MyOutSpirit.com Gay Spirituality Blog

I’m coming out of the closet … again (part 2)

By Joe Perez

...Continued from Part 1

Of course, I'm not really a virgin. But there are certain traditional notions about virginity that I have learned to appreciate in a new way: purity and worth. Looking at these two notions will help to establish the context for the conclusion to my new coming out story.

Purity. I must say that as I've begun to notice and accept a greater fluidity and flexibility to my erotic constitution, I am able to look at my sexuality with more curiosity and less robotic reactivity to "my eros as I've known it." Child-like playfulness accompanies a sort of unexpected innocence, a willingness to approach desire with "beginner's mind" (Shoshin, meaning openness and lack of preconceptions).

Worth. There are layers and layers of self-acceptance and self-esteem which can be accreted to the self. For sexual minorities, the "coming out" process often progresses in stages of gradually increasing comfort in expressing more of one's self in wider contexts. And yet the question remains at every stage, "What am I coming out into?" Without deeply rooted self-esteem, the suffering associated with coming out can seem more trouble than it's worth.

With these notions of purity and worth in mind, consider the idea I want to present today: that sexuality is the force of Eros, the guiding principle of evolution, a sacred movement which is rooted in the embodied self and which unfolds differently at different stages of the self. And at later stages of development, the sexual self busts out of conventional and post-conventional identities into new emergent forms.

Eros and Evolutionary Emergence

To approach sexuality from a state which is simultaneously lacking in preconceptions and deeply affirming of worth is a peculiar way of being a sexual being. It is a constant moment-to-moment innocence, a sensual opening to novelty and joy and wonder. It requires greater tolerance for paradox and spontaneity than other approaches. But for many people this simply isn't an evolutionary possibility alive for them at their station of life. It is, I think, a peculiarly late post-conventional style of relating.

Contra late conventional styles (i.e., orange altitude), it is not merely a rejection of obedience to traditional strictures and negative attitudes towards having sex. It appreciates that traditional guidelines can help preserve the integrity of societal institutions yet it also makes room for acknowledging that individuals in certain post-conventional situations can transgress traditional models responsibly.

Joe Perez, author of Soulfully Gay, comes out of the closet again...

By Joe Perez

Today on Awake, Aware & Alive, I make an official coming out announcement Here's how the announcement begins:

Please read the words of this post carefully, because there's a tricky question at the end.

I'm coming out of the closet again. In 2004, I told my coming out story in a newspaper column called "Soulfully Gay," the discovery of Integral spirituality by a 34-year-old gay man. But my coming out story is probably not what you think it is, even if you've read the book inspired by the newspaper column, Soulfully Gay (Integral Books/Shambhala, 2007).

Here's something you don't know about Soulfully Gay

So far as I know, not a single person has ever noticed and remarked on one of my book's odd facts: in the course of a 314-page spiritual autobiography, you will not find a single sentence in which I say exactly that I am gay or homosexual. (I think once I let the words "my homosexuality" skate by, which I didn't think was a big deal.)

Nobody noticed. Readers just kind of make up their own story by bringing in tons of assumptions, but the plain words just aren't on the page. The words "I'm gay" or "I'm homosexual" or their most common variations are simply not there. They weren't true to my inner voice, and I could not speak them into the words of the page, preferring to always find expressions that did ring true, such as talking about "same-sex desires."

I don't even say that I'm gay in the book's coming out story. I talk about "labels" instead, as in an essay that starts like this:

When I was 20 years old, I first put a label on my sexuality. Actually, I was spared the chore of coming out to my mom, because a university librarian outed me.

I had secretly known that I was different from most other boys since I was in junior high school. To explore my sexuality, I had checked out books on the topic at the university. Unfortunately, I returned a few books a day late.

The university's library system was very efficient. They immediately printed out an overdue notice and sent it to my permanent address on file. My mother opened the letter from the library, saw the titles of the books, and mailed the notice to me. My process of "coming out" had begun!

At different times of my life, I have worn various labels for my sexuality. Since coming out, I have used labels including bisexual, gay, and queer. I am a man more attracted to men than to women, so the gay label works just fine for me most of the time.

What I didn't mention is that the books that I checked out from the library were on male bisexuality (which, incidentally, has recently been proven to exist by pioneering scientists!) I didn't think of my omission as hiding anything. It just felt like an unnecessary distraction in the context. You see, I wrote elsewhere in the book:

By my senior year of college, I grew comfortable expressing my sexuality. I came out of the closet and had my first sexual experiences. I struggled with picking a single label and deemed myself too inexperienced to know for sure what to call myself. I chose the bisexual label, deciding that it was best to keep my options open...

You can't expect a memoir written by a 34 year-old man to be fully transparent. I didn't want to call the book "Soulfully Gay-Identified Person with a Not Insignificant Degree of Fluid Bisexual Expression."

In my 30s, I was highly invested in remaining identified as gay and was nowhere ready to start contemplating what alternatives might be out there. And yet, my sexuality was always more complex than anything that I wanted to reduce to one label. I just wasn't always ready or able to act on the full spectrum of Eros within my potential.

 

Continue reading "I'm coming out of the closet (again)" at Awake, Alive & Aware.

Remembering Tyler Clementi: Gay teen driven to suicide by cyber bullies

By Kittredge Cherry (Jesus in Love)

Tyler Clementi (1992-2010) brought international attention to bullying-related suicide of LGBT youth when he jumped to his death on Sept. 22, 2010 (one year ago today). Clementi was an 18-year-old freshman at Rutgers University in New Jersey when he died. A talented violinist, he came out to his parents as gay before leaving home for college.

Three days before his suicide, Clementi’s room mate used a webcam to secretly record Clementi kissing another man in their dorm room and streamed the video live over the Internet. In messages posted online before he took his own life, Clementi told how he complained to authorities about the cyber-bullying and asked for a new room assignment. Then he jumped off the George Washington Bridge. It took a week to find his body.

The room mate, Dharum Ravi, also 18 at the time, is charged with several crimes in connection with Clementi’s suicide, including invasion of privacy and bias intimidation. His accomplice, Molly Wei, avoided jail time by agreeing to testify against Ravi. He is scheduled to be back in court Oct. 20.

Anti-LGBT statements by public figures are also partly responsible for Clementi’s death. They created the hostile environment that drove Clementi to suicide. Artist Louisa Bertman emphasizes this point in her powerful ink illustration, “Tyler Clementi, JUMP!” She makes visible the hateful voices that may have been in Clementi’s mind. In her drawing, his head overflows with people urging him to jump.

They are politicians as well as the actual students who bullied him. Their names are listed in a stark statement at the bottom of the drawing: “Message brought to you by Sally Kern, Kim Meltzer, Nathan Deal, Carl Paladino, Newt Gingrich, Sarah Palin, Tom Emmer, Jeremy Walters, Rick Perry, Bob Vander Plaats, Dharun Ravi, & Molly Wei.”

Bertman, an artist based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is known for her non-traditional portraits. Clementi’s highly publicized tragedy made him into a gay martyr whose untimely death put a public face on the problems of LGBT teenagers. His story sparked efforts to support LGBT youth, raise awareness of the harassment they face, and prevent suicide among queer young people. Another result is new legislation stiffening penalties for cyber harassment.

Clementi helped inspire the founding of the It Gets Better Project and Spirit Day. The It Get Better Project aims to stop suicide among LGBT teens with videos of adults assuring them that “it gets better.” Spirit Day, first observed on Oct. 20, 2010, is a day when people wear purple to show support for young LGBT victims of bullying.

Unfortunately Clementi’s experience is far from rare. Openly lesbian talk show host Ellen Degeneres spoke for many in a video message that put his suicide into context shortly after he died: “I am devastated by the death of 18-year-old Tyler Clementi….Something must be done. This month alone, there has been a shocking number of news stories about teens who have been teased and bullied and then committed suicide; like 13-year-old Seth Walsh in Tehachapi, California. Asher Brown, 13, of Cypress, Texas and 15-year-old Billy Lucas in Greensberg, Indiana. This needs to be a wake-up call to everyone: teenage bullying and teasing is an epidemic in this country, and the death rate is climbing.”

Help is available right now from the Trevor Project, a 24-hour national help line for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and questioning teens. Contact them at 866 4U TREVOR or their website: thetrevorproject.org.

___ Kittredge Cherry is a lesbian author who blogs on LGBT spirituality and the arts at the Jesus in Love Blog, where this is cross-posted.

Image credit: “Tyler Clementi, Jump!” by Louisa Bertman

Joe Perez's Awake, Alive & Aware

By Joe Perez

July is a memory. August was my second month back blogging since I returned from a public writing hiatus, and it afforded me the opportunity to explore a wide variety of topics on my mind while experimenting with quantity, frequency, style, and delivery medium. In 75 posts on Awake, Alive & Aware, my attention focused on giving you the contours of how I see the integral worldview in general and Integral Christianity in particular.

However, some of the most popular posts concerned the topic of finding one's vocation in life. This blog asked, "How much social media is too much?" and noted some of my experiments with finding a good relationship with Twitter. The former post caught the eye of career guru Penelope Trunk, who is the first "big name" blogger to visit my comment boxes. I'm stilling find my way into an appropriately integral relationship to Twitter, and I'll post more on the subject next month.

About the word "integral"

I've experimented with writing the word "integral" in different ways: Integral, integral, and just plain integral. I've called "integral" a consciousness, worldview, community, culture, perspective, philosophy and spirituality. And then there's Integral Theory, which has a definite style guideline. I don't buy into the idea that there is a big "Integral" for Ken Wilber's Integral Theory and a little "integral" for everything else. That's just too fixed. My approach is not to set a style and stick to it, but to gradually find my way into a good mix of usages appropriate for various contexts.

I'm gravitating towards a mix of integral (to describe a level of consciousness) and integral (to praise attributes that are positive). In this approach, I am putting into practice a distinction which I wrote about in the month's most popular post, "Defining Integral, or: What Harvey Milk might say to the Integral movement today."

One of my personal favorite posts of the month is "Are Big Ideas dead? Here's one to watch out for," because it helps to explain why integral thought is marginalized in the culture. It's not a reflection so much of the merits of Ken Wilber's thought, the article suggests, but a problem with modern culture's relationship to information. Many comprehensive, Big Idea thinkers are just as marginalized as the Integral ones, and this post offers recommendations for helping to break integral memes out of the cloister and a bit more into the mainstream.

Wrestling the Inner Terrorist - Christian de la Huerta on 9/11/11

{Guest Post by Christian de la Huerta}

It’s hard to believe that ten years have passed since that fateful day that forever changed the world as we knew it.

America remains mired in two ensuing wars that have cost thousands of lives and wreaked havoc on our economy. Just a couple of months ago we finally nailed the Big One, helping to bring closure for many.

Yet, do we feel any safer? Has the world become more stable? 

In both personal and international relations, our species remains stuck in separation and projection, making each other wrong, fearing and mistrusting The Other. How much longer will we walk around with anger and resentment in our hearts, feeling wronged and victimized? Forgiveness is an act of personal liberation. Not doing it keeps us stuck in the past. One payoff is that we get to be right. Another is that by feeling victimized we avoid responsibility and having to look at whatever role we played in whichever drama. For these payoffs we pay a high price. Every time we place or keep ourselves in victim mode we forfeit our power.

“Love your enemy” remains as radical a message today as it was 2000 years ago. To me, it means keeping our heart open no matter what, even if we are hurting or feeling betrayed or threatened. We choose to keep our hearts open whether our love interest calls or not, whether we have rent covered for next month or not, whether our job is at risk or our house is in foreclosure. At its most challenging, it means keeping our hearts open to the bin Ladens of the world, not to mention that loathsome and abominable co-worker. Of course this does not mean we have to be chummy with or even like these people, but we no longer allow them that much power over our own heart. For the heart cannot be closed selectively, just to some.

Ultimately, this is not about anyone else. It is between me and my heart, me and life, me and the universe. My job, my commitment, is to maintain my heart open, no matter what. This is far from easy; in fact, it is nothing less than a heroic act. And these times call for nothing less than heroism. 

How do we begin to heal that sense of separation and soften the harsh judgments that keep us apart? Again, not easy to do. It is so much easier to blame the other, make them wrong and splatter them against the wall. Yet, if we want peace in the world, it must begin within. 

Spiritual teachings tell us that we are all one, that we are all in this together, and that whatever we see so clearly “over there” is “in here” as well. That is the essence of projection. One practice that helps when we find ourselves judging or making another wrong is telling ourselves “I too have been that way,” or “given a different set of circumstances over which I had no control, perhaps I too could have turned out that way.” 

This is particularly hard to do when it comes to violent criminals or “those terrorists.” Does that really mean that “I, too, am that?” Well, here is one area to explore how we might be being “like that:” What acts of emotional or spiritual violence has my inner terrorist committed, if not on others, on myself? What havoc has s/he wreaked on my life or the lives of others? Whoops. Time to face the shadow... 

We've gotten the big terrorist, but it's the little inner terrorists that are harder to flush out from their caves. That, too, is the stuff of heroes.

Releasing judgments and the need to be right, developing the ability to forgive and keep our hearts open are key steps on the path to inner peace and liberation. 

In these stressful, challenging and perilous times, may all beings experience peace. May we all be free.

 

---

Christian de la Huerta is author of "Coming Out Spiritually" and the forthcoming "The Soul of Power." More about his work may be found at www.SoulfulPower.com.

Is the Presbyterian Church "deathly sick" with strife over homosexuality?

By Joe Perez
Note: Cross-posted at Awake, Alive & Aware.
In "Conservative Presbyterians to discuss alternatives," Peter Smith of the Louisville Courier-Journal explains that there is growing anxiety in the Presbyterian Church USA that some see as "mushrooming" and could lead to a split in one of the largest mainline Protestant denominations.

 

The meeting planned this week is attracting more than 70 regional and national church officials including many conservatives for the first meeting since the denomination passed a constitutional amendment in May that allows the ordination of non-celibate gays and lesbians.

Paul Detterman, executive director of Presbyterians for Renewal, tells us what is at stake:

[T]he conference is “a potentially historic event, perhaps the beginning of yet another denominational division,” writes Jack Haberer, editor of the independent Presbyterian Outlook journal. More than 70 national and regional church officials are attending, Detterman said — a sign they’re taking this seriously.

It started early this year, when several pastors of large Presbyterian churches signed a letter calling for less church bureaucracy and more evangelization, growing congregations and developing leadership.

They described the denomination as “deathly ill,” citing such things as the loss of more than half its members since its peak in the mid-1960s. (Membership is now at 2 million.) Seventy-eight congregations, some of them large, have moved to other, mostly conservative Presbyterian denominations since 2007.

Detterman said the gathering is drawing everyone from conservatives who are still comfortable working within the denomination, especially if they're from a like-minded local presbytery, to those ready to bolt altogether.

There is no way of predicting what will unfold for the Presbyterians with certainty. Really the future of their community is in their hands. To be one, to be two, or to be many.

What is the disease infecting Christianity?

And yet we have seen similar events unfold recently in other Christian denominations (and even outside of Christianity). The growing dis-ease between traditional religionists, modern religionists, and postmodern religionists is manifesting as "disease."

Lessons in gay spirituality from Oscar Wilde

By Joe Perez, author of Soulfully Gay

Oscar Wilde, creator of epigrams with biting wit. Oscar Wilde, poet extolling the virtues of love between men. Oscar Wilde, adorer of beauty and critic of convention. Oscar Wilde, the Nietzsche of England, destroyer of metaphysical realism. Oscar Wilde, martyr for being true to his art and life in a society scandalized by his sexuality.

This is the Oscar Wilde held up for admiration in today's gay community, but it is not the only side to the Irish writer and poet, nor the side most important to reclaim for all people today -- gay and non-gay. Wilde's unconventional appropriation of Christianity is a model worthy of a fresh look.

Wilde is a hero of postmodernity, but there are neglected aspects of his life that suggest a more Integral embrace. Our culture stands at the cusp of a turning point of post-postmodernity, and there is a thing or two we can appreciate about Wilde more than ever.

The Picture of Oscar Wilde

In today's "Deceptive Picture," Alex Ross of The New Yorker examines contrasting portraits of the famous poet of The Picture, referring to Wilde's classic, The Picture of Dorian Gray. "[N]o work of mainstream English-language fiction had come so close to spelling out homosexual desire," Ross says, putting in context the literary component to the charges which would lead to the writer's imprisonment.

IF ONLY YOU KNEW…

{Mary Anne Flanagan, Toning the OM™}

If only you knew how magical you are.

If only you knew how beautiful you are.

If only you knew how radiant you are.

If only you knew how magnificent you are.

If only you knew how creative you are.

If only you knew how joyful you are.

If only you knew how peaceful you are.

If only you knew how playful you are.

If only you knew how blessed you are.

If you only knew how supported you are.

If only you knew how powerful you are.

If only you knew how embraced you are.

If only you knew how loved you are.

Breathe in your magical, beautiful, radiant, magnificent, creative, joyful, peaceful, playful, blessed, supported, powerful, embraced, and loved SELF. You are all of this and much more – always and in all ways.

Mary Anne Flanagan is a Certified Life Coach, Shamanic Practitioner and Teacher, workshop facilitator, inspired speaker, and creator of Toning the OM™.  Mary Anne Flanagan/Toning the OM™: maflanagan@toningtheom.com or 917.238.9726. Visithttp://www.toningtheom.com

 

When You Don’t Know What to Do, Have a Cup of Tea

When You Don’t Know What to Do, Have a Cup of Tea
Mary Anne Flanagan, Toning the OM™

my mind is clear as water –

so peaceful, nothing troubles me.

such is the state of leaving

the self and all things behind.

i pour myself a cup of tea

and drink; it is sweet indeed.

~korean tea poem – 15^th century

When you don’t know what to do, have a cup of tea.

Mary Anne

Mary Anne Flanagan is a Certified Life Coach, Shamanic Practitioner and Teacher, workshop facilitator, inspired speaker, and creator of Toning the OM™.  Mary Anne Flanagan/Toning the OM™: maflanagan@toningtheom.com or 917.238.9726. Visit http://www.toningtheom.com

A Mother’s Love for Her Gay Daughter

Mary Anne Flanagan, Toning the OM™ 

After listening to the recent heated debate of whether or not to allow the Marriage Equality Act to pass in the New York Senate, I started thinking about how acceptance is easy if we allow it. This sparked a long-ago memory of how my mom came to accept my sexuality. [While this story may not be verbatim, the essence of it is absolutely true.] 

My mom was quite distraught (along with other family and friends) about my coming out back in 1996. She was devastated and decided to speak with our local Catholic Pastor, Fr. Davis, whom she had known for a long time. My mom explained just how upset, disappointed, and even scared she was that she had a gay daughter. 

The Pastor asked three questions: 

“Do you love your daughter?” My mother said of course she loved her daughter.

“Is she kind?” My mother said her daughter was kind and generous and very giving.

“Is she living the Gospel and doing the work of Jesus in the Bronx?” My mother said I was caring for children in the South Bronx and was doing service just as Jesus had.

Fr. Davis then asked my mother if anything else mattered other than love and living the Gospels.

Soon after that meeting, my mother called to invite my partner (whom earlier was not allowed to come over) and me to the house for dinner. My mother and father quickly came to love and accept my partner as a part of my life. 

Yes, acceptance is that easy if we allow it. 

Mary Anne

This is dedicated to my mom who had the courage to question her beliefs and to Fr. Davis – both of whom are now in heaven still telling stories.

Mary Anne Flanagan is a Certified Life Coach, Shamanic Practitioner and Teacher workshop facilitator, inspired speaker, and creator of Toning the OM™.  Mary Anne Flanagan/Toning the OM™: maflanagan@toningtheom.com or 917.238.9726. Visit http://www.toningtheom.com