Limbo No More

The last few months I have been trying to reassess what spirituality and religion and God all mean to me. When I joined the church it was easy- everything was placed in front of me and I just had to do what everyone else was doing. God was like this, the Holy Ghost felt like this; it was a matter of jumping into the rut and trenching in. Since I’ve climbed out, it has been refreshing to finally breathe new air and see things that I was not seeing before, but I confess I’ve felt a little lost now and then. It can be difficult to embrace a nearly blank slate. But I think in the end it will be so much more spiritually rewarding than anything the rut had to offer. I foresee a much more personal connection with heaven because I will be searching for what is right for me instead of following a brown formula. I do that- I think of things in colors. The church and the rut and the formula are all brown in my mind. And not like a rich library brown or a Hershey brown- more like a decaying grayish brown- think cold oatmeal. Now the world outside the rut- I feel bright green and blue, silver, white, and violet. I guess I have to think of this new world as more of an open horizon and wonderment of colors than a strange wilderness of intimidating hues. It’s time to fill up my new space- I finally have room to run!

My house, my role
My friends, my man
My devotion to God
All amorphous, indefinite

Nothing's been clear
Nothing's been in
Nothing's felt true
And I've never had both feet in
Nothing's belonged
Nothing's been yes
Nowhere's been home
And I'm ready to be limbo no more

My taste, my peers
My identity, my affiliation
All amorphous, indefinite

Nothing's been clear
Nothing's been in
Nothing's felt true
And I've never had both feet in
Nothing's belonged
Nothing's been yes
Nowhere's been home
And I'm ready to be limbo no more

I sit with filled frames
And my books and my dogs at my feet
My friends by my side
My past in a heap
Thrown out most of my things
Only kept what I need to carve
Something consistent and notably me

Tattoo on my skin
My teacher's in heart
My house is a home
Something at last I can feel a part of
Sense of myself
My purpose is clear
My roots in the ground
Something at last I can feel a part of
Something aligned
To finally commit
Somewhere I belong
Cause I'm ready to be limbo no more
My wisdom applied
A firm foundation
A vow to myself
'Cause I'm ready to be limbo no more

Bravery and Cowardice

Who is the coward? I am sure that there are gay Mormons out there who would label those who leave the church to pursue a homosexual lifestyle as cowards; they’re too weak to keep the commandments- too pusillanimous to follow what they know in their hearts to be true. They’re taking the easy way out.

Who is the coward? I am sure that there are gay Mormon renegades out there who would label those who choose to stay in the church as cowards; they’re too craven to leave what is comfortable, acceptable, and safe- too weak to genuinely explore and embrace their identity. They’re taking the easy way out.

Who is the coward? Who is insecure?

So if you care to find me...

Hooray for California! It's about time.

Meet Mr. Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche is perhaps most well known as a philosopher for his quote “God is dead and we have killed him.” He thought Christians were brainwashed slaves- slaves of traditions and morals that favored underachievement (what Christians call humility), and of deception (the fact that we have a biased, self-glorifying concept of “good”). What then is “good” in Nietzsche’s mind? The will to power- that doesn’t necessarily mean power over other people; rather, Nietzsche is referring to having power over oneself. In other words, people should try to overcome the temptation to blindly accept widely held truths or traditions and be brave enough to question, delving into the unknown. In my mind, that is what takes real humility and courage.

Nietzsche also condemns Christianity for parading as a love-filled way of life when so much of it is based in hatred and pity. The Christian doctrine of Final Judgment, he says, was born out of a bitter resentment that the lower class held toward the wealth and power of the noble class. Today it simply serves as a way for any Christian to feel satisfied that their enemies, the people that they envy, and those who belong to any opposing order of society will be punished, securing eternal power and superiority for the Christian.

Of course, I don't agree with everything that Nietzsche teaches (and I still consider myself to be a Christian), but I think his point of view deserves fair consideration. I think that most Christians, whether consciously or subconsciously passing judgments, fit Nietzsche's description- I know I certainly have felt a sense of validation or vindication on several occasions when I have reassured myself that some mean or stuck-up person would get theirs at Judgment Day. And I'm sure that there are plenty of Christians out there who rest easy because the feminists, the intellectuals, and the gays will all get their comeuppance in hell (or in the terrestrial kingdom, if you prefer). Am I wrong to think that this doesn't sound like a very loving way to think about other people? Really, it's not surprising at all that atheism is so popular. I think we all should be a little more Nietzschean.

So This is Gay

The school year is almost over (at least for me :)) and I’ve been thinking about how much life has changed since September. It’s been over six months now since I started coming out again and since I started dating boys. I didn’t really wait very long at all in the beginning to get my feet wet; I think it was less than a week after I started this blog when I got into a relationship, and I haven’t stopped dating since. I don’t want to sound like a floozy- I’ve only dated two boys ;)

I still have a lot of coming out to do- most of which I will probably save for post-Provo life- but I have come out to my immediate family and all of my closest friends. My family has only become more positive about my gayness and with the idea of me dating boys. In fact, I’ll be taking one home with me at the end of the month and my parents are looking forward to meeting him.

From all this dating and coming out I’ve learned a lot about myself. I’ve learned what it means to fall in love. I’ve seen both my selfish and selfless extremes. I’ve found out more about just how splendidly joyous and how knifishly (I think I just stole that word from Pan) painful life can be. I’ve also learned some less serious things about me- like how incredibly attractive I find boys with squinty eyes (Josh Hartnett style!), how I love dancing in cages, and how I look really good with eyeliner lol.

I definitely like who I now more than who I was last year. No more dragon-fighting, no more emotional masochism, and no more pretending- just me.

Grievances

So I hope you all caught on to my April Fools joke- It made me laugh :P I have to give half of the credit to Alanis, who once again pulled through with the perfect lyrics. She pretty much is the best lyricist ever.

I've had several conversations in the last 6 months in which I've been told that I am taking the easy way out. I want to be gay so I'm picking at the church's doctrine concerning homosexuality to justify my way out of Mormonism. This bothers me. First of all, I am not taking the easy way out. The way I'm heading is just as difficult with just as many problems along the way. Second, the church's position on homosexuality is not the only thing that rubs me the wrong way. I have already explained a little bit about why I'm feeling disenchanted with organized religion in general, but I would like to make a list of all the things that are specifically driving me away from Mormonism, aside from the gay issue.

Treatment of Blacks- The best that the church can say is that it does not know why Blacks were treated differently than other members, but that God commanded it. Denying temple and priesthood privileges based on race is disgusting and seems far from divinely inspired.

Knowing- I've already explained this one on several other occasions.

Commandments that do not deal with moral issues- These seem like sounding brass and tinkling cymbals.

The Book of Abraham- In my opinion, this has been proven to be a fabrication.

Twisting scripture for convenience- especially in the New Testament.

No questioning authority- I've already explained this one in other posts.

Elitism- And this one.

Denial of mistakes

Emotional manipulation

I had a doctrine and covenants professor who taught us that each church doctrine is like a book that we find in the giant gospel library (I'm already gagging on this analogy). Every time we find a book that we find distasteful or that we think is wrong, we should just put it back on the shelf and say "I hate this book and I can't understand it, but I trust that it belongs in the library and that it is important." We can come back to the book later, when we're more prepared (brainwashed) to swallow its chapters.

I'm sorry, but I just can't do this. Everything about it feels so wrong. I can't surrender reason and free thinking to conformity.

Hmmm- I didn't mean to end up sounding so bitingly bitter and anti-Mormon. And I'm sorry if the painting of Martin Luther seems a little pretentious of me. I just wanted to make clear that while the church's stance on homosexuality does bother me, there are plenty of other church doctrines that I find irreconcilable with my conception of God and his perfect nature. Even if the church suddenly changed it's view on homosexuality, I don't think it would change the way I feel.

I Told You So

Back in December, I posted about the evils of scrapbooking. Some of you retaliated, and foolishly so! Let me quote the last paragraph from that post:

“Satan likes people to scrapbook. It also causes other people to waste their time. Now I’m not saying that scrapbooking is damnable (though I wouldn’t be surprised if the issue came up in General Conference), but I’m almost positive that all your scrapbooks are going to hell- where they belong! Sorry.”

I hope that all of you heard Elder Ballard in the Sunday afternoon session of general conference when he mentioned scrapbooking in a list of activities that people do to WASTE THEIR TIME! There you go- I told you so! Feel free to mail your scrapbooks to me; I will happily burn them and flush the ashes down the toilet.