad forgives you. He loved you so much. I miss your smile and your love. I so wish you were here now. I wish you could have found the love I now experience. There is so much I'd like to share with you. Peace to you.

Person vs. Product; Ritual vs. Relationship

He was so cute. I was pulling out of my parking spot at the grocery store the other day, and I saw a young father carrying his little boy toward their car.*

“Bye,” I heard in a young clear voice. I turned and saw the little boy waving at me, smiling from ear to ear. “Bye,” he exuberantly called. “Bye!” I smiled and waved back. So cute. My own children have done the same thing – waved at total strangers, pure joy on their face, not realizing that their parents would never dream of doing such a thing.

As I turned and saw the man and his son in my rear view mirror, other thoughts came unbidden into my mind. I thought about this beautiful little boy and the hopes and aspirations of his father for him and I wondered – what if this little boy turns out to be gay? How would his father feel about that?  Would the beautiful exuberance I had just witnessed be someday crushed? Would this boy be rejected by his parents?

These thoughts quickly brought others to mind. Assuming this young father to be LDS, I wondered how this little boy would be raised. I wondered if the boy would be raised to go to Primary, to learn the words to “I Hope They Call Me On a Mission,” and “Army of Helaman”; to be a Cub Scout; to be a worthy deacon; to aspire to someday serve a mission; to be taught to believe that being a faithful Church member who “keeps the commandments” and “follows the prophet” represents the summum bonum of life, i.e., the highest good, the singular and most ultimate end which human beings ought to pursue.

I thought how this boy’s parents might sincerely believe that their job in life is to mold and shape this boy, to groom and prepare him for his mission in life, to – as it were – produce a young man who would fulfill all of their dreams as faithful parents in Zion. I wondered if they might teach him – as I once did with my own children – to pray that Heavenly Father would bless him with an opportunity to serve a mission, to get married in the temple to a noble and true companion and to then raise up his own children in light and truth.

My thoughts then came back to my original question: What if this boy is gay? For that matter, what if he’s not? How would this boy’s imagined life be different if, rather than looking at him as a “product” to be “produced,” he was looked upon by his parents as a unique person who had been brought into their lives to be loved and nurtured? To be discovered rather than molded? Whose individuality, mind, heart and spirit would be allowed to blossom and grow? Who would be valued as a person, rather than a product? Who would be loved for who he is, rather than for what he is?

The summum bonum of a Mormon (or any other) parent: Is it to love unconditionally – as God does – or to teach a child from an early age that acceptance and love is conditional upon obedience and conformity? To put it another way, is it to view their child as a person, or as a product?

On a related point, I also pondered, as I had on many occasions, the rituals in the Mormon Church that purport to "seal" children to their parents. As I contemplated resigning my membership in the LDS Church in August 2011, I wondered what effect my resignation would have on these ordinances. I also felt the bonds of the faith I had always had in the temple, and I felt anxious about "breaking" those bonds.

But then, almost immediately, I realized that I was still giving credence to a belief system in which I had lost faith. How deep the roots had sunk in a system that had taught me that my relationships with my children were dependent on rituals, rather than on strong, true and authentic emotions and experiences!

I pondered how I had bought into this system, which encouraged me to subject my relationship with my children to its demands, that taught me to constantly judge my children and myself, that “ritualized” my relationships with them.

How different things would be, I mused, if my had religion emphasized that what “sealed” me to my children were not rituals in a building, but rather feelings of love and acceptance, of validation and caring, of tenderness and devotion.

I did resign my membership in November 2011. From that point, and ever since, I have vowed to seek to love my children all the more purely, without regard to the goals of any organization, not as means to an eternal end, but for the glorious persons whom they are and for the sheer humanity of doing so.  

* This post is based on two posts that were originally published on my Invictus Pilgrim blog (now closed) in August 2011.

It's About Who We Love

When I came out to my four youngest children over 1-1/2 years ago, I explained that most of the time, men fall in love with women and women fall in love with men. Sometimes, however, men fall in love with other men, and women fall in love with other women. 

I went on to explain that Mark and I are in love with each other, and that sometimes men who love other men are called "gay."  It isn't "wrong," it isn't "weird," it's just different, and a lot of people don't understand it.  Some people, I explained, even think it's wrong or bad - even some people in our own family.  But those people just don't understand.

I could also have added that sometimes when people don’t understand something, they are afraid of it. And sometimes people who should know better prey on that fear and lack of understanding in others to advance their own purposes.

We’ve seen a lot of that going on in Utah of late. There are a lot of people in this state, just like in other states and regions of the country, that have “evolved” on issues relating to homosexuality. They no longer believe that it is a “choice.” And this evolution is crucial, because once people understand that gay people truly are “born this way,” a lot of the other stereotypes, prejudices and just plain ignorant beliefs fall by the wayside. I applaud such persons.

But there are still a lot of people who don’t understand gay people. At all. These people have a fundamentally different view of the reality of gay people than do gay people. Somehow, we have to continue to try to bridge that gap.

It’s about who we love. Most men fall in love with other women. But some fall in love with other men. It’s that simple.

And it is real love. Last Valentine’s Day, I wrote a blog post about what it felt like to me to truly fall in love for the first time in my life after having been married to my former wife for over 20 years. I expressed some of my thoughts and emotions at that time in a journal I would someday give my daughter:

“It was only recently that I discovered what it felt like to be in love, what it felt like to fall in love. And it was and is truly wonderful. Every person should have the opportunity to feel those feelings … to be able to ‘get it’ when they listen to a love song on the radio … to feel the excitement that comes from hearing a beloved’s voice, of merely being in the same room together. Everyone should have the opportunity to experience what it feels like to hold one’s beloved, to experience the emotional, physical and spiritual pleasure that comes from being intimate with one’s beloved … 

“Love is really, in a sense, the essence of what it means to be human … and I have traveled over 50 years to find the exhilarating, revelatory, fulfilling, wonder-ful love that I have found with Mark …”

If Utahns who are happily married in traditional marriages had to face the prospect of their government telling them that their relationship is invalid and could not be legally recognized, I think perhaps there might be greater understanding of what it means to gay Utahns to be treated the way they are by the State of Utah.

This is why I found this concluding paragraph of Judge Robert Shelby’s ruling so powerful and meaningful:

"Rather than protecting or supporting the families of opposite-sex couples, Amendment 3 perpetuates inequality by holding that the families and relationships of same-sex couples are not now, nor ever will be, worthy of recognition ... [T]he Constitution protects the Plaintiffs’ fundamental rights, which include the right to marry and the right to have that marriage recognized by their government. These rights would be meaningless if the Constitution did not also prevent the government from interfering with the intensely personal choices an individual makes when that person decides to make a solemn commitment to another human being. The Constitution therefore protects the choice of one’s partner for all citizens, regardless of their sexual identity [emphasis added]."

It really is about who we love.

Jesus: Of Paris, Desires and Dreams

It had been building for weeks.

I was a Mormon missionary in Paris, France. When I had joined the LDS Church almost two years before, I had truly believed that I could leave my same-sex attractions behind me. I had worked diligently to discipline my mind. I had done everything I was “supposed” to do, and more.

The first four months of my mission were fine, i.e., I experienced no “temptations,” and I had little trouble controlling my thoughts. But then I was transferred to Paris, and temptations seemed to come at me from everywhere. Gorgeous men who attended our English class. Beautiful men on the street. Sensuality that was palpable.  

For the first (and only) time in my life, I was propositioned by a guy – directly, unmistakably, in a store in the heart of Paris. An older male member of the Church befriended me. I knew he was probably gay, but I didn’t care. Another male member, also probably gay, seemed to see right through my mask. 

All of this was extremely unsettling to me. For the first time since joining the Church, I allowed the genie of my repressed sexual orientation to escape from the bottle and allowed myself to contemplate who I really was.  It was exhilarating, but it was also frightening – particularly since I was a missionary.

It was after struggling with these thoughts and emotions that swirled around me for a number of weeks that I had a dream that was unlike any dream I have ever had, then or since.  It was so palpable, so real, so revelatory. I have written about this dream before, but the time has come to write about it again.

I dreamt that I saw a person in a large room filled with people dressed in white.  His presence seemed to tower over the others. I knew it was Jesus. As I made my way to the front of the room, my eyes became locked with His and He beckoned me to come to Him, to take His hand and embrace Him. As soon as I did so, we were transported, just the two of us, to another place, where we sat and talked – I talked, He listened lovingly and patiently - about my fears and joys, the deepest corners of my soul … and my ultimate secret. 

My gaze never left His countenance, and in His beautiful eyes, I saw love such as I had never before felt. In those eyes, I saw no judgment, no guile; only perfect, total understanding. His very countenance radiated such intense purity that I felt as if I would faint from bathing in such exquisite peace and love. In this setting, enveloped in love and light and truth, He told me that it was okay – my “attraction” – and that He loved me just the way I was. And that was the message I woke up with.

Now, one would have thought that this experience would have given me permission to embrace my gay self. But the message of the dream and the message of the Mormon Church regarding homosexuality were completely opposite each other. And I wasn’t strong enough to embrace who I really was.

This dream remained vivid in my mind for the next 25 years. It played a crucial role in the events that catapulted me out of the closet. But it wasn’t until yesterday that I feel I came to see the true significance of the dream. 

The insight came in a flash, seemingly out of nowhere: that dream, from a Jungian perspective (which posits that dreams are vehicles through which our subconscious tries to tell or teach us something), was really ME telling myself that it was okay to be gay. I assumed the personage was Jesus because my subconscious recognized that I viewed him – particularly at that point in my life – as the supreme Validator.

When I shared this with Mark, he provided the rest of the stunning insight. He posited that the love I had felt emanating from “Jesus” was really from my own deep Self, extending love and acceptance to my troubled, anxious self who was trying to do the right thing as a Mormon missionary and a Mormon man who desperately wanted his homosexuality to go away.

In addition, this dream – from this perspective, showed me who I truly am (and, by extension, who each of us is): a person capable of deep (even perfect) love, compassion and knowledge. It dramatically showed me what it means to be Christ-like, to be enlightened, to be full of compassion. Looked at from this perspective, the dream gives me hope that I not only CAN be the personage I saw in the dream, but also inspires faith that I AM the personage in the dream. 

 “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible Gods and Goddesses. To remember that the dullest, and most uninteresting person you can talk to [including oneself] may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship.”

~ C.S. Lewis

Anam Cara: Soul Friend

A week or so ago, I mentioned that I have started reading a wonderful book entitled Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom. The book, written by John O'Donohue, was apparently an international best seller when it was published in 1997, and I was introduced to it through quotations from it in another book I recently read.

According to Wikipedia,

"O'Donohue became a novice at Maynooth, in north County Kildare, at age of 18. Here he earned degrees in English, Philosophy, and Theology at St Patrick's College in County Kildare. He was ordained as Catholic priest in 6 June 1979. O'Donohue moved to Tübingen, Germany in 1986, and completed his dissertation in 1990 on German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel for his PhD in philosophical theology from Eberhard Karls University. In 1990, he returned to Ireland to continue his priestly duties, and began his post-doctoral work on the 13th century mystic, Meister Eckhart.

"O'Donohue's first published work, Anam cara (1997), which means "soul friend" in Gaelic, was an international best-seller and catapulted him into a more public life as an author and much sought-after speaker and teacher, particularly in the United States. O'Donohue left the priesthood in 2000 ... Just two days after his 52nd birthday and two months after the publication of his final complete work, Benedictus: A Book of Blessings, O'Donohue died suddenly in his sleep on 4 January 2008 while on holiday near Avignon, France." 

I have fallen in love with the prose in O'Donohue's book, and I will quote from it in posts from time to time and perhaps add a couple of my own thoughts. Here are some passages that I've recently read.

Love Is The Nature of the Soul

"The soul needs love as urgently as the body needs air. In the warmth of love, the soul can be itself. All the possibilities of your human destiny are asleep in your soul. You are here to realize and honor these possibilities. When love comes in to your life, unrecognized dimensions of your destiny awaken and blossom and grow."

"Sometimes a friendship turns, and the partners fix on each other at their points of mutual negativity. When you meet only at the point of poverty between you, it is as if you give birth to a ghost who would devour every shred of your affection ... Others want to love, to give themselves, but they have no energy. They carry around in their hearts the corpses of past relationships and are addicted to hurt as a confirmation of identity."

The Anam Cara

"In the early Celtic church, a person who acted as a teacher, companion or spiritual guide was called an anam cara. It originally referred to someone to whom you confessed, revealing the hidden intimacies of your life. With the anam cars, you could share your inner-most self, your mind and your heart ... The Celtic understanding did not set limitations of space or time on the soul. There is no cage for the soul. The soul is a divine light that flows into you and into your Other."

"In everyone's life, there is great need for an anam cara, a soul friend. In this love, you are understood as you are without mask or pretension ... Where you are understood, you are at home ..."

"Love is the threshold where divine and human presence ebb and flow into each other."

"A friend is a loved one who awakens your life in order to free the wild possibilities within you."

*****************

"Ireland is a land of many ruins. Ruins are not empty. They are sacred places full of presence ... The life and passion of a person leave an imprint on the ether of a place. Love does not remain within the heart, it flows out to build secret tabernacles in a landscape."

Kindness and the Ego

"In every religion there is love, yet love has no religion."

~ Rumi

I wrote on this subject the other day. The Dalai Lama has said that his religion is kindness. Buddhists speak of “loving kindness.” I have come to see the invitation to kindness as being – among other things - a peaceful yet very effective way of disarming my Ego, and thus progressing to a more enlightened person.

Case in point. Again the other day at the grocery store, I was confronted with situations at which my Ego was practically salivating, e.g., the woman who left her cart right in the middle of the aisle. “What was she thinking?!” my ego says. “How inconsiderate.” “Really?” I asked, do they really have to move that slowly? Do they not realize that there are other people in this store besides them?”

And then, and then, the gentler angel of my nature says something like, “Really? Really, Joseph? Do you really enjoy letting yourself get irritated by thoughtless acts of others? You do realize, don’t you, that they have not come to the store at precisely the same time you decided to grace the place with your presence, just to irritate you?”

Well, that maybe is not the voice of “the gentler angel of my nature,” but it’s pretty spot on.

The gentler voice comes next, full of compassion. “Joseph, you are called to something better than this. Try to work on it, ok? I promise that, if you do, you’ll have marvelous experiences.

I sense very strongly that this voice speaks truth. As I reflected upon that experience at the store while writing in my journal, I wrote, “In kindness is love found and conveyed. It’s a win-win situation. I suspect that one of the reasons I have been and am unkind is because I don’t like – or rather haven’t liked – myself, and my attitude and behavior toward others is a reflection of how I feel about myself. As I practice loving kindness, I can learn to better love myself.”

In this regard, I have started reading a wonderful book by John O’Donohue entitled Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom (Anam Cara is Gaelic for "soul friend"). I’m sure I will have much to say about the treasures of this book as I slowly work my way through it. As it happened, I read the following passages the day after my experience at the grocery store:

“Each person also has an inner face, which is always sensed but never seen. The heart is the inner face of your life. The human journey strives to make this inner face beautiful. It is here that love gathers within you. Love is absolutely vital for a human life. For love alone can awake what is divine within you. In love, you grow and come home to yourself. When you learn to love and let your self be loved, you come home to the hearth of your own spirit. You are warm and sheltered. You are completely at one in the house of your own longing and belonging … You lose the balance of your soul if you do not learn to take care of yourself. You need to be generous to yourself in order to receive the love that surrounds you.”

Moral of the story: practice loving kindness to yourself and to others. It becomes a cycle, a circle that grows in richness and blessings.

One more quote by O’Donohue about love that perfectly describes some of what I have felt since meeting Mark:

“When love awakens in your life, in the night of your heart, it is like the dawn breaking within you. Where before there was anonymity, now there is intimacy; where before there was fear, not there is courage; where before in your life there was awkwardness, now there is a rhythm of grace and gracefulness; where before you used to be jagged, now you are elegant and in rhythm with your self. When love awakens in your life, it is like a rebirth, a new beginning.”

Sigh. Such beautiful prose.

The Luckiest: Of Birthdays and Pumpkin Pies

My birthday - September 28th - two years ago was one of the most depressing days of my life. Mark and I had gone to Portland to visit his family and had left that morning for home. We drove all day, starting near Portland, and ended up in a dumpy motel in Baker City, Oregon. Throughout the day, I kept hoping that I would hear from one of my children; but as the day wore on, my phone never rang, I received no text, and there was no Facebook message or email to wish me a happy birthday.

I didn't think I could have felt any lower when we pulled into Baker that evening, but when I saw our motel room, I felt even worse. That's when I lost it and cried like a baby while Mark held me. Later, we went out for dinner at a restaurant there in Baker, a place where I felt every eye in the place upon us, a gay couple. It was a place that looked like it was frequented by men in cowboy hats. Mark had hoped I would feel better after going for dinner. But it didn't work. As we walked back to the truck, I felt anxious, fearing that  group of men in the restaurant would follow and attack us because we were (and are) gay.

We drove back to the hotel and got ready for bed. It was then that Mark came around the corner from the bathroom, holding a pumpkin pie with lit candles, singing "Happy Birthday" in his best Marilyn Monroe imitation (think of her singing "Happy Birthday, Mr. President" to John F. Kennedy, but she was wearing clothes). By way of explanation, I had told Mark that, for many years, we had celebrated my birthday with a pumpkin pie because we always had cake on my oldest daughter's birthday which was only four days before mine. It was a moment I will never forget as long as I live. His simple act of love and thoughtfulness salved my wounded heart.

Fast forward two years, to yesterday. It was another birthday I will never forget. What a contrast to two years ago! I heard from most of my children, receiving warm expressions of love and wishes for happiness. In particular, I was able to FaceTime with my daughter, Rachel, who is three weeks into a new job working as a nanny on the east coast. In the course of our conversation, she told me that she had published a post on her blog as a birthday present to me. 

I'd like to quote a few parts of that post here, but first I need to explain that Rachel and I hadn't really talked (at Rachel's request) for over two years, until this past June, when a fortuitous conversation arranged by her older sister broke the dam of pain, hurt, mistrust and misunderstanding that had grown up between us. In her post, Rachel wrote:

"Four months ago I spoke with my dad. Not a polite conversation: an honest one. I remember sitting nervously next to my older sister and brother-in-law as my dad came in the room and walked over to me. I reached out and hugged him (to my surprise), and all of that love, disappointment, and anger that I held towards him leaked out of me like water escaping from cupped hands. In that instant all I had for my dad was love; overwhelming love for someone that had mistreated me, confusing me with his new lifestyle he chose when he moved out. It was this indescribable love that I knew was inside of me the entire time, waiting to come out.  

A large part of my heart was unclogged that day. Since then I have grown and opened up more. I am more honest, loving, giving, and kind. I am more open minded and accepting of others’ lifestyles. I still have a long way to go, but I’m on my way. I’m going." 

She went on to write:

"I’m sorry I missed your past two birthdays. I’m sorry I didn’t want to listen to your side of the story and turned you away countless times. I am sorry for locking you out of my life. But I thank God every day that you’re in my life. I thank him for the love that you have for me and the knowledge that I can call you any time and I know you will answer. I thank God that I was able to take a risk and mend things with you back in June, and that you were willing to, too ...  

"Thank you for all those letters you wrote to me, wanting so badly to spend time with me but only getting rejection. I saved every single letter, every email, every note. I treasure them. Thank you for accepting where I’m at right now with your lifestyle and for not forcing it on me ... Thank you for loving me as much as you do."

It was one of the best birthday presents I could have received ... ever.

But the day was not over.

Mark took me out to dinner last night at the Four Seasons Resort here in Maui. There is much I could write of this experience. He had arranged for us to have a special table looking out over the ocean toward the sunset (thus, the two pictures above). We had our salad, then our main course, then it was time to order dessert. We each placed our orders and sat back and enjoyed the scene in front of us. 

Then, it happened. The server brought out two plates of - you guessed it - pumpkin pie. I was so surprised! It turned out that Mark had inquired whether the pastry chef could make a pumpkin pie, and when he was told that was not possible, he did the next best thing, i.e., he went to Safeway, purchased a pie and delivered it to the Four Seasons while he was supposedly at the gym, working out.

This is the kind of man Mark is. I am the luckiest guy in the world. As we walked out of the restaurant that evening, several servers turned to say "Happy Birthday" to me; then as we walked past the receptionist, she, too, said "Happy Birthday" as we passed. It's such a wonderful feeling, to feel special. That was Mark's gift to me. It was such a wonderful evening.

What a contrast to two years ago the day had been. As the song says, "I am the luckiest ..."

Hannah's Post About Our Commitment Ceremony

We arrived a half-hour or so ago at our final hotel in Japan, an inn at a hot springs area far up into the mountains. As we sat down in the lobby of this place that has been here for over 200 years, I opened up my Facebook and saw that my daughter Hannah had sent me a link to her blog post about our commitment ceremony. I am sharing that link here because it made me cry. It is so beautiful ... and I don't think I could express any better what transpired and was felt that evening.

Here's the link.

Thank you, Sweetheart.

Candles for Mark

We met some wonderful people on our cycling trip to Corsica last fall. Among them were Michelle and Malcolm, a couple around our age who are from Washington State but are currently living in Germany. Not that that matters, except it is important for my story - not that they are from Washington but that they are living in Europe.

Michelle, like me, was raised a Catholic. Unlike me, she never felt the need to join the Mormon Church; and her life has been far less complicated as a result. She still struggles, however, in some form or another, with the faith of her youth. And I totally understand that. The faith of our youth holds a special place in our hearts. Like our first love. And as we confront the ugliness and realities of life, even though we know we can't go back to the nursery and believe in the fables of our youth, we still hold a spot of secret comfort in our hearts as we age.

Maybe. 

Anyway, when Michelle heard about Mark's cancer, she embarked on a crusade of sorts. No, that's not the right word. She decided, in her travels around Europe, to light candles in small and large Catholic churches across the continent in remembrance of Mark and the journey he is now on.

How beautiful is that?

Malcolm and Michelle in Corsica

Not that Michelle believes that the Virgin is going to intercede on behalf of Mark. Her offering is far more sacred than that.

I was raised Catholic, like Michelle, but I honestly don't think I've ever lit a candle; though I remember them in front of the statue of the Virgin Mary at a side altar (not the right word), flickering away, in the midst of St. Polycarp's vaulting modernity. Quite a contrast to the churches that Michelle enters on her travels across Europe. And saints were never a big deal to me. And novenas and rosaries and all that other stuff that Catholics are known for.

Which is why I think I connect with what Michelle is doing and think it is so awesomely cool.  (I know I sound a bit like a juvenile, but whatever.) I read on a website that lighting candles is "a way of extending one's prayer and showing solidarity with the person on whose behalf the prayer is offered." To me, it is similar to the thought behind Tibetan prayer flags: the wind catches the flags and releases the prayers, blessing unknown beings throughout the world. 

The difference with a candle is that it is lit as a prayer, as a remembrance, for one specific person. And I think that is even cooler. Not that some saint or even the Virgin is going to reach down and bless Mark - who has a decidedly Lutheran background which I'm not sure the Virgin would entirely approve of. The point is that he is being remembered across the breadth of Europe, or as Michelle put it, from the Chapel of Dachau to the Notre Dame de Paris. 

And what can you do with friends like that except embrace them across the miles and thank them for their offering from the heart. The point is not whether there is actual metaphysical efficacy in such offerings. That doesn't matter. At least not to me, and I suspect to Mark. The point is, that someone on the other side of the globe is thinking of him and is making efforts to go into centuries-old sacred spaces to send a prayer into the universe on behalf of my beloved.

Thank you, Michelle. 

Happy Birthday, Mark

Today is Mark's birthday. He quips that he used to celebrate it until he moved to Utah, when he found out his special day is the same day as Pioneer Day. But we celebrated it anyway. For this is his first birthday since he found out he has inoperable (at this point) prostate cancer.

We went for a bike ride with a friend this morning to the top of Big Mountain. OMG, I thought I was going to die. Well, not really. But pretty close.

We had cycled this a couple of times last summer in preparation for our cycling trip to France. This morning, I was wondering how the hell I had ever been able to ride such iconic Tour de France rides as Alpe d'Huez, Col du Galibier and Mt. Ventoux. 

A picture I took last year as we rode up to Big Mountain.

I guess it was appropriate that we rode this route this morning, it being Pioneer Day and all. Cause this is the route the "pioneers" took into the Salt Lake Valley back in the summer of 1847. 

There's lots I could say about the "pioneers," but I will forebear. Except to say that I can't number the times that it used to drive me crazy to hear people talk about "the Pioneers." Yeah, they were pioneers, but so were my ancestors, only they weren't Mormon. They pioneered places like Plymouth Colony, western Massachusetts, Vermont, the Hudson River Valley, western Virginia and North Carolina, Tennessee, then on to Illinois, which was my nest. 

But we (me and those with whom I came to a certain level of maturity) didn't really think about these people being "pioneers;" nor did we celebrate them in verse and song and effected patriotism. They had just done their thing, just like I was doing mine. And it frankly never occurred to me to celebrate their memory as "pioneers." Cuz we're all doing our thing, right? We're all pioneers in our own lives, because we haven't lived our lives before (or have we?).

But they weren't "Mormon Pioneers."

And, like, I'm digressing.

Today is Mark's 59th birthday. And I love him. We're going to Market Street Grill in Cottonwood Heights tonight to celebrate. Because we are here, and we are in love, and life is good. And what more reason do we need to celebrate?

XXOO

The Best Thing a Father Can Do For His Children

I have often heard and read, in Mormon circles, that the best thing a father can do for his children is to love his mother.* I suppose this saying is probably also used in evangelical and other conservative Christian circles. It is false.

I submit that the best thing a father can do for his children is to love himself. In so doing, he not only provides an example of self-love to his children, but also refrains from using his children as a means of providing the love that he cannot find within himself. (In the same manner, he can also have a much healthier relationship with his spouse – but that topic is beyond the scope of what I’d like to say here.)

I have been working on self-love a lot since I came out 2-1/2 years ago, and I think that one of the reasons I feel (and most of my children agree) that I am a better father now than I have ever been is because I am able to love myself much better. And because I am better able to love myself, I have more pure love to give to my children. I accept them as they are, and I love them for who they are; not because I want them to conform to some ideal that will provide me with a sense of approval from others. Self-love engenders self-respect and independence from the need to look to others for approval, for validation, for love. For when we feel love is our due, we neither respect those from whom we seek love nor ourselves.

When we do not love ourselves, we seek - even demand - love from others; we become subject to the demands of others; our love for others is conditional, because behind that love is always an expectation that the love will be returned. This is especially true in a father’s relationship with his child(ren). Of course, a lot of this may be subconscious, but the effects of it are not. With each passing year, such effects become increasingly visible, though we may not be able to detect the source or cause.

Many people look upon self-love as egoistical and, therefore, bad. The road to true spirituality and true love, they maintain, is through service to others; forgetting oneself; looking outside oneself for some feeling of self-worth that will eventually flow back from a life dedicated to serving others. 

I disagree. Compassion begins with oneself. Love begins with oneself. Even the oft-quoted statement of Jesus as to the second great commandment – to love others as you love yourself – assumes and rests upon loving oneself. 

Recently, I wrote in my journal that I have treated myself as a facilitator for most of my life, finding and seeking love in what I DID, not in who I AM. My feelings of self-worth (let alone self-love) were dependent upon doing things for others. I had no value in and of myself; only through what I did (a way of thinking that goes all the way back to the innocent LDS Primary song, “I Am a Child of God”). This was poignantly and paradoxically best expressed in my Mormon patriarchal blessing**, in which the patriarch stated that I would meet and marry someone in the temple for time and all eternity, “IN ORDER THAT the children which bless your union may be born under the covenant of your Heavenly Father.” If that didn’t label me a facilitator, I don’t know what would.

I have fortunately stopped thinking of myself in those terms. I have stopped looking to others’ judgments for validation. In particular, I have stopped looking to others to validate me as a father. I am getting better at loving myself, and I am getting better at telling myself that I am “worthy” to be the father of my children, despite the opinions of others. I have learned to trust my love for my children and believe that it is “good enough.” And that I don’t have to apologize to anyone for who I am as a person or as a father.

Back to the children. I love them for who they are, not who they are “supposed” to be. I am better able to do this now because I love myself for who I am, not who I am “supposed” to be. I am better able to offer them love because I have it to give, asking nothing in return, hoping that my example might help them to love themselves, not because of what they DO, but for who they ARE.

* This was originally published a few months ago on another blog. From time to time, I will re-publish posts from former blogs of mine that are now closed. I also am gradually moving posts over to this blog from one of my previous blogs, "Joseph's Journeyings."

** In the LDS Church, each stake (group of congregations) has a "patriach" who is recommended for the position by the stake president and confirmed in the position by the general authorities of the church at its headquarters in Salt Lake City. This patriarch gives "blessings" to (generally) teenagers (but also to new converts such as I was) that is believed to consist of inspired direction for that person's life. It is, so far as I am aware, a practice that is unique to the Mormon Church.