Difficult Answers

“Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.”(1 Timothy 4:1-5 ESV)

The funny thing about Truth is that nobody ever agrees on it. Human beings are individuals—we each live an island existence—each with a mind that is alone in the universe, disconnected from all other consciousnesses. And so, on our quest for Truth, we will each discover something slightly (but impossible-to-know-ly) different from our neighbor (quantum status of consciousness? Schrodinger’s Cat brains? Indeed, a scary thought). This could quickly become a major ontological discussion, but those of you who know my views on Christianity know that I believe the Holy Spirit guides and directs our thoughts and hearts, and is responsible for creating harmony between Christians despite the fact that each believer must discover Truth for himself or herself. The Christian message is not a brittle set of rules, it is at once a flexible, evolving philosophy, and an absolute Truth. Check out 1 Corinthians 9 for a refresher on the somewhat confusing semantics of the flexibility of the faith. It’s not easy to digest, but most Truths aren’t. That’s why as Christians, our personal testimonies are so important. Each believer who houses the Spirit in his or her heart has something revelatory to contribute to the faith, and it’s that unmediated communion with God that makes Christianity so special and so True. We support each other in the Truths that are revealed to our hearts and minds through the Word of God and prayer.

Human beings are equipped with powerful minds. Our cognitive states are overwhelmingly complex, and so we have developed some peculiar and complicated systems of social interaction to deal with our needs in a way that pleases God—marriage, for example. Christians largely hold the mantle of marriage in Western civilization. Yes, marriage has become a political institution—but to a Christian, it is first and foremost a spiritual one. And no matter what liberals or conservatives say, the two sides of the debate today are steeped in religious (not social) convictions. If you believe gay marriage is wrong, I can guarantee that you also believe God thinks it’s wrong. And if you think it’s right, then you probably either don’t believe in God, or you think God thinks it’s right. What I mean to say is, I don’t think I know any atheists who oppose gay marriage.

I was raised by two of the most remarkable people I have ever encountered; I have never met two more grounded individuals. My parents were well-equipped to teach me the importance of believing in and fighting for Truth. They taught me never to accept “no” if you knew the truth said “yes.” They marched in parades, picketed, and never missed a vote (it’s a miracle I’m not more of a social activist). They also taught me that the right answer is usually not the easiest one. Discovering everything that it means to be a gay Christian was an experience full of difficult answers; I had never been so shocked by what the Spirit had to say to me, and listening to God continues to be hard, especially when He challenges my preexisting beliefs.

While I don't pretend to understand all the secrets of God’s will, I’m confident that He wants all people to be stewards of Love. This means being true to anything that requires the heart to respond. There was a time when I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to do about my sexuality; I didn’t understand why God had allowed me to be gay. The moment I fell in love for the first time, all that confusion vanished. It took four years for me to reconcile that realization with the intellectual components of my faith—this was done only through continual prayer and reading scripture. In hindsight, I can see that that Love single-handedly acted as a divine, revelatory force, and quite literally forced me to see the will of God in a new, uncomfortable light. If I hadn’t been listening, or if I had been too stubbornly steadfast in my old beliefs, I would have missed God’s call. I thank my remarkable parents, friends, and the Holy Spirit for reminding me to keep an open, discerning, and prayerful mind.

I take 1 John 4 literally. I believe that Love is an incarnation of God Himself, and that anything founded upon an honest expression of Love cannot be sinful. For a Christian, feeling Love is more than just getting butterflies in your stomach, listening to sappy music, and wanting to be near someone. Love is an act of worship—a true sacrament—a communion with the Heavenly Father. I know that if one day I meet someone with whom I share a true enough love to marry, God will bless that marriage, because I will consecrate it before Him. I have never, even for a moment, felt that my sexuality has conflicted with my growing relationship with the Lord. This does’t mean that I haven’t made mistakes, or done things I know the Lord wouldn’t want; but when that happens, the Spirit is equally clear! But the few short moments when I have been in love have been the times when I have felt the least separation from the Divine. These were moments of clarity and peace that are second to no other spiritual experience.

I know that the world is changing. I know that Christ’s message was one of change, and the kingdom that He left behind is one founded on the notion of the freedom to change. I am proud of the Church for its willingness to flex through the ages, to continually adapt to bring the timeless message of Christ into immediacy and relevance. I know the Spirit has called me to testify according to these revelations, and I also know that every honest Christian in my position won’t come to the same conclusions (and that’s ok). Most of all, I pray that every Christian who reads this will be called to ask these difficult questions, and call upon the Lord for difficult answers.

Finding Michigan

Finding Michigan
just the way Jesus left it
will be remarkable:indeed
I should say I hope to find
happy families of sunsets; the song of
organstops, souls rising—rushing
into the Elysium of eternal,ecstatic golden
cornfields of memories of mountains
meandering melancholic Christmases, and
yes, I even expect to find my dreams

Finding my way home is not
such a simple thing, finding you isn't
either, and I guess finding love is hidden
more of all—even so(and most beautifully
or)I will come back to find
simple starlight, and
Something softer
than snow

Truth is

Truth is
not an idea, or
a memory, it is not
a creed, a prayer, and
it is not a person.

Truth is a house that builds
itself around us, it is
a fire that warms and sometimes
burns us.

Truth is a fine white linen
that wraps our bodies;
it is a fragrant mist of
pure ocean breeze, and it is
lightningbugs scintillating
the darkness of summernight.

even now, Truth is
touchingfollowing us, and we are
breathing in Truth, and (my Lord)
it is so very beautiful.

Magnificence

O joy! that in our embers

Is something that doth live,

That nature yet remembers

What was so fugitive!

The thought of our past years in me doth breed

Perpetual benediction: not indeed

For that which is most worthy to be blest—

Delight and liberty, the simple creed

Of childhood, whether busy or at rest,

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast. 

(William Wordsworth)

Listening to the choirs at Westminster these past weeks been both comforting and disturbing. While hearing music, I have found myself fixated on two distinct ideas. The first is magnificence: I do not mean it in the colloquial sense (something exceedingly excellent or glorious, although in that sense the choirs here are indeed ‘magnificent'). But in a deeper ontological sense, the word comes from an ancient root which means to magnify, to make greater, or to elevate. I am fascinated by the suggestion that what we do when we sing together is something as miraculous as life itself: the formation of a thing that is at its very core generating a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. The second thought is that music is expressive of something abstract, something ineffable. I have been perplexed by the notion that while the linguistic and visual arts are often directly imitative of our experiences and environment, music is abstract—only imitative in a qualitative, emotive sense.

My mother wrote poetry in college. One of her poems begins with a shockingly angsty line: “the agonies of being are far greater than all else.” While this is a profoundly sad thought, it is a nevertheless resonant one—indeed, much of our existence is defined by a perpetual sorrow which daily accompanies us. The blissful joy of childhood has faded, and our most profoundly meaningful thoughts are nearly always our most deeply melancholic.

Yet! Just when these “agonies of being” are so great that it seems we will crumble or break, a Truth that lingers saves us in our most beautiful thoughts: breathing in the cool moisture after rain, watching in awe as strong hands spring from the earth, reaching out and grasping strands of the clear air, running down a hillside so fast your legs seem to move themselves, looking up at the blank sky until stars wheel out from dark cupboards, and staring into someone else's eyes and feeling so hopelessly full of joy at knowing you are both alive that just one lifetime full of music could never express it.

In these crushing moments, we magnify ourselves by singing together. The chorus (somehow!) contains enough magnificence to tell the impossible story of our overwhelming existence. In this expression, we are comforted: not by the affirmation of others whose spirits are invaded and redeemed by the sounds we create, not by the towering intellectual achievement of the order and proportion of tones and time, and not even by the pulsating, nourishing emotional catharsis that music evokes. No, the comfort and Truth of music is in the knowledge of beauty: the realization—the revelation, even—that the universe is indeed beautiful, that in the space surrounding our bodies and within the combination of our voices, there is something so much more beautiful than inescapable sadness. Music is not abstract, yet it is every bit as mysterious as language: it simultaneously exposes, imitates, and quenches the ineffable and excruciating beauty of life. The reason we sing is the same reason we look at the stars.

what I wouldn't give

oh, what wouldn't I give
to be back on that dark lawn
laid out on damp blankets
under the cold, dry stars,
wide-eyed until our corneas smart
from the stillness of night air.

what wouldn't I give
for those days, when the
greatest joy was knowledge, and
the greatest fear was darkness (say,
how little has changed!)
and everything was smaller.

listen to the since-years,
and while you listen, I'll tell you,
quite simply, exactly what I wouldn't give:

the joy of seeing you grow up,
the music of the latest night,
and the indescribable feeling of
being in love with this memory, and realizing
just how desperate(ly hopeful) we truly are.

every word

Say, for example
you were talking to someone,
you were looking at him,
you could hear him,
you could see him, and
when you thought about what he was saying,
as it would look written
on an imaginary page,

it (just for a moment) was as if
every letter was a sentence,
every syllable was a chapter of
every clause, which was a book in which
every phrase could be a library, and
every sentence could be the entire world.

Then, my love, hearing your
voice for less than a moment
could open the most beautiful flowergalaxy, and
it would be the whole universe
on your lips
without saying a single word.

These mornings

These mornings are different
sitting next to a coffee cup
and silently remarking how little
it reminds me of you

These mornings
are quiet-strange
they are not bright:they are pale
they are tiny choirs of dust
settling like pilgrims on the chair across the table

These mornings are wonderful—
like flinging onehundredthousandwildflowers
into the air and wondering(not knowing) if
they will ever return to earth

These mornings are not you,
because I have forgotten how much
I need to remember how
to forget you