My New Year's wish for you

I am working today and I went over to the mall during lunch. The building I work in is connected to a mall by a skybridge, so I'm frequently over there during lunch eating or reading at Barnes & Noble. Today I read through some of John Stewart's new book and afterwards I had to use the bathroom before returning to work. Those bathrooms are not my favorite to use; they are pretty gross. I decided to use it anyway. After washing my hands, I started walking to the door and realized I forgot to grab a paper towel to open the bathroom door. A couple of dudes walked in though, so I hurried towards the door as it was closing to stick my foot in the crack and kick it open. Not only did I not succeed in trying to avoid touching the germ infested door with my hand, but my feet both completely slipped out from underneath me and I fell flat on my back on the wet public bathroom floor.

Happy New Year! I hope you don't fall down on a dirty public bathroom floor!

Resolving to be bigger

I posted this quote almost exactly a year ago and I thought it was something worth posting again as a New Year's resolution of sorts. Typically, New Year's resolutions involve not getting bigger, but I whole heartedly endorse this kind of bigness:

By size I mean the stature of [your] soul, the range and depth of [your] love, [your] capacity for relationships. I mean the volume of life you can take into your being and still maintain your integrity and individuality, the intensity and variety of outlook you can entertain in the unity of your being without feeling defensive or insecure. I mean the strength of your spirit to encourage others to become freer in the development of their diversity and uniqueness. I mean the power to sustain more complex and enriching tensions. I mean the magnanimity of concern to provide conditions that enable others to increase in stature.

-Bernard Loomer

Let's be big!

Merry Christmas

O magnum mysterium,

et admirabile sacramentum,

ut animalia viderent Dominum natum,

jacentem in praesepio!

Beata Virgo, cujus viscera

meruerunt portare

Dominum Christum.

Alleluia.

O great mystery,

and wondrous sacrament,

that animals should see the new-born Lord,

lying in a manger!

Blessed is the Virgin whose womb

was worthy to bear

Christ the Lord.

Alleluia!

Getting it right

This weekend I was checking Facebook and came across this:


Some of you may not be familiar with the people in this picture. I’m only familiar with the four men on the right. Starting at the far right is Trevor Southey. All I really know about him is that he was in the PBS documentary, The Mormons, where he was interviewed in the section that explored Mormonism and homosexuality. He was also interviewed and included in Reed Cowan’s documentary 8: The Mormon Proposition. Next to Trevor is Troy Williams, who I’ve heard referred to as the Harvey Milk of Utah. Next to Troy is Dustin Lance Black who wrote the screenplay for Milk and won an Oscar for it and has also won awards for his writing on the HBO series Big Love. Next to DLB is Bruce Bastian, who co-founded WordPerfect with Alan Ashton and who now focuses his efforts in philanthropic causes and is on the board for the Human Rights Campaign. All of these guys have a background in Mormonism. The final three I don’t recognize but I’m guessing are gay rights advocates local to Salt Lake. I’m sure others who read my blog would know who they are. Chime in if you do.

Anyway, it was heartening for me to see this and to see that there is some dialogue happening. I realize the LDS church inviting this group of people to the Christmas program doesn’t magically make everything better, and I certainly wonder about who’s idea it was/wasn’t to extend the invitation and what certain people on both sides thought of the idea but I think it’s another baby step towards understand and finding common ground.

I’m sure I’m not the first person to admit to having a thing for DLB. It’s a powerful and empowering thing to see someone who comes from a similar situation that I do, give a much needed larger voice to the story of Harvey Milk, do it well, and receive much deserved recognition for it.

I remember being in San Francisco with my friend Ellie a couple of years ago. We visited Castro Street, where I had an unexpected and profound spiritual experience. At the beginning of the street, we found a very simple memorial set back from the street that was fairly easy to miss. It consisted of a handful of plaques with pictures and a brief history of Harvey Milk. I was immediately overwhelmed by the feeling of that space. It was so quiet. There’s something beautiful about a man who helps inspire others to understand they are so much better and capable of so much more than what certain groups try to limit them to.

Even though we as human beings are too often inelegant at expressing our purest and most sincere desires, sometimes somebody somewhere gets it right and I believe the church extending an invitation to this group and their acceptance of it was one those times.

Baby Steps

My friend KPDubs, sent me this last night. He saw it on campus at BYU. It was behind a key-coded door to a small computer lab, but it was there.

Breathing Lesson

The meditation instructor speaks of ma,
or emptiness--asks us to listen
to our breathing.
I think of the pleural space,
the vacuum our ribs and diaphragm
pull upon when we take in
breath, that pulls back when we exhale.
How we draw upon this emptiness,
and it draws upon us. How an anatomist
would call it a potential space, meaning
it does not exist--unless intruded upon.
How if your pleural lining is broken
we cannot breathe, until the surgeon
inserts a tube, restores the vacuum. How
it's said nature abhors a vacuum, yet
we cannot exist without one.
Without ma. Without this
emptiness within.

-Peter Pereira, What's Written on the Body

No More Strangers and Foreigners

I just read this opinion piece that was in the Salt Lake Tribune by Bob Rees and Bill Bradshaw. I tried to find it in my reader feed so I could share it in my sidebar but I couldn't so I thought I'd just devote a post to it. The article discusses a study by a woman named Caitlin Ryan about the correlation between family acceptance or rejection of gay family members and the gay family members mental and emotional health as they mature into adulthood. I know, I know, it's kind of sad that we need a study to tell us that familial rejection is bad on the psyche and familial love and support is good on the psyche, but apparently we do need a study to tell us this. Thank you Dr. Ryan for doing it.

I saw Dr. Ryan present the results of her study a couple of years ago when I went to a Sunstone symposium in San Francisco. I remember someone in the audience saying that this is something that the broader church needs to hear and especially in Utah where there seems to be higher rates of suicide and teen homelessness due to family rejection of gay family members. I have no idea if that's actually true, but either way, it's something all of us could benefit greatly from hearing and it made me happy to see an article about Dr. Ryan's study in the Salt Lake Tribune.

I'm guessing most of you know who Bill Bradshaw is because of the lecture he gave recently at BYU on the biology of homosexuality and his interview on Mormon Stories, but Bob Rees might not be as familiar. He is similar to Bill in that he is an active and believing member of the church who is trying to create more understanding in the church on the issue of homosexuality. He wrote a fantastic piece called No More Strangers and Foreigners: A Mormon Christian Response to Homosexuality that is well worth the read if you haven't already read it. I think it's also very palatable to mainstream members of the church, and would be a good thing to share with family members and friends who are getting their feet wet on the subject and want to understand more.

On a side note, my choir had a concert last night. I can't tell you how happy and loved I felt to have Pablo, Konrad, Trevor, James and other friends from church come and support me. Afterwards, we went out for crappy, strip mall Chinese food. I don't know if anyone else appreciated the moment, but it was great to sit and eat with a group of people that consisted of a mix of gay and straight and varying levels of affection and disaffection towards the church. In a way I kind of hope no one else noticed, that it just happened, because that's what we do, we sit down with people who are not like us, and we eat crappy food with each other family style, and we laugh together.

Agency Expanded

I skyped with my sister last week and she told me she had to give a talk in church on agency or freedom of choice. She didn't want to merely regurgitate the same old stuff and I immediately thought of a talk by Kathleen Flake that I've referred to before on my blarg. The link there to listen to the talk doesn't work anymore, so here's a new link. If you haven't listened to the talk, I think it's worth a listen. One of the things she talks about is that typically we think of agency as freedom to make choices, which is true. If I stop there though, that kind of limits what is possible for me.

She expands agency and says that it is also the freedom to make meaning. It's pretty easy to sit back and let other people tell us what things mean. It's particularly easy to fall into that rut in church or politics, because there are plenty of people who are willing to dogmatically tell us what things mean and there are even more people who allow others to dictate to them the meaning of all things. Each of us, however, is blessed with a mind and a body and spirit and the power to explore for ourselves, with the help of the Divine, and discover what things mean.

The next morning I was driving to work. I got a bunch of audio recordings of some of the Sunstone sessions I went to in August and I've been listening to them during my commute. I was listening to one by Phil McLemore called "Hindering the Saints" and he talks about how some aspects of church culture hinder us from spiritual exploration and growth. He talks a bit about the power of choice. Here's my transcription of what he says.

We talk a ton about using free agency, our power of choice, to keep commandments and do the right thing; however, it is a known fact that most human beings are bundles of conditioned perceptions and responses and that only about 5% of our choices are the result of conscious, aware decision making. This is the reason so many good people fail in their best efforts to become Christlike and to fulfill their spiritual potential. Instead of continuing to beat the drum of using our agency to choose the right, when 95% of our spiritual will power is in captivity to physical, emotional and cultural conditioning, why don’t we talk about how agency can be expanded. It is not expanded by listing over and over what is right and what is wrong. This results only in boredom, guilt and frustration. It is expanded as one moves into the inner path and is reborn through the purifying influence of God’s love and grace. In this process, the old natural man, usually subconscious patterns and habits, are weakened and as the inside is cleansed, the outer being becomes clear and clean and suddenly choices in harmony with divine nature are more easily made.

I think a lot people don't realize how much of what they choose to do is the result of that bundle of conditioned responses or a role they think they need to play. I think lists of what is right and what is wrong is a good elementary foundation, but eventually the time comes to move beyond that and explore who you are and what things mean to you in your individual situation and how you can find peace and love and happiness.

It Doesn't Get Better at Boot Camp

Saturday I went to boot camp. Yes, KDubs, I go to boot camp. We did sprints at the beginning so I was already kind of winded right from the start. Right after the sprints, some guy who is a regular walked past me and put his hand on my shoulder and said, "It gets better." Maybe he looked at me and thought, surely this guy was bullied in gym class. Either way, it didn't get better. It got much worse when we had to do duck walks and bear crawls and burpees and jumping lunges. My thighs are still sore.

My friend Melysses S. Grant is doing the 25 days of Christmas on her blog. As a part of that, she is giving her own in depth analysis and insight into the lyrics of the most beloved of Christmas songs. She's already done Chestnuts Roasting, Mariah Carey's All I Want for Christmas and Jingle Bell Rock. Tomorrow it's going to be Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays by N'sync. You can't wait. She also takes requests and does lip syncs as well.

Man skills with MNJ

About a month ago, MNJ had to come to Portland for work, so he arrived a day early and we spent the day shopping and eating delicious food. He and Mandi gave me this book for my birthday.

Apparently, they think I need some butching up. I'd like to share with you some things I've learned. Chapter three of the book is on Love and Sex. There is a section in this chapter with the title "How to Identify Breast Implants". This has come in very handy. I like to know what I'm working with when talking to a woman. Am I right, fellas? No? Well, here are the six things to look for to spot fake, vine ripened chest fruit.

1. Remember: if they look too good to be true, they probably are.

2. Assess breast size as compared to frame size.

3. Be suspicious of baseball-shaped breasts or strangely arranged breasts (remember the spring break episode of Arrested Development? If not, find it and watch it.)

4. Check cleavage for rippling of the skin.

5. If appropriate, brush up against or hug someone with suspected breast implants.

6. Check under and around the breast for scarring. (I think it's safe to say I probably won't ever get the chance to use this method.)

While we were out shopping, we found a fun store with fun masks. You can call me Cleopatra and MNJ Queen Elizabeth. Emphasis on the Queen.

We also stopped by Little Winter, where I bought this print by Lisa Golightly. She has some fantastic stuff. Check it out on Etsy.

My Teenage Dream

Remember the Glee episode when Kurt visits the Dalton Academy and meets up with Blaine, who sings him Teenage Dream with all the other boys of the school? I liked that. After that show aired, my friend Ansley sent me this review of that episode. Tom and Lorenzo, the authors of the post, discuss that as fantastic as the "It Get's Better" project is, it only goes so far. Unfortunately, kids get their cues on what's normal and acceptable from the media. Here's what T&L have to say:

To the straight people reading us: remember high school? Remember your favorite songs and movies, TV shows and music videos from that period? Imagine if all of that media bombardment telling you what to like, what to wear, and how to be attractive, popular, and cool, imagine that all of that aimed for and addressed everyone else but you. Imagine what it's like when every sappy love song (or angry breakup song), every rom com, every trendy TV show and blockbuster movie, even every video game, imagine if they all depicted a form of romantic love that simply isn't available to you. Imagine going through high school without even so much as a hint of yourself reflected in any of the things you watch and listen to, any of the things that literally every other kid is talking about. Imagine the one thing you want more than anything in the world: to be kissed, please god, just to be kissed, imagine you have never seen that depicted anywhere or referred to in any way but as something to be mocked and shunned.

This is why the "Teenage Dream" sequence was so incredibly powerful. I remember getting lots of chills when I watched it, but the strange thing is that it didn't fully occur to my why it was giving me the chills it was until after I read the blog post above. But it's true. It was thrilling to see something depicted that I could actually relate too. I think I was also kind of annoyed that it was giving me chills and that I liked it so much because it was so damn cheesy. But it was allowing me to experience, by proxy, unlived teenage dreams.

This point was driven home even further last night when several Mormon young single adult congregations in the Portland area had a joint activity that was what they called a "Charity Date Auction." The title is a little bit misleading. It was actually a date auction for charity and not an auction of charity dates.

Anyway, I wasn't really planning on going. I meet with a trainer on Monday nights, so I wouldn't have been able to get there until well after it started. Plus there's the fact that I would have probably just ended up being annoyed by the whole thing. Lately though, I've been learning to experience such things while wearing the hat of a cultural anthropologist. When I do, these experiences become more interesting and somewhat less annoying.

So I went and caught part of the auction wearing my anthro hat. Sadly, it was a silent auction. I think a live auction (is that what they're called?) would have been so much more entertaining. I was envisioning something more along the lines of the date auction in Groundhog Day. It was interesting though to go and listen to what I was feeling. There was a sense of interest on my part to witness what was going on and to just sit back and observe in a fairly detached way.

I realized though as I left that I had this semi latent feeling of jealousy and longing. The energy in the air from good natured, sexually repressed Mormon twenty-somethings having a forum to express possible romantic interest in each other was incredibly tangible. Pretty much any Mormon young single adult event is infused with this energy: the excitement of possibly meeting someone you might like, or learning about someone who might be interested in you, the dread of having someone you're not interested in try to hit on you.

The energy is there and it's thick and I've almost never been able to experience it personally or feel a part of it in those settings. Early on, before I came to terms with my attraction to men, I probably would have just identified the inability as me being different somehow and that it was my problem that I had a hard time fitting myself into those scenes. It didn't occur to me that maybe those scenes weren't providing what I needed or hungered for, or that maybe I was so lost in what I was supposed to like and do that my own God given instincts and internal voice (the spirit) was getting completely drowned out.

I also realize that this experience of not feeling like you fit in, whether being a gay Mormon at a young single adult activity or anything else, isn't exclusive to gay Mormons. I'm curious what other experiences people have had with not feeling like you fit in with what was being portrayed around you, whatever the circumstance. How did you process it, grow from it or learn more about what your actual needs are, etc.? Or maybe you're still in the stage of being able to identify that you don't feel like you fit in somewhere that you think you should, but you can't exactly put your finger on why that is. How do you go about getting in touch with yourself enough to be able to start to understand where the discomfort comes from and what it can tell you about who you are and what your needs are?

On not leaving the church alone

I first became aware of Holly Welker this past summer. A friend sent me a fantastic piece she wrote for The Huffington Post for Pioneer Day, in which she celebrates modern Mormon pioneers like Carol Lynn Pearson, Dustin Lance Black and others. When I went to the Salt Lake Sunstone Symposium in August, I saw that Holly was presenting a paper on the Twilight books. I read her bio that accompanied a description of what she was going to present. Her bio listed the publications that she has been published in and the list started with The New Era and ended with Bitch. That kind of sealed the deal for me.

Holly came up to the Sunstone Symposium in Seattle/Portland a week and a half ago where we met and chatted. I felt an almost instantly comfortable connection with Holly, which is kind of a strangely beautiful thing for me because there was a time when she probably would have scared me. I used to be incredibly uncomfortable with anyone or anything that was even slightly critical of the church and its leaders. I most definitely would have been found nodding in agreement when someone would state the oft repeated phrase about how people who leave the church can’t leave the church alone.

Now I realize that it’s much more complicated than that, and that subtle brand of condescension doesn’t do anyone any good. There are many varied and valid reasons why people leave the church and I think it’s important to know and understand those reasons and the people who do choose to leave. And the seeking to understand shouldn’t come from a place of superiority or from a place of trying to manipulate them back into the fold. I think it should come from a place of exploring how another person’s experience can inform and shape and instruct my own.

One thing I’ve noticed with my friends and family, who have left full activity in the church, is that well meaning people try to minister to their needs and questions without being willing or able to fully explore the reasons why they left in the first place or without seeking to know and see them. It sends the probably unintended but still insulting message that their status with the institutional church is more important than their actual well-being.

Holly recently wrote a great piece for Religion Dispatches. She doesn’t discuss why she left the church, but she does a beautiful job of explaining why she wont’t leave the church alone. If you read it and other things she has written, you may not agree with everything she says or how she says it, but I’m willing to bet that your experience with Mormonism will become fuller and more three dimensional as a result, whether you have left the church or are a true believing member or fall somewhere in between.

I should mention that O-Mo also recently wrote a terrific blog post about leaving the church but not leaving it alone. Check it out.

Sexter Alert!

This is an urgent warning to all moho bloggers. I feel the need to warn you about a predator amongst us. He will pretend to respect your boundaries and build up a certain level of trust. He will make you feel comfortable enough that you might even give him your phone number so you can phone talk. He’ll send you benign texts at first, but then one day, he’ll unexpectedly take his phone into the bathroom at work, take a picture and sext you salacious garbage like this….



I can’t prove it, but I bet his pants were pulled down at least part way. Beware the sexter!!

An Experiment on the Word

I’m assuming that by now most of you have heard of the blog (Gay) Mormon Guy. The blog became fairly popular after its author posted a response to Packer's conference talk. I know there has been some speculation about whether or not GMG is who he says he is. Regardless of who he is or isn’t, I initially felt rubbed the wrong way by his blog because it seemed as though he was becoming an unofficial spokesperson for gay Mormons, and I felt that he didn’t effectively speak for me and my experiences.

I’ve moved past that for the most part and now I am able to appreciate his blog for a couple reasons. One, I believe it helps up the maturity level from where it was with many Mormons on the issue of homosexuality. By no means do I think it gets us where we need to be (and I wouldn’t pretend to know where we need to be, I just recognize that we most certainly aren’t there yet), but at least there are now Mormons, besides other gay Mormons, who want to read about the experiences of a gay Mormon guy. It starts with baby steps.

The other reason that I am coming to appreciate his blog is that because his approach to the issue doesn’t resonate with me, it acts as a foil to me and my experiences. It has helped me bring my thoughts and experiences into sharper focus.

GMG recently posted this on his blog. He talks about being concerned that blogging about homosexuality is bringing it more to the forefront in his life, and whether or not that is a good thing. I posted the following comment:

I think there's a lot of value in allowing yourself to feel the attraction, and listen to what it's telling you about yourself and how you relate to others. It's becoming very clear that the church stance is that feeling the attraction itself is not a sin, so I say why not feel it and listen to it and see what God has to tell me through it.

GMG posted this response to my comment:

The Church is clear that unwanted attraction is not a sin. But I am more afraid of the sin of complacency. When I feel attracted to a guy I try to understand what is going through my head... but not just to watch emotions and hormones take over. It's to better understand how to leverage the resources I have to help me fulfill my own personal goals and help others in their own lives.

I posted another comment in response to that, but I’m not sure if it will be posted yet since he moderates comments on his posts. I wish I had copied and pasted it somewhere because now it’s gone. Basically what I said though is that when I suggested that it might be OK to allow myself to feel the attraction that I didn’t necessarily mean that I should give myself over to hormonally lustful fantasies.

I experience the attraction as much more than just a physical thing. It’s also emotional and intellectual and even spiritual. I think some gay Mormon guys are too uncomfortable with or worried about the physical attraction surfacing that they also cut themselves off from feeling the other types of attractions (emotional, intellectual, spiritual) that are the basis for experiencing meaningful and healing connections and relationships with other men. Connections and relationships that are vital to growing into well integrated and emotionally healthy adulthood, whether your goal is a same sex relationship, opposite sex relationship or celibacy.

A few years ago, I decided to ignore what the church and its leaders were telling me about homosexuality. I decided to open myself up to the idea of seeking out and settling down in a long term relationship with another man. I also knew that I wasn’t emotionally ready for something like that so I decided to focus on becoming emotionally ready. I was kind of surprised at what happened. Opening up that space gave the attraction room to breathe. The space allowed the attraction to grow and change and mature beyond the gay adolescence that many closeted men get stuck in. Before it was mostly just physical and often all consuming. Now it it’s more full and nuanced. The emotional and intellectual and spiritual aspects of it have been allowed to show themselves and it doesn’t seem to be so all consuming.

To me, allowing myself to experience the attraction isn’t about complacency. It’s about experimenting on the word like I believe my Creator has asked me to do.

Love Fest 2010

This weekend I attended a Sunstone symposium in Seattle and part of that was a panel discussion of Mormon feminism. There were four fantastic ladies on the panel and they talked a little bit about their experiences “coming out” as Mormon feminists. Some of them spoke of the community they found through email lists before blogging came into its own and then blogging. Certainly that wasn’t the birth of Mormon feminism, but technology has certainly facilitated the formation of community. They spoke of the joy of being able to connect with others who felt the same way about the role of women in the church and in general, the comfort of being able to voice frustrations and doubts and fears in a safe space without feeling judged or looked down on.

Of course I couldn’t help but think of the parallels with the gay Mormon community that exists online. I also couldn’t help but think of all the fantastic people I’ve been able to meet and develop enriching relationships with. I’ve only been blogging for about a year and a half, but I’ve met some truly wonderful people who have profoundly impacted my journey of figuring out what it means to be gay and Mormon. I also feel like it has been a place for me to express myself and as a result, begin to find myself.

It’s also been a way to share a part of myself that I held private for so many years with both friends and family, and as a result, connect more fully with them. There was a lot of compartmentalization before. For those who knew the secret, I could feel more comfortable in being myself and letting go. For those who didn’t know, I had to remember to keep my guard up. Now I feel more integrated and whole than I did before. Much like George Costanza, I was always concerned about different worlds colliding because I was different things in different worlds. Now I find myself letting them collide and then sitting back and seeing what happens as a result. To me and to others. It forces me to stake down who I am, instead of trying to cater to whomever I’m with.

So this post is a love letter to all my peeps online and offline, gay and straight and in between, family and friends. Thanks for being a part of my community. <3

This and That

If you are in the Portland area, you are probably going to want to check out Little Winter this weekend. My friend Chelsea at frolic! is co-sponsoring the event . It’s a handmade market of local craftspeople and I think it’s going to be fantastic. Details are at the website. MNJ is going to be in town this weekend for work, so we are going to check it out.

Also, I have a guest post up at The Exponent. Go check it out and join the conversation. Thanks, Stella, for letting me play on your blog.

Time to go meet the dream team for lunch at Bunk. Mmmmm....

Time to Evolve

A while back, I wrote a post with the title Choose Your Own Ending. I'm gonna paste a large chunk of it below that pertains to what I want to explore in this post:

If you think about, the gay son born to a very strictly Mormon family sets up the perfect scenario for amazing transformation and opportunities for learning. They are a perfect foil for each other. In literature, a foil is a person who is a contrast to another character. I am admittedly not an English major, so if any English majors want to jump in and add anything, feel free. By providing this contrast, the foil might help the main character understand himself better, or help the reader understand the main character better. A foil gives something to be played off of. It provides some amount of tension.

A gay Mormon might help his conservative family learn to live a little bit outside the lines, in a way that expands their understanding of the gospel. The family might help the gay son not live self-destructively outside the lines. Each provides a necessary tug in different directions and as a result, they help each other live more fully.

I was recently involved in a retreat for the choir I sing in. We had a guest clinician come work with us. She had us do some exercises that helped us ignore some of the standard rules of good singing. She told us that sometimes you have to go outside your boundaries to see where they are. To add to the conversation, our director said that she sometimes has a lady come help her clean her house and she always warns her that it’s going to get messier before it gets cleaner.

This isn’t to say that I believe that we should explore everything and forget all boundaries. I do think, however, that we are sometimes way too scared to make mistakes. We cloister ourselves so far inside the lines that I think we miss out on opportunities for growth. Let your gay Mormon son be your tour guide and continue to be his. Just a warning though, his tour will probably be much flashier and might include song and dance. Just go with it. Trust me. The term foil refers to the practice of putting dark, polished metal (a foil) underneath a gemstone to make it shine more brightly.

OK, so there's that. Now here's a video that TGD posted recently on his blog. If you have very clearly defined lines and roles around what you think it means to be a man and what it means to be a woman, you might find this video weird and it might make you uncomfortable. The good Lord knows that earlier in my life this video would have made me feel uncomfortable.

So here's the challenge. Watch the video. Allow yourself to mentally slide around a bit on what you think it means to be a man or a woman. You don't have to end up completely embracing everything he says, but at least allow yourself space to slide around and believe for a minute that what he's saying is true and valid. Explore what that means for you and how you experience your own gender and the opposite gender. In doing so, you might end up reworking your lines and boundaries in ways that make you feel more whole and more integrated.

Costume Ideas

If any of you are still looking for a costume, here are some ideas. The video is funny and also sad. Sad because some people probably don't realize it's satirical and will be nodding their heads in agreement as they listen and taking notes.

Homosexuality: A Straight BYU Student's Perspective

Many of you have probably already seen this. Several moho bloggers were emailed this weekend by a guy named Brad Carmack about a book he's working on and wanting to get published. Below is his explanation of the book as well as a link to the manuscript. I haven't read through the whole thing yet, but it looks like he's trying to encourage more compassion and understanding on the issue of homosexuality within Mormonism. That's cool, right? Anyway, take a look. Let me know what you think.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Title: Homosexuality: A Straight BYU Student’s Perspective

1) President Packer’s general conference talk
2) The recent rash of suicides by gay teens across the country, accompanying “It Gets Better Project,” and current suffering of my homosexually oriented brothers and sisters
3) My coauthor, from whom I have received much help and inspiration, wants it out sooner than later
These are the reasons why I am releasing my book now. I preferred to wait until Homosexuality: A Straight BYU Student’s Perspective was groomed and edited further; however, it is not my book alone. Heavenly Father helped me write it, and I believe He would have me release it rather than keep it on my hard drive while I spend months making minor improvements. This book is destined to relieve some of the suffering of my homosexual brothers and sisters, though I don’t yet know by how much. Stuart Matis, shortly before committing suicide on the steps of an LDS chapel on February 25, 2000 in Los Altos, California, wrote to his family: “Perhaps my death ... might become the catalyst for much good. I'm sure that you will now be strengthened in your resolve to teach the members and the leaders regarding the true nature of homosexuality. My life was actually killed many years ago. Your actions might help to save many young people's lives."

So here it is- my 165-page magnum opus to date, in raw .docx and .pdf form (google doc: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B1u3K43P-3JoYTUzNjYwMGEtNzNmYi00ODkwLTllMzYtNjRlOTVlMWUwYTM2&hl=en
Non gmail users, in .pdf only:
http://rapidshare.com/files/426861209/Homosexuality_A_Straight_BYU_Student_s_Perspective_Draft_2.pdf). I invite your feedback as I’m still in the later editing stage. Summary of the book below.

My promise to the open-minded reader is that you will be touched, you will learn things you had never considered, and your views on same-sex marriage and homosexuality in the LDS church will likely change voluntarily.

-Bradley Carmack

Summary: The book has two parts: 1) homosexuality (chapters 1-3) and 2) same-sex marriage (chapters 4-7).

In chapter 1, I argue that church members should have great compassion for homosexually oriented members of the church because of the personal difficulties they experience as a result of their orientation and how the Mormon community typically responds to that orientation. I quote a number of studies and give voice to the experiences of many LDS homosexually oriented people.

In chapter 2, I explore causation, detailing both the religious voice and the scientific consensus. Elder Oaks noted how appropriate this type of an inquiry is: "The Church does not have a position on the causes of any of these susceptibilities or inclinations, including those related to same-gender attraction. Those are scientific questions — whether nature or nurture — those are things the Church doesn’t have a position on." I detail 60 statements by church leaders on what causes homosexuality. On the scientific side, I discuss 32 separate subjects to juxtapose two opposing hypotheses for the causation of homosexual orientation: 1) biological factors such as genes and pre-natal hormones, and 2) factors such as infection, molestation, and choice. Some examples of the evidence addressed: homosexual men have, on average, measurably and significantly different ratios of the second to fourth digit of their hands than their heterosexual counterparts. The anterior commissure of their brains is gender shifted away from the heterosexual male norm and toward the heterosexual female norm. Their limb:trunk ratio is similarly gender-shifted, as is their performance on visio-spatial tasks, third interstitial nucleus (a region of the brain thought to be directive of male-type sexual behavior) size and density, left:right brain hemisphere ratio, brain response to sex pheromones, cochlear sound production, thalamic response to female faces, verbal abilities, physical aggressiveness, expressiveness, and childhood gender conformity to name just a few.

In chapter 3 I examine how changeable sexual orientation is by considering relevant church doctrines and looking at the empirical evidence on both sides.

In chapter 4 I show why homosexuals can reproduce, contrary to popular belief, and note that they are no different from inherently infertile heterosexual couples as to their reproductive capacity.

In chapter 5 I argue why, assuming for a moment that homosexual behavior is not sinful, it makes a lot of moral sense to support LDS same-sex marriage. For instance, I show how important family is to mortal experience and point out that celibacy does not provide a family experience, while same-sex marriage does.

Chapter 6 contains rebuttals to common anti- same-sex marriage arguments, many of which are deeply flawed.

Chapter 7 applies Elder Oaks's recent speech on the Constitution. Many church members have said that Judge Walker should not have heard the Perry v. Schwarzenegger (Prop 8) case, but instead should have let the voice of the people of California decide the matter. I show why this view is antithetical to our constitutional system of governance.

In closing, I explain my motivations for writing and make invitations to the reader.

Go ahead

Try and tell me that my nephew isn't adorable. He asked my sister to put in a yoga DVD and then he laid out a mat and did yoga for 20 minutes. He's three.

Also, as I was uploading the picture, I noticed the amount of purple in it. Appropriate, don't you think? Personally, I'm wearing more of an eggplant colored shirt. Eggplant counts, right?

If you are in Portland and looking for something to do tonight, this looks like it will be pretty interesting. Thanks to Ansley for the heads up.

Thomas Moore on morality

The unintegrated personality does not have the character strength to hold the tension, but tends to release one side of the tension in favor of the other side, which is favored due to safety, comfort, or familiarity.

There is evil in this world and in the human heart. If we don't recognize this, we have a naive attitude that can get us into trouble. Jung thought the soul could benefit by coming to terms with both kinds of shadow, losing some of its naive innocence in the process. It appears to me that as we open ourselves to see what our soul is made of and who we really are, we always find some material that is a profound challenge.

To some extent, care of the soul asks us to open our hearts wider than they have ever been before, softening the judging and moralism that may have characterized our attitudes and behavior for years. Moralism is one of the most effective shields against the soul, protecting us from its intricacy. There is nothing more revealing and maybe nothing more healing, than to reconsider our moralistic attitudes and find how much soul has been hidden behind their doors. People seem to be afraid that if they reflect on their moral principles they might lose their ethical sensitivity altogether. But that is a defensive approach to morality. As we deal with the soul's complexity, morality can deepen and drop its simplicity, becoming at the same time more demanding and more flexible

What question is being asked of you?

The following is an excerpt from the book Fate and Destiny by Michael Meade:

Each individual life is a specific question being asked of the world and the answer is not complete until the end of the road is reached.

It's like the story of the old rabbi who lay upon his deathbed as the final hour drew near. His name was Zushya and he had lived a long enough life. He was a holy man who had studied scholarly texts and taught others for many years. He ha become widely known and respected. More than that, he was revered and loved by his students for his honesty and for his wit.

Now that his time had come, his faithful students gathered around to share in his final moments. With characteristic honesty, the old teacher told his students the truth of this situation. He explained with the hour of death approaching he feared having to face God. "I am afraid," he said, "of God's final justice. I fear that I will be punished in the world to come."

The students were shocked; how could such a thing be possible? Their teacher was an exceptional religious leader who had taught them generously and guided them wisely. Now, the students began to reassure the teacher: "Rabbi, you are a pure and righteous man. You have shown the leadership of Abraham, the courage of Jacob, the vision of Moses, and the moral fortitude of the greatest prophets. What do you have to fear in facing God?"

With his final breath Zushya replied to his students, "I am not afraid that God will ask me, "Zushya, why were you not more like Abraham? Why were not not more like Moses? I can answer honestly that I did not have the god-given abilities of Abraham or the talents of Moses. But, if God asks me, "Zushya, why were you not more like Zushya? For that I have no answer at all!" In so saying, Zushya passed into the world that waits beyond this one.

We qualify for the next world by living uniquely and creatively in this one. The old teacher made his death meaningful and memorable by stating the case for the uniqueness of each life.

The saints and prophets, the great philosophers and wise teachers may be proper models for finding the paths of discovery, but each life must eventually become a revelation of itself. Simply imitating a Moses doesn't satisfy the question that the divine has for each soul. Living by religious rules and precepts can open a path of learning and development, but in the end no outer model can lead us all the way to becoming who we are at the core of ourselves.

Seen this way, the final judgment will not pivot upon doctrines or dogmas; for there is no theory or system that can substitute for a life unlived, for a story undeveloped, for a fate not faced, for a destiny not embraced. That's the final lesson, the last word, and essential wisdom that the good rabbi was honest enough to communicate with his final breath.

Moses began being Moses when he was placed in a basket and given to the river of life. Later, he knew how to part the waters and lead others from bondage to safety. The waters held both his fate and his destiny; the knowledge he needed was within him even when he was abandoned. The basket served as the particulars of his fate from which his destiny slowly unfolded. Didn't Noah become awash with dreams before he could receive divine instructions on how to fashion ships and survive floods? Each became a prophet in their own way and each is remembered for the way they became themselves.

Maybe Packer's talk was inspired after all

Yup. I just said that; however, I’m guessing that my reasons for thinking it was inspired are a little bit different than the reasons why many others thought it was inspired. For a while now, I’ve had this idea simmering in the back of my mind. I believe that God (or whoever/whatever you believe is in charge, assuming you believe something is in charge) uses all we are to carry out a divine plan, including our strengths, weaknesses, short-sightedness, prejudice. I believe he actually relies on everything we are to carry out that plan, including the strengths and weaknesses of those who lead the church.

I don’t want to attempt to dissect how much of Packer’s talk was pure inspiration from God, versus the result of his limitations as an imperfect mortal. To me, that’s what personal revelation is for. Elder Oaks once said, “I only teach the general rules. Whether an exception applies to you is your responsibility. You must work that out individually between you and the Lord.” What is more important to me now than the content of Packer’s talk is what the talk has sparked. Sure, it has sparked a lot of unproductive, condescending discussion coming from all sides, but I think it has also sparked a lot of thoughtful and productive conversations as well.

I know that in the past week, I had very productive conversations with my mom and my oldest sister. I feel like I was able to be more up front and honest and articulate about how I feel about the church’s approach to homosexuality and they’ve sought to understand where I’m coming from and I’ve done the same with them. I’ve also had friends reach out to me who aren’t totally comfortable taking everything Packer said without any kind of question or discussion, and want to have a well thought out and considerate response when people who aren’t Mormon ask what their thoughts are on the issue. They realize that if they just simply restate what Packer said, they are going to sound ridiculous.

I also observed a very civil and productive conversation that resulted when my uncle Mike posted something on Facebook. Mike is in the process of becoming a therapist and the discussion is between him and a couple of colleagues. They discuss reparative therapy and what the role of the therapist should be. They don’t all agree on everything, but the conversation is thoughtful and productive. I got permission from all involved in the conversation string to post a link to it here, because I think it is something worth reading. A lot of really great questions and ideas are explored. Below is what I contributed to the exchange:

This has been a fantastic conversation. I wish all discussions on the subject could be so respectful, open and as a result, more productive.

I am one who grew up in the LDS church and am also gay (and full disclosure: Mike is my uncle). For several years (close to a decade) I went the route of reparative therapy. I didn't really consider any other way as an option because of my religious beliefs. I firmly believed that I could and needed to change. After several years of attempting that route, and through a series of experiences, I realized a couple of things.

My attraction to men had not gone away and even though I enjoyed many close relationships with amazing women, I was developing absolutely no desire for it to be anything other than platonic. I tried to cross over into romantic relationships with a few women and it ended up being damaging to both of our psyches in each relationship.

Around this time, (a few years ago) I started seeing a therapist who helped me explore what I believed and why and what I wanted and why. This exploration helped me tease out what would be a viable approach for me. I began to realize that not only do I have agency to choose, but I also have agency to make meaning. I can decide for myself what it means for me to be gay and Mormon.

Currently that means that I'm pretty open about my sexuality and also currently active at church. Marrying a woman is off the table for me. I'm not in a relationship with a man, but I'm open to it. I don't seek it out. I just participate in things that interest me and if it happens, it happens. I have a group of other gay Mormon friends. Some of whom are active LDS, some who have left. One is currently married to a woman with two kids and one has a boyfriend. Before, l wouldn’t have associated with them because I believed it would undermine my end goal of becoming straight.

Since taking on this new approach, I've felt a resonance and rhythm flow into my adult life that I've never before experienced. To me, a good therapist is one who not only doesn't push his or her own agenda and presents different options, but also empowers the client to know that he or she doesn't necessarily need to rely on currently existing, well-trodden paths, but has the power within to make meaning and to make paths for themselves.

I’m not saying that Packer’s talk was fantastic and I fully embrace it now as being the mind and will of God. (Or I suppose that it isn't. I wouldn't assume that I know what's going on in God's head.) I’m just saying God works in mysterious ways. I know in my own life he’s worked in ways much more mysterious than I ever would have thought possible.

I see you

Some of you may have heard that there was a talk given by someone this past Sunday that has stirred up some spirited discussions. In all the response and discussion of the talk, one of the words that keeps coming up is choice. You can choose to change if only you have enough faith in God and the atonement. I think one of the most frustrating things for me is the way that the idea of choosing to change is casually thrown about as though it were merely a matter of choosing which pair of shoes to wear in the morning or choosing which route to take to work or choosing what kind of food is my favorite. It bothers me that it’s tossed about by people who haven’t walked in the shoes I chose to wear this morning.

I also think there are people who feel strongly that they actually have walked in my shoes. Perhaps he/she at some point might have experienced a passing curiosity in his/her own gender, but it wasn’t big and it wasn’t entertained and he/she moved on to relationships with the opposite sex that he/she found fulfilling. In that own person’s individual experience, it might have been as simple as just choosing not to go there. The problem is when a person takes his own experience and assumes that everyone else experiences things in exactly the same way.

I believe the way we experience sexuality and attraction differs from person to person. Some people experience no attraction whatsoever for anyone of the same gender. Some people might experience an attraction only to a limited number of people of their own gender. Some people might have just a subtle attraction to their own gender in general but a stronger attraction to the opposite gender. Some people are purely attracted to their own gender and attempting to change that can prove destructive. Some people experience it as more of an emotional experience while others might experience the sexual end more strongly. There are probably as many ways to experience attraction as there are people who populate this earth and assuming that everyone experiences it the same way you do leads to the terrible divisiveness and miscommunication that runs rampant in discussions on the topic.

I think the focus on change is a distraction from what would be a much more productive exercise: seeking to understand what the experience of the person in front of you is and has been and seeking to feel the love and understanding that their Creator has for them. Seeking to know them as their Creator knows them. What’s the greeting that the Na’avi people say to each other in Avatar? I see you? Do we really see the people around us? Or are we too busy trying to tell them who we think they should be based on our own limited life experiences.

I’m just as guilty of this as the next guy. Sometimes instead of seeing a person and having respect and compassion for where they are when it’s different from where I am, I waste a little too much energy being frustrated by the fact that they aren’t where I am or that they don’t think like I think. I find that my blood pressure goes down when I actually seek to understand where that person is coming from. That they feel just as passionately about what they are saying as I feel about what I’m saying. What they are saying is absolute truth to them and considering any other way of thinking is troublesome and threatening. When I don't go through this process of seeing the other person, the communication is awkward at it's very best and destructive at its worst. When I see the other person, my blood pressure goes down and I find I’m better able to respond in a more constructive and meaningful way.

The brethren make statements that homosexuals are welcome in the church, but I think reality speaks louder than those words. I’d be willing to bet that the reality is that there are more gay Mormons who choose not to participate in the church for reasons of self preservation than there are gay Mormons who choose to stick around. I think this reality is a result of all of us failing to really see each other.

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

-Naomi Shihab Nye

Are you there, Boyd?

There are lots of things I'd like to say about Packer's talk. For now though, I'll just post this with the hope that he reads my blog and watches this and that it melts his cold, dark and fearful heart.

My integrity: worth between $6 and $20

Several months ago at work, I found $6 on the ground near my desk. I asked the people near me if it belonged to any of them. Someone said it belonged to a woman I will call Butterfly Kisses because that's a code name I used for her with a friend. I can get along alright with most people, but there are a few people on this earth, with whom I have a very difficult time talking to. At all. Butterfly Kisses is one of them.

Once I took a personality test at work and got my own personalized booklet and one of the things my booklet told me was that I don't respect people who I think ignore reality. I think that might be part of my difficulty with BK.

Either way, when someone said that it was probably hers, I just kept it. I didn't want to have to have to interact with her. I figured enough people knew I found some money and that if she really was looking for her $6, she'd find out who had it. She never did and I kept it in my desk for a while before enough time had passed to make me feel sufficiently comfortable with spending it.

This morning as I was walking to my desk, I found $20 in roughly the same spot that I found the $6 several months before. Again, someone said that it probably belonged to Butterfly Kisses. Apparently, she just walks around with loose bills in her pocket and they are always falling out. Maybe if I just follow her around (at a safe distance) I wouldn't have to work anymore.

Anyway, I couldn't justify keeping the $20 so I went over to her desk and asked if she was missing any money. She said she'd lost $20 this morning and so I handed it over and endured the conversation that followed.

Conclusion: my integrity is worth between $6 and $20.

Happy Birthday, Carol Lynn

Tomorrow (Monday) is Carol Lynn Pearson's birthday. She posted on Facebook an experience she had last weekend in a meeting between Marlin Jensen, a general authority of the LDS church, and members of the church in the Oakland, CA area who had been hurt by the church's involvement in Prop 8. Read about her experience here.

Happy Birthday Carol Lynn!

Also, can we please start a petition to get Marlin into the 12? That's how these things work, right?

Links of love

These will be internet links, not sausage links, although I could probably actually go for some sausage links right now. It's almost lunch time. Next Friday is my birthday and my coworkers are taking me to lunch and I have to decide where we're going. I am considering Tasty n Sons because just like its name suggests, it's quite tasty. They actually just do brunch from 9:00 am to 2:30 pm, which is probably why I have sausage links on the brain. (Keep your unsavory jokes to yourself)

On to the actual links. My friend Christina sent me a link to this NY Times article titled Showing Gay Teenagers a Happy Future. That's definitely something I can get behind. Apparently, the columnist Dan Savage has started a YouTube channel called the "It Get's Better Project". The idea behind it is for well adjusted gay adults to let their much younger counterparts know that even though life might be unbearable as a gay teen, it can and does in fact get better. You can carve out a beautiful and fulfilling life for yourself although it might be different than what you had anticipated or what friends and family might expect from you. I haven't watched any of the videos yet, but it's on my "to do" list.

Also, I have been listening to this podcast from Mormon Stories. John Dehlin hosts a panel of active Mormons who didn't necessarily support Prop 8 (yes, there are active Mormons who didn't/don't support Prop 8). The panel includes BYU student Cary Crall, Morris Thurston (a lawyer who wrote this response to "Six Consequences of Prop 8 Fails"), and Laura Compton, who I believe runs the blog Mormons for Marriage. They take phone calls from listeners during the podcast, some of whom did support Prop 8. The conversation is interesting and informative and incredibly civil. Listen to it on your commute or something.

My friend Krisanne sent me a link to these talks that were given in some Mormon congregations in Oakland, California. The talks were given and information shared in an effort to one, heal the ugly divide in their congregations that has resulted from Prop 8 and two, to help create more understanding on the topic of homsexuality. I really wish more leaders would more proactively address the issue because I'm afraid it's not going to just go away.

There is a lot of stuff to consume in those links. Dig in!

More from JonJon's Journal

A few weeks ago I posted my first journal entry from my childhood journal. It was sweet and innocent, which is kind of how things went for me all through elementary school. I was comfortable and confident and I was really good at memorizing things and regurgitating them, so I did really well in school. My teachers usually really liked me and vice versa. I can tell you what each of my teachers wore on the first day of school from 3rd through 6th grade, probably because I was so thrilled to be back in school that the details of those days were seared into my young little memory. Mrs. Thurston wore a black and white splotchy dress, Mrs. Hess wore a khaki skirt with a pink and white striped button up, Mrs. Pollock (my least favorite teacher and yes, we made fun of her name) wore a vertically striped dress that was different shades of blue and green, and Mrs. Butcher wore a khaki skirt with a brown sweater. Elementary school was kind of magical and my memories are all pretty much good. I really felt like I was king of my tiny, elementary-sized world.

Things quickly fell apart when I started middle school. In my April 4, 1991 entry, I was just finishing my 7th grade year. I was very adept at eloquently expressing my frustrations. This is what I had to say in very large angry letters: "I HATE SCHOOL IT'S SUCKS! SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS SUCKS SCHOOL SUCKS SUCKS ROYALY SUCKS, WAR HAS ENDED (Persion Gulf with Bush I, I'm thinking) SCHOOL SUCKS IT SUCKS MY TEACHERS SUCK." I'm glad I at least took some time to throw in a current event to give some more context.

Another good entry is June 10, 1992, just after my 8th grade year had ended. Here's my report on the start of summer: "The first few days have been pretty busy - haircut, doctor's, piano lessons, working, and laying out. Lately I've heard about nothing but tans, laying out, etc. - So and so's laying out, and people making fun of people with farmer tans. So yesterday I decided to lay out and get rid of my farmer tan. It didn't do much. I might lay out again today." What?

In my June 25, 1992 entry, I delve a little bit into some medical issues: "I don't know if I've said anything, but a year ago I got this wart-like thing on the bottom of my tongue. My doctor, Dr. Morrison, cut it out. Then it grew back one year later and I got it cut off again this last June 2. Then it grew back again with several other sores. I have an appointment with Dr. Morrison on July 7. I'll let you know about it when it comes around. Well I better go. Auf Vedersehen."

July 1, 1992 starts out with "I thought of something I wanted to write down while I was doing my hair." What 8th grade boy refers to "doing his hair"? A very special one like me. The something that I wanted to write down was an experience I had when the middle school was putting on Bye Bye Birdie. I played the part of Huge Peabody and during intermission, Katie Lyn Lowder (I have no memory now of this girl or that she and I had this conversation) came up to me back stage and gave me a hug and told me she just had to because I was so damn adorable. This is what I remembered while doing my hair that I had to write down. Three months after it had happened, after school was out and I was one month into summer. Clearly, I was hungry for some kind of validation. Then I went on to explain that I wanted to be an actor when I grew up but that I probably wouldn't be one for the following reasons: "There aren't many Mormon actors because as mormons we wouldn't want to do some of the things directors and producers would want us to do. Then you see the lives of some actors who get married and divorced 20 times in their lifetime." Did I mention I was probably a little bit self-righteous as a child? Those were my reasons then, and those are the reasons why today I am not a famous actor.

The summer of 1992 was the summer that we went on a family vacation in the northwest that included a couple of days in Portland. The only other time I had been before moving here almost 8 years ago. This is what I had to say about my now beloved city: "I love it there, but the streets downtown are all messed up."

I've noticed a theme in my entries. They are fairly bipolar. I'm either ecstatically happy or incredibly sad/angry. My journal is littered with entries like this one:

Don't worry, I never physically harmed anyone, although maybe I would have felt better if I had. My final entry in this journal is December 13, 1996, just a few weeks before leaving to be a missionary for two years for the LDS church. At this point I had not told anyone of my attraction to men, but carried a lot of guilt about it: "Satan is working even harder to bring me down. I feel like such a terrible, terrible person. Like I'm no good. Like the Lord has no use for me. Satan is doing his job & doing it well. I will push forward. I will read the scriptures. I will pray. I will keep my mind clear, I will not let doubts get in the way of fulfilling my dreams. I will dedicate the next 2 years to my Father in Heaven. I am His."

There are lots of things I would tell my younger, naive and so earnest self if I could. The general idea though, is encapsulated in these quotes.

Up and Over It

I CANNOT stop watching this video. You can't make me. There is so much to love about it. Watch this and it will instantly make your day better.

Also, my friend Carlos, who is a tumblr, sent me a link to some really fantastic Wendy's training videos from the 90's. Here's one of them:

Finally, my friend Krisanne recently started a new art blog called A Paper Moth. Here's her description of what her plan is for the blog:

Here is where I tuck academia away and write the poetry of art. I will post a work of art that strikes me and write a short paragraph based solely on my emotional response to it. There is no analytical brain work to my writing here, just heart.

Krisanne knows art and she knows words and if anyone has heart, it's her. She combines all of the above very beautifully on her new blog, so go check it out. Also, she has opened it up for anyone who would like to contribute.

That is all. Happy Friday, everyone.

Mondays with Eugene

I've been tossing around in my head lately this thought that maybe the importance of gender isn't so that we can clearly define and separate into masculine and feminine roles, but so we can bring both together to acheive a balance of the masculine and the feminine within ourselves. I've been chewing on gender a lot lately and I'm not sure where I'm at. I think gender is important, but I don't think we've arrived at a satisfactory and holistic understanding of why and how it is. In the mean time, here's a little tidbit from Eugene England that explores the idea of exploring and cultivating both the masculine and the feminine as he experienced it:

In the past ten years, I have become increasingly unsure about the value and satisfactions of my traditional male role as aggressive achiever, doer, decider, spokesman—which, for all my achievements, has left me lonely and defensive, in some ways emotionally immature. I have become uneasy about what our culture has traditionally designated the “masculine” virtues of courage, pride, self-confidence, rational assertion, generalization, decisiveness—which, for all their apparent value, seem to leave individuals and societies in constant, unsatisfied desire, engaged in endless envy, rivalry, and imitative violence. I have found inadequate, for my own needs as a poet and essayist, the traditional male style of straight forward narration, logical conclusiveness—which, for all it says, leaves much of what is most important to me unsaid. Instead, I find myself, though I’m still not very good at it, wanting to listen, cooperate, nurture with presence, learn rather than teach. I yearn to be more than to do, to give mercy more and seek justice less, to heal rather than to help, to be meek. I want to hear my inner voices, record their circling presence, trust my unconscious mind as it moves upon silence, as it responds to the unpredictable, uncapturable breeze of the Holy Ghost. I do not want to be thesorcerer, to hold power that changes women into something else. My best piece of writing so far, I believe (and more objective critics have agreed), is a personal essay called “Easter Weekend” (1988). In writing it, I began to discover the “woman” in myself, a voice that hovered and circled rather than thrusting to conclusions, that combined narratives like a mosaic to get at emotional patterns rather than moving through logical exposition to a rational conclusion. With increasing assurance, I listened for and finally heard and expressed new voices, different from my own but part of me. No, I don’t believe women naturally write that way or that all men should. I only know that I discovered important things, things I am excitedly exploring, that cultural male modes and models had not provided me. To paraphrase Dustin Hoffman in Tootsie, “I was a better man when Iwas a woman than I was when I was a man.”

I'm picking up what he's laying down. When I was going through my Evergreen phase, I remember thinking that I needed to model the roles of masculinity that I saw around me. In my own limited world view, to me that meant I needed to be less emotional. I needed to be more logical and decisive. I needed to develop a love for sports and learn aggression. I needed to associate less with women, because I was way too comfortable with them and it was preventing me from being attracted to them.

I was depending on a construct that I now believe is broken to try and fix myself, without realizing that I really actually wasn't broken in the way that I thought I was. I was trying to shut down a part of myself that was hungering for expression and in the process needlessly breaking myself, even though at the time I thought it was part of the fixing process. Eventually though, I learned that I just need to let the wholeness that is already in me unfold instead of trying to be something I wasn't.

What are your thoughts on gender?

Wiiiiiiiiiiiith.....a HERRING!!

Sometimes I wonder if all this back and forth over Prop 8 is just a big fat red herring. We're getting distracted by the argument itself, instead of stopping to listen to what it is we are supposed to be learning. This isn't to say that I think we shouldn't be having the conversations, because I think we should. I just think we are missing a very crucial element that could help improve the conversation.

And it's not even really just about Prop 8, take any kind of disagreement you could have with any other person or group. I believe that how a person reacts to any given radioactive topic is more a Rorschach test that tells more about what's going on inside that person than it does about pretty much anything else.

Think about a recent conversation you've had or something you've read or observed that got you all sorts of riled up. You probably had some sort of immediate emotional reaction, and the instinct is to run with that immediate emotion. Odds are, your immediate reaction isn't just about what's happening in that moment. It's usually an accumulation of a lifetime of unprocessed baggage.

Maybe my vigorous support of or opposition to (insert radioactive topic here) is more a manifestation of my own fears or past pains. Maybe I've just become an emotional puppet for these fears and pains to continue playing out their tragic and painful story. That doesn’t mean these fears and pains are not legitimate. They are. They probably wouldn’t keep showing up and taking over certain interactions if they weren’t.

The truth is, they need to be acknowledged and processed. When I have a strong emotional response to something, I need to pause and sit down and listen to what my immediate reaction is telling me about myself. My reaction is probably telling me a lot more about myself than it is about the situation at hand.

If I take that time, then I’ll probably be more successful at processing my baggage and then it won’t control me. I’ll be able to be present with any given situation and be able to contribute to a meaningful conversation instead of turning into the emotional puppet and then trying to pass it off as righteous indignation.

A piggyback on Finding Your Tribe

My friend Lizzy recently posted something called Finding your Tribe, and I'm going to piggyback on it because I too love the idea of finding my tribe.

I think one of the key parts of coming to terms with and becoming comfortable with my sexuality has been finding my tribe. You know when you find members of your tribe. Sometimes there is an almost instant ease and familiarity. Members of your tribe help you discover the very best parts of yourself. Lizzy described it as finding the scattered pieces of yourself. It's like you see something in a person's way of being that opens up a new way of being for yourself.

I think members of your tribe also allow you to be your true authentic self in a way that allows your true authentic self to emerge. They don't hold on to expectations of what they want you to be or what you have been in the past. They treat each interaction with you as an opportunity to know who you are in that moment, instead of allowing past perceptions to distort how they treat you in that moment.

Interactions with members of your tribe aren't limited to two roles interacting with each other, or two people trying to be what they think the other person expects/wants them to be. All of that is stripped away and it's soul to soul. Do you ever feel in life like you are merely an actor playing a part? Did you know that it doesn't necessarily need to be that way? Did you know you can show up as yourself and that when you do, it makes it easier to find members of your tribe?

Of course, the scary part is that in order to find your tribe, you have to allow yourself to be known. As you are. No roles to cling to. Mother, father, son, daughter, academic, Mormon, disaffected Mormon, homosexual, leader, follower, clown, skeptic, insert job title. All those roles have to be stripped away to leave just you. Naked. Vulnerable. Ready to be known.

When you do that though, when you strip away the roles and allow yourself to be known, you find members of your tribe and you experience a two way flow of love and energy that is beautiful and nourishing and healthy and sustainable. It's truly transformative.

DTR

Look. If we are going to be friends, there are a few things that you are going to have to watch. You also have to like these things; otherwise, I'm not so sure it's going to work out between us. Take a look at these videos and let me know if you're willing to make this work...

I realize you have all probably already seen this one, but it's definitely worth a second look because it has a lot of my favorite people in it (well, except for Kate Gosselin, but she went up a notch for me after this video). If you've seen it already and want to skip past this one, I'm willing to meet you half way and still be friends.

You may have already seen the last video, but maybe you haven't seen this one...

I saw this next one on Facebook when I got home from work today and it just made me happy. If you want to make me happy, you'll like it too.

That's all. Let me know if this is going to work between us.

My first journal entry

I pulled out my old journal recently and did some perusing. I actually fairly consistently wrote in my journal growing up due to the fact that my mom wouldn't let us watch Punky Brewster on Sunday nights unless we wrote in our journals and read our scriptures. Remember when Henry has health issues and loses custody of Punky and she has to go back to Fenster Hall, but then she gets placed with a really wealthy foster family who makes her wear fancy dresses to dinner in their dark dining room and she has to eat oysters! Oh man. They don't make TV like they used to. Of course I was going to write in my journal. Are you kidding me? So here's my first journal entry. I was six years old and the date of the entry is March 4, 1984. I dictated while my mom transcribed:

My school teacher is Mrs. Grant. My friends are Corry Ellertson, Brandon Green, Matt Lawson, Natalie Packer, Jacob Shortino, (Who I had a huge crush on in 6th grade along with all the other girls) Casie Moffett (I have no idea who this is) and Tracee ? . A boy named Michael Howard kissed me and hugged me when I came to school. My favortie thing in school is rest time. School is fun. I like Mrs. Grant. She is a good teacher. My primary teacher is Brother Davenport. Sometimes we don't even have a lesson because a boy named Rustin Pomeroy plays around too much. The people in my class are Rustin, Nicki, Corry, Brandon, Trevor, and me! There are no girls in my class. Hooray!

My brother is Matt and he is 8 years old. My sisters are Laurie and she is 11 years old and Taralee is one year old. The things I like to do are: play with my people (miniature Bert, Ernie, Star Wars men) things I don't like to do are go swimming (I threatened to run away on more than one occasion to try and get out of going to swimming lessons and was really insulted when my mom offered to help me pack) or skating or conduct in family home evening. My favorite foods are (are you ready for this) beef jerky, pizza, oatmeal, spaghetti, toast, tacos, hamburgers, all kinds of chips, and cold cereal. Foods I hate are peas, beans, casserole, corn, and tomatoes.

There are some telling things in that first entry.

Pardon me?

This came in the mail yesterday...