Gay the Pray Away

I love my parents and my brother. Sometimes I even like them.

It feels like a damn miracle every time someone like you, or me, can see through the fog of our childhood and reach for the sun.

Funny thing is, my parents tell me they are proud of me all the time. They say they love me and support me, that they are proud of me and proud to be my parents, but it never feels real amid the constant tide of correction and shaming and belittling. I guess actions really do speak louder than words.

Just because people say 'I love you' to their kids doesn't mean they treat them with love.

I’m not sure where God and I will end up, but I know that I only want to be friends with God if God is . . . different than I’ve been taught. If I come back to God after all this and find that God is a kinder, more loving presence than the one I’ve known, great. And if God is more loving than I’ve been taught, then I think God would be okay with me needing some time to untangle this. I think God would want me to feel a shred of happiness. That is the impression I’m getting from all this prayer and meditation. And for once, I’m going to trust myself and my feelings.

I just want to trust my feelings, and trust that my feelings are okay. I want to let myself feel the way that I feel with Riley. Like I'm an okay person—even a good one. That I'm loved and lovely the way I am, and that it's not a sin to feel happy and to love without reservation. I'm not sure where God and I will end up, but I know that I only want to be friends with God if God is... different than I've been taught. If I come back to God after all this and find that God is a kinder, more loving presence than the one I've known, great. And if God is more loving than I've been taught, then I think God would be okay with me needing some time to untangle this. I think God would want me to feel a shred of happiness. That is the impression I'm getting from all this prayer and meditation. And for once, I'm going to trust myself and my feelings.

That’s why found family is such a huge deal to queer people. It's the people who actually come through for you that matter most.

Maybe it's just part of being human, being a kid. I want her to love me so much. I want her to see me the way I am, the real me, and still love me and be proud of me. I've dreamed of it so much, it sounds so simple. Surely they can love their own kid? Surely that isn't too much to ask? But everything they've said and done shows me how impossible that dream is, and it hurts so much.

I feel that pinch of guilt. I wish I could belong. And if things were always like they are right now, I think I would. I could be a part of this kind, chili-night family of friendly words and gentle smiles. I love my parents and my brother. Sometimes I even like them. But this is only a piece of them. A bright, glowing corner. The rest of them is cold and piercing. A set of spikes in the shape of a cross. We've been taught that Christ is to be all. That Jesus Christ is to consume us, be every aspect of us; that we are to seek and burn and refine every speck of sin and discontent. The parts of my family that I love, that I feel closest to—most warmly recieved and tenderly nurtured by—are the non-Jesus parts. And if they strive to make Christ the whole, is there any love left, any space left, for me?

For all the sermons I’ve heard about the gay agenda, I’m finding queer people to have much less of an agenda than Christians.

It's funny, I've always been told that peace comes through Christ. That leaving or letting go of my faith would lead only to guilt and sadness. But here I am, finding the truest joy I've ever known in all the places I was told not to look. Finding the deepest peace in 'sin'. Finding the purest belonging in leaving.

For all the sermons I've heard about the gay agenda, I'm finding queer people to have much less of an agenda than Christians.

I am always lying. I am lying right now with my face during this prayer meeting.

But reading that book, seeing love so tender and real played out on its pages, somehow ordered a jumble of feelings in my chest. And I don't know what to do with any of it, except to acknowledge that I feel things that I know are forbidden. Feelings I’ve explained away in the deepest, most private corners of my mind, feelings that somehow persist despite all the effort I’ve put into crushing them.

But seeing her like this, soft and needy, she's beautiful. And her needing me, it makes me feel beautiful too.

I wonder how she’ll look when she's old. I know she'll be as perfect as she is now.