Reprise: Step #3, How to Love Yourself When You're Gay–Turn Intention into Action

The Story So Far:  In Part One of this series, we covered how recognizing the problem of having low self-esteem is critical to improving it.  Frankly, if you don't see your self-esteem is low and needs to be raised, you'll probably never do anything about it.

In Part Two, we talked about living consciously, particularly as it relates to working on learning to love yourself.  If, as you work on raising your self-esteem, you continuously fall back into the same pattern of self-loathing--because you don't know you're doing it--any chance for improvement will be compromised.    

Step #3:  Turn Intention into Action

So you recognize you have a problem loving yourself as a gay man, and you want to change it. Also, you realize, in order to change it, you need to break your unconscious routines and live more in the moment.  Now what?

Now, you need to commit to turn your good intentions into action.

Sure, it's great to want to lose weight at the beginning of a new year.  How many of us don't? We eat our way through the Christmas holiday season, we anticipate the approach of summer beach weather, and we know January 1st, a new year and a fresh beginning, is the perfect time to get down to business.  Our plan is a simple one:  to eat healthier and to join a local recreation centre or gym to work-out on a regular basis.

This is our year, right?  We've been talking about losing weight and getting healthy for so long. This time will be different.  We'll make it happen, we tell ourselves.  Our intentions are great, and we're all pumped up, especially as January 1st approaches.  But, by the end of the first week of the new year, if not sooner, we've all but lost sight of our goal. What happened?   

I don't need to tell you what happened.  There are as many explanations, or excuses, for why people don't stick to a plan to eat healthier and to work out as there are people planning to.  The point is, we can say we want to do something all we like, but if we don't actually get off our butts and do it, it won't happen.  Simple as that.  

So, when it comes to raising your self-esteem, I'm asking you to commit to make it happen, not at the beginning of a new year--because, as of the writing of this, January 1, 2014 is almost a year away--but immediately.  That's right.  This very minute.  Because think about how much you'll accomplish between now and then.  You'll be way ahead of the game, and you'll enter 2014 feeling so much better about who you are.  

Really, when it comes to learning to love yourself, any day of the year can be January 1st.  Any day of the year can be that fresh start you need.  Any day of the year can be the one on which you take those first tentative steps toward not only improving your self-esteem, but also toward feeling better about you and your life.

So, commit to make this happen right now.  Turn your intention into action.  I promise it will be the best thing you've ever done.  You will never regret the effort you put into improving your self-esteem.

Stay tuned for Step #4:  Take Baby Steps Forward

Reprise: Step #2, How to Love Yourself When You're Gay–Live Consciously

The Story So Far:  We've covered that you know you have a problem...er, opportunity, which is what we used to call a problem when I worked for one of Canada's largest financial institutions. That is, an opportunity to improve your self-esteem, to learn how to love yourself.  That's half the battle--if you don't recognize you have an opportunity to improve, you'll never change.  But what now?

Step #2:  Live Consciously

Imagine yourself driving to work one morning.  You arrive and suddenly realize you remember nothing about the trip.  You have little to no recollection of the time between leaving your apartment or house and walking in the door of your workplace.  But there you are, saying good morning to everyone.  You must have known what you were doing because you got there safely, after all, but that doesn't stop a shiver from running down your spine. What if you'd been in an accident and had injured or even killed yourself or someone else?    

This is the opposite of living consciously, and it happens to all of us.  So used to our daily routines are we, whether driving to work or preparing a meal in the kitchen or whatever the case may be, that we could do them in our sleep, which is literally what we do. Somehow, our bodies are trained to move through our myriad of routines, while our minds are somewhere else altogether.  It's a miracle more of us aren't the victims of serious accidents, on the road, at home, wherever.  

If you're going to do anything constructive around improving your self-esteem, or learning to love yourself, you'll have to get engaged in your life again, or, at the very least, with the parts related to the negative feelings you have about yourself, and the steps you take to improve that. Because, the second your mind wonders and you're not one hundred percent in the moment, routine thoughts of self-loathing will move in, taking up their familiar place in your psyche, shifting your spirit in the wrong direction, and compromising the actions you take.

What I'm saying is, as you work through the five steps I've identified in raising self-esteem (based on my own experience), more than anything else, you need to be conscious of what's going on in your mind, because your mind controls everything.  You need to assume the position of your own champion, you need to be focused on the long-term goal (while not losing sight of the short-term ones), and, frankly, to use the driving-to-work metaphor again, you need to keep your eyes on the road.  

This is especially true in the beginning, while you try to deconstruct the old routine while building the new one, comprised of turning negative notions about yourself into positive ones, and of manoeuvring your actions in the direction of your new and improved thoughts.  It's all about breaking bad habits, and you can't do that if you live unconsciously, allowing everything to happen to you rather than taking a firm grip on the wheel of your life and going the places where you really want to be.

So commit to yourself here and now that, during the process of improving your self-esteem and learning to love yourself, you'll be present in the moment one hundred percent.  You'll be in tune with your thoughts, which can be your greatest enemy or your greatest ally, depending on how conscious you are, and you'll be in control of your actions.  This commitment to yourself is the only way you'll achieve your goal.  When the negativity starts all over again, as it will, you'll need to recognize it's happening, and you'll need to actively divert yourself back on the right track to respecting and loving yourself.

Stay tuned for Step #3:  Turn Intention into Action

Reprise: Step #1, How to Love Yourself When You're Gay–Recognize the Problem and the Need to Change

Introduction

Anyone can learn to love himself, no matter how filled with self-loathing he may be.  I can't believe any gay person could hate himself more than I did when I was in my late teens and twenties (even though I suppose it's possible).  So if I can turn that around, I sincerely believe anyone can, including you.  I know firsthand how easy getting stuck in specific behavior patterns is, as well as how difficult figuring out what to do and where to start are.  This series of posts, reprised from January 2011, will provide specific suggestions on actions you can take, starting today.

As human beings, we are meant to change; it's something we do continuously throughout our lives.  A lot of change happens to us automatically, as a matter of course, through the aging and maturing process, usually as a result of something that takes place in our physical environment.  But sometimes, we need to be proactive about change, rather than wait for it to take place naturally.  And, believe me, if ever there was a time to be proactive and change, it's now–to improve your self-esteem and the love you have for yourself.  

Before I go further, I have a responsibility to mention therapy or counselling could be extremely helpful, if for no reason than to give you a safe place to talk to a qualified professional, which, from my own experience, provides tremendous relief from holding in too much stuff for too long, and allows for cleansing and a fresh start.  If you can afford therapy or counselling, or if a limited number of sessions are paid for through personnel benefits at your workplace (even just five, which is all I've had), I encourage you to make arrangements right away. You won't regret it.

But therapy and counselling are only as helpful as the effort, honesty, and commitment you put into them.  If you are not yet ready to open up, to reveal your deepest, darkest secrets, to get to the root cause of why you do some of the things you do, and to work hard on implementing alternative behaviors, then therapy and counselling will have limited value.  Just like everything, it's all up to you.   

Finally, I hasten to add, I attended no therapy or counselling sessions to learn how to improve my self-esteem, to begin the journey to love myself.  Not one. What I did over the years was on my own, and, for that reason, I know the steps I took worked (and they can work for you, too). When the time was right for me--that is, when I had been miserable long enough, and when I knew I'd come to the end of showing up in my life filled with the self-loathing that had defined me for so long--I began to read a lot of self-help books, to watch TV programs I hoped would help, and to do some serious reflecting and soul-searching.      

What I offer here and in this series (because it's too long for a single post) is a list of the simple and specific steps I took to improve my self-esteem as a gay man (by the way, they will work for anyone trying to improve his self-esteem, not just gay men).  I promise you, if you really want to change, you can.  Ultimately, only you can do this; no one can make you love yourself.  

Your first priority should always be you, ensuring you're the best you can be for yourself and for everyone in your life who's important to you.  The only way you can do that is to recognize the intrinsic value you have as a human being, and to learn to love yourself as every one of us rightfully should, no matter our sexual orientation.

Step 1:  Recognize the Problem and the Need to Change

First and foremost, you must recognize you have a problem with your self-esteem, and that you need to change, or improve, it.  Why did I take so long to do anything about my own low self-esteem? Initially, because I didn't think I had a problem.  I'd been filled with self-loathing for so long, I didn't know anything else.  Hating myself had become a habit, a natural way of being, and I just thought that's how it would always be.

And the more reading I did, the more TV shows I watched where self-esteem was the subject, and the more I talked to people I knew, the more low self-esteem I saw. Everyone seemed to be in the same situation, for one reason or another, which seemed to make how I felt about myself all right.  I mean, if I felt the same way about myself as everyone seemed to feel about themselves, didn't that mean nothing was wrong with me, after all?  That having low self-esteem was simply the way it was for everyone?  Did I have the right to think better about myself than other people felt about themselves?

You bet I did.  That's what started me thinking.  Either feeling badly about ourselves was simply a part of the human experience on earth, and nothing could be done about it, or we had a monumental problem on our hands.  I used to look at the people around me, who I thought were attractive and funny and compassionate--who appeared to have everything going for them--yet, surprisingly, they always seemed to find one reason or another to feel insecure, resulting in low self-esteem.  What was going on?  How could this be?  If they didn't love themselves, what chance did I have to love myself?

Regardless of how many unhappy people are in the world, I knew I couldn't keep travelling on the same path because I couldn't stand myself or my life.  I couldn't stand feeling like I was stuck, like a huge weight was keeping me in the same place, like I'd never get myself out from under it and really start to live, the way I was meant to.  I chose to believe low self-esteem is an epidemic in North America (maybe even the world), we could do something about it if we really wanted to, and I wasn't meant to hate myself, no matter the reason.

In other words, I recognized my problem and the need to change it.  I was in my early thirties (twenty years ago), and, for the first time in my life, I knew something was wrong, and only I could do something about it.

But what?  And where should I start?  I had no idea.

Stay tuned for Step #2:  Live Consciously

Relaunch of the "How Do I Love Myself When I'm Gay" Series

I missed the boat.

At the end of last month, I responded to a comment I received on a post from a gay, young man in Cape Town, South Africa, who recognized how his self-loathing manifested itself in his life (depression, promiscuity, and alcohol abuse), and who asked the simple question, "How do you love yourself?"  (Please click here to see his comment and my response.)

While my answer was consistent with the spirit of my writing here over the past two years, I gave him nothing specific to work with.  That is, I kept talking around what he should do–and what it looked like–but I failed to give him advice on the steps he could take to achieve his goal.    

I haven't been able to stop thinking about that since, because I take very seriously any comment or email I receive from a gay person who sees him- or herself in what I write, who recognizes the need to change, and who is sincere in finding a new way of being in the world.

The irony in all of this for me is, two years ago, I wrote a series of posts on exactly that subject.  Titled "How to Love Yourself When You're Gay," I took readers step-by-step through the process I followed to help me on my own journey from self-loathing to self-acceptance and self-love.  But I'd completely forgotten about this series (aging being what it is) and, as a result, wasn't able to refer to it in my response.  

I've decided to blow the dust off these six posts and feature them again on my blog.  

At the time I originally published them, my blog had a dedicated, but small, core group of readers, who showed their ongoing support of me and my work by sharing comments on a regular basis.  But readership has grown considerably over the past two years, and I suspect many new readers, who never saw this series, might find it helpful.

It's for them, and especially for my Cape Town reader, that I plan to reprise the "How to Love Yourself When You're Gay" series over the next several days, after I review it in detail and freshen it up as necessary.  I hope you'll check back for these six posts and offer other suggestions you have on how we can all understand, accept, and love ourselves more.

You Cannot Lose What You Never Had

My father died last Friday.

If you feel badly for me, please don't.  It's okay.  I don't remember a time when the relationship I had with him wasn't complex and difficult.

It could not have been easy for my father to raise a gay son throughout the 1960s and most of the '70s.  On a personal level, I'm sure he found homosexuality repugnant.  He was a tough guy, a man's man, a bully.  

I can't imagine I was anything but an embarrassment to him.  How could he not have wanted a normal boy, just like all the other normal boys the neighbors were raising around us–one who didn't attract attention to himself for the wrong reasons.  

Long after all the other boys my age had had the training wheels removed from their bikes, I still had mine on, no doubt causing my father to shake his head in shame, as I rode around the local streets and back alleys in full view of everyone.  I recall my childhood was all about trying to protect myself from being physically hurt.  How could I have known the emotional hurt from all those years would be so much worse?      

My maternal grandmother bought me a Ken doll, Barbie's handsome, blond-haired, blue-eyed boyfriend, after I literally made a scene in Kresge's.  I was proud of Ken–so proud I took him for walks so the other neighborhood children would see him.  Believe me, no other little boy paraded his dolls outside.  To this day, I can't believe my father didn't grab that doll and beat me with it.  It probably took everything he had to stop himself.    

When the other fathers and sons played baseball in the summer, at the local diamonds, or hockey in the winter, on manmade, outdoor ice rinks, I didn't.  I didn't know the first thing about the games, nor did I care to know (remember, there was the very real possibility I'd get hurt by an errant ball or puck).  Instead, during the summer, I played safely in our backyard sandbox, often with the local girls, who I related to much more than the boys, and, in the winter, I stayed indoors, playing with my Legos, Mechanos, and Hot Wheels.

I was the little boy who spent hours in the kitchen with my mother, watching her cook, connecting with her, while my father sat in the living room by himself, watching the news, reading the newspaper, and smoking a pipe.

I was the little boy who couldn't wait for the arrival of the seasonal Eaton's and Sears catalogues, so I could seek out pictures of the handsome men in them.  I especially liked the summer catalogues, when the men wore swimsuits and showed off their toned bodies and hairy chests.  

I was the little boy who spent hours pouring over my mother's monthly "Cosmopolitan" magazine, then under the editorship of the late Helen Gurley Brown, usually filled with pictures of near-naked men, in sexy, alluring poses.  I was drawn to them, in part, because I hoped to grow up and look like them someday, and in part, because they excited me in ways I didn't yet understand.      

I was the little boy who joined Cubs or Scouts–I don't remember which–in the process probably giving my father the first hope he had that his son was actually normal (as I think about it, I'm sure I was talked into joining).  Only to face the overflow of teasing and taunting from the boys I went to school with.  A few short weeks later, when it became apparent I fit in there no more than at Canalta Elementary, I never went back.

I was the little boy who played hopscotch, jumped rope, and Chinese skipped with the girls at school during recess.  And I took the grief for it, too.  

I was the little boy who hid in the house and read, when I imagine my father would have preferred I be outside, trying to play with the other boys, doing what other boys did for a change.  

No, I can't imagine it was easy having me for a son.    It's clear now that, as far as my father was concerned, I was a complete failure.  And he let me know it.

At first, I saw my father's anger and hostility.  When he wasn't spending long hours at the Legion, avoiding coming home and no doubt drinking away frustrations and disappointments with his family in general, and his effeminate son in particular, he was at home, either keeping his distance from me or, worse, finding some reason to take out how he felt on me.  

Years later, when I'd become too old to hit, my father was indifferent toward me.  The two of us crossed paths in the house or the yard from time to time, and we spoke to each other, but we were utter strangers.  I did my thing, and he did his.  The less I saw him, the better.  Then he wouldn't have something to pick on me for.          

I couldn't wait to get out of his house.  My sister, who was younger than me, left before I did.  It wasn't long before she announced she was leaving Canada to work in Saudi Arabia for two years.  None of us understood why she was doing something so drastic.  I thought she'd lost her mind.  But I get it now.  She may have been the only sane one amongst us.      

In January 2010, I wrote my father a letter, after having no contact with him for over fourteen years.  I was hopeful that maybe he'd softened over time.  He was in his mid-seventies, he had no relationship with his only two biological children, and I thought he must have regrets about what had happened in the past.  I was hopeful he was ready to get real with me.

More than anything, I needed him to answer why.  Why had he treated me the way he did all those years?  Why had he denied me his love?  Why had he robbed me of the only father/son relationship I would ever know?

Between then and his death on January 4th, I got almost nothing out of him.  I tried, but it didn't happen.  

Over three years, I wrote a number of emails, reaching out to him, encouraging him to open up, as if saying, "This is your chance.  This is our chance.  Please take it.  I want to know more about you.  I want to know more about you as a human being and as a father. I want to understand what happened between us, why we're at this place today, what we can do to close the gap between us."  No surprise, there were always long waits for his responses.  And when they came, they added to my frustration rather than resolved issues.

He admitted he was harder on me than he needed to be, I'll give him that.  But he never explained why.   And he never apologized.

He wrote that he'd always loved me, but I told him the words rang hollow.  I couldn't process them, accept them.  I doubt I'll ever be able to accept them.  For me, love doesn't look like what he did to me, how he treated me when I was growing up.  When all I wanted was to be held in his arms and feel like I mattered to him.

Yesterday, I came home to a message on the phone from my aunt, my mother's sister. Obviously, my mother had told her that my father had died.  My aunt said she was concerned about me, and, if I needed to talk to, she was available.    

I appreciated her offer, but, as I told her when I called back and left a voicemail, I'm fine. Life goes on.

I was a little shaken when my father's second wife emailed me last Friday to say he was gone, but his passing wasn't unexpected.  He had been hospitalized nearly a year earlier and diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis and congestive heart failure.  Twice he'd been resuscitated when his heart had stopped, and he was eventually able to go home.

But all of us knew his condition wouldn't improve.  In fact, it would get progressively worse.  The question was, what would his quality of life look like for the short time he had left.  And I couldn't help but wonder, would this be what he needed to be more open with me than he ever had been before?  (It wasn't.)      

My aunt's call came from a place of concern for the loss of my father.  I understand that. But I can't look at it that way.  In every respect that mattered to me, I never had a father. As insensitive as it sounds, the only thing I lost in his passing were the answers to the questions I've had all these years.    

You cannot lose what you never had.

A Call for Compassion: C. S. Pearce's "This We Believe"

…If the traditional Christian position on homosexuality is not supportable on biblical, intellectual, or compassionate grounds, and you continue to hold to it, you share in the responsibility for the consequences.

           –From This We Believe: The Christian Case for 
             Gay Civil Rights, by C. S. Pearce

Not so fast if, as a straight Christian, you believe the Bible gives you license to contribute to the hatred gay and lesbian people often feel toward themselves because of their sexual orientation, leading, as Pearce notes in her book, to such things as low self-esteem, promiscuous behavior, and even suicide.  As she effectively argues:

Christians must cease instilling self-loathing in gay…people.  Stop telling gay people it's against their religion to fall in love and marry….  It's time to stop persecuting gay people. It's time to accept them as the equal members of God's family that they are.  It's time to start the healing.

"Raised in a conservative evangelical family," C. S. Pearce, a straight, female, "California-based writer and director of media relations for Claremont School of Theology," could have done as many Christians do–react in a knee-jerk fashion toward gay people, using Bible verses to support her personal prejudice.  But she doesn't. Instead, she writes:

…Too often, and usually unknowingly, Christians spread myths about gay people that cause others to fear and stigmatize them.  Yet most of these hurtful and slanderous beliefs are easy to disprove.  They continue to be propagated only because those who adopt them do so uncritically, without trying to find out whether they are actually true.

The beauty of This We Believe is Pearce uses relatively little space not only to show her empathy toward gay people–by describing in realistic detail what she knows to be the effect many Christians have on them, either directly or indirectly–but also to examine each and every Bible passage, used to persecute gay people over the decades, debunking them and rendering them useless.  The conclusions she reaches are intelligent and insightful, not to mention necessary.

I'm sure Pearce is not the first straight Christian to formally express her support of gay people and to urge other Christians to follow suit.  But she is the first I became aware of, and for her courage, I applaud her.  Like the Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Bishop of New Hampshire, says at the opening of This We Believe, "In a few short pages, C. S. Pearce debunks long-held myths, clarifies Scripture and argues for a much needed rethinking of the Church's traditional stand [toward homosexuality]."

Finally, I leave you with this quote from This We Believe:

When traditional beliefs are clearly causing hurt instead of blessing, it's worth struggling with the issues involved in order to come out on the other side….  In this case the struggle means taking the courageous step of letting go of harmful traditional beliefs so we can embrace the blessing reflected in the compassion of Jesus.

How I Reconcile My Homosexuality and My Relationship with God

The recent post I wrote, titled "Let Your Feet and Dollars Speak," got me thinking about the role God plays in my life, and how I reconcile my homosexuality with my relationship with Him.

Before I go further, you should know the nature of my relationship with God has evolved over the past fifty-three years (although I've always felt close to Him), and my acceptance of my sexual orientation necessarily played a role in shaping it.  What works for me may not work for you, and, by sharing this, I do not mean to suggest my way is the only way for gay people to have God in their lives.  If you find something here that helps define the relationship you have with Him, great.  If not, consider this information only.  

I was raised a Catholic.  My father was raised in the United church, my mom in the Catholic.  It was more important to her that her children be raised Catholic (something about her fear for our souls, I think), than it was to my father to raise us United.

At the appointed times, I was baptized (which, of course, I have no memory of); attended catechism for a number of years (religious classes, once a week, which I hated); attended my first confession (I'm not sure what, as a boy, I had to confess); and was confirmed around Grade 7 (admitted as a full member into the Catholic church).

Throughout my childhood, my mom, sister, and I attended church almost every Sunday, often with her parents (my father joined us at Easter and Christmas only).  When I was in my late teens and early twenties, I started to go to church on Saturday evening, usually by myself, when I learned my weekly obligation to attend Mass could be fulfilled then. (Saturday evening, rather than Sunday morning, was a more convenient time for me, as it was for many parishioners.  Plus, our neighborhood church was small, and, in order for everyone to attend, Saturday evening Masses had to be made available.)

Catholics don't study the Bible like Christians of other denominations do; in fact, I don't remember ever seeing a Bible in our house as I was growing up.  Still, I was aware at an early age–perhaps more from hearsay and programs on TV than from the church itself–what the Bible supposedly says about homosexuality.

To reconcile attending church every week with the growing realization I was gay, I lived in denial.  I tucked away deep inside me the truth of what I was and tried to forget it there–for years, in fact.  I knew I was different, but, even in my early twenties, I prayed–hard–that the way I was different would pass.  As a Catholic, I wanted to be right with the church: I wanted more than anything to be straight, interested in girls.

Well, that didn't happen.  And, by my mid-twenties, as I began to tell select people (outside my family and close friends) about what I was–to test the ground and see if I'd still be accepted–I felt a distance necessarily grow between me and the church.  In my mind, I always imagined what fellow parishioners would think of me if they knew I was gay, or what they would say behind my back.  I couldn't tolerate the idea of them judging me, especially when I began to see many of them for what they appeared to be: more concerned with showing off their nice clothes and their perfect families–thinking themselves better than everyone else–than being humble before God.

I've never been able to tolerate anyone who's two-faced.  If you say one thing to me (what you think I want to hear), and I find out you've said the exact opposite behind my back, well, that's probably it for us.  You've shown me that I can't trust you, and, when trust is gone, not much is left.  

I tell you this because I began to see myself as two-faced: I attended church every week, letting everyone assume I was straight (because I wanted to be accepted), yet knowing I was gay.  If being a member of the church meant I had to be something I wasn't–had to be straight for the sake of pleasing those who sat around me, who I knew wouldn't accept the truth about me–then I no longer had any business being among them.

And what about my relationship with God?  I knew that God had made me the way I am; that is, I knew God had made me gay.  That being the case, surely, He hadn't made me gay so I'd be forever miserable in a predominately straight world.  Whatever I'd learned about God, I knew He loved me, and He wouldn't do that to me.  He wouldn't make me different from the majority of people so I'd have to fight what I was my whole life, so I'd have to deny myself the love of someone who happened to be the same gender, so I'd eventually end up burning in hell because I'd dared to live my life as a fully-realized gay man.    

I knew God would accept that I'd stopped going to church.  In my heart, I knew I was no closer to Him there, than I was anywhere in the world (in fact, I might even have been further away from Him, since I was sure He saw through the hypocrisy of many sitting in the pews and preferred not to be there Himself).

I knew God was everywhere.  I knew He was in every living thing, including me.  I knew God was with me at all times.  I knew I didn't have to be in a church to talk to Him or to be close to Him.  That I could talk to Him any time I wanted to, wherever I was.  Over the years, I've taken advantage of that many times.  

So my relationship with God continued, even though I was an out gay man and no longer attended church.  In fact, I believed my relationship with Him was better, cleaner, and purer, because it wasn't lived through the filter of the Catholic church, or any church, for that matter.  Because it no longer had anything to do with living up to the expectations of other human beings, in place to make my relationship with God conditional upon what they believed God's word meant.  I had a direct connection to God; He knew me, and I knew Him.  

Today, I'd say my relationship with God is stronger than ever.  I never believed for a moment that He'd abandon me because I'm gay or because I no longer attend church. And He hasn't.

I pray every night.  But my prayers do not usually involve asking for something; rather, they are about expressing gratitutde.  Every day, I say to God, "Please accept my thank-you for all of the many blessings and miracles I received today, because every single thing I have is a blessing, a miracle, or both."  And I often go into detail about what I'm grateful for in general (I call them the big six:  my life, my health, my relationship with Chris, food, clothing, and shelter), and what I'm grateful for that day. (Sometimes, I sneak in a special request, but my view is that God has enough on His plate without concerning Himself with my small problems.  When it comes down to it, I believe God gave us everything we need to look after ourselves, and He expects us to use it.)

On the subject of homosexuality, a friend once said, "You know what the Bible has to say about that," as though I should know better than to believe God accepts me as I am and overlooks my homosexual behavior.

I've thought a lot about that since, and my response would be different today from the stunned silence it was then.  Today, I'd respond, "No, I don't know what the Bible has to say about homosexuality, and I don't believe any Christian can be sure about what it has to say, either.  Over the centuries, the Bible has been rewritten and reinterpreted so many times, by so many people, producing so many versions, that none of us can be one-hundred-percent certain the prejudices of the men who wrote it didn't find their way into its pages.

"How can any one of us be sure everything in the Bible really is the word of God?  I didn't sit beside God when He wrote it Himself; I didn't see Him write that homosexuality is an abomination.  Nobody alive today did.  Besides, is that really what those passages have to say, or have they been misused by those who personally find homosexuality unacceptable, to support their bias, to prove God agrees with them?"

(Recently, I've come to the realization God intentionally put people with differences–whatever they might be–on earth to challenge those who think they have a sound understanding of God's word, who say they live by that word, and who claim they love everyone unconditionally.  When it's clear, from listening to them and from watching their actions, they don't.  It's easy to accept and love others when they're like you, when they fall in line with how you think they should, based on your reading of the Bible.  But I believe God's watching them, and He's shaking His head, disappointed in how they treat their fellow human beings.)  

In the end, my relationship with God couldn't be simpler:  there's me, there's God.  That's it.  That's all I need.  I'm accountable to Him and to Him only, not to a single human being who thinks he or she knows what God wants and doesn't want.  They know no better than I do.  They may come across as though they do, but they don't.  I don't listen to them; I ignore what they have to say.  My advice to them is, thanks for your concern, but I'll look after my soul.      

I listen to the voice of God within me.  It has always been there, and it will always be there, leading me in the direction I know I must go.