As John Donne so famously said, no man is an
island. We don’t exist in a vacuum, and when one identifies oneself as gay, it
creates a circle of pain. When I finally recognized myself as gay, I knew that
I was asking those closest to me, especially my family, to make big sacrifices
in order to support me. I agonized seeing the ones I love hurting so much
because of me.
Throughout
this upheaval I prayed, and I felt uplifted by the sense that I was still in
the palm of God’s hand. I was still loved. God was still in control and
directing me. I felt guilt over the pain I was causing others, but I sensed God
was forgiving me and working in my life and the lives of my loved ones. As I
was finding and identifying myself as a homosexual person, I knew with certainty
that this was not in itself a sin. I came to regard it as a gift. I did not
know where this new road would take me, but I sensed it was where I belonged, that
it was my destiny.
I
deeply love my life partner. The Bible in the First Letter of John teaches that
we love because God first loved us. God is love. Love is God manifested in
human relationships. I believe when two people love each other deeply, spiritually,
wholly, it is a love from God, of God, sanctified by God.
I
often think with amazement at the genius of God the Creator and at the delight
God must have expressed when he/she came up with another really great idea. Take
rainbows, for example. Now who would ever have thought that up? Or fireflies? Or
snow? I can imagine God the Creator
chuckling and thinking, “The kids will really love this!”
Why is it so difficult for
us to believe that a God who wants to make ten thousand different varieties of
trees and millions of different species and is creative enough to want every
snowflake different—that that God couldn’t create and bless more than one type
of human sexual expression?
There
is a popular saying, “God don’t make junk.” On a profound level, I believe that
to be true. In Genesis, God declared all
that God made to be good. That certainly includes all of God’s children.
It is we, not God, who
label God’s children “deviant” and call them “queer.” Doesn’t it seem arrogant
that we should so judge God’s creation? God’s own children? Are left-handed
people deviant? Are short people deviant? What about blue-eyed people, are they
deviant? People are brown and yellow and black and white and gay and straight
and bisexual and transgendered. Are all of us not another expression of God’s love for uniqueness
in his/her creatures?
Loving and being loved is not a sin, it is a
gift of grace. That gift is often provided to a man and a woman and sometimes
also to persons of the same sex. We are very blessed if we find our soul mate. Our
sexual orientation is part of our package. It is part of our uniqueness. I am
happy with the gift I have been given.
