Beyond Reflex

Nine days have passed since the conversation i previously wrote about with my mother occurred. What follows is not reaction but action.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Dear Mom,

It’s been 9 days since we talked on the phone Christmas day and I have to tell you what you said still rings in my ears. I know you and Nan could both use some help and Hector and I are both willing and eager to help. You said, “You can’t stay here. This is a Christian house and I won’t have that in my house.” I know now because of your faith what you really think about me and if you think it doesn’t hurt deeply you are wrong. You haven’t walked in my shoes and if you had you would know as I do that there is absolutely nothing wrong with me. Yes, I am different then the majority of people, but there are hundreds of millions of us who are different in the same way. More importantly, I am the same as everybody else in every other aspect. I think, I feel, I love, I suffer and I try to make sense of a world that is often quite disordered. You know, Hector’s mom is catholic and she begged us to stay with her in Hong Kong when we went there. Is she a worse Catholic then you? Dorothy, in El Paso, has invited us to stay with her. She is not Catholic, but Christian and a damn good person. Are you holier then her?

There have been so many instances in history where Christians have ignored, repudiated, and fought truth in favor of belief that it confounds the mind and heart. Slavery, ban on mixed race marriages, the orbits of planets, the position of the earth in the universe and even the very geography of the earth itself. I wonder why when human knowledge advances through discovery, research and invention (like the telescope), so often the “Christian” response is denial, obstinance, arrogance and even assault, torture and war. You have a heart condition. Did you go to the Bible, a priest or the bishop to treat it? No. You went to a cardiologist as you should have. Do you know what psychologists, psychiatrists, anthropologists, sociologists and others are saying and have been saying since the ‘60’s about homosexuality? They are saying it is a naturally occurring and normal mode of behavior for some humans, primates and other animals. Natural. Normal. Maybe not normal for you since you are heterosexual, but perfectly normal and natural for me.

I am not sure what it is about me that makes my presence in your house a threat or tainting. Hector and I have not been together for very long. But the short time we have been together has been wonderful. He is kind and caring. He is loving and forgiving. He is generous and hard working. He puts others before himself. He is really funny and keeps me laughing a lot. He is affectionate and tender. He is humble, unassuming and certainly not judgmental. I have told several friends about what you said to me and I have to tell you all of them were appalled. Even the Catholic ones who are not homosexual reacted with a shudder when I told them. One of them almost crying said the worst thing in the world is to have a gesture of love returned with a gesture of rejection.

As you know, I am not Christian or Buddhist or anything else and the reasons for that are deep and wide. But I do know something about being Christian and when I think of it words like humble, loving, kind, accepting, non-judgmental, and tolerant all come to mind. Thinking you know more then others is not Christian. Judging is not Christian. I don’t mean to be insulting at all, as I am sure you didn’t mean to be insulting. But, I have to wonder if 400 years ago when Galileo discovered that the earth revolved around the sun and not the other way around, what side you would have come down on. Would you, like the Pope, Bishops and “holy” men have been drooling to set him ablaze? You have told me more then once that people find you arrogant and thinking you are superior but you don’t know why. Well, might you know now? I have a Bible and believe it or not I refer to it often. There’s a lot of good stuff in there but I am sure even you must agree there’s also loads of hogwash. If you want, let me know and I will point out some of the more absurd things in there. Searched as I might, I could not find one single word from the lips of Jesus regarding homosexuality. Now, if the topic of homosexuality is of such galactic concern, one would think Jesus might have said at least a sentence on the subject. This is not meant as a jab, but what I did find in there more then once was Jesus taking issue with the Pharisees who thought themselves more righteous, religious and moral then others. Oh, also he didn’t much care for dishonest money changers and on one occasion for some reason he lost it and cursed a fig tree for not bearing fruit out of season. Other places in the Bible do say some rather nasty things about homosexuality, but again, I think most of what’s there is based on what people knew and could know at the time. I mean we don’t bash unruly children on the city gates anymore. Eating pork and shrimp and calamari is OK now. Christian men all over the place are shaving their beards regularly, nick names are used, tattoos are worn, menstruating women freely associate with others, people with pimples are no longer put in isolation for 7 days by the priests. I mean really! However, adultery is mentioned by Jesus and many others many times throughout the entire Bible. It plainly states marriage is for life, divorce is taboo and those who divorce and remarry are guilty of adultery, which as we know is one of the BIG TEN. You haven’t felt compelled by that mandate yourself having been married three times. Don’t hide behind, things like civil marriage and annulment…the Bible makes no room for them and is quite explicit on the matter. Of course, Jesus himself after cleverly dispelling the crowd of would be stone throwers, forgave the woman caught in adultery and sent her on her way. Now, I and the experts and loads of other people, even heterosexuals don’t think homosexuality is a sin, but damn near everyone agrees adultery is.

Why are some biblical mandates seen for what they are; archaic, the best of what was possible at the time, while others are clung to like a bone in the mouth of a dog? And, who decides which ones are no longer applicable and which ones are? What danger lurks in thinking oneself to be more able to judge which ones to cling to and which ones to let go of? I think when Galileo looked through the telescope and did the math and wrote a brilliant book on what he saw, not thought, not believed, not was told, but what he saw, he was the one competent to decide and to reveal what became knowable at that point. Many cheered his discovery as a broadening of the knowledge of humankind about their existence. We know what the Church did, tried to burn him, made him recant to avoid the flames, kept him under house arrest until he died nearly 20 years later and refused to allow his body to be buried with Christian rites, thereby, in the belief of the time, sending him to eternal fire. So nice! So loving. So Christian and sadly so typical. Trust me, I could go on. But enough.

I am not asking you to reconsider. Honestly, the way I feel right now I don’t want Hector any where near you. He bruises easily. And personally, I would have trouble being around you now, too. When I told you about Victor, I was surprised and lifted by your reaction, even though you found it necessary to also say it was a sin. Since I was ready to kill myself at the time I chose not to argue that point. In the years since then you have said some really nice things about the homosexuals you have known, I think mostly from when you were at the Center, and I think you even mentioned about one when you were younger. What you said was in general you found them loving, kind, caring, creative and fun. Sounds like good people to spend time with to me. People I like to avoid are judging, self-righteous, holier-then-thou, rigid, arrogant, cold and willing to subjugate others to their own personal beliefs.

Jesus instructed his disciples to go into the towns and spread the good news. He also told them if the good news was not well received they should shake the dust from their feet and move on. What you do with what I have written here is up to you. Consider it, reject it, take it to heart, become even more tight and rigid, it’s all up to you. You know how to communicate with me if you ever want to again.

Love,

James

Purging Delusion

I invite you to consider that there are certainly concepts and beliefs in the minds of us all that are erroneous. To conclude otherwise requires one to hold that he or she already knows everything there is to know and knows it perfectly. There are words for this kind of thinking such as: insane, irrational, god-complex, delusional, arrogant and psychotic.

Realizing that we do not and cannot know everything without error does not mean we should not take all reasonable action to reduce the amount of error we hold. Often this means exposing ourselves to information of which we were previously unaware. Until Antonie Philips van Leeuwenhoek in the 1660's discovered a new process for creating lenses, the world of micro-organisms remained hidden to us. With his new much more powerful lenses what humans were able to become aware of and know was dramatically expanded. I invite you to expand what you know by taking some time to explore richarddawkins.net. (You may have to manually input this link.) Accept that it will take time to digest what you find there and no doubt many of you will experience some mild if not severe indigestion in the process. Don't be deterred by this. Like building muscle by pumping iron, expansion often comes with a little pain. And as always, any comments on what you find, think and feel because of what you come across in my bloggings is greatly anticipated and appreciated.