After a few too many late nights out, many people in the gay community begin to feel that they are ready for a new routine. Within the course of a year, I went from being lost in a college daze to feeding orphanages one pair of yoga pants at a time. This story is about how I woke up and moved on.
Continue reading "Sex Trafficking is Our Dirty Little Secret" »
{by Patrick Henry Morris, Awakened Artistry}
Last weekend I started my year long immersion training with The Interdependence Project in New York City. Entering those doors and climbing the 200 stairs to the loving space of my Sangha I was nervous with the teeming possiblities. What would this training mean to me? How would it change me? What would I learn? Am I smart enough to complete this? Will the others understand me? Will I be a good teacher? Will I be a good student?
As we took our seats, Ethan Nichtern started by giving us some meditation instruction. At the end, he asked us to get in touch with what we feel in our bodies and to start getting comfortable with being on the spot, showing up and staying in the present, no matter how fearful we may be. At that moment, all the questions in my mind vanished. I made a commitment to be available to what the world was teaching me at that moment.
Being completely open to what was arising didn’t mean I wasn’t scared anymore. I don’t think I stopped sweating for the rest of the weekend. We went through a study session and taking turns teaching mindfulness meditation and giving feedback. I was nervous for all of it except when I was actually leading meditation. I stayed with those feelings, I felt them. And what do ya know, I didn’t die. I’m still here to relate this story to you. I always assume whatever hard task is in front of me will kill me but some how I prevail. I should start remembering that from the beginning.
As the weekend progressed, I kept feeling more inspired and grateful for the opportunity to learn from 15 different teachers during the course of this year. People from all walks of life with such vastly different experiences. Each unique in their own way, yet we have so much in common. It’s nice to share a space with so many indivuduals who are interested in learning more about themselves and their own minds.
I’m no longer nervous about being put on the spot. I know it’s exactly what I need to do to learn more about myself, become accepting, and grow. I’m inspired to continue on this journey and learn how to better relate the teachings so that others may benefit.
May I be of benefit.
{by Shokti Lovestar, London, England}
On WORLD AIDS DAY 2012 in the UK we heard that the rate of infection amongst gay men is at an all time high.
Bars around the country bizarrely offered WAD ‘celebrations’ and it was even possible to pop down to the GAY bar in Soho to get an on the spot test. So I guess if the result is positive there was plenty of booze on hand to help drown the sorrows and deplete your immune system further. (I hear there were 2 positive results on the day, and - shockingly - no counselling or support advice on hand.)
The message of World AIDS Day was that HIV is not going away, but will we wait until December 1, 2013 before we talk about it again? The gay community is not discussing the reasons so many are exposing themselves through risky sex.
To treat HIV as a minor problem that can be managed by medications is missing the point entirely. HIV changes lives and challenges on every level possible, it affects us mentally and emotionally as well as physically – perhaps it will not go away until we understand what it is trying to teach us, and what it is telling us about ourselves.
Okay, I pick on Manhunt a lot, but would you have read the article if it was called "Is Your Church on YouTube?" The real question is, "Are you taking your ministry to LGBTQ people or are you simply holding an affirming space if they choose to find it?"
If you want to grow your ministry and help lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning people find their way back to god (however you define the terms "ministry" and "god"), then you need to consider undertaking a new mission to LGBTQ people.
Did Mother Teresa open an orphanage and then sit back and wait for people to find it? No, she went out into the poverty-and-disease-ridden streets of Calcutta to bring unconditional love and care to those who needed it most.
In contemporary Christian circles, this approach is described as an "Incarnational Ministry" because it requires ministers to plant a new ministry where the underserved community lives. To create an Incarnational Ministry is to enter into deep relationship with the people who need you most by moving into the neighborhood.
You can do this literally, like Rev. Megan Rohrer, queer Lutheran minister (one of the "Bay Area Seven") and Executive Director of The Welcome, who goes on street retreats among San Francisco's homeless and plants gardens to feed the hungry. Andrew Marin, a self-described former "straight, Bible-beating homophobe" incarnated a ministry in Chicago's Boystown, not to change anyone's sexual orientation but to build bridges, deep relationships, and to share his belief that "Love is an Orientation" (the title of his book - no, I haven't read it yet). (Both of these folks desperately need financial support right now: Donate to The Welcome | Donate to The Marin Foundation)
You can also now incarnate a ministry virtually, by taking your mission work beyond Facebook and into the online social networks where 61.2% of men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM) now find their first sexual partner - and millions of MSM find their next. These sites include Manhunt.net, Adam4Adam.com and Gay.com, among many others.
Why take your church onto gay hook-up websites? I certainly don't suggest it because I think sex between consenting adults is bad/naughty/sinful! Don't assume every MSM on those websites needs or wants your spiritual input or support. You should take your ministry there, not to preach against those websites and their function, but to enter into Incarnational Ministry with MSM who are in crisis. Through my own memberships on these websites I have counseled a young gay man facing chemotherapy alone (he hadn't even told friends and family he was sick), drug addicts, escorts and prostitutes, the lonely and the suicidal.
Many MSM on these websites are healthy, happy men just using the service to network, date and hook up. However, many others are dealing with huge life challenges like cheating on their wives with men, coming out, coping with a health crisis, poverty, loneliness, depression, despair, or flailing about begging for someone to make them feel loved, even for just a few minutes.
I'm not saying you should create a ministerial profile on these sites and then start banging on the virtual door of anyone who you think must be in crisis - besides being rude, it might also get you kicked off by a website administrator! But I challenge you to incarnate your ministry in these online communities; just create a profile explaining that you're available if anyone needs support or guidance, and let people in crisis come to YOU. Use a simple photo that doesn't reveal much about how you look - you don't want them distracted by how gorgeous you are! (And, of course, even if you don't show your pretty face, it goes without saying you'll need to be prepared to field some very angry or sexual messages.)
You know, when I published the test issue of MyOutSpirit Magazine in Austin, we distributed them for free all over town, but can you guess where they were claimed the fastest? Gay men snapped up the copies we left in gay bars and clubs faster than anywhere else. Our plan is to expand this print incarnational ministry to 100,000+ people in the USA in 2011.
The point is, the LGBTQ people who need you most aren't necessarily going to stumble into your church (sangha/temple/retreat center/yoga studio/counseling center) on their own. But you can create an Incarnational Ministry right where they are, online or off.
Oh, and the other thing about Mother Teresa? She didn't do it alone. If you feel called to do this incarnational work, talk to your peers and members and students about it and build a team of people to go there with you!
Do you already have an LGBTQ Incarnational Ministry? What are some that you've heard about? Post in the comments below!
Love,
Clayton
P.S. Another "Incarnational Ministry" that ALL LGBT-affirming body/mind/spirit resources are invited to join is just getting started on YouTube. You are asked to make short instructional videos offering step-by-step advice to help LGBTQ youth "MAKE It Better" today. Learn more at YouMakeItBetter.org.
P.S. Finally (really, I promise!), you can also become a distributor of MyOutSpirit Magazine to spread LGBT-affirming inspiration and guidance in your local community. You'll be joining a Movement of people, organizations and businesses dedicated to helping each LGBTQ person "Live Your Best Gay Life," today and for future generations. Go ahead and sign up now at GaySpiritCulture.com.
(And if you are the dream investor we've been waiting for to take this ministry to the next level, please get in touch with me!)
Dear Mike, TJ, Derek, Ryan, Reichen, Rodiney, and Austin,
I can't say I'm a fan, but like many of my LGBT friends, I'm watching your show, The A-List New York, on LOGO.
Some people call it a guilty pleasure, some call it a train wreck into to a Prada store (or should that be a Marc Jacobs remainder sale?), but to me, The A-List just perpetuates the worst stereotypes about gay men, that we are narcissistic, fashion-obsessed, money-grubbing, elitist bitches.
But YOU, my brothers, you are not one-dimensional stereotypes. You are complex, breathing, emotional, talented, successful gay men trying to make the most of their lives. In so many ways, you have the fabulous lives gay boys dream of when they're praying "It gets better."
And you're in so much pain.
You feel so alone, you feel so unworthy, and you want love so badly. Your pain erupts in every episode - fights, judgments, fears and tears. It's hard to watch; I don't enjoy it, but I try to use you as a mirror to work on these issues within my own life.
I don't know what any of you believe, but the remedy to your pain is spiritual. Physical health and beauty, financial security, solid love relationships, even therapy, will not, in and of themselves, end your pain.
Life is suffering, but there is a reason you suffer and a way for you to make it stop.
Love and Fear are struggling for dominance in all our lives. Where Fear separates you from other people, the world around you, and the Divine, Love connects, Love heals, Love unites. Judgment is an expression of Fear. Criticism is an expression of Fear. This means Bitch is an expression of Fear.
A Course In Miracles tells us that, "To the ego, the body is to attack with. Equating you with the body, it teaches that you are to attack with." Once you realize that you are not your body, that you and the person you were going to attack are both one with the Divine - "Children of God" - it becomes clear: attacking another is attacking yourself. And what is there for you to defend if you are one with all that is?
I'm sure you're familiar with the concept of karma, but let me tweak how you think about it. Karma is not the cosmic version of the Christian "Book of Life" or Santa's "Naughty or Nice" list. Nobody's keeping track of how good or bad you are. Karma is fundamentally about choices between Love and Fear.
"Bad karma" means you've done things to reinforce your self-concept as alone and separate from everything - choices that strengthen or defend your ego, in other words. You accrue "bad karma" when you take actions or think thoughts based on Fear.
But when you start to focus on Love in your thoughts and actions, it burns off that bad karma. You do not feel alone anymore, because you are deeply connecting with other people. You don't feel that deep, secret feeling of unworthiness anymore, because you have finally begun to love and affirm yourself. You don't have to prove your importance to anyone by flashing your abs or your Vuitton, because you are able to rejoice in fitness and fashion without using them to separate or elevate yourself.
Right now, write on a piece of paper "I am nothing but dust and ashes" (Ani afar ve‘efer). Place that paper in your pocket and think about it whenever your hand brushes it. Now take another piece of paper and write on it, "The entire Universe was created just for me" (Bishvili nivra ha’olam), and place it in your other pocket. As you meditate on both realities at the same time, you'll realize both are true.
You can choose to start focusing on Love right now. Heal your life. Make it better. And do it on national television; we're all watching.
Love,
Clayton Gibson
Founder, MyOutSpirit.com
The September 2008 issue of OUT Magazine features a powerful article of interest: "Has MANHUNT Destroyed Gay Culture?" by Michael Joseph Gross.
Gross' article focuses on Manhunt.net, a site for men-who-have-sex-with-men (MSM) and the fastest growing gay website in the world, with over 1 million members and more than 400,000 unique visitors per month, all in the USA alone - and the site serves some 100 countries.
More importantly, the article considers how online cruising has changed gay urban social life by, for example, driving human interactions from physical spaces to virtual ones and encouraging the "pornification" of gay self-expression.
Apparently, one UK study found that in 1993, 2.3% of gay men found their first male sex partner online; by 2003 that number had risen to 61.2%. OUT quotes Jeffrey Klausner of the San Francisco Department of Public Health: "It means that gay men who were once socialized in brick-and-mortar establishments, surrounded by other people, are now being socialized online."
The question for conscious, spiritual LGBT people then becomes, "Is that virtual socialization creating a community of healthy, self-actualized MSM?" The answer seems to be an obvious "No."
As Gross puts it in OUT, "If you were asked to design the perfect weapon to exploit this vulnerability as it manifests in attractive, urban gay men, you'd want something that would intensify our isolation, exaggerate our propensity to objectify ourselves - by encouraging us to believe that our purpose is to look good and have lots of sex."
Isolation. Objectification. Lack of genuine communication and community. These should be issues of real concern to spiritual LGBT people, especially to LGBT-affirming body/mind/spirit resource providers like those listed on MyOutSpirit.com.
So much of our work is about affirming that LGBT people (in this case, MSM) are so much more than just bodies - that we are not only physical/sexual, but intellectual, emotional, social and spiritual beings. The hardest part of the job, it often seems, is convincing LGBT people themselves of that truth.
Gross writes, "The most powerful secrets we keep on Manhunt aren't the ones we keep from the outside world. The most powerful secrets on Manhunt are the ones we keep from ourselves. Practically every gay man has his own version of this secret, which we learned to keep while growing up in the closet: the secret fear that, if we were truly known, we would never be loved.
"...When you came out, you did it because you wanted something," Gross continues. "Part of what you wanted was sex, but part of what you hoped for was the possibility of being loved as your true self."
As always, online or off-line, we are choosing between Love and Fear, living fully or shrinking from our potential, shining our light or hiding it under a bushel.
I won't ruin the whole article - there's a lot more there ripe for discussion and consideration, and I hope you will choose to leave your comments on the article at OUT.com as well as in response to this post.
With the near ubiquity of online cruising among MSM, it's important that conscious LGBT people like the readers of this Gay Spirituality Blog look directly at the problems that virtual socialization may cause and how we can remedy them before it's too late. That said, we also have to be realistic - online social networking, cruising...these things are not going away. We need a BOTH/AND solution, not an EITHER/OR solution.
"We need to put our heads together and try to figure out what we want normative social life to look like. Whatever the answer turns out to be, it will involve creating social structures that serve and gratify our desire to have sex with each other and also promote and support the possibility of developing and sustaining intimate relationships." I would add to Gross' call for our attention: whatever the answers are, they must consider the development and well-being of the WHOLE person, not only sexual and romantic. And frankly, there's no time to waste.
“Our mission is to be a catalyst for positive, caring gay culture by supporting inner transformation, increasing definition & visibility of the emerging culture and changing what it means to be gay.” Join us. Join MyOutSpirit.com
Gay Spirit Camp will celebrate brotherhood from August 1-7, 2008, at Easton Mountain Retreat Center in New York's Hudson Valley.
Gay Spirit Camp is a time of celebration, growth and community for men who love men. If you are coming to Easton Mountain for the first time, type "BRING A FRIEND DISCOUNT - SUNFIRE" in the comments field to receive 25% off!
Rekindle your gay spirit in the splendor of Easton Mountain, as you connect with nature, yourself and a community of friends old and new.
This six day gathering will be jam packed with a variety of workshops and events including gay spirituality, yoga, meditation, massage, creativity, life drawing, erotic healing, nature walks, sweat lodge, body painting, movement and dance, dating and romance, talent show, evening fire rituals, small group sharing, dances and much, much more. You will experience the freedom to participate in as many or as few activities as you would like with the safety to explore your personal growing edge. Gay Spirit Camp offers men a chance to establish lasting friendships within a community of sacred brothers.
The theme this year is "Telling Our Stories," featuring a special keynote address by Steve Schwartzberg, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist with interests in meditation, spirituality, and gay men's emotional and erotic well-being. As a practitioner in the healing arts, his professional role include psychotherapist, Sacred Intimate, and workshop facilitator. He is an instructor with the Body Electric School and holds an attending faculty position at Harvard Medical School. He has written several books, including A Crisis of Meaning: How Gay Men are Making Sense of AIDS.
CLICK HERE to visit EastonMountain.com and to register for GAY SPIRIT CAMP at 25% off!
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