“An unbelieved truth can hurt a man much more than a lie. It takes great courage to back truth unacceptable to our times. There's a punishment for it, and it's usually crucifixion.”
John Steinbeck, East of Eden
Everyone's afraid of something.
As I have pondered for almost a month (jeesh!) what my second blog post would be, I've decided to address my fears. Fears that have surfaced now that I have finally decided to walk down this path holding my gay orientation openly in one hand and my faith in the other and seeing what's going to happen.
And I have A LOT of fears about this new turn in my life, some are ridiculous, some are relatable:
=I'm afraid that I won't be as open minded with other peoples views as I expect them to be of mine, especially if it's something I don't want to hear.
=I'm afraid that I will find only what I want to find and sweep everything else under the rug.
=I'm afraid that what I had with God before all this happened, the quality of relationship I had with Him during my childhood and late teen years was just that, childhood. That maybe all that is just innocence lost and that it's not realistic to expect that again.
=I'm afraid of being considered less of a child of God and being dismissed by other Christians because of the views I have.
=I'm afraid of how living my life as a gay Christian is going to further affect my friends and my family and my life.
=I'm afraid of being wrong that I'm gay. What if I'm wrong and I miss out on my potential (male) soulmate?
=I'm afraid of putting a label on myself and living by the constraints of that label instead of just who I am.
=I'm afraid of what I will find.
In all honesty, I think that all these fears can be summed up by saying that I'm afraid of moving forward: moving forward with my questions, moving forward with my faith. When you move forward, you are never kept in a comfortable state. You risk the loss of stability that you have set up for yourself. You risk having your worldview, your proven "truths" and beliefs, coming completely unraveled before your very eyes (a very painful process). You run the risk of having your entire being coming undone. And all this is happening because you are forcing yourself to move forward.
Sounds crazy, right? Why move forward? What's the point?
Would it be too clichéd to say that it was all in the name of Truth?
Here's a short story for you:
I can remember driving home one night, flying down the highway, windows down, music blaring, the buffeting wind knocking me about, competing with the music. I can't remember what specifically made me so upset, if it was a conversation with someone or what, but I do remember feeling a lot of confusion and worry, and fear- an overwhelming sense of fear.
My mind was reeling, everything was hitting me all at once: the pressure to figure out what I was going to do next in life, the stress of never having enough money to get my education, my trying relationship with my father, the recent admission that I was probably, most likely, like 99.9 % sure, gay. Everything that I had held as solid, was crumbling underneath me. Who I was, what I thought I knew, was unraveling, like someone tugged at a loose thread, and all the "permanent" knots I had made that wove into my worldview were coming undone.
With the base bumping and my hair flying and my emotions gone to hell, a thought hit me: "My name is Courage."
I said first in my mind and then out loud.
"My name is Courage. My name is Courage." I tilted down my review mirror, looked in it and said with steady conviction to myself, "Your name...is Courage."
I shouted it; I whispered it; I said it until I believed it.
At that point in my life, driving in my car, unsure of even where I was going at that moment, I realized that in the face of crippling fears, all you can do is have courage. Because even the weakest, the most terrified, those that have no confidence, the doubters, the undecided-even they can have courage.
And what is courage but moving forward? And what is moving forward but enduring new truths, new perspectives? Doesn't the world look different from the bottom of the mountain than from the top? Yet, we have to go forward to get there.
I guess that I want to see what the view's like at the top of the mountain. I don't want to spend the rest of my life thinking my current outlook here at the base is all that there is.
So I will brave my fears, grasp for the quick holds, stumble in the dark, search the foreboding caves, and toe the cliffs' perilous edges on my journey to the top.
Why? Because my name is Courage.
Steady on,
cBb
RSS Feed