Levelling of the Scales

Pretty much all of you who read this blog know about the firestorm of controversy in which Exodus has found itself. As if this was not bad enough, Exodus President Alan Chambers has decided to take a full frontal assault on the Side B community. In so doing he alienates a colleague in ministry and does very little in terms of context to protect this persons' identity.

Perhaps it would be helpful to remind our friends in Orlando that it makes little sense to commit one sin (like being a schmuck) for the purpose of exposing another (like homosexuality or even "diet homosexuality").

Yet I have been involved in so much criticism of Exodus lately that I feel as though I may be losing my credibility as an "in-between guy". So have some of you.

We could all use some levelling of the scales and definitely some laughter. So here is a clip from an old Monty Python movie that can help us make fun of some of the logic used by the "other side".

Enjoy:



Hat Tip: Giraffe Pen

(It should be noted that those of you accusing me of using sarcasm and a tad of bitterness to compensate for some very present, very unresolved issues in my own life are spot on -hey, at least I can admit my shortcomings.)

Facebook Silliness

Most of you facebookers will find this familiar. I thought I would post it here so that some of you may learn a little more about me. Here are 25 things about me (slightly edited for the purpose of anonymity):


1. I love good wine and crappy beer. Other than that, its pretty much just water and coffee for me –lots of water and lots of coffee.

2. When I was a little kid, my Grandfather (I called him PaPaw) took me on hikes all over the mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina. Those trips instilled in me an insatiable lust for adventure that has taken me to the emergency room on more than one occasion.

3. Several family members have told me (usually after a few cocktails and in hushed tones) that the CIA killed my uncle.

4. I recently moved to CO after putting off the “big move West” for years. I wish I had the guts to make this big move years ago.

5. I have an amazing sister who lives in a ski town in rural Argentina. She is married to a good guy, working on her first novel and has promised that I get first edit rights. I think she finally figured out her place in this world and couldn’t be happier for her.

6. Thanks to my father’s remarriage, I have this whole new family that I adore –my Stepmom, two stepsisters, their husbands and three and a half nieces/nephews (I use the term “half” because one of them is pregnant –not because there are any midgets involved.)

7. My political platform would render me wholly unelectable: I believe that cowboys should be allowed to have their guns, hippies should be allowed to have their joints, gay folks should be allowed to have legal protection (and legal unions –regardless of what you call it), our land and rivers should be treated they way God intended and unborn babies should be able to see how cool this world really is.

8. I want to go kayaking in Ecuador, heli-snowboarding in Alaska and get buzzed on some really good wine in Spain. My dream trip, however, is to charter a sea plane outside of Whistler with some good kayaking buddies. We would go to an isolated Glacial Lake and run a river called the Clendenning back to civilization over the course of three or four days. I WILL do this trip.

9. I teach snowboarding part time at a CO ski resort and am constantly impressed by how cool my coworkers in the ski and ride school are.

10. I spent my childhood summers at a camp in Northern WI. Some of my closest friendships to this day are ones forged in the campfires, backpacking trips and illegal midnight swims up there.

11. I like sad songs probably too much.

12. It has been a pleasure to get to know the little versions (or kids) of my close friends and I enjoy seeing my friends as parents.

13. Bernard Madoff made my job a lot harder.

14. I have a permanent scar on my chin from a kayaking accident on a rapid I had been paddling without incident for years. Needless to say, that drop scares the crap out of me now –but I can’t let that fear keep me from running it when I’m on the river.

15. I’m pretty sure that if Jesus were to walk the earth in 2009, the leaders of the religious right would have some serious explaining to do. (Not that I wouldn’t).

16. My friend (of whom I am very proud) works for a government entity in DC with its very own acronym. I made reference to that agency on his facebook page and he promptly deleted it for confidentiality reasons. (No, its not the one that allegedly killed my uncle)

17. Sometimes I fear that I am too much like my father yet not enough like him at the same time.

18. For whatever reason, I avoid going to my mothers’ grave. She’s not really there, anyway. When and if I do go, I won’t bother with flowers and will place a bottle of Dewars next to her stone instead.

19. My two cats, Missy and Gonzo are probably the two coolest animals around when they aren't destroying my stuff.

20. I just discovered that the best way to spend Superbowl Sunday is to enjoy a relatively empty ski resort.

21. I believe that Jesus Christ shed his blood and broke his body to save the world, but it’s hard to follow through on that belief and all it requires of me.

22. My sense of humor is wildly inappropriate. (see item #6)

23. I have discovered that backcountry snowboarding beats resort snowboarding anyday (except for Superbowl Sunday).

24. When I was four, I lit the tablecloth on fire at either Thanksgiving or Christmas.

25. When it comes to books, I have been enamored lately with writers like John McPhee and Marc Reisner who write about man’s attempt to control nature. While I usually hate to give away the endings of books, you all probably won’t be surprised to learn that nature usually gets her way.

The Inbetween Guy Part II

One of the benefits of posting to an anonymous blog is that I can call things as I see them without anything tracing back to my real name. A downside of that is that I probably piss off and alienate everyone who reads it. One thing that Wheaton College did right was teach me to think critically and my critical thinking tells me that the entire conversation regarding homosexuality and the church is dominated by very flawed voices on both sides. As an illustration, two very public ex-gay bloggers wondered aloud if Obama is the Antichrist while one of the most prominent “ex-ex gays” travels the country doing one man plays about transgendered characters in the Bible. If those two facts don’t drive one to drink, what does?

As some of you may know, The Gay Christian Network had its annual conference recently. I have a few friends who went and they shared with me their experiences. As many of you are aware, it is a known fact that you cannot add the words “gay” and “conference” without also adding “booze” and “hookups”. There is a mathematical proof for this somewhere, I assure you.

Needless to say, one of the first observations my friend Sammy made about the conference was how much money the hotel made in its bar that weekend. He pointed out how a number of folks at that conference believe that God blesses recreational sex in all its forms with no commitment and that they fully indulged in their own particular brand of theology that weekend. I am not quite sure how one comes to that doctrinal position but I cannot help but wonder if those guys make a sacrament out of taking Penicillin.

Yet I would be remiss to say that the entire conference was all vulgarity and lasciviousness. In fact, it was quite the contrary. My friend Sammy – who has convictions similar to mine- had a powerful time. Apparently, a breakout session (cleverly titled “B Curious”) was held for folks to come and ask questions to a panel of Side B guys and girls. It was a success and my friend found it interesting that many guys there were genuinely curious about the Side B philosophy. I give Justin and the board of GCN a lot of credit for keeping the Side B community intact. GCN has lost some significant grant money because it continues to maintain a safe place for those who believe God does not approve of same sex relationships yet don’t really care to take lessons from Joe Nicolosi on how to throw a football.

Also, my friend, who has had some very negative experiences in ex-gay therapy, found himself pleasantly surprised by the camaraderie he got from a community of fellow believers who hold to the same ethic in regards to homosexuality. He made it very clear to me in our long conversation that God used that conference for good in his life.

And then there is the other side of the conversation.

Now I have little tolerance for officious queens to begin with, but when an officious queen is outspoken about his far right-wing Republican politics… well that just weirds me out. To top it off, watching a guy like this sashay up to a microphone and proclaim to the world that he is heterosexual while throwing his right arm into the air for effect is just too much to bear.

Look at it this way: I could self-identify all day long as Japanese, but that does not change the fact that if I were to walk the streets of Tokyo, I would stick out like a drag queen in church.

But the folks at Exodus are not all about identity politics and public policy discourse. They have been writing some great stuff lately. Alan Chambers wrote an article called “What Ted Haggard Can Still Teach the Church”. He tells us:

“While there is freedom through the power of Christ, the sad truth remains that there is still something terribly wrong in many of our congregations... Many of our churches are not safe places for us to be vulnerable and seek help and so many continue to suffer in silence.”

Excellent point, Mr. Chambers –and since it was published in World Net Daily it is clear that you are definitely not preaching to the choir.

Even Mike Ensley, when not discussing President Obama the way Keith Olbermann talks about former President Bush, has written some very good stuff for Boundless - a Focus on the Family publication for young adults (which, if you pick out the politics like anchovies off a pizza, has some good stuff).

In a recent piece called “Ray Boltz’ Hunger for Community” he asks us:

“Are people perceived to be of "ill repute" and sinful reputation drawn to [the church] the way they were drawn to Him? Do we show them His grace and compassion that was so radical and unwavering that He was able, in the midst of it, to call out their sin and transform their hearts?

Or do we shoot our wounded?”

Reading stuff like this gives me hope that those who run Exodus will realize that they cannot be public right-wingers (or left wingers, for that matter) without alienating a large group of people and causing them, in the words of Mr. Chambers to “suffer in silence.”

And so I continue to be the in-between guy –never quite fitting into the Evangelical subculture while not really fitting in with the gay subculture either. Sometimes both repulse me. I’ll admit, I have anger issues and its hard to not just focus on the negatives on each side as if I have to chose between a lifetime in a bathhouse or one as a staffer for Alan Keyes –which is probably how Satan wants me to see it.

It is clear to me that I need to work this stuff out and I cannot do so alone. I have decided to go to a quasi ex-gay ministry – a place not affiliated with Exodus -where I can be among other “in-between” folks. I have already gone once (which is a subject for a blog post on its own) and will be going again tonight. In that group of misfits and deviants I have found a level of camaraderie myself that GCN or Focus on the Family couldn’t touch.

One of the Bros

Never, in a million years, did I think that there would be similarities between the snowboarding community and the gay community (or at least the stereotypes of each). Yet, sure enough, right as rain, the similarities are there. No two communities are slaves to fashion as stereotypical gays and stereotypical snowboarders. No two communities create an association between what one wears and one’s quality as a human as snowboarders and gays. Don’t believe me? Next time you are at a bookstore, compare the ad-laden pages of a magazine like Details with a magazine like Transworld Snowboarding. Sure, one group is into overpriced jeans and the other into overpriced hoodies, one magazine has articles on how to get air and the other articles on how to remove hair -but its all the same.

As I have mentioned before, my weekends are spent teaching snowboarding at a Colorado ski resort –which has given me ample time to study the similarities between the two groups. Instead of going home for Christmas and New Year’s, I stayed here and taught on the mountain for seven days straight. The camaraderie among the ski and ride school staff was a welcome respite after the loneliness of both being in a new place and of just ending a relationship. Also, I find great joy in helping others build their technique so that they may be able to more thoroughly enjoy God’s creation.

The group of instructors I have become friends with are all a bit younger (in their mid twenties) but are very kind and welcoming. They let me sleep on their couches and have been a lot of fun to ride with. I like these guys –even though they are primarily concerned with the three “P”s’: pot, powder (as in fresh snow to ride through –not the stuff that flows freely at political fundraisers in Chicago) and, well, I will let you guess what the third “p” is.

I have become part of a crew, so to speak. In this said crew, there are four other guys: John, Rob, Smith and Rabbit. John is from S. Africa and is the biggest womanizer of the bunch. While I don’t get his game much at all, it seems to work extraordinarily well for him. Perhaps it is the accent? I really do like the guy, but would rather cut off a toe than introduce him to my sister. Rob is a professional kiteboarder from Oregon who, I have decided, must iron the brim of his hat each day. He wears it ten degrees off horizontal and then under the hood of a sweatshirt so colorful it would make Joseph jealous. Needless to say, this makes him look like a tool, but he is a nice guy and respectable athlete.

Rob moved out here with Smith. Now I am neither one to buy a lottery ticket nor one to gamble my money away in a casino, but I would bet my life savings that Smith is into other guys. For a dude who talks about girls 24/7, Smith has yet to actually have a date with a girl out here. Also, the guy has a lisp. Smith is smart, perceptive and “gets it” in a way that confirms both my notion of him as a good person and that of him as a flaming homosexual. Like many closeted guys, Smith loves to use words like “bro” and “dude”. In fact, he introduced me to a new derivation of the word “bro” the other day: “bro’ing it up” as in "the ski school director was bro'ing it up with us this morning." If that phrase isn't gay, I don't know what is. I can’t help but feel sorry for Smith when he talks about all the girlths in his past. Thankfully, Smith does nothing for me.

And then there is Rabbit. Rabbit is the youngest of the bunch. Like Smith he talks often of what he calls “the vajayjay” but has yet to convince any of us that he has seen one since his birth. That being said, my gaydar is affected as much by him as a candy bar wrapper affects a metal detector. I think I like Rabbit the best. He is a good kid from humble beginnings and is incapable of presenting himself as anything other than who he is. There really is something to be said for that. Besides, he is a great skier and has proven himself to be a loyal friend.

I know this isn’t exactly the model group of guys I should be spending time with. Yet my hope is that I can be a good influence on them and point them to something that can deliver in a way that the three “p”s cannot. Yeah, they are potheads (which I’m not convinced is any worse than drunks), and they chase tail like a dog on speed, but they have proven themselves to be kind and loyal to me and I’ll be darned if I don’t return it.

Don’t get me wrong. I am not any more out to these guys than Tom Cruise is to the Scientologists. Perhaps I should be and I certainly will not lie about it should the question arise. In truth, in a testosterone charged environment like that, it is harder to freely talk about my orientation –especially in light of what I have chosen to do about it. Besides, that conversation just seems too serious for a friendship based on a sport.

My time with these guys just reinforces the concept that temptations to do things we should not are always there, regardless of what form they take. Even though most of these guys don’t deal with homosexuality at all, they still deal with their own broken sexuality in a way that will make it difficult to both know God and have satisfying marriages down the road. I am slowly learning that very few people walk this earth free of struggle when it comes to sex and relationships. Yes, perhaps “coming out” can be a segue towards the Gospel message, but I feel that I need to get to know these guys better before I broach either of those two subjects.

In the meantime, I will just be one of the bro’s and make sure I am the best witness to these guys as I can be without having to pay for an overpriced hoodie or make up lies about any girlths in my past.

Playing with fire

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great Christmas and are looking forward to ringing in the New Year tomorrow night. The highlight of my holiday was participating in a torch light parade at my home ski resort. In a nutshell, we snowboarded down the hill at scary high speeds, less than ten feet from each other in a train formation while holding a flare in each hand. Rehearsing for it in the daylight was frightening enough, but adding darkness and fire made it unforgettable. Other than me almost running over the girl who wiped out in my path, the show went over well. Arriving at the bottom of the mountain, we were met by the roar of a large crowd. In short, the whole experience was incredible and now I am, technically, a professional snowboarder ;).

A few nights before, I had the pleasure of meeting Karen Keen of Pursue God in person. She had been in the Denver area visiting family and was gracious enough to reach out to me and suggest we meet for coffee. I was running late as I pulled into the Starbucks and found her leafing through a newspaper –The New York Times, I believe. At first glance, I was struck by how attractive she is in person. We started out exchanging pleasantries –talking about our jobs and our goals for the future. Eventually, she cut to the chase and asked me what the deal was with Chris. Specifically, she asked where I saw it going. It was a loaded question and one I was afraid to confront.

Last night, I was sitting across a different table from another person who is pretty attractive. Chris’ knee rested right up against mine. There was no footsie or inappropriate behavior, mind you, but he placed his knee there as an ever so subtle sign of affection that matched his trademark smile in a way that made me dread the conversation that was to come.

Sometimes I feel like procrastination is like climbing the stairs of a high rise knowing that eventually I will have to jump out a window on the way down. No one ever wants to jump out a window, so we keep climbing to put off the inevitable, all the while making the proverbial jump much more painful.

Karen told me just as much –saying that keeping Chris in this relationship would just serve to hurt him more in the end. Keep in mind that Karen said this as one who has been there –as one who got it. And it was also clear that she had Chris’ best interests in mind as well as mine.

The restaurant was busy last night and it took forever for the server to drop off the check and the process my debit card. I was exhausted. Having woken up at 5 am yesterday morning, I was tempted to not only postpone that difficult conversation but to take Chris up on his offer to spend the night as his place. But I had already chickened out a few nights earlier and was not about to do it again.

As we finally walked out of the crowded restaurant, my thoughts went to the Christmas card Chris gave me, which said that he loved me and hoped that we would have many happy years together. The pace of my heartbeat quickening, I told Chris that I kept a blog. He asked what the name of it was and I instead told him what it was about. Now I had disclosed on our second date that I was struggling with my faith in regards to my sexuality, so this probably came as not too big of a surprise –but the details of this blog did surprise him.

I then told him that I loved him. Now Chris is a guy who puts all sorts of effort into his oral hygiene and the smile he gave me upon hearing those words served as a reminder of that. And that isn’t the best part of Chris’ smile. Instead of his lips being perfect parabolas, they each have a distinct break in the middle that makes his smile look like that of a mischievous child. It is heartbreakingly adorable.

“But I love God more”, I said as his smile faded. More could be said about the conversation that followed, but I would rather leave it between him and I. Chris handled it very well –better than expected, in fact. I expressed my desire to remain friends and he agreed –but he told me that he would “be in touch”. So we will see if he and I actually do remain friends.

Driving home, I felt as if I were the only person in the world. Tonight, I find myself regretting the decision and wanting to call Chris begging to take me back.

But I don’t.

I love God more, after all. I made the decision to give up something temporal for something bigger and much longer lasting. Obedience can be hard. And sin really does bring heartbreak. When I moved out here, I was content to be single and meeting and then dating Chris brought me to a new high that only served to shove me down to a new low.

Yet, for reasons I will get into in another post, I am grateful for this experience with Chris. In the end it has created more resolve for why I am doing what I am doing.

I hope you all have fun welcoming 2009 tomorrow night. I will be spending it up in the mountains after a day of teaching snowboarding. On New Year’s Day, we are taking our boards into the backcountry -which will serve not only as a nice distraction from the Chris situation but a reminder of how creative our God is.

The In-Between Guy

Too many years ago, a sixteen year old version of myself was taken out to lunch by his older cousin. We went to a pasta place in a suburb of Chicago. Since I am the only male in an extended family where gossip has become an art form, my cousin Michelle went straight for the good stuff.

“So Pete, you know that its ok if you are gay, right?” she asked me.
“WHAT!!!!???? What are you talking about? I’m not Gay” I responded, probably a little too quickly.

And so began almost ten years of trying to hide my deepest, darkest secret. In college, a coworker of mine, Jaime, decided that she wanted to kiss every male employee in the restaurant one night. I was the only one she did not kiss. When I inquired about it later she told me “I just didn’t get that vibe from you.”

Yep. I was the in-between guy. All of you who are into others of the same sex know what I mean. I was in that place where I was not out as gay, but everyone with a bit of insight knew that I wasn’t exactly a ladies’ man. It got worse as the years progressed. I remember being in my early twenties talking about books with a coworker while we were driving to a client site. “I’m a closet Stephen King fan” I told her.
“Well Pete”, she said as she looked away from the road and a little too knowingly at me “maybe you should come out of the closet.”

Those kinds of comments, dripping with feigned subletly, had been coming at me for years. And I really, really hated being the in-between guy. After coming out, I found that my friendships were easier and more authentic –especially with straight guys. I think the whole gay pride idea gets out of hand yet I find there is something about owning my attraction to other guys that makes sense in a way that goes beyond confessing that you “struggle with unwanted same sex attraction. And lets be honest, folks who travel in circles where the phrase “unwanted same sex attraction” is used don’t exactly encourage others to come out.

For better or worse, I subscribe to the Exodus email newsletter. I received it recently and, at the top, was a staff photo. Every guy in that photo has what I have come to know as "the gayface". (Sorry ladies, but the women in the photo looked pretty hetero to me). Unbelievably, I looked at those guys with a touch of envy. They work at Exodus –so do not have to deal with coworkers trying to get them to come out. These guys probably go to churches that support the ministry of Exodus and understand why they “haven’t found a nice girl yet”.

The men looking at me from that photo probably told most of their friends where they work (which surely prompted a “why” from those friends, followed by even more explanation) –so they didn’t have to worry about comments from those folks either.

Maybe it would be easier to live in an ex gay bubble.

A friend of mine back in Chicago was part of an ex-gay small group. A few years later, only two members of that group of five are not practicing homosexuals. One works at Exodus and my friend (who works at an Evangelical Church and, admittedly, is still as attracted to guys as he ever was) is the other. The only ones who “made it” are those who immersed themselves in ex-gay or Evangelical bubbles.

I guess the rest of them just couldn’t handle being the in-between guy. Yet now that I am not –that I have every opportunity to continue on in this relationship with Chris and define myself as a gay man here in CO, I will probably end up back at some church with the blue haired old ladies asking me why I haven’t found a nice girl yet.

Can’t wait.

Unexpected Things

Life is full of the unexpected. For example, who would have thought that, in November, I would be snowboarding through two feet of powder? Who would have thought that I would even be out here in Colorado?

A few months ago, I never would have thought that I'd give consideration to shutting this blog down –yet recently I found myself seriously thinking about it. And the reason? Well, that’s another wholly unexpected thing. The reason is that I now find myself with a boyfriend.

Yep, you read that one correctly.

I was talking about my recently updated relational status with a friend of mine the other night. This friend grew up a missionary kid, went to Wheaton College (where the smart conservatives go) for undergrad and Regent Seminary for a master’s degree (the one in Vancouver, not Pat Robertson’s school –yet still relatively conservative). I was expecting a meaty reply but all I got from her is “I’m happy for you and I think its ok.” To which I replied with a feeble “thanks” while my mind was screaming what the hell is that supposed to mean?? Do you think its ok because you have accepted the gay friendly interpretation of scripture? Do you think it’s ok because you have adopted a postmodern worldview that renders the holy writings as ambiguous as a fortune cookie message?? Or do you think that God’s grace is just bigger than all of this?

I have been visiting different churches and really like this Episcopal church here in Golden. It is a vibrant and community-oriented body of believers and they make me feel at home. Recently, I sat down with the pastor –who I had gotten to know briefly, and told him of my situation. He immediately went into a rant about how politicized the gay issue has become –specifically in regards to the Anglican Communion. He called the nomination of Gene Robinson “ecclesiastical imperialism” and compared it to the imperialistic nature of the Bush Administration (of which he was no big fan, either). It was an interesting lecture on the current crisis in the Anglican Church, but did not really answer my questions.

He gave me no clear and concise answers and I guess that is I why I went to him in the first place. I didn’t want some Unitarian dude telling me to “be true to who I am”. Nor did I want some Baptist preacher handing me an effing Exodus brochure. I guess I wanted to talk to someone who understood the tension between the “pro-gay” and “anti-gay” sides of things.

Its not like I moved to Colorado, unpacked my things and then went looking for a boyfriend. I got here, unpacked my things and realized that I had few friends. It was the first time in a long time when I could not just pick up the phone and meet a friend for coffee or a drink. A friend from Chicago who goes to grad school down in Denver invited me to a gay bar. I went with the noblest of intentions, but this guy kept catching my eye. We talked briefly and ended up exchanging numbers. He called the very next night and, twenty minutes later, was in his car on his way to meet me for dinner. Apparently he was lonely too.

Chris is smart, sweet and has the kind of smile that probably got him out of trouble a lot when he was a kid. He is fiercely loyal and his strengths compliment my weaknesses and mine his. We pass time together well and share space nicely. He is not a Christian, but like most twenty somethings, is very open to spiritual ideas. We have had some great talks about it -and yes, I fully disclosed the internal conflict between my faith and sexuality. I remember a youth pastor of mine who told us what a horrible idea missionary dating is. I can only imagine what he would say about gay missionary dating.

At night, I lay on my back and Chris puts his head on my chest while snuggling up next to me. We fit together like two missing pieces of a puzzle and in those brief moments all seems right in the world. On free days, we go on epic hikes in the back country and he educates me as to the local flora and fauna.

So does all this mean I have switched camps and am now “gay affirming”? Not exactly. The thing is that I have this feeling –similar to one a man may have whilst carrying on an affair behind his wife’s back. I feel, deep down, that this just isn’t right. This feeling leads me to believe that Chris’ and my relationship may not be sustainable. And Chris really is a sweetheart. I hate the idea that he may get hurt through all of this. That is the worst part. I want to hold and protect him –not break his heart.

It is so easy to be ideological. And it is so easy to be theoretical, but when these difficult questions throw themselves in my face –it all goes out the window. So am I “Side A”? Not really. If I believe what the side A’ers say about scripture, then I have to believe that keeping those guys down at Guantanamo really doesn’t break international law. And I also have to believe that OJ really was innocent. I'm not sure I can make those intellectual backflips. If I take the postmodern route, then I find myself faced with much, much bigger questions than those surrounding sexuality. And as for God’s grace, I’m not sure I’m willing to test it. Yet, apparently I already am.

It should also be noted that I am not shutting this blog down. I have some folks to tend to read it on a regular basis and, wherever my story takes me, it is sure to be interesting.