Month: October 2016

Kissing a boy for the first time was electric, magic, divine. Kissing a boy told me that I was certainly gay. Kissing a boy told me that all I ever wanted out of a love life was to kiss another man for the rest of my life (granted, it still took me a year or two after my first boy-kiss to fully accept my sexuality). Kissing a boy opened up a world that had only ever existed in my mind. Kissing a boy showed me that God had made me good, like in the beginning kind of good. Kissing a boy for the first time at the age of nineteen made all of it worth the wait. Kissing a boy made kissing a girl pale in comparison, and it had nothing to do with the particular girl I kissed and everything to do with the fact that she was a girl and I was a boy who was insanely attracted to other boys.

I remember the night it happened, some parts fuzzy, but most parts clear as day. I remember the hand in my pocket, the excitement of what it could possibly mean and what would ensue.  I can distinctly feel his gaze on me when I wasn’t looking; it was his give-away. The gaze is always the give-away with a gay man. I wasn’t experienced in boys, in dating, in going out with friends and finding someone that I might end the night with. At that age, I didn’t know that the guy was gay, but I thought he might be, and soon learned it when his hand snaked its way around my waist. I didn’t know what would happen, where things would go. It was all too exciting.

I remember the first embrace, the first kiss, the feeling of two bodies next to one another that ached for the touch of another boy. It was magical and it was dizzying and it was electrifying. It was everything a first kiss with someone of the same-sex should be for any gay person who had waited nineteen years to experience it. The night that I first kissed a boy will be forever etched into my mind, forever a pact with myself deep down that boys were the right answer. That night went by in a whirl. It all happened so quickly and yet we stayed up into the early morning hours exploring our bodies and kissing until our lips were sore. But as he fell asleep, I found myself coming out of my stupor. Whether it was God or my conscience or my conservative upbringing, I became utterly aware that I had messed around with someone I had met that same evening. I didn’t know this person. I didn’t have a relationship with him, and this sent off warning signals in my head.

I sometimes think these warning signals were a detriment to me, and yet for the most part, they were exactly what I needed. I enveloped myself in study of my faith, in growing my knowledge of God, of Scripture, of what it means for humans to love. I explored my sexual ethic, my ethic of war, my ethic of eating and the way I treated my body, who Jesus is and who Scripture claims Jesus is. I explored myself, learning more and more about the person I was and the person I was becoming. Who knew that the act of kissing another boy could explode in me a ferocious hunger to know myself, to know the world, and to know God? Who knew that the act of kissing another boy would lead me to Seminary, lead me to desire God more, even in the midst of liking that I kissed a boy?

Sophomore and Junior year happened quickly for me. I busied myself with classes and jobs and planning collegiate events. I spent a lot of time talking with friends, discovering myself in the context of loving community. I found that the more I grew to know myself, the more I found that I liked myself, that I loved myself and that myself, as a gay man, was acceptable. It wasn’t quite in college that I came to love myself for my sexuality, but I came to a place of loving myself in spite of my sexuality. It’s a big difference, but Seminary helped me transition from the ‘in spite of’ to the ‘because of.’

The boy that I first kissed asked me out on a date after our first encounter, but I declined and made some excuse about not being ready. In all reality, I wasn’t ready. I didn’t know a damn thing about being in a relationship or about toting my sexuality around in the form of another human attached by the hand. I wasn’t ready to be ‘out.’ I wasn’t ready to admit it and claim it and live it and broadcast it. Granted, I don’t know if we LGBTQ folk are ever fully ready to engage the world head on when so much of the world still doesn’t even want to tolerate us. But we do it in the name of love and we do it for those less able to be out. A part of me regrets turning him down. I wonder how much I would have learned from that experience, how much I might have grown from being thrown into that world a year or two sooner. I shudder to think how I would have navigated that and being in leadership at a college where the administration wouldn’t condone it. But, a part of me doesn’t regret it and I know that regardless, I learned those things in time. I learned them as I became ready to learn them. I began stepping out of the closet one toe at a time, and eventually I saw the light streaming through the window panes.

I thank God for that boy, for that kiss, for that night. I thank God that I finally discovered the confirmation I needed to let me know that I was definitely attracted to men in a way that I was not attracted to women. I thank God for those experiences, for the ability to find myself and to unlock the closet door myself. I’m ever grateful for those professors and those friends and those authors who helped me find my way out. I want to encourage those who are questioning their sexuality to give yourself the space to find out. Give yourself the permission to kiss someone of the same-sex. Know that the difference between that kiss and the next kiss I had was a relationship. The excitement of a first kiss with a boy and the nervous-wreck, excitement of a first kiss with someone you like and are dating is a huge difference. Kissing someone where there are feelings involved is completely (and almost unbearably) vulnerable and also, utterly intoxicating. Kissing someone you like and eventually kissing someone you love is extraordinary. Kissing the boy or the girl that you love is a gift, a beautifully human-shaped, lip-shaped, awkward and wonderful gift. May you find your gift and be grateful for it, for kisses are to be cherished and the freedom to kiss whom you desire is a gift from God.

It’s been over a month since I’ve written a post for my Gay and Christian series. I’ve been struggling to finish strong with the series, I think in part because so much happened in college that I’m not sure I could do it justice in one post. And as a good friend pointed out, I could turn this series into a book if I wanted, which is something to think about in the future. But for now I’ll attempt to do justice to the topic as a blog series. I had, in fact, already written a post about college, but decided it wasn’t on the same level as previous posts. It was too general, too much of an overview. I didn’t get into any of the nitty grittiness of my college years. So, I’ve shown up to write again and hope something of worth comes forward. Here’s to being a freshman in college and finding a way where there often seems to be no way.

As I look back upon those angsty freshman months that defined the start of my collegiate journey, I see a few moments, as if frozen in time, that I have turned over in my hands time and time again, looking for the keys to unlock the mystery of my story. I look for the how, the why, the where of things changing, turning, progressing. And I’ve come to find that there might be some defining moments, but in general, numerous things are colliding and working themselves into the fabric of my life at any given moment. To give you a linear progression of the events of freshman year would not do justice to the emotions, the knowledge, the faith, the absence of faith, the boy, the girl, the decisions, and the consequences. So, I’ll just have to give you the pieces and you can join me in the writing process in putting them together.

Second semester, I took an Intro to Christian Thought and Life class because I was at a small Christian, liberal arts school. I didn’t want to, but I soon found it was the strawberry jam of life; that is, it was spectacular. The professor who taught the class was wise beyond her years. Even though she wore her hair long and graying, her eyes said she knew the sacred space of questioning that some of us would soon be entering. And she made herself available to us, to our questions, to our doubts and to our seeing Christianity anew.

Growing up evangelical and conservative, my faith consisted of a personal relationship with Jesus. Wasn’t that what faith was all about? Believing that Jesus had died on the cross to save me from my sins. What a rote, easy way to enter into faith. But it came with unintended consequences. It told me that Christianity only cared about the state of my ‘heart,’ not that it cared about people being killed by violence, being locked up in prisons, those living without a home, those starving on the streets. Those people only mattered because our hearts were to be giving, not because Jesus gives preferential care to those most vulnerable and oppressed. This faith given to me from my parents and my church and the youth conferences I attended on a regular basis groomed me to believe that God only loved me because I felt something. (I don’t think this was intended, but, nevertheless, it was an outcome of that faith.) Mountain top experiences were to be brought into everyday life. We weren’t supposed to leave Jesus on the mountain of our good feelings. No, Jesus was to bring the good feelings and attitudes no matter where we were.

My professor introduced me to a Christianity that could be studied academically, that could be known instead of felt. I engaged my thoughts about God and the world. I was able to acknowledge that maybe God loved me even if I didn’t feel it. I could know God’s constancy instead of feeling God’s erratic behavior (i.e. relying on my emotions to tell me of God’s love). What little faith I had left was being transformed that semester, learning God and Christianity anew. And in the midst of this, I let go of my high school crush, as much as anyone can really be over a first crush, for they will always occupy heart space no matter how much you want to steal it back. I messaged him to apologize if I had made things awkward between us, this being my parting piece, my acknowledgment that I was choosing to move on.

I told a friend about moving on from my high school crush and we talked late into the night. This particular friend eventually let on that she thought about the two of us together, dating. That night and the next we talked the night away, exploring our thoughts and feelings, and eventually exploring an arm around the shoulder, hands around each other, and kissing. And as the ever-cautious, thinking after doing, mostly-closeted gay man that I was, I freaked out. I told her the next day that I couldn’t give dating a try. (Because if I went on a date with her, then I’d have to go out with her. And if I went out with her, I’d have to propose. And if I proposed, I’d have to marry her. And if I married her, I’d be stuck forever with someone just because I told them I might like them and went on a date with them.) I know, I didn’t have commitment issues at all, perfectly normal.

Through it all, though, I greatly damaged our friendship. It took a lot of time and an apology and choosing to mend our friendship, but we did eventually become friends again. A part of me wishes that I could go back in time and tell 18 year old me to not kiss her, to not even entertain the idea. But, if I wouldn’t have kissed her, I wouldn’t have an experience to compare kissing a boy to. I wouldn’t have gone through the confusion, the hurt, the realizing that I needed to be more careful. I learned from that experience that which I would not have learned otherwise.

Most of those things happened second semester. But, it was the first semester of building friendships, of working too much, or pulling four or five all-nighters to get homework done that brought me to the collision point. It was the love of God drawing me in all sorts of different ways, stretching me and molding me, guiding me in a way that would allow me the space to accept my sexuality. My first kiss was with a girl and it was good. But it was not the electricity that ignited in me when I kissed a boy for the first time just a year later. While I can’t say that our damaged friendship was God’s work, I do believe that God met both of us in our pain, our confusion, our hurt and helped us walk through it, to get to the better side of it all.  I’m thankful for that girl’s friendship, for her kindness before and her kindness in the years to come. I’m thankful for that professor, who I’m proud to call a friend now, and for her persistence in showing up and living a Gospel life that indeed inspired me to do likewise. My prayer for anyone going through the confusion of coming out, of accepting one’s own sexuality is that they may know they are deeply loved and that they have people and experiences that will help guide them to their own acceptance and knowledge of their belovedness.