My Spirit's Comfort

By

What was it about faith that made it painful? If I love God, must I hate myself? If I leave God, will I learn to love who I am? Did my desire warrant my exile just because my presence contradicted a doctrine built on conservatism? And for this, I should cut into my skin and bleed sacrificially?

For God's supposed glory, I reviled the very sensation I longed for, as if a man's touch might condemn me forever. For years, I prayed for God to rid me of my affections and fix my thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable—if only to be accepted by the masses. 

I believe that the Christian faith is but an idealistic worldview placing human individuality at the substratum of sin. How is it that a God can love me for who I am, with a love that may presumably change the essence of who I am? To be affirmed by Christian doctrine, must I first admonish the most authentic part of myself? The condition of God's unconditional love is that I chastise my flesh, for my flesh is the enemy of my spirit. But is this not the same flesh that God created? Am I not a product of him, imperfect and all? If I am saved by grace, am I still a sinner? And if I am still a sinner, was I ever saved? If God defeated sin, why are we born into it still? How can I be judged for the free will that God allows me? If it is not right for man to be alone, why is it right that I be? How is it that a child managed to "stir divisions" among a congregation led by credentialed ministers? Furthermore, how can a sixteen-year-old virgin be a "homosexual?" While my cavernous love for one man is "unnatural," my inauthentic tolerance for women is celebrated? So then, if I become performative in my values, am I more righteous than if I remain forthright?

This, and my daringness to speak out, inspired my uprooting. No prayer saved me. No witless teaching prepared by the husband of a pastor's daughter brought forth my conversion. I, a child, became a topic of this heretical conversation. "A diseased sheep—" that's what they called me. A diseased sheep that had to be put down, lest I infect the flock with my insubordination. Lest I be relevant. Lest I be understood.

Maybe my sin was feeling safe enough to confide in my leaders, thinking I could be loved while my devotion, service, and trust in community were taken for granted. By no account did I create fractures within that community. It was community that created fractures within me. My vulnerability, to admit to my same-gender attractions, is why the Board of Elders issued a statement saying that I am not of God and that I serve the Adversary. 

Me. A child. 

I was then outed in a defamatory letter that encouraged parents to cut contact between me and their children, my friends. My life, for what I knew it to be, was over. I lost what I considered to be my home along with the only friends I ever had. So I deserted my faith in God the same way the church deserted their faith in me. I now acknowledge the depth of my spiritual abuse in the depths of my scars, forever shown upon my flesh. Flesh—once the enemy of my spirit until it became my spirit's comfort. 

"By the grace of God, I am what I am"—a sinner no greater than I.   

Popular Posts

Diary Entry

By
I think I confide in literature as one confides in a friend. My screams are inaudible on these pages. Here, pain can cinder without catching flame. I know the pressure of meeting absence where I once found closure as my words know the pressure of my pen. I have reached a point in my life where I am one with isolation.  My spirit feeds on betrayal, and it has for some time. When I breathe in, it isn't air. It's animosity. I envy people who say they hate no one. I envy children because they're innocent. I envy Christians, too, because they pretend to forgive. I can't even do that.  All this emotion, all this rage, and yet the only person I wish death upon is myself. If only because I don't want to be here when the idealism dies. I'm not suicidal, but sometimes I lie in bed with my eyes open and imagine myself passing from this life. I'd die alone, but I'd die quietly. Until then, I confide in my prose, for my prose is my expression. 
Read more

I Write This In Hope That You'll See It.

By
As I relentlessly pursue what most would call my delusion, I am far too yielding to you to let you go. This eclipse between dignity and infatuation cannot be explained, only justified to an unreasonable extent. Yes, I am running from something, but I'm still running to you. Yes, I am insecure, but only because I was taught to be. Where you see me clinging to fiction, I see my refusal to settle for what's in front of me.  Just to know you, to learn you slowly— that  is my desire. It's not about status, and it's not about appearance. It's about my enthrallment with your personhood. I'd never ask for more than one moment—one to listen, to be near, to be present—to show you more of myself in the hope that you'll see in me a glimpse of what I see in you.  Inadvertently, you've blurred the line between desperation and devotion. Whatever it is, I stand by it. Not because it's good for me. Not because I see a future. I'm still mulling over whether I even...
Read more

I Like Your Name Because It Rhymes with the Moon

By
I like your name because it rhymes with the moon. Do you even know mine? Or am I just the barista who's too young to be writing you love letters? I like your name so much, I remind people how to say it just to say it more. Did you ever tell anybody mine? Or was it just a happening—an encounter in passing—that I admired you from afar before I admired you from across the table. I remember that your birthday is August 23rd, which makes you a Virgo, a virgin woman. Mine is March 9th and I'm a Pisces, two fish in one. Your favorite flower is baby's breath, which I find to be unique. Mine is a marigold, if you ever wondered.  I know that you're sensitive. You don't like reminiscing about good times because they're gone. You tear up when you miss your family, I saw it. And sometimes, you feel like you're behind—like you're not where you should be in life. I think you hide behind self-development because you're scared to be seen vulnerable. But that's wh...
Read more