Beyond Lines: "Ruins"

Literature) 

I am enlivened to begin the first official blog series on A Season of Winter called "Between Lines." In this series, I will unveil messages, intentions, and stories behind selected pieces from The Winter Collection. For the sake of preference, this series will read less like an academic annotation and more like a deluxe diary entry. The song I have chosen for this blog post is titled "Ruins," featured in my first published collection, "Florilegium."

Ruins:

I kneel before a splintered cross,

I carve out my splintered heart. 

Praying to a false god,

lies from the podium. 

Am I a paragon of division

or the product of what I’ve experienced? 

Where you see defensive, I see no option.   

I sold my soul for their validation. 

You asked me to change

then exiled me when I did. 

My faith left in ruins. 

So count the tears 

that paint my ensanguined face.

Who am I?

A child that lost his faith. 

My bloodstained timeline,

my youth left to die.

I changed.

I’m different.  

I made a temple from these ruins. 

With this song, I aimed to portray spiritual abuse in a profound manner that accurately contextualized my experience. I executed this in three abstract movements; the infliction, the contemplation, and the reinvention. 

The Infliction) 

As I iterated a couple weeks ago, when I was sixteen, I underwent ample spiritual assertion, most of it surrounding my identity. Upon the disclosure of my same-sex attractions, I was immediately abased. In an otherwise conservative community, I became an abnormality. Naturally, my attendance threatened their heteronormative dynamic. My "struggle" did, in fact, contradict American-Christian values. I, a sixteen year old virgin, was called a "homosexual" by a pastor. Parents were encouraged to keep their child away from me. The Board of Elders sent out a statement defaming my character, including scripture from Romans 16:17-18 which reads, "I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites, and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive." 

The lines "I kneel before a splintered cross" alludes to my devotion to a damaged system, one where I offered my service and received exile in return. "I carve out my splintered heart" refers to the spiritually induced hatred I felt towards myself. In a literal sense, I had cut myself for years under the instruction "if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out." My pastors and youth leaders knew I was harming myself. They either held silence or told me that the Bible does not explicitly address self-harm, especially in the context of a "preventative, disciplinary action against sinning." After all, Jesus had scars too, right? 

The Contemplation) 

Subsequent to Christian fundamentalism, a same-sex attracted individual is incapable of same-sex friendship. I lost many friends, friends I considered family. Friends I fought for, never against. Friends terrified to be thought "handsome" by me. I write to their parents, were you uncomfortable at the thought of me being physically near your son? That in some insensible way, I might infect them with whatever ailment I carry? Or did you think by being my friend, they might lead me into temptation? To those same parents, it was bold of you to think your child to be anything more than aesthetically unfavorable. Something they undoubtedly inherited from you. 

Following my exile, I was left to the aftermath of spiritual fallout. Am I a paragon of division? Or am I the sum of everything I've experienced? Was aggression ever my choice if I never had an option? Is this character, the homosexual with an agenda that serves only his appetite something I adopted? Or was I ultimately scripted by reactionary doctrine? 

The Reinvention) 

As I processed my spiritual depravity, I accepted that I would never be part of the Christian community. I recognize now that "God's love" only made me hate myself. 

"Who am I?" I ask. 

"A child that lost his faith," replies a gentle voice. 

At first, I thought it was the voice of God, calming and eloquent, but in time I realized that it was no other voice than my own. A voice that knows my heart. One that accepts me in my entirety. A voice that can move mountains. 

They said that God would change me and they were right. I changed. I'm different. I made a temple from my ruins. Maybe my identity was never found in my creator. Maybe identity isn't something you find at all. It's something you create. 

Finality) 

Man may have broken my heart, but that church is what broke my soul. I mean, my own pastor said I was an "ill sheep that had to be put down" one week after I wrote him a Father's Day card. My worship leader once accused me of "having a crush" on his son, while his son would use my phone to watch porn, threaten suicide if I said no, and recommended me his favorite porn star like her genitalia could fix me.

My "struggle," my "sin," my "condition-" it's not canon to manhood. The subsistence of LGBTQ and unlabeled same-sex-attracted individuals is more often than not categorized as Biblical "homosexuality." When acknowledged by The Church, we are condemned. But the 78% of men, 75% being "Christian" men, that habitually consume pornography are accepted and welcomed by their Christian peers. Young men struggling with lust are mentored by leaders vulnerable enough to admit that they struggle with the same. This rationale defies the scriptural rendition that "the blind cannot lead the blind" (Matthew 15:14.) 

"It's a common struggle." - Sunday School Cliche 

"We need to come alongside one another as Brothers in Christ and hold each other accountable." - The Guy Whose Only Ministerial Qualification Is That He Married The Pastor's Daughter

"You're not alone." - Cliche

"I'll be praying for you." - Another Unemployed Homeschool Mom

"I'm here for you." - A Friend Whose Parents Blocked My Number On His Phone

Oftentimes, Christian leaders blame a man's indulgence on women's "immodesty." Christian private schools prohibit women from wearing shirts that show shoulder while male athletes go to practice shirtless. All of this to preserve sexual purity, enforced on children who might have never known what pornography is otherwise. These same authoritarians accuse the LGBTQ community of imposing an agenda on the young people. Do you see my point? Evangelical-conservatives sow hypocrisy and hypocrisy is what they reap. 

Here's a question for any pedophile-voting Christian eyes out there, if I fantasize about a man with a woman, am I considered more holistic than if I fantasize about a man with a man? And why can your daughter be friends with a straight man but your son can't be friends with me? Since my "struggle" is "uncommon," I'm therefore unacknowledged? And yes, you need to cite scripture.