words, words, words
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If I begin to detail myself here, will you understand?
P. I am me
Q. I don't always know exactly who that is
R. I am Quaker
S. I like words and playing with them
T. I like genmaicha tea
U. I like the word napkin more than most others
V. I spend time walking my neighborhood
W. I cook rice often
X. I sleep well most every night
Y. I eat large amounts of fruit and vegetables
Z. I munch, sleep, write, create, cook, bike, watch, walk, listen, hope, learn, drink, live, breathe, touch, know, question, taste, copy, read, stare, carry, talk, dance, finger, try.
raisin@gmail.com
albums:
Magnetic Fields: 69 Love Songs
Erasure: I Say, I Say, I Say
Depeche Mode: Black Celebration
The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds
Marvin Gaye: What's Going On?
David Bowie: Hunky Dory
George Michael: Listen without Prejudice
George Gershwin: Porgy and Bess
Yo La Tengo: And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out
songs:
Wild is the Wind: Nina Simone
Come Undone: Duran Duran
Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini: Rachmaninov
My Funny Valentine: Chet Baker
Feeling Yourself Disintegrate: The Flaming Lips
This Must Be the Place: The Talking Heads
Hyperballad: Bjork
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Sunday, October 05, 2003
Several friends of mine have been interested in how I've managed to keep religion as a part of my life, when so many others have thrown it away, and when it's pressured me into so many things when i was young. i feel my religion wouldnt' let go of me, instead of me continuing to search after it. i mean, maybe the old proverb is right, that if you teach a child the way he should go, he won't divert from it later in life. i tried to let it all go for a few years when I was coming out, but i couldn't. I put it aside for some time, unable to reach agreement between homosexuality and christianty. It didn't disappear though; i was interested both intellectually and spiritually, so i kept finding it everywhere; not because i went to church often, although i did off and on, even when I was somewhat trying to ignore things, but because a search for God has always been a part of my life. I have always felt too much truth in christianity, no matter how buried it's been underneath hypocrisy. I never followed the people, not even the pastors. My parents were good enough to teach me that religion was my own, that the Bible held secrets for me other people might never be able to teach me. they must have expected me to find exactly what they did, but of course, that didn't work out. Still, they rooted my faith in an intellectual search for God, no matter how much they might claim that intellectualism and God were incompatible. When my brother and I had to write papers on theology and prepare interesting bible studies, we learned to think critically and interpretively about the Bible. When my mother, who co-hosts a radio show in Oklahoma, interviewed me about being at the Air Force Academy, her co-host asked me at the end of the show, what was the best lesson or example my parents taught me while growing up. I answered that my parents had taught me to learn the Bible, to remember verses, and to understand it for myself.
So when i was struggling with God after college, I tried to observe and learn more. I picked up one of my now favorite short story collections called God: Stories which reminded me that thoughts about God can be about both faith in him and about his absence, can foster faith and can trouble faith. But i learned mostly that my thoughts on God were valid, not something i should walk away from but something I should explore because they were a part of me and my psychology. Reading that book started my excitement about God again, remembering that God was not all about condemnation but about exploration of our world, of ourselves, of the part of God that is in us. From there, I steadily recaptured my faith and improved my understanding, of who I was as a homosexual and as a Christian, of who i was as a person, as someone committed to living rightly and improving myself.
Can I say this? I couldn't sleep one night, was upset in my head, upset in my stomach, had to walk around. I walked outside for at least an hour, trying to calm my stomach, trying to figure out what was going on. I walked all over my neighborhood at 3am and 4am, wandering the streets. at some point, i realized i had to listen. I hate to say that God talked to me, because I didn't hear anything with my ears. instead, i just knew something, something new that I wouldn't have thought of myself, knew it, like it was written inside me by the churning of my stomach, in letters i could feel, like the work of Kafka's machine in "The Penal Colony." It was simple, that i had to talk to my closest friend about religion, that i couldn't keep it from him anymore, as if it had to be a divide between us. Once i accepted that message, my stomach stopped, I felt relieved, as if I had passed a kidney stone. I told my friend the next day, embarrassed, but sure that I had to. I still don't know what effect it had on him. However, I know what it did to me, as if it were a test, can you handle this easy task? I could say it was preparation for later. When I encountered the Quaker message later that year, here in St Louis, that everyone has a part of God in them and that we have to listen to that part in us to find direction, I understood exactly because I had already felt it, rather involuntarily. And when I began to question my role in the military and consider conscientious objection, I listened and waited for such a feeling, for words written inside me. it took around a year, of thinking, listening, and waiting, and even some avoiding. But when I felt the answer inside me, I trusted it, because of all the years I have spent searching for God, because of all the years i have spent searching for myself, and realizing that searching for God is searching for myself, as I am a part of God. This isn't just religion. this is philosophy, psychology, personal experience, existentialism, and a desire for growth and improvement.
12:46 PM
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