(Not So) Straight from the Seminary

Over at my personal blog, I recently wrote offering advice to future cohorts of my peers.  During my writing, I found myself wanting to offer my experiences to the few, if any, of you who identify as a sexual minority who plan on obtaining theological education. I can only hope that there is at least one of you who plans on doing so at Duke Divinity, and at the same time don’t wish that sort of stress and struggle upon any of you. Yet, I also know that I, at least, have found the struggle to be incredibly fruitful, so I do wish it on you in a way.

Rather than babble on about whether or not I am wishing such an experience on you, here is some advice, based on my own experience, to those of you who do choose to partake in such an…experience.

This supposed ‘advice’ is going to be more obfuscated than the previous one. Life, on a whole, is complicated, and doesn’t lend itself to clean lines and neat packages. Life for a lesbian (or gay man, or bisexual, or [insert your situation here]) is even more complicated at times, especially when those times include theological education for training pastors, in the South, affiliated with a denomination that does not ordain gay pastors…. you get my drift.

That being said, I don’t even know where to start. And I’m already halfway down the page.
Perhaps I will start by explaining what served as my impetus for coming to Duke Divinity School. Why, the astute (hell, even the daft) reader may ask, did you come here then? And this is even before I release the fact that I also got into Yale and Vanderbilt, both of which are known to be much more liberal, and both of which offered me MUCH more money in the way of scholarships. Yet, here I reside, at Duke Divinity.

I blame all this on a man named Sanford Groff.

Let me back up and explain.

It was spring of 2007, and I was pretty set on going to Vanderbilt Divinity School. I had been offered a full scholarship, the school was known on being very liberal and accepting, and they had a fantastic certificate program in Gender, Sexuality, and Theology. But, I didn’t want to commit before I looked at all the schools on my list. Plus, I was currently on Equality Ride, and the idea of stealing time away by myself for a few days sounded like heaven. So, post-Patrick Henry protest, I got a nice community supporter to take me to the nearest car rental place and went on my way to Duke University. I remember the drive being breathtaking. It was likely because I was driving and alone, as opposed to sitting on a bus with 25 other queers, but nonetheless. Every time I think about that drive, I remember the colors of the trees. I keep thinking that I was amazed by the vastness of the fall colors (in California, all the trees are green, all the time), but that can’t be right, cause it was in April. (I still can’t figure out why or where that image is in my head from.) So, I am already thinking favorably towards this school.

After a much needed drive, I arrived at the Millennium Hotel, which Duke had paid for. A long, beautiful drive of solitude followed by a soak in a hot tub and a bedroom to myself—it’s like the cow being primed and fattened up before it is led to slaughter.

After a long night sleep, I arrive on the Duke campus, and it’s beautiful. And the divinity school is right next to the gorgeous, historical Duke Chapel. And there are tulips planted everywhere. Tulips! Its as if the Duke powers-that-be are already sprinkling on seasoning before the cow becomes a hamburger.

During the quintessential tour of the Divinity school campus, I happened to browse the events listed on a corkboard up next to the mailroom. One of the event flyers I saw advertised a “brown bag lunch” on homosexuality and Scripture. Hmmmm, I thought. I have these conversations every day for Soulforce, so you think I would want to avoid them on my short-lived hiatus. Nope. It sounded like fun. Part of it was that I was excited to see how much better a school like Duke would do at these conversations. And, if this was a school I was seriously considering, this was the type of thing I would be involved in, so why not start early?

Well, to make a very long story only a little less long, I left that brown bag lunch thinking that there was no way in hell I would willingly enroll in Duke Divinity School (so much for being primed). The conversation reminded me of the conversations I had been having all along on Equality Ride, at schools where Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham were popular, where you could major in apologetics and creationism, where you could be kicked out for being gay. I was appalled that students at Duke were comparable in their viewpoints.

The one positive part of the lunch meeting was this guy who was there. He was the one guy at the meeting who was gay, and supportive of gay people (you’d think those two go together, but not necessarily!). I felt sort of bad for the guy, and what he seemed up against, but I was also sort of inspired/encouraged by him.

I left the meeting quickly, too emotionally drained to even try to have conversations with these people, so I ran up back to the admissions office just in time for a financial aid meeting where they reminded me that they didn’t have a lot of money to give me. Yaaaaay Duke!

Unfortunately for me, when I left that meeting, ready to sneak off early from the rest of the days activities and go make better use of that hot tub before I had to head back to the big gay bus, this tall gay man who solely spoke so eloquently at lunch was waiting to talk to me in the admissions office. I said very little during the meeting, but, as a visiting student, I was naturally asked where I was from and what I was doing.

This tall gay man introduced himself as Sanford and asked if he could take me to coffee to talk. I, of course, obliged, partly because I was intrigued, partly because I thought it would be helpful for my Equality Ride experience to hear his story, and partly because I knew he would pay for the coffee—and who can deny a free mocha latte and biscotti?

We headed over to the Perkins coffee shop, a place I have come to know and love despite the memories of that fateful day, and got to talking.

This Sanford didn’t mess around. He took a few minutes to ask about me—what other schools I was looking at, where I was from, what I was up to with Equality Ride… But as soon as I finished the biscotti, he went into business mode.

“So, I think you should come to Duke” he said. If I were still eating the biscotti, I probably would have choked on it. That was nice of him to wait until I was done to spring this idea on me. I glanced at him warily, which he took as a sign to continue talking, probably wanting to not give me a chance to reject his suggestion.

He started off telling me about all the good things at Duke. The gender, theology, and ministry certificate program, the women’s center, Mary McClintock Fulkerson. I knew all these things, I pointed out, which was why I even considered it in the first place. Yet, Vanderbilt had these things, and they were much more gay friendly.

“Yes, “Sanford said. “I’ll give you that…. But…. You’d get bored at a place like Vanderbilt. You’re a fighter.”

Damnit. The man had a point.

All my life, I have been fighting against the mainstream (ok, so, in junior high and high school, that meant protesting abortion and fighting for the bible to be taught in public schools…. But it was still fighting…) I mean, I went to Wheaton for a semester! And as Sanford explained why Duke would be a good choice, I found myself thinking, Duke cant be as bad as Wheaton, and I managed that  (albeit, only for a semester, but I didn’t think of that at that point). Then Sanford pointed out, Duke Divinity needed people like me, like us. Not because we are fantastic people (though, we are) but, because of the need for diversity and lack of it.

He had me. It wasn’t an ego thing, at least I don’t think it was. I often err on the side of being hard on myself. There was certainly some level of masochism involved—there had to be. And, I was a fighter. Why go where things are going to be peachy and you can just blend in and live comfortably? I’m not one who does apathy well.

And people at Duke Divinity needed (still need) some help in the department of learning how to interact with LGBT people. Let me explain the different ‘categories’ I have experienced this year. I’ll use this as a springboard to give some advice to incoming gay students, and will hopefully do less blathering on about myself.

Categorical Types of Divinity School Responses to the Gays:

The Straight Ally. On one hand, there are the people who are genuinely supportive of the gays, and want to be supportive the best way they can. These are the people who have been of most comfort to me at Duke, but there has still been some teaching. Albeit, some are better then others—usually, those that have a gay family member or friend.  These individuals mostly just listen, and then become indignant with you on how a ‘school like Duke can be such a awful place at times for the homosexuals.’ These are the liberal, progressive-minded people who are incredibly supportive—sometimes they just don’t know how to be it. Future gays of Duke Divinity, get to know these people. They may think the word ‘queer’ is offensive, and ‘homosexual’ is not, but they’re learning—just as you are. You just have more at stake, and therefore have likely learned much faster, but you too thought queer was an offensive word at one point, and once believed that all gay men loved fashion and all lesbians didn’t. Be patient. They are trying hard, they just often don’t get what you’re dealing with. Try to help them ‘get it’ just a little bit more. Be honest with them, be patient with them, and be grateful for them.

The Hater. On the other extreme, you’ll have the assholes who really do mean you ill will and are trying to do you harm. You likely wont come across such overt hatred at Divinity School, but, if your at Duke (read: in the South), you’ll likely run into it somewhere—be it upon exiting a gay bar, attending a Pride event, or walking down a street with a significant other. Dealing with these people is simple. Don’t try to get them to change (you don’t want them to do that to you, and it wont work), be careful, and avoid them as much as possible.

The trickiest people to deal with are all the people in the middle, the people falling into the vast middle of the curve. There are a lot of variations within this broad category, I would just like to point out a few significant ones—the Apathetic Progressives, Those that Think They are Progressive but Really Aren’t, the Moderates type 1, the Moderates type 2, and the Sympathetic conservatives.

The Apathetic Progressives. These people are everywhere. This group is similar to the allies, but less diligent and thoughtful. I’m not even sure what to say about this group. It’s a mixed bag—on one hand, this is the makeup of most of my friends here at Duke, and I am grateful for them, and for their tolerance. These people are not the direct cause of any of the pain I’ve experienced. But, they have certainly contributed to my sense of isolation after I get frustrated or have a painful experience. This, in a way, makes these people the most frustrating. Be prepared for a lot of these people in your lives—make sure you have at least a few friends in the ally category. I always struggle with whether I should try to lower their levels of apathy by sharing my experiences, or, if it wont work, and I’ll I’m doing is rambling/talking about the same thing again, and contributing to my own isolation by doing so. It’s a sort of loose-loose battle in these situations.

Those that Think They are Progressive but Really Aren’t. Oh man (or woman). This is quite the group to deal with—the people who are much more prejudiced then they think themselves to be. When I think of this group, I think of people like Sally* (names are changed to protect all parties). Sally learned at the very beginning of the year that I liked the ladies. She likely learned this from my facebook or some other way that wasn’t hard to find out. At the beginning of the year, we were sitting by each other in a precept class.
“We should hang out sometime.” Sally said. She seemed like a cool person, and I was in the making friends mode at the beginning of the year.
“Sounds like fun.” I say. “When and where?”
“Lets go to Francesca’s [a local coffee shop] at some point.” She says. As soon as I am about to agree, she feels the need to add “just as friends.”
“Um, ok” I stammered. What I really wanted to say, was “don’t flatter yourself.”

There will be a lot of people who think they are and act as if they are progressive and a friend of the gays, but then, they do things like Sally did. Mind you, a lot of it is ignorance, and it isn’t ill willed, but it can get really frustrating. These are the people who will continue to call you a homosexual after you point out to them that it is not the correct thing to say, who will never ask you about your relationships even as they ask the straight person sitting next to you, who, when you bring up a relationship you’re in, will get really uncomfortable and quickly change the subject. Be patient with these types, but also be bold, and point out things when you see them. Audre Lorde says it best in her poem A Litany for Survival. She says, “When I speak, I am afraid. And when I am silent, I am afraid. So I speak, remembering, I was never meant to survive.

The Moderate type 1. This is the largest of any of the categories at Duke Divinity. These are those individuals who consider themselves moderate and who are supportive of civil rights for the gays. This does not mean they are ok with same-sex relationships though. These are usually the Hauerwas fans (which exist in very large numbers at Duke!) who feel that what the state does is what the state does, and should not influence, or be influenced by, the church. So, while these individuals believe that the state should give rights to LGBT people, they do not believe that the church should. I don’t have a clue how to deal with this group. On one hand, I’m happy that they are at least somewhat supportive, and would vote yes if a marriage referendum came up here in North Carolina (ahahahaha. And, oh yea, most of them choose not to vote). Yet, if I had to choose between government and church support, I’d choose the church support….

The Moderates type 2.  Read: the borderline fundamentalists with a lot more intelligence, which makes the situation all the more painful and depressing. These are those who most consider moderate because they are too smart to be considered fundamentalist, a term that often connotes backwoods, un-educated folk. Yet, they come in a different form in Duke, and because they are at Duke, they are called moderates or moderate conservatives. Let me illustrate with another story.  This one is with a girl we will call Jane.* To set the scene a little bit, it was a Thursday afternoon, and we were in the class Pastoral Care in a Cross-Cultural Setting. It was the final day of class, and we were finally getting around to talking about pastoral care with sexual minorities. To say the least, the class was awful. The teacher said things that were not at all supportive, students made really dumb and somewhat offensive comments, and the teacher recommended a strongly anti-gay book (Straight but Not Narrow). When I was finally allowed to speak, I was bluntly honest, and talked about my experiences as a lesbian, hoping to bring a little clarity and correct some things people said (cause, during most everyone else’s conversation, I was thinking, shit, if they have any gay parishioners, they’re screwed). As soon as I ‘came out’ to the class, it was as if you could hear a pin drop. It was absolutely hilarious…. Anyways, after class, Jane approaches me, and thanked me for sharing. After offering her thanks, she asked,
“ Have you ever read Romans 1?”
I kid you not. To her, I wanted to respond, ‘no, is that after Acts?’
She invited me out to lunch to talk about “what the Bible says about homosexuality.” There are many, many Jane’s at Duke Divinity school (Jane was not the only person who eventually spoke to me about “my decision”)

My advice for your interactions with the moderates (of both types)…. have some, but not too much. It is important to be around people who think differently then you—even if they are very wrong. Being friends with people who “think homosexuality is wrong” (whatever the hell that means?!) will be helpful for you and for them. Nietzsche said that that which does not kill you will make you stronger. Get strong. Plus, this is a perfect “evangelism tool.” I have some hope that some of the people I am friends with will change their opinions on homosexuality because they know me. But, on the other hand, know how much you can handle, and be cautious. Take care of yourself. I made the mistake this past year of trying to change everyone’s wrong opinions about homosexuality, and got very very frustrated and very very tired. Don’t bite off more then you can chew, and make sure to find some supportive people in your life who you can process stuff with, and who you can go crying to when you get tired of people telling you your life is a sin.

This brings me to the final group of people I’ll point out, the Sympathetic Conservatives. This is the most unique of all the categories I have experienced. Basically, these are mostly ethnic minority students, who are theologically pretty conservative, but, at the same time, ‘get’ what you are going through. These people understand what it means to be isolated and misunderstood. I have often taken solace in the company of the black students at Duke. There have been a few who have been immensely supportive, mostly a handful of black womanist women, but for the most part, they are not ….pro gay. Yet, they are not as offensive as others are, because they empathize with you on a deep deep level. True, it can be frustrating when push comes to shove, but the level of understanding can be incredibly uplifting and encouraging.

Alright, there you have it. There is my analysis of some of the types of people in the divinity school, and my subsequent advice. Here are a few more bonus pieces of advice:

-    Find some gay friends. They will understand things many of your other friends won’t. Mind you, they probably wont understand your divinity school student status, or your faith, but they’ll fill a gap that your div school friends can’t.
-    Journal about your experiences. It will help you act more calmly when new situations flare up, and it will help others who you can then pass your advice on to.
-    Pray. A lot. I don’t know if it helps, but it doesn’t hurt, that’s for sure.

Most importantly, if you’re trying to decide whether or not you want to come to Duke Divinity, I say come. It’s hard as hell—frustrating, exhausting, and isolating, but it will make you stronger, and besides, Duke needs you, and I need you.

There was an article in the LA Times today suggesting that if the Proposition 8 Marriage Amendment passes, all the marriages that do take place in the precious few months of marriage equality before then will most likely be annulled. At the end of the article, the author concluded rather sympathetically that while this poc hoc revoking of civil rights might not be fair, that doesn’t mean it won’t be legal.

The small thread of assurance that they won’t be able to take away the marriages that take place before November 5th has been the only string tying me to any semblance of emotional stability in the tumultuous month since the Supreme Court handed down it’s decision and the opponents countered with their proposed amendment. Today, I watched it slip away. The political wars are only just beginning, and already I am all cried out. Given enough time, I might be able to convince myself that this is not the end of the world… that my girlfriend and I might very well have other chances to make our love legal. But I cannot, no matter how hard I try, wrap my mind around the idea that all of those beautiful couples I have been seeing in the papers who have already been waiting decades for this moment, and may have even already gone through one involuntary annulment after the brief window of marriage equality came and passed at the City Hall in San Francisco, will have to suffer through that humiliation yet again.

But I am getting ahead of myself, I know, because there are still 127 days left until the state takes to the polls, and I am not giving up yet. But for those of you who aren’t living this along with me here in California, let me point out that it is a strange sensation to suddenly feel as though your life and your relationship are on trial, and everyone you encounter has been placed on the jury. It is a more than a little unnerving to imagine that every conversation you have– or fail to have– might impact the decision that someone makes about the future of you and your partner when they turn in their verdict on November 4th. More than unnerving, it is exhausting.

I am currently alternating between being paralyzed with fear that something I have just done or said- or failed to say- might move someone towards voting yes to pass the marriage amendment, and an irrepressible desire to climb up on top of our own glorious City Hall building and scream at the top of my lungs that we may go down come November, but damn it, we will go down fighting!

But then I am reminded of Vienna Teng’s song about the brief San Fransisco marriages, and her final haunting lines where a woman who has just been able to marry her partner after ten years of waiting sings: “even if they take it away again someday, this beautiful thing won’t change.” And as that song plays over and over again in my head, I can’t help but thinking that even more than we will go down fighting, we will go down loving. Because love, after all, is what we’re fighting for, isn’t it? And that beautiful thing won’t change.

Dear California Voters,

It is not, as those who are closest to me will surely attest to, generally in my nature to ask for help. From anyone, really… let alone someone I don’t even know. But I would prefer not to think of you as strangers, seeing as you hold so much of my future in your hands, and it seems I am left with no option but to ask for your help. In a little over four months, you will have a choice to make. In all fairness, I will have a choice to make as well, but it will be blended together with your choice, and with all of the other choices of my fellow Californian citizens, to create the landscape of my future. You will have before you a ballot, with 12 propositions. It is the 8th that I would like to talk to you about today- the proposed constitutional amendment to place a limit on marriage in California. With that 8th proposition, you will have two options before you. The first option will be to say yes… yes, I think that you are less than me, and yes, I believe we should take away your newfound freedom to marry the one you love…and because I think that, I think the children you have or one day may have should also suffer for it. Yes, I think it is fair to rip these tentative strands of hope right out of your hands just after you were first able to grasp hold of them… because not only do you deserve less, you are less. Your second option will be to say No. No, I won’t tolerate inequality any longer, not here in my own state… not in my neighborhood and in my own home. No, I don’t think you are any less than I am, and no, I won’t stop you from making your love as legally valid and respected as mine.

When you see the ballot before you, try not to think of them as stationary words; as a split-second decision with no real ramifications, or as an intellectual argument you feel you have exhausted with your line of reasoning, whatever it may be. Think of it, instead, as you, making your reply directly to me, and to the thousands of other gay and lesbian individuals whose futures you are holding in your hands. Don’t just picture the words before you; letters typed on a page… picture your neighbor, your aunt, your classmates; your children and your children’s children. Picture your grocery clerk and your librarian; that woman in your Pilates class and that man who brews your morning latte. Picture their faces, because I promise you, the answer that you choose will shape at least one of their futures.

And if you cannot, for whatever reason, picture any of their faces when you envision the lives that your decision will impact, then picture mine. I am 5′9 with shoulder length dark brown hair, and even darker brown eyes. My partner is just a bit short than I am, with short red hair and eyes that range from green to blue, depending on her mood.

Picture us, waking up next to each other each morning… she makes the bed while I start the coffee, and then we meet at the front door to take our two little dogs out for their morning walk. Picture us sipping white chocolate mochas at a local independent coffee shop while we brainstorm ideas for our upcoming dissertation proposal. Picture us sitting side by side in church. Picture us mouthing along with the actors at our favorite musical, and picture us laughing our way across a dance floor, knowing that I have no rhythm but dancing anyway, because it is exhilarating to move across the room together, even if we don’t get all the steps right. There, can you see it? Can you see our love? Can you see our humanity?

Now picture us waking up on a lazy morning just last month. Having somehow both slept through our early classes, we are pulled out of sleep by a call letting us know that although we had gone to asleep in a world where we had only the faintest hope of ever getting legally married, we had woken up to a world in which it was a sudden tangible reality. Imagine the way the air itself might seem to taste a little fresher… a little lighter… in a state where you were now viewed with dignity and equality… a state where we can get married, just like almost every little girl has dreamed she one day might. Imagine our joyful tears when we discovered that the children we will one day adopt and foster and give birth to might now be protected not only by us, but also by the law.

Picture our tears of joy, our laughter, our hopes and our dreams… but also don’t forget to picture our fear. For on the tailwinds of this gift has arrived a paralyzing threat: that the gift will be taken away from us before we can even begin to fully embrace it.

What would you do, if your discussion about marriage was suddenly transformed from finding the perfect time, to deciding whether or not to seize the only opportunity you might ever see in your lifetime?

My girlfriend is terrified to hope that we might not have to choose between now and never; that come November, the air will have that same element of freedom and fairness that has us so giddy with excitement these days. I am terrified too… paralyzed even, in certain moments… But I wanted you to know that right now, I am also daring to hope. I am daring to hope that you will make your voice heard on November 4^th; that you will cast your vote of “No” on Proposition 8 into a wave of votes on which my girlfriend, myself, and all of the other hopeful faces who are looking towards you in this moment, can be swept into a future where we can stand proudly beside you. Where we can be viewed with equality in our love, in our pain, in our hopes and dreams, and in our humanity… knowing that our freedom to marry the person we love had been upheld not only by the California Supreme Court, but also by you. This, dear California voter, is what I am asking you today. Will you vote No on Proposition 8, and use your voice to help make this dream a reality? Please bring your answer to the polling booths on November 4^th. I’ll be anxiously awaiting your reply.

D has blogged extensively regarding progress, hopefulness, and Imago Dei. In general, I feel that she does a much better job of conveying this “optimism-even-when-things-suck” thing. B also has blogged about pride and being a lesbian. Once again, it’s hard for me to muster up the optimism sometimes. Last week it became much, much easier to be optimistic.

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I have never been one for politics. But if you had been at the West Hollywood celebration on Thursday, the day the supreme court decision allowing gay marriage was announced, I think you would have understood, as I have come to understand, that this is not about politics. It is about love and dignity and commitment. It is about children cheering from their father’s shoulders and mothers baptizing their infants with tears of joy. It’s about humanity, in all its beautiful diversity.

I am new to this community, and although I felt like I should bow in humble deferment to those who have waited decades for this day, they welcomed me unquestioningly into their midst. This is family, in the most beautiful form I have ever had the honor of bearing witness to, and it was all I could do to keep myself from staring unabashedly at all the beautiful faces. This is not the kind of beauty that makeup and plastic surgery buy you; this is the kind of beauty that only pain, and the tenacity of hope to prevail through that pain, can create in a person. And it was breathtaking. I am honored to have been a part of this historic moment; I am honored to call myself a member of such a beautiful community.

Everyone’s recent writing activity has spurred me on (thanks B and D). Part of the reason I’ve been rather silent has to do with reflecting on the purpose of my blogging and the direction of my thoughts. While there is a lot of political/social stuff that ravages through my small brain, it took me a while to realize this isn’t the venue. I’ll stick to what I know - me. Ergo:

I was in a relationship for 4 months. It ended a few days ago and the free time that I’ve rediscovered is absolutely astounding! I didn’t realize how much (freely-given) time was given to that relationship! For the sake of the other I won’t go into details of how it was, what went wrong, etc. Suffice to say that A 2.0 (3.0? 4.0?) has arrived. And looking ahead it is going to be quite the ride. The semester is over in less than a month, and I just solidified my plans for the summer. My professional self is coming together, as is my adult self starting to get some feet. It looks as though I’ll have more blogging-time, too! Anyway, on to some notables.

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Last week, my girlfriend and I went to pub with my friend M (who is frequently referred to here as “the girl behind the counter”) to share a few beers and swap idea’s about M’s new internship working to bridge the gap between the LGBT community and Christians. Now, if you’d only met us recently, you would no doubt have found this an entirely unremarkable scene. You might even wonder why we seemed to find the whole thing so profound, and why, when we emphatically lifted our nearly empty beer mugs in a loud cheer to redemption, there were tears in my eyes.

But if you’d known us a few years back, I think you might have understood a little better.

It has been, in fact, almost exactly two years since M challenged me to define the word redemption. At the time, it was the biggest challenge either of us could imagine.

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I have never had much luck with weddings… I was hospitalized the first time I was in a wedding, with what turned out to be an allergic reaction to a medicine I’d been taking. Although they let me out in time to appear as my sister’s bridesmaid, I was still so puffy and swollen that I looked a pale blowfish stuffed into an ill-fitting $400 dress, and so drugged up that I don’t remember any of the ceremony (my sister tries very hard not to take this personally).

And then there has been the recent blow of discovering that I am a lesbian, and as such am forbidden to have a wedding of my own. While I was certainly never one of those girls who dreamed about her wedding like the rest of my friends did in college, I still find a few things about this a little disconcerting. For one thing, I have never been one who appreciates any forms of limits being placed on what I can and cannot do, and for another thing, I find it highly unfair that I will never gain back the hundreds of dollars I have spent over the past few years on lingerie that has doubtfully gotten much use and various kitchen supplies that may or many not have gotten marginally more use, depending on the extent of feminism upheld by the brides for which they were purchased.

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“So now what?” my therapist asked me last week when I finished telling him about coming out to my parents. I know what his answer was… as a gay man and a practicing psychologist, he finds it unfathomable that I am still at a grad school where certain professors will waste 15 minutes of class time talking about how God hit them “with everything terrible at once” when they were afflicted with a lesbian witch for a client. I know that I wasn’t the only one in class who had difficulty discerning if he was taking about a lesbian client who also practiced Wicca, or if that was just his phrase of choice for women who like other women.

“Unacceptable!” my therapist rants, “it’s just not even a question in my mind that you shouldn’t be there!” But then he catches himself, remembers that therapists aren’t supposed to be quite as directive as that, and suggests that we should openly acknowledge that he is going to have a hard time staying neutral on the subject.

So when he asks me what comes next, I know what his answer is. I am just not certain what my own is. It seems that everything over the past six months has been building up to telling my parents… from my first tentative admission to A in a Peruvian coffee shop last summer that “I might not be straight,” to building up the courage to face everyone from my pastor to my best friend, everything was headed to this moment. And now I am here, and I am not quite sure what to do next. It feels a bit like taking a huge exam you studied and studied for, and then not quite knowing what to do with all your energy anymore, now that it’s not channeled in that one direction. Except, I actually don’t feel like I have much energy at all lately, so that can’t be the exactly right analogy.. but it’s definitely something like that.

“Are you really alright, honey?” my dad just asked me on the phone, his sweet, unexpected concern moving me to tears. “Yeah,” I said, “I think I am.” “Well keep on being alright, then, okay?” I agreed, and as I did I could not help but thinking of the girls I worked with at an adolescent residential care facility last year. No matter who got sent back to juvenille hall, or who collapsed in tears because their parents missed yet another visit, they would always remind each other to “keep on keeping on.”

And I think that’s what it is time for me to start remembering, because the past few months have been a sprint to purge my life of inauthenticity and muster the courage to tell my friends and family, pastors and professors, that at least in this one area, I, having spent a lifetime meeting other people’s expectations for me, will simply not be able to deliver.

So now the sprint is over, and it seems that having always wanted to run an actual marathon, I have unknowingly signed up for a metaphorical one. Because, as my roommate put it a while back, with plenty of passion and not nearly as much tact: “you’re so young… so young for a lifetime of pain.” And while that’s definitely more than a little dramatic, and not exactly how I would choose to look at it at all, she is right in the respect that I will have challenges to face in ways I could never begin to anticipate. Whether I choose to stay at the seminary, or to transfer a few miles down the street where respect for sexual diversity is explicitly included in their program description, there will always be people I have to explain myself to… there will always be expectations for who I am and who I will love that I will simply not be able to meet.

I think that’s alright, though. I think that, at least for now, I am alright too.

I told my parents.

With the same forceful energy that I have been using over the past six months or so to resist telling them, suddenly and without any particular catalyst or tangible reason, around this time last week I decided that I would do it. And then I did it.

That makes it sound a lot easier than it actually was, of course. But the truth is, the panic is fading, the details are blurring, and the only thing I can solidly wrap my mind around is that it is done, and I will never have to do it again. And I am remembering how to breathe.. or rather, not having to remember to breathe nearly so much lately.

On one hand, it has been a long time coming. But on the other hand, it happened in the exact moment in which the time had finally come. A few months ago, a friend of mine who had been through the same process told me that she didn’t come out to her parents until the very moment in which she could no longer breathe until she had told them. And I am sure there are easier ways in which to undertake the process of coming out to one’s parents, but for her and for me, this is exactly what we did. And for me, that time was inconveniently on Valentine’s Day (thankfully, my girlfriend and I had already celebrated the day before).

I had every intention of driving home to tell my parents on Friday, because I was under the impression that one should tell their parents these sorts of things in person. But then my girlfriend gently reminded me that I have been working really hard at eliminating the should’s as a driving force behind my decisions lately, and that it’s more important to consider what might be right for your own family, rather than what might be right for a how-to-guide on coming out. And so, when I told my mom on the phone about how I had acquired a tiny diamond piercing in my nose since she’d last seen me, as a sort of trial run for what was coming next, and her reaction was an alternating pattern of silence/anger/silence, I decided it was time to get practical about the whole business. I didn’t want to be anywhere where I could see her face when I told her, and I sure as hell didn’t want to have to drive back three hours if they kicked me out. I am pretty decent at multi-tasking, but driving while crying has never been my strong suite. So, with my girlfriend on her way over to pick up the pieces when I was done, I called my mother back post-nose-piercing-disclosure, and I told her, in the indirect, round-about sort of way that marks my family’s favorite communication style, that “I am not one of those girls who likes boys.”

And she already knew, as mothers will, but that did not soften the blow even one little bit.

It seems that I have not come to a place within myself, and perhaps I never will, where I am quite prepared to cast her words out into the void of blogland with the good conscience that I have done justice to a moment that I suspect will for quite a while, at least to a certain degree, define both my mother’s life and my own. But suffice to say, by the end of the conversation, it was decided that she didn’t want to see me that weekend, but she did want to see me again… and that she would be the one to tell my father.

What I do, however, feel confident putting into words is the way my girlfriend literally carried me in her arms when I collapsed after I hung up the phone, and didn’t just watch me cry but actually cried with me in the aftermath of what I hope will be one of the most difficult conversations I ever have to endure. And also the way my old friend, the one behind the counter at the coffee shop, came over too, and they both sat with me in the way-without-answers that I believe is one of the truest things we can do for one another in our most broken of moments.

And even more grace came flowing my way the next morning when I called my father, and he reacted in a most unexpected manner… in the way that we might all hope our parents would react to this kind of thing: with unshattered love and with a grief moderated by hope and compassion, leaving the faintest of impressions that this might be less of an end and more of a beginning.

It has been a lasting impression; that not only in my relationship with my father, but also in the way that I am able to interact genuinely and resiliently with a world that has generally not contained much space for girls who don’t like boys… this will be less of an end, and more of a beginning.