When Hearts Heal

This picture above could have so many comments given on it. But after reading the post in this blog that featured this picture, I can honestly state that I am moved to tears a little. Arch Nemesis, after seeing this picture and reading the story behind hit, how can you maintain your stance against people like us? Is your heart made of stone?

Mr. Sanity

Dating Advice 101

Dear Arch Nemesis,

I have commented on your lack of fashion, taste in music, and your absurd views on gays. I shall now focus on your rather dreary record with women. You, corrupt in mind and soul, have as much chance of successfully flirting with a girl as a one legged, completely blind with one eye missing, foul-smelling, nearly dead, mangy feline does with a female of its species. True, you may be able to ask a girl out and, out of Mormon duty and kindness, she'll say yes; but I often wonder about the sincerity of those girls' intent when she agrees to go on a date with you. I mean, seriously, Arch Nemesis, what kind of a date is it when you spend all your time doing everything you can to avoid touching your date or even carrying on a conversation with substance with her? Evidently a date with high success in your eyes.

I find it mind boggling how you can even function! But, creature of darkness whose soul is so black that the absence of light looks brilliant in comparison, you can't run forever (no really, Arch Nemesis, you can't. Eventually you tire and the girl gets bored with you). So, I have some suggestions on how to improve your rather pathetic track record in dating women.

1. When approaching a woman, do not turn tail and run like all Hell is coming after you (it's really embarrassing to watch)
2. When talking to a woman, it's best to actually communicate with her. Don't talk at her (to help you out, I've armed the next girl you ask on a date with a taser gun. Each time you just talk at her or she doesn't understand what you're talking about, you will be promptly tasered. After you've awakened and pulled yourself off the floor, you can make another attempt at communicating with her. Stick to two topics: the weather and her health. Thank you, My Fair Lady).
3. When preparing for a date, wear cologne. Trust me. You MUST to wear cologne. Oh, and for the love of all that's righteous and good (my side of course), spray the cologne on you. Don't stare at the bottle and try to will it on you.
4. Do not tell your date that you brushed your teeth or put on cologne. DO NOT TELL HER!
5. Do not play any sports or do anything that requires you and your date to be at least twenty feet apart. Honestly, that's just pathetic.
6. Don't date just to date.
7. Hide all your random churchy quotes that are plastered all over the inside surface of your car. You're not a missionary any more. Be the RM.
8. Remember: you are a guy attracted to girls...be attracted to them for once (it's all I ask).
9. If you're not attracted to girls...well, suddenly your awkwardness makes sense, Arch Nemesis (and I just pity you now).
10. Avoid double dates. You end up talking to the other couple's guy anyway. Either take that as a sign of your real attractions or that you're really that horrible at talking to a girl. Man up and talk to her, Arch Nemesis.

That's my advice, Arch Nemesis. I have had some people question your loathsome existence. I admit that it's hard to believe that all the evil in the universe could be concentrated in someone, but I know that you are real (real in all your awkwardness too). You do exist unfortunately and I am here to expose your fallacies and crazy talk. Oh, and never play Cheetah Girls on your date. Just stop. Trust me. It's not cute and not at all worth sharing.

Hopefully, Arch Nemesis, these little suggestions will help you in your efforts to approach women. I can only thank the titanic efforts of girls in the ward last year for getting you over your fear of hugging women...even if only a little.

May you see reason some day,
Mr. Sanity

My Bright Joy

Dear Mom,

The words I cannot speak to you in person, I write to you in pros with the hope that one day they will reach you and touch your heart. They are not capable of doing so now, this I realize, but it is my hope that time will soften your words. Let not my choices harden your heart against me but rather let a mother's desire to understand and love her child overtake you. That is my plea.

What words can I communicate to you now that have not already been spoken? How about the words that I dare not speak. Those words, if i were to say it, would spell out the fear that I cannot name: death. The darkness that I speak of is one that follows the long and slow descent into a depression that seals off the doors to optimism, hope, and a brighter future. The thief would strip me of all humanity and therefore deprive you of your son. That fear of mine is why I do not wish to ignore my self any longer. When I ignore who I am, I invite death to come closer, a death by my own hand.

How tragic. How utterly dismal an ending to this life: cut short by the one that is alive. I have stood on the brink of that darkness and even taken a few very dangerously slippery steps down that last of all descents. I can safely say that I do not ever wish to approach that darkness again. I became familiar with it, too familiar with it. I pitied it and grew comfortable with it all while fading away. Let not death come no more by my own hand. Rather, let life draw nearer.

I will never find joy down the paths that you think right. Hopefully by the time you read this, you'll understand what I know now. I am happy right now. I am happy with where I'm at and happy to know a fraction of what life has to offer. Dearest Mother, believe me. My heart beats for my own gender by some bizarre unknown that cannot be accounted for right now. But look beyond that and see how bright my happiness is and my hope. Is not that enough? Let not your desire to save my soul overtake your common sense and compassion. It is my hope to find someone to invite into my life forever and to be invited into his life forever. I hope to build a family with him and to share my life with him through all the many twists and turns, for better or worse, and for richer or poorer. To laugh and cry with. How can that be wrong? Perhaps, when you read this you'll understand that there was never a choice to abandon my "homosexuality" but rather a choice to live or die.

You cannot escape who you are forever. You can only delay the inevitable or remove the spark of life that lies inside of you. I chose to make that spark grow brighter and I do not feel guilty about that. Not at all. Not ever.

I love you, Mom,
Your Son

Fanny Packs: Evil's Mark

Arch Nemesis,

It has been some time since I last wrote to you. And a lot has changed. For example, you've started wearing fanny packs while traveling Egypt. While I realize this is just your thing, can I at least make one request of you: stop. It's embarrassing that my own Arch Nemesis is being seen by the world dressed up in fanny packs, shorts down to the knees (in a not cool way), and socks half way up the calves. Really now, how am I supposed to hold my head high when I tell people that I have a worthy rival? People are starting to laugh at me. Don't make me kidnap you and force you to wear clothes that make you look decent and civilized.

What kind of a statement are you trying to make? That you've reached a point in your life that if your mother were to dress you, she'd be doing us all a favor? I may have to speak with her on that. Are you trying to be a nonconformist or are you unable to notice that such dressing is actually silly?

I only ask this because I really have to wonder what goes through your mind. Do you honestly stand in front of a mirror, check yourself over to make sure your shirt is tucked in and your fanny pack is adjusted, and then give yourself a thumbs up before making plans to (awkwardly) flirt with that girl that you like? I have to think that you do do something similar to this. Is it any wonder, then, that girls find you just "cute" and not a person with dating potential? Really, you have to at least agree with me on that.

Seeing that you are my rival, I need only briefly mention my virtuous depravity and righteous sinning to your evil, corrupt, and mournfully depraved ways. I in my humble arrogance am always right and correct while you are beyond redemption in the banality of your evil. You so quickly and willingly make statements and insinuate that people like me (my fellow gay brothers, lesbian sisters, and transgendered siblings) are somehow evil and foul. That we are somehow incomplete when he embrace that core aspect of ourselves. But as individuals meet us and get to know us; come to recognize their brothers, fathers, sisters, mothers, friends, grandfathers and grandmothers, aunts and uncles, cousins, and lovers as human they shed the belief that we are evil. We are as human as they are.

Here's the clincher: I call you all these evil things acknowledging that if people were to meet you they would fall into the same phenomena as I have previously described. The difference? I'm being satirical and you are not. How is it that reality has so escaped you? You know, in high school your attitude and views would have been understand as childish and regressive. Now, those views are just sad.

As ever, I am right in my ways and you are wrong just as the light is good and wholesome and darkness is evil and corrupt. Lose the fanny pack, Arch Nemesis. Lose it quick.

May you see reason someday,
Mr. Sanity

To Love and Be Required to Let Go

Dear Mom,

I want to share with you about some of the strange pain that I feel while at BYU. In keeping with the Honor Code, you know that I cannot date other men. I want you to know that I look forward to the day when this self-imposed prison is at last removed and I can stand in the full light of freedom. In those days, I will have already chosen to ask men out on dates with the purpose that one day I will find someone to spend the rest of my life with in service and love. 

But that day has not arrived. No, rather, today I am planning to return to BYU in the fall to begin what I expect to be my last year of undergraduate work. I will return to what has come to feel like the walk of shame. Each and every day I see couples walk hand in hand. They are beautiful couples and I smile easily when I see how happy they are together. I am happy for them. I am happy for all those couples choosing to make commits of faithfulness and love to each other. I wish them all the opportunity and chances to succeed in those commitments. But I know that if I were to ask for the same opportunity I would be denounced, hated, and verbally and emotionally spit upon. I know that they would not rejoice in the same way that I rejoice in their relationships. 

See, I may not be allowed to date while at BYU but that does not change the reality that I still develop crushes on other men. I cannot help the fact that my heart wants to feel and that I desire to truly be human. Such a shame, I know. I cannot seem to turn off my heart or shut away my feelings. Last school year, I developed a crush on another guy. I knew nothing would come of it but my heart still yearned as it does and I was helpless to do anything about it. My friends became worried for me; afraid I'd make the tragic mistake of getting involved with that man and thus screwing myself over at BYU. I am grateful for their kindness but I cannot remove the sting I still feel from that memory. But the cruelest comment of all came from one woman in particular. She once told me that she hoped that I failed in my relationships with men. I understood where she was coming from. Being gay was wrong, sinful. She hoped that somehow I would repent and come to God and the Church. 

I still wanted to cry.

When my heart skips a beat or my breath is stopped when the guy I like says something or stands close to me, the words of my friends and those around me echoes in my ear. My heart is twisted already by the yearning to love, to reach out in hopes of being loved in return, and the knowledge that such would only hurt me because of the school I am at. I feel hurt and confused. I honestly don't know what to make of this. I feel like I am taking a dagger to my own heart and twisting it.
 
Beyond that, there are no words of happiness anyone wouldwish to extend me. Will you ever speak words of kindness and hope that I find someone to love? Or will you express "loving the sinner, and hating the sin" syndrome? Let me explain to you this, it is the cruelest thing of all. I would rather have them hate me then mock me with kindness. I am a second class citizen to them. I am somehow subhuman in their eyes. The cruelty of their mockery is that it is wrapped in some kind of nicety. I want to vomit. 

It is the most painful thing I have ever experienced in my life: to love another and know I can do nothing about it. My heart is bound by my own decision. For every love I possess towards another, I must ignore it with all my might lest I break BYU's rule of falling in love and being loved in return. No amount of words can convey the anguish that my heart feels and there is nothing, it seems, that can truly soothe it.

That, and that most of all, leaves me bitter towards BYU and the Church.


I want to love and be loved in return. I want to have the opportunity to mean something to someone and for someone to mean something to me. At the end of a hard day who do I have to turn to for solace and love? No one. If I had someone it would be equal to being expelled. How tragic...

So what will you do, Mom? When I am finished with school and am free to date, what will you say? Will you breathe the same insanity that I have heard here, "I hope you fail in finding love"? If so, spare me and just don't say it. I doubt I would ever be able to hold back the tears after you have so stabbed me in the heart like that. 


Your son always,
Hopeful

Your Children

Dear Mom,

I never realized how hard it is for you in all of this. A friend of mine helped me realize that you are still grieving over the loss of so much. What must it be like to be in your shoes? I have been so selfish these past couple of years focusing on trying to come to grips with who I am and wanting you to see this that I forgot what you are going through. I am a terrible for this.


I have never been able to fully comprehend the loss that you have felt and continue to feel since Grandma and Grandpa passed away nearly eight years ago. My relationship to them was never really wonderful and I was most definitely not close to them. I preferred to love Grandma and Grandpa with as much distance as possible between us. Grandma always seemed to know exactly what to say to make me want to yell at her and Grandpa was as warm as a stone in northern Alaska would be to me. But they were your parents and provided you with decades of support, advice, and love. You could always turn to your mom whenever something was going wrong. I remember countless times that you would call Grandma and I remember how she would do her mother-daughter bonding time (which was usually shopping). Grandpa was the fountain of advice that never seemed to cease. Whenever any of us kids were sick, you knew that you could always turn to him for advice. He, the only doctor in town, knew all the ways to cure our childhood illnesses. 

You have done everything you can to live up to the model that Grandma and Grandpa have shown by example. You have raised us with all the love that a mother could give. For each and every injury I had as a boy from running through the fields and forests to riding bikes and doing all the things that a boy can do to hurt himself, you were there with the patience and love to get me back on my feet. You let me play make believe and helped me realize that I could build cities, star ships, castles, forests, forts, and hundreds of other worlds in the family room. I love you, Mom. You have been such a powerful influence in my life. Yet I have smashed practically everything of value that you have ever tried to instill in me. Love. God. Politics.

But I am not the one that makes you cry at night, right? That will perhaps forever belong to my sister. She is the one that became a mother, to your chagrin and eventual joy, only to turn and throw it all in your face. It was she that cruelly destroyed all that you had hoped for her. Mother of two, and she decided to throw it all away and turn into chaos the lives of so many. I know that she wrenched out your heart and did so with such anger and fury that you are still stunned by it. Now she has come back into your life in an attempt to set things right. But your daughter of yesteryear is gone. She is full of such unyielding stubbornness (a family trait, I've noticed). What could you have possibly done more to help her be a good mother? Now your grandchildren's future is uncertain and that has to break your heart. Do you wonder if you have somehow failed Grandma's legacy? I know you haven't and believe that you have ultimately succeeded. But what do you think and believe?

Your oldest son divorced his first wife, left the Church and is seems bitter about it, and is now married to a non-religious and beautiful Japanese girl. He has come a long way but he was the first of your children to hurt you. Have you recovered from that at last?

Now what of your youngest son, my little brother? He should have done everything you ever wanted. But that didn't happen did it? And now what? Now he is married, having never served a mission, and you know that he will regret it. None of us could ever convince him to serve a mission first. He knew what he wanted and now he has it. What now? 

We have all not lived up to your hopes. Such is the nature of kids, right? It is my hope that you realize that you are not a failure to any degree. All four of your children are strongly independent. For the problems that we have inflicted upon each other, we have worked to amend and solve. Your daughter is trying to build a better life for her children. Your youngest and oldest sons are working hard to be good husbands to their wives and to work hard to build their careers and education. I am working hard to finish my degree and have high hopes that I will find someone that will be good and kind that I can love with all my heart and expect the same in return. 


I love you, Mom. You are truly amazing. I hope one day that you will see that with your grief you also have much to delight and rejoice in. 


Your son always,
Hopeful

Optimism

Dear Mom,


I write this letter to you in the hopes that in the future you will either stumble across this blog or that I will be able to feel comfortable enough to invite you to view it. A friend's mom recently discovered his blog and the result was extremely positive. It is my hope that that will be the same when the day comes that you read my blog. I love you and no amount of words (however fluent in the English language I become) will ever fully express the depth of that emotion and feeling towards you. Perhaps when you read this my heart will have broken because you cannot accept all of who I am. But it is my hope that you will take things as you did the night we walked together and talked of my growing disbelief in God.


That night - how strange it seems that only last week we talked - I walked with you not really expecting much beyond pleasant words exchanged and nimbly dodging topics of substance in our lives. Certainly that's how things began. Our conversations about people we knew and things going on in their lives was pleasant and nothing more than superficial. Sure, I love all those people, but I haven't talked to any of them in years with the single exception of Jo Ann.


That you should bring up the topic of my not holding a temple recommend was a wonderful surprise. When you did I tried my best to be careful and respectful of your feelings and desire to remain ignorant of all that was going on in my life. You have so many things on your plate that I didn't want to burden you with the knowledge that yet another one of your children was beginning to move away from the foundations you and Dad had tried to build for us.


Thank you for not backing away.


Your willingness to know, to really know, meant so much to me. Yes, I do have a hard time believing that there is a God in this whole wide universe. I have an even harder time accepting the notion that some anthropomorphic Being has done all that the Bible, Book of Mormon, and Doctrine and Covenants claims He has done. I read of so many inconsistencies and I hear so many contradictions that I cannot help but wonder what is really "true." But if anyone can truly help me see "the light" it will be you and Dad. You know my heart better than anyone.


I've seen the actions of so many Mormons from California and Washington state to Colorado and Wyoming and I see so many conflicting attitudes and views concerning doctrine and beliefs within the Church. I see the same disorganization concerning God as I do within Christianity. For now, Mom, I just cannot believe. It makes no sense to do so and it hurts too much. You know that now, and I thank you for that.


Perhaps in time I will change and perhaps not. But know once more that I love you and to me that's all that matters. I love you so very much. You have done so much for me and have been a wonderful mother. Thank you. I know that hard times are coming for us, all of us. What with your daughter still volatile, the grandkids' future unknown, your oldest son and his wife so far away and him struggling with some kind of depression, and your youngest son and his wife uninterested in so much.


Life is life. You cannot ask of it for something else. We must accept what is, change what we can, and deal with what we cannot. So, thank you for listening to me. It is my hope to write many more letters to you and that one day you will be able to read them and know of the love and concern I have for you as well as the optimism that I have for the future.


Your son always,
Hopeful

My Faith

Arch Nemesis,

I have been avoiding this letter for sometime. Sure, it's been easy to do so with finals and the wrap up of school but I could have easily wrote this letter at any time over the past several weeks. I have avoided it because I have not known the direction I wanted to take with this and how I wanted to present this. Now, I think it's time. You are now thousands of miles away, across oceans, and continents now. That distance makes things easier for me to write this for some reason.

As I write this, Arch Nemesis, I am listening to a spiritual song about following Jesus Christ. It is amusing to me that such a song would be playing while I'm writing a letter about religion and atheism. I do not write this to offend you and your pernicious evil. I write this to explain the context of why and who I am concerning this one small facet of my life. Surely your wicked mind set will not impede you in reading this and comprehending what I am attempting to convey.

I mean no disrespect towards most beliefs and doctrines that are held by most people on this planet. The richness and diversity of those beliefs fascinates me. I do not begrudge the belief of any individual and I do not hold any notion of destroying another person's beliefs. I follow the philosophy, as I have always done, of "live and let live." The journey I am on, far from complete, began with me being raised as a Mormon. I learned and came to love many of the Primary songs and memorized the Articles of Faith. I loved the stories of faith, courage, and devotion to God. It wasn't until my senior year that I developed a deep connection with the stories of faith. I term those stories the Crisis of Faith stories. Those stories are the ones when Alma and Amulek what their recent converts burn in the fire and they are placed in prison. The story of Hezekiah and the Assyrians, Elisha and the servant against the Syrians, Shadrach, Meshach, and Obed-nego with the fire. They touched my heart because I felt alone and cut with facing my being gay with a far stretching future and a feeling of failure on my part with God.

I served a mission and did so with as much joy, curiosity, and faith as I could manage. To say it was hard would be an understatement. It was what it was and I don't regret having ever served a mission. I look back on that time of my life with fondness and an understanding that it shaped and continues to shape my life. I believed in God without question during that period of time though I heavily doubted that he cared about me despite my efforts to seek after him. It has only been three and a half years since I served. The memories from that time are still fresh in my mind and still bring a smile to my face when I remember.

Post mission was different from any other point in my life. Suddenly, I was truly on my own. My faith was no longer building to something. I tried to study daily and maintain those habits that I had developed while on my mission. But it was as if things were many times harder. I began to enter into a period of depression, emptiness, and confusion. I will discuss that part of my life to you in another letter.

My point in all of this? I believed. I believed strongly. I cared about that faith and nurtured it with all my heart. I found purpose and joy in my faith, my Church. I loved the beliefs and doctrines that were taught by my leaders. I knew the doctrines and beliefs better than many of my peers throughout my childhood because I loved to learn about them. I did not experience my doubt and eventual departure from these beliefs until I was in college.

My arch nemesis, my hope is that you understand more clearly just the type of person that you have talked with. Convert me if you'd like, but before you do, learn a little more about who I am, please.

May you see reason some day,
Mr. Sanity