I think it's inevitable as a gay Mormon that at some point in coming to terms with your sexuality, you will also do a fair amount of wrestling with your religious identity. Everyone approaches it differently, but so far, I've taken the approach of sifting through the culture and the religion (I don't think anybody can really say exactly where one ends and the other begins) and pulling out stuff that resonates and makes me feel good about myself and my relationship with the divine and I keep it. Then there are the things that don't resonate with me or that I feel detract from my relationship with myself and the divine. Sometimes I have to chip away layers of accumulated calcified (that one's for you, Dan C.) cultural baggage to get to a pure and simple truth. Sometimes I'm not really sure what I've found, or if or when I've chipped away the unnecessary baggage enough to find the gem.
One idea that is commonly shared in a Mormon testimony is a gratefulness to have been born when we have the fulness of the gospel. This is what I'm currently dusting off and taking a look at, and it makes me really uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable because I think it leads to complacency. It also makes me uncomfortable because I don't believe that we have a fulness of the gospel. If we are downloading the fulness of the gospel, I think we are probably less than 1% to completion and right now I feel like we have a pretty slow connection and I think it's because of complacency.
I think the mind set of many is that we have the fulness of the gospel, so now we just have to sit around and wait for Jesus to come back, instead of seek to understand how the LGBT population fits into the picture, or what role our Mother in Heaven plays and what a knowledge of Her could teach us about ourselves. And what about gender? Is gender really eternal, and if so, what does that mean? Are we talking about physical manifestations of gender? What if someone is born intersex? What does that mean for them?
I could go on with the questions and I'm sure all of you could add your own and we could come up with a pretty healthy list. When you start to ask yourself these questions, it becomes easy to see that there are a lot of questions that the gospel doesn't answer. I think that in order to get the answers, we have to be willing to live into the tension that those questions create, remembering to breathe, paying attention to the stretching that occurs, the challenge to balance. Most importantly though, we need to remember our greatest responsiblity as humans on this planet is to love our neighbor as ourself.
Monday, April 25, 2011
Friday, April 15, 2011
my body
I just read John G-W’s post about surrendering and stretching and it got me thinking about some of my own experiences with those same themes. I’ve recently mixed up my exercise routine to include more yoga and I love it. I love that it’s a more contemplative and peaceful form of exercise than some of the other things I do. I also love that it’s more holistic in that it focuses on the development of not just strength, but also balance and flexibility.
I think one of the gifts having our physical bodies is the ability to engage in ritual and to physically act out and experience what happens in our emotional and spiritual lives. The stretching, struggling to maintain balance, the holding of a difficult pose. Sometimes I tense up my whole body in order to hold a pose and I make it much more difficult than it needs to be. Then I’m patiently told to only work the muscles that need to work and let the others relax. My body seems to particularly enjoy tensing at the shoulders. I realize when working my abs that I tense up my neck and face and shoulders and thighs to protect those poor ab muscles from doing the work that I actually want them to do.
Sometimes I don’t fully lean into a pose. There is some stretching that’s going on, but not what it could be. I’m told to tweak my pose just a bit. Open up your hips. Draw your right or left hip forward. Engage your abs. Relax your shoulders. Lead with your heart. Breathe into it. Never stop breathing.
That’s probably another favorite of mine. Holding my breath until it’s over, instead of breathing into the difficult pose and making those tweaks, always conscious of the change that occurs, conscious of the additional stretching that’s able to happen, the challenge to my balance. I assess and breathe and balance. Then I move into the next pose and begin again.
During this type of exercise, it’s much easier to recognize and internalize what a beautiful gift my body is.
I think one of the gifts having our physical bodies is the ability to engage in ritual and to physically act out and experience what happens in our emotional and spiritual lives. The stretching, struggling to maintain balance, the holding of a difficult pose. Sometimes I tense up my whole body in order to hold a pose and I make it much more difficult than it needs to be. Then I’m patiently told to only work the muscles that need to work and let the others relax. My body seems to particularly enjoy tensing at the shoulders. I realize when working my abs that I tense up my neck and face and shoulders and thighs to protect those poor ab muscles from doing the work that I actually want them to do.
Sometimes I don’t fully lean into a pose. There is some stretching that’s going on, but not what it could be. I’m told to tweak my pose just a bit. Open up your hips. Draw your right or left hip forward. Engage your abs. Relax your shoulders. Lead with your heart. Breathe into it. Never stop breathing.
That’s probably another favorite of mine. Holding my breath until it’s over, instead of breathing into the difficult pose and making those tweaks, always conscious of the change that occurs, conscious of the additional stretching that’s able to happen, the challenge to my balance. I assess and breathe and balance. Then I move into the next pose and begin again.
During this type of exercise, it’s much easier to recognize and internalize what a beautiful gift my body is.
Monday, April 11, 2011
a gay fantasia on national themes
This past weekend I went to NYC to see Angels in America and do some shooting for the documentary. We met up Friday night with some other gay Mormon guys who live in the city so they could show us a proper night on the town. We met up at Vynl for food, where he had a large corner booth with a table top that was a tile mosaic of Liza Minelli's face. I wanted to get a picture of it, but it was covered with all our dirty dishes. I did, however, get a picture of the life size tile mosaic of Justin Timberlake in the bathroom.
Opening scene, with Meryl Streep as the Rabbi.
This is probably the scene that really got to me the most during the play. The actress who played the pioneer woman did such a beautiful job with it, and there was something about her delivery of it that elicited a fairly powerful and visceral reaction from me that was kind of unexpected. Almost like she was reaching inside me, as is described in this scene. I felt like she so beautifully captured what that process of change is like, not just with the words, but her delivery of them.
Harper's monologue on the plane to San Francisco was my very favorite the first time I saw the movie.
And of course the final scene is a really beautiful one.
After we got some food, we went to a few clubs. First up were Therapy and Industry, which were right across the street from one another. Therapy and Industry kind of sounds like a state motto or something and not at all like the clubs mentioned by Stefon during Weekend Update. They were nice, if not a little bit pretentious. It seemed like those were the clubs where pretty gays with tight shirts congregate for others to look at them.
After that, we went to The Stonewall Inn, mostly for historical purposes. All I'll say about this one is that it was a very quick visit that I'm trying to forget. Before calling it a night, we went to a place next door to Stonewall, and I can't remember the name of it. Upstairs they have a little improv and a lot of singing along to showtunes. Jack, the guy who was filming everything, was the only straight guy there and the female MC immediately honed in on him. Let's just say she was more than a little bit thrilled to have a man in the audience who was attracted to women.
Saturday, Kendall and I went and saw Angels in America and this was definitely a highlight of the trip. I forget how amazing and powerful live theater can be when it's done by real professionals. I'm including a few clips of my favorite parts, as portrayed by the HBO miniseries.
Here's the trailer, in case you've never seen or heard of AiA.
Opening scene, with Meryl Streep as the Rabbi.
This is probably the scene that really got to me the most during the play. The actress who played the pioneer woman did such a beautiful job with it, and there was something about her delivery of it that elicited a fairly powerful and visceral reaction from me that was kind of unexpected. Almost like she was reaching inside me, as is described in this scene. I felt like she so beautifully captured what that process of change is like, not just with the words, but her delivery of them.
Harper's monologue on the plane to San Francisco was my very favorite the first time I saw the movie.
And of course the final scene is a really beautiful one.
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
seek after these things
The 13th article of faith of the LDS church says that "if there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things." I've been spending a lot of time listening to podcasts and watching documentaries and have experienced some pretty great stuff. So I thought I'd share. Below are links to things I think you should check out as well as descriptions (that I pulled from the websites) of what each one is about.
RadioWest: Borderlands: How do you write a play about coming out when the only gay character in the script is already out? The Mormon playwright Eric Samuelsen says he had personal experiences to draw from - his daughter marrying outside the faith, his oldest son deciding not to go on a mission. Samuelsen explores the idea of admitting uncomfortable truths in his newest work. (I've heard mixed reviews about the play itself. I haven't seen it, but I enjoyed this discussion of it on RadioWest.)
RadioWest: Hidden Reality: Doug talks to physicist Brian Greene about this question: is our universe the only universe? Greene's latest book is called "The Hidden Reality" and he says that major scientific developments have opened the door to the possible existence of parallel universes. It may sound like something from science fiction, and the idea is controversial and speculative, but Greene's goal is to help us imagine how the boundaries of reality could one day be redrawn.
Pray Away the Gay?: Through intimate portraits and perspectives, Lisa Ling takes a look at one of the most polarizing debates in Christianity today: Is is possible to be gay and Christian at the same time. (This is pretty even handed look at the topic. The focus is more on the stories and experiences of the individuals, as opposed to devolving into dogma and/or polemics.)
This American Life: Parent Trap: Rebecca was 16 years old when her mother Elizabeth died of cancer. But before she died, she wrote letters to Rebecca, to be given to her on her birthday each year for thirteen years. At first the letters were comforting, but as time went on, they had much more complicated effects.
This American Life: God's Close-Up: An artist, his Jesus-model, the model's girlfriend, the girlfriend's father, and a bunch of bearded men all converge in Utah. An elaborate artistic tableau is set up in the desert, and there are several attempts by the faithful and the not so faithful to bridge the divide between them. (If you don't watch or listen to anything else, at least watch this one. It's only about 25 minutes and well worth those 25 minutes. You can stream it on Netflix)
Dig in.
RadioWest: Borderlands: How do you write a play about coming out when the only gay character in the script is already out? The Mormon playwright Eric Samuelsen says he had personal experiences to draw from - his daughter marrying outside the faith, his oldest son deciding not to go on a mission. Samuelsen explores the idea of admitting uncomfortable truths in his newest work. (I've heard mixed reviews about the play itself. I haven't seen it, but I enjoyed this discussion of it on RadioWest.)
RadioWest: Hidden Reality: Doug talks to physicist Brian Greene about this question: is our universe the only universe? Greene's latest book is called "The Hidden Reality" and he says that major scientific developments have opened the door to the possible existence of parallel universes. It may sound like something from science fiction, and the idea is controversial and speculative, but Greene's goal is to help us imagine how the boundaries of reality could one day be redrawn.
Pray Away the Gay?: Through intimate portraits and perspectives, Lisa Ling takes a look at one of the most polarizing debates in Christianity today: Is is possible to be gay and Christian at the same time. (This is pretty even handed look at the topic. The focus is more on the stories and experiences of the individuals, as opposed to devolving into dogma and/or polemics.)
This American Life: Parent Trap: Rebecca was 16 years old when her mother Elizabeth died of cancer. But before she died, she wrote letters to Rebecca, to be given to her on her birthday each year for thirteen years. At first the letters were comforting, but as time went on, they had much more complicated effects.
This American Life: God's Close-Up: An artist, his Jesus-model, the model's girlfriend, the girlfriend's father, and a bunch of bearded men all converge in Utah. An elaborate artistic tableau is set up in the desert, and there are several attempts by the faithful and the not so faithful to bridge the divide between them. (If you don't watch or listen to anything else, at least watch this one. It's only about 25 minutes and well worth those 25 minutes. You can stream it on Netflix)
Dig in.
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