Questions.

A few weeks back, I put up this post. As expected, it prompted a bunch of questions. Some I've answered as they've come up, but I thought I'd take the time to answer a few questions that I thought might be helpful here. This isn't meant to start another discussion, just to help people understand a bit more if they're feeling confused.

I don't know what any of these words mean. What do they mean?

That's a fair question. Many of these words feel quite new or alien to some people. It's also tricky because words can often be used in different ways in different contexts, and be used differently by different people. But this is what I understand these words/phrases (which are the ones that I identify as) to mean for me.

Queer - not heterosexual, not cisgender, or both. Cisgender means identifying with the gender that you were assigned at birth. Queer is often used as a more generic and catch-all term to encompass people of many different sexualities and genders, or by people that know they are different from the norm, but haven't quite figured out what that means or looks like yet. It can also be used in contexts outside of sexuality and gender, to talk about looking at something from a perspective outside the normal and standard.

Non-binary - not fitting neatly into the boxes of male or female. Keep in mind I'm talking about gender here, not sex. So we're talking about the psychological and mental aspects of how masculinity/femininity or otherwise are expressed, not what a body looks like or what DNA says. Non-binary is a term used by people that feel like they don't fit well into the boxes of either male or female; perhaps they feel like a bit of both, or maybe neither. Particularly because gender is essentially a social construct, many folks on the autism spectrum overlap here as well.

Omniromantic pansexual - being romantically attracted to all genders, but not equally, while being sexually attracted to all genders with little differentiation for gender.

Polyamorous - being in (or the desire to be in) more than one romantic relationship at once. Distinct from open relationships, where there can be multiple sexual relationships, but only a single romantic relationship.

But what about your promise/commitment?

This seems to be a sticking point for a bunch of people. And understandably so. Marriage is a big commitment, and it's something that I've gone back on. After only a year.

At the same time, though, better now than in five or ten years, particularly if we had started a family together. That would have been much messier and harder. Yes, better still if it was before getting married - but I don't have a time machine. Sorry folks.

So, yes, I could have figured all of this out and then tried to stay within the marriage. Honestly, I don't know how long I would have lasted. It wouldn't have been healthy for me emotionally, or mentally, or relationally. And I already wasn't doing the best. Eventually, there would have been a crack. And I would have needed to leave.

Yes, going back on my promise and commitment isn't good. And I didn't enjoy needing to do it, and didn't want to have to do it. But that was better than my emotional and mental health getting worse and worse, and not being able to live in the truth. 

How does all of this overlap with Christianity?

Surprisingly enough, there's actually quite a large number of people that are both LGBTQIA+ and Christian. In America, there was a study done - and it's about one third of all LGBTQIA+ folks are Christian, and about one half are religious. And there are a number of churches that are LGBTQIA+ affirming, to varying degrees. I've actually believed that myself for a while (with different levels of understanding over time), but haven't really felt comfortable talking about it in most of the circles I've been in. It's not hard to find some articles and the like written by people that have studied the Bible quite a bit more than you or I, talking about just this sort of thing, and how conservative readings of particular passages aren't actually accurate to the context they were written in. Google is your friend!

Isn't all of this a bit....selfish?

I understand if it looks that way from the outside in, but no. Being selfish means only caring about yourself, and not other people. That's not what I've done. I was intentionally thinking about how this would affect my partner at the time, how this would affect the church I was at, my family, and other groups I was connected with.

Self-care is not selfishness. Taking care of your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being is not selfishness. I think some people don't understand or get that sometimes. You can't really tell how someone is going from the outside looking in, or what a relationship looks like if you're not the one in it. You can guess. And sometimes that's an educated guess. But there will always be a bunch you don't and can't know, unless people specifically tell you. 

This all seems very sudden....where did this come from?

For people looking from the outside in, it can seem quite sudden. But these are actually issues I've been working through for a long time; just not on the surface. And for much of my life, I haven't had the language or knowledge to talk about much of this.

I've known to some degree about having a different sexuality since around high school. And for a number of years I would be able to describe to you how romantic attraction and sexual attraction worked differently for me.

Gender is something that hasn't been standard for as long as I can remember. I've always been questioning and challenging masculinity, and not conforming to it. Toxic masculinity wasn't a phrase back then, but it was still real. And I wasn't having a bar of it.

But like I said, I didn't have the language or knowledge to dive into any of this for most of my life, and in the circles that I grew up in, it felt like exploring these areas was very much not okay and discouraged. So I didn't.

And then, near the end of last year, this popped back up for me. It had been sleeping and dormant for a while, but it was making itself known. And I had to choose what I wanted to do about it. I could ignore it - or I could explore, and see where the truth led. And I couldn't ignore it. I couldn't pretend this part of me didn't exist any more. So I went on a journey. And this is where that journey has led me so far - quite the rollercoaster. 

Couldn't you be all of this and still be married?

Theoretically, yes. None of how I identify specifically precludes marriage. There are two main reasons that didn't work in this case. 

Firstly, that's not something that my partner at the time was really okay with, and they weren't supportive of my identity - it's difficult (and also emotionally and mentally damaging) to try and live in a relationship with that dynamic.

Secondly, I was in a marriage because that's what I was brought up to believe was the only good and right way to do romantic and sexual relationship. Not because I looked at the different ways to do relationship and was like, "this is right for me." Because it wasn't. And it isn't. In marriage, you're committing to someone for life (or at least, that's the idea). Strangely enough, that's quite the commitment. It's also something I don't have a frame of reference for, or a way to understand. My life has been about change, not staying the same. There's nothing in my life that I've chosen to do for all my life. Yes, I've always breathed, and eaten, and slept, and drank, but you don't have much choice in these things if you want to survive 😅 whereas marriage is a choice. But I don't think it's one that I understood, and I don't think it's one that's right for me. Other people can make it work, and that's awesome. But it's not for me.

How are you going?

Thank you for asking. I'm doing pretty well, considering how crazy life has been. But I wasn't before, and hadn't been for a while. And I wouldn't be doing well if I had decided to ignore this, or had tried to keep living as I was before.

What now?

Great question. Not sure. I'm kinda taking life a day at a time right now. I still have things that I'm working through and figuring out - and life doesn't really stop while you're doing that, so I'm still chugging away at that in the meantime. But basically, I'm going to keep being me. I'm going to keep writing. Keep doing music. Keep talking about things that are important to me. You'll probably hear me talking about LGBTQIA+ stuff a lot more these days, because a bunch of my headspace is focused on that right now. But I'm still me.

That's it for now. I expect that more questions will pop up in the future, and more comment wars will ensue, because of the nature of these things. But please - try to keep showing love, and grace. If you are still confused about things and have questions - confused, that is, not emotional or angry - then get in touch, and I will try to answer them, but I make no guarantees.

The Exclusive Church.

I sometimes wonder what Jesus would say about religion today if he came back. Who would he be spending his time with, and reaching out to? And who would he be speaking out against, and challenging?

In the Bible, back in the first century AD when Jesus was around, this is fairly clear. Jesus reached out to sinners; and challenged the Pharisees. But this is something that is actually quite complex and deep, that I want to dive into a bit here. Because I think it might reveal something about us as a church, and us as Christians.

Let's first look at the people that Jesus challenged. The "villains" of the gospels, that everyone knows to hiss and boo at. The people that would constantly butt heads with Jesus - the Pharisees, sometimes along with the teachers of the law, and the chief priests as well. And the strange thing about these groups is this; that before Jesus came along, these were the people that the Jews were looking up to. They were the spiritual and religious leaders of the community. Not everyone may have agreed with them, or liked them, perhaps, and there were divisions (as there are in any society), certainly - but for the majority of the population, these people were the primary example of what following God faithfully looked like.
Then Jesus came along. And he started to challenge them; saying that they were putting God into a box, changing what his law meant, that they did not truly understand or know God. That they were leading his people astray. Strangely, most of them didn't like that very much - though we do get occasional examples of Pharisees following Jesus, the most famous instance probably being Nicodemus, who had a great conversation with Jesus recorded in John 3 (containing the famous John 3:16 passage); and in Acts and Paul's letters, we see further instances of Pharisees being among the followers of Jesus. But by and large, in the Gospels, this was not the case.

Who did he call, then? Who did Jesus spend his time with? Sinners. And, more specifically - as any Christian can tell you that all have sinned and gone astray and etc - those that were shunned and rejected by society, particularly religious society. Tax collectors, prostitutes, the diseased and sick. These were the people that he was sitting down to eat with, that he was calling as his disciples, that were found amongst his followers. And, in fact, Jesus welcomed all to join him - he wasn't exclusive - but many chose not to. Many decided that it was wrong, or not good; that what he was preaching was false, heretical, blaspheming. They hung him on a cross. He loved them anyway. He loved them all.

I wonder if Christians today can say the same. Can we say that we love all people? Can we say that we welcome all people into our churches, our communities? And is that what our actions demonstrate - or do our actions demonstrate something else? How do we treat people that have divorced, or remarried? Had an abortion? Single? Married with no kids, and no plans to have any? Transgender? In a same-sex marriage? Homeless? Different cultural backgrounds? And there are many others I could try and list here that the church has often grated against; sometimes because of beliefs people have had, but sometimes simply because of people being different. And the all-too-human fear we have of those that are different.

But God calls us to love. God calls us to extend grace. He does not call us to judge - he makes it very clear that he and he alone is the judge, not us. All too often, we misunderstand God's heart and words and meaning. If the Pharisees were doing so with the Old Testament in Jesus' time - why do we think we are doing so much better with the New Testament in our time? Have we not imposed our own laws and rules and ways of living, just as the Pharisees did in their time? Have we not come up with our own measures of holiness, and of right living, just as they did? We are not so different. And so God calls us to change. He calls us to love. To love those that we have so often excluded, and fought with, and maligned, and turned away from God. To ask for forgiveness, from God and from them.

We might not know what that looks like. How to do that. So let us start as Jesus did - with an invitation. An invitation to love, to fellowship, to family. To communion, to freedom, and laughter, and joy. Let us no longer be exclusive. Let us no longer worry about what this person will think, or that person will think. Let us worry about who knows the love of God, and is in relationship with him. And let us not assume that just because they are not in our "hallowed halls" that God has not already been making himself known to those that we have turned away; for he works in all places, and excels in reaching the outcast and the broken.