Why DO we Crucify Ourselves?

A while back, when I was really struggling with everything, I painted a picture to show how I felt. It depicts what is supposed to be a human heart, encompassing a black lambda with a rainbow aura, and that heart is hanging on a cross.

I used this picture for something else artsy in my hometown (so if you are from the same place I am, perhaps you will recognize this picture), something that didn't have to be signed. I'm glad that it got out there a little bit because even though it's not well-painted, and despite the fact that I am not brave enough to claim it as mine, it means something to me that I painted this image.

Painting it was the first time I really gave expression to how I felt as a member of Courage. That pain spent so long locked up inside of me, and when I painted this picture it was almost compulsive - I had to paint it, all I had was a visual image of how to express what I was feeling.

At that time, words were not and could not be enough. I felt like, just by painting this image - even though I tucked it away in my prayer space, even though I've never really shown it off - somehow, by expressing it, it lessened my pain just a little.

See, in order to crucify my sexuality, I had to crucify my heart also. I've often prayed to God, begging Him to take my heart down from the cross.

I mean, didn't His Son come to be crucified, so that we wouldn't have to be crucified?

It seems to me now, that as long as I was trying to crucify my sexuality, God couldn't take my heart down from that cross, because I was the one driving the nails in, I was the one holding myself there. Our sexuality is one of the vehicles through which we express human love, love which belongs to the heart.

So as long as I was determined to crucify a part of my heart, my whole heart was stuck there, and slowly dying on that cross along with my sexuality was the rest of my emotional being.

It makes me think of a Tori Amos song I like, so I'll end this posting with that song:

Divine Mercy Sunday

It's the Catholics who don't say dumb things, the ones who aren't so obviously homophobic, that I have to watch for. The ones who keep reminding me that it's not a sin unless I ever act out on it. The ones who tell me they are praying for me, and encourage me to read various authors who have also experienced what I am experiencing now.

But maybe they're right. Maybe if I read one more book, or try one more prayer, one more novena ... maybe if enough people pray this one with me, if I shed enough tears while I'm praying, if I'm desperate enough or if I believe enough, it'll work this time?

The really pathetic part is that I actually mean that right now. I spent this afternoon at a deanery-wide celebration for Divine Mercy Sunday.

Starting Good Friday, every day until the Sunday following Easter Sunday, we pray a chaplet of Divine Mercy. The Sunday following Easter Sunday, the last day of the novena, is called Divine Mercy Sunday. We gather together, pray the chaplet in community, confessions are heard, and afterwards usually people socialize.

So I went to confession. I felt like I was betraying myself, when I said that I might be at least sorry that I wasn't sorry. I realized immediately afterward, that what I had just agreed to really made no sense at all... either I am sorry or I am not, but now, I don't know which it is.

I also spoke to a friend of mine who is a priest. I've agreed to pray another novena, but this time I don't really know what I'm praying for. A sign, maybe? What am I supposed to do, to feel, right now?

If my new attempt at self-acceptance is so weak that two hours spent around the right kind of Catholic can undo it all, how strong am I really? Am I really on my own side, or not?

If I was at Madonna House, or OLSWA, or in any one of the convents I've visited, would this even be an issue? If I went to Madonna House, or to OLSWA, if I surrounded myself with strong Catholics like the ones I was around today... the kind who pray all day every day, like we did when I was at OLSWA, would I maybe not even care about same sex attraction anymore?

No, that can't be completely right. I remember being very frustrated when I was at school, because I kept feeling strongly attracted to some of the girls in my dorm, and it was awkward. I mean, how could I ask the other girls in my house to dress more modestly even if there's no boys around, because otherwise it's more tempting and confusing for me?

I don't think I can properly express the turmoil that is inside of me at this moment.

I wonder how normal it is to backtrack, to feel doubt, or to just feel paralyzed because I really don't want to move one way or the other... I think, even from reading this post, it seems obvious that I am leaning more towards embracing my sexuality than towards continued denial... except that it terrifies me to consider not being found in the very center, in the heart, of the Church.

I wonder how I would feel if I spent a few weeks away from all the external pressures, with just time to myself to think and to examine my feelings... wow I wish such a thing were possible right now.

my experience, my grandmother, my fears

I was 13, lounging on my dad's green sofa, phone to my ear. My friend was on the other line, and we were watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

"ooooh, Angel is so hot." she moaned. "Don't you think he's hot?"

"Yeah, he's definitely hot." I agreed. But I was thinking, How can you look at Angel when Willow is on the same screen? Look at her smile, her eyes, her long red hair... she is perfect. But I didn't say anything, as I was pretty sure that she'd find my thoughts discomfiting at best.

Grade nine came, and I was starting to wonder if I was gay. I was also a burgeoning social activist, so I talked a friend of mine into attending the local Gay Pride Parade with me near the end of that year. At the parade, photographs were taken.

I spoke with my favorite grandmother that night on msn. I told her I'd been to the gay pride parade that day, as an ally to my friends. She responded by saying that I would go to hell if I was friends with "those people".

Later, when my picture turned up in the paper, the whole school became awkward around me until I assured them that I was just an ally, not really one of "them". I knew by then, I could never admit to being one of "those people" because if I was, then what would my grandmother do? What would my classmates do?

I heard a story from my brother that year, about a guy who came out to his parents. I had always been impressed with this particular young man's family, with how close knit and loving they appeared. The night he came out to his parents, however, they told him that they didn't know him and that they didn't have a son anymore. They told him that they didn't love him, and threw him out of the house.

Grade 10 came, and I made friends with a young man who was very much out of the closet. He is one of the most wonderful people I have ever known, and also one of the bravest. I know he was harassed at school, the other kids could be so cruel towards him, it was unreal.

I don't think I ever made a conscious decision to stay closeted. At least, I wasn't aware of making the decision. I was pretty willing to appear to be the most liberal chick out there. But I never wanted anyone to think that *I* was gay.

I pretended to be interested when my girlfriends sent me nude or near-nude pictures of male actors. I never admitted that I was jealous when two of my friends started dating, never admitted that my hopes went soaring when they broke up later and she suggested that she might be bisexual.

But I did know that I could not be homosexual. I mean, I was as much a lesbian then as I am now - so very much one - but look at what it would cost me! What it could cost me. I could drop even lower on the high school social totem pole. I could lose the love of my family. Most importantly I knew that my grandmother would not accept or love me anymore.

It is all so much more complex than what I am describing. But these things were a huge part of my decision, later, to embrace a Church that promised to change me, to heal me of my gayness. To make me straight. I would have traded all the blood in my veins if I could just be straight. To trade my integrity, my peace, when I was so unhappy - it was easy.

Here, take my integrity. I don't need to be honest. I just need to be straight. I'm already unloveable enough, my own mother stopped loving me (another story for a later post) - I don't need another strike against me. Being a lesbian would definitely equal that strike.

My grandmother is coming to visit, all the way from the UK, for this Easter. I just found out today, she'll be here early next week. She's frail, elderly, and still one of the most important people to my mind. I love her. She taught me how to pray.

I wonder if I'll find the courage to tell her, how her words when I was 13 hurt me. I wonder if I need to tell her. I wonder if I should tell her that I'm one of "those people", that I have never been physically attracted towards a man but that I have very vivid dreams and fantasies about other women all the time, no matter how hard I try not to. I wonder if she would even remember what she typed to me in that msn conversation all those years ago. I wonder if she would forgive me for being a lesbian, or if the stress of finding out would give her a stroke or heart attack.

How can I tell her? How can I not? I don't know what I'll do.

Reconciliation

I used to love Confession. It is terrifying, when you begin, to tell to this priest - this man - an accounting of your misdeeds and shortcomings. But I've always found that once I've gotten started, it is so comforting to be able to lay bare all of the things I hate most about myself and find that I am still forgiven. I've never had a priest withhold absolution.


During my "perfect Catholic girl" days, I would go to Confession sometimes twice a month and never less frequently than once every six weeks. Often I would sense that a burden was being lifted through this Sacrament.


But now, December was the last time I had been to this Sacrament. It's March, the season of Lent, and the usual push to confess is being meted out to all Catholics.


See, I have been feeling unsure if I should go to Confession or not. I know that the Church teaches that homosexuality is "intrinsically disordered" and I know that the Church teaches that it is a grave sin to act on homosexual inclinations.


Yet here I am, having just begun to accept that one day I will probably act on my own homosexual inclinations. After all, I've never really experienced heterosexual inclinations, and like it or not - deny it, accept it, ignore or embrace it - I am still sexual in my nature. I am so very tired of denying and trying to ignore my nature.


I've been questioning for a lot longer than I've let on, if this long painful road I've just stepped off of was really what God wanted for me. I've started to wonder, if maybe the reason that the Church can't find an effective way to fix me is because I'm not broken to begin with.


But with such a revelation, there is not only new hope for life, for future happiness, for love. There is also the shattering of my faith as I have known it. There is a need to accept that, should such a creature exist, I cannot be the perfect Catholic.

I did go to Confession on Wednesday. But I felt no lifting of my burdens this time, no breath of relief as Father prayed the words of absolution over me. Because in reality, the problem that I am experiencing has nothing to do with a need for reconciliation with my Church or with God.


The real need that I have is for my sexuality and my spirituality to become  reconciled within my own heart. This is the reconciliation, the absolution, that I am most desiring this Lent: the Sacrament of self-acceptance.

God, I'm Sorry

I went for coffee with one of my friends today. Someone who has been there for me since I began my journey to become Catholic. Someone I trust and respect a lot. Someone I tell everything to whenever we get together.

So naturally I told her that I'm quitting Courage. That I've gone to a PFLAG meeting and am excited about going to college in May so that I can hopefully be a part of an LGBTQ group that might be starting there.

She said, "So are you one of those people who just picks and chooses what they like from the Church now?"

I didn't know what to say. She also said she hopes I don't adopt children, because children need a father.

God, I know she meant well. She wasn't trying to hurt me or anything. But her words hurt so damn much.

I understand, though, where she's coming from. I used to the think the same way. It's a struggle for me to not just slip back into that line of thinking. The Church hasn't changed in 2000 years, so it must be right. Well, the length of time we hold onto certain thinking or ideaology doesn't necessarily mandate that those thoughts are correct.

I think I've said similar things, not directly or personally to my individual friends, but in general. On my Facebook page, where I've jumped into debates simply to prove that my thinking is perfectly in line with Church teaching.

I'm filled with remorse right now, thinking I may have hurt my friends and other people who were reading, hurt them deeply, hurt them like I am hurting right now. Maybe I deserve this pain that I'm feeling - maybe I brought it on myself. Maybe it's worse for me because I still half-believe what she's saying, though I won't go back to how I was living when I was following Courage.

I wish I were brave enough to say I'm sorry directly on my Facebook wall. I really need to apologize. But right now, first, I need to heal from the pain I've caused myself, from the pain I'm feeling now, and then when I am stronger... when one person will no longer be able to shoot me down so easily... until then, this anonymous apology is all I can offer. But one day I will be strong enough to claim my authenticity back. I'm already on the journey.

The Scourging At The Pillar Wasn't My Fault

WARNING: the link goes to a video that shows the scourging at the pillar. Youtube has deemed it rated content, if you are too young then don't try to view it, and if you are sensitive, be warned that it is very graphic. I posted it because that's the EXACT sound that I hear.

I know my previous two posts really seem like a lot of fluff - talking about a crush - but they're not, not for me.

At the suggestion of one of my ex-gay friends, I trained myself so that every time I was tempted to think a vaguely sexual thought, every time I got close to allowing myself to think about a crush that I had, I would hear the sound of the scourging at the pillar. I would hear that sound in my head, and I would tell myself that it was my fault, because I had learned from reading about St. Faustina that the scourging at the pillar happened to atone for our sins of impurity.

At that time, I had perceived that thinking about someone in that way, having a crush, thinking another woman is beautiful and wanting to kiss her, was my sin of impurity.

So to allow myself to even think about the fact that I have a crush on someone, to describe how beautiful she is, to admit that I want to kiss her, that for me is a step towards facing my shame and overcoming it.

To be very clear: my identity as a Catholic is important to me. I don't blame the Church for my ex-gay experience; while her teachings certainly helped me to gain that experience, I would never have gone there if I hadn't been looking for someone to confirm me in my shame.

I just want to explain to any potential readers, the why behind what appears as fluff. It's because it's a challenge for me to write it and not hate myself for writing it. It's because writing it is part of how I can start to undo some of the damage I did to myself, because now when I hear that sound of the whip hitting Jesus, I have to remind myself that it's not my fault that they did that to him, that this crush that I have and my admitting to it is not the reason for the scourging.