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Dear United Methodist Pastor

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Dear United Methodist Pastor,

I hope this note finds you well.  You may remember me from my grandmother’s’ funeral at Pleasantdale last year.  I was the grandson who played the piano for her service there.  I was prompted to write this note to you by the notice of the congregational meeting that I saw on your church’s Facebook page.  Much to my own surprise, the notice hit me like a ton of bricks to the point that I almost had to leave work.  As a member and pianist at Mt. Calvary – St. Mark’s United Methodist Church in Harlem, NYC, I know that the development in the United Methodist Church that is occasioning such congregational meetings relate to the provision in the Discipline that, for a limited period of time, allows congregations to break fellowship with the United Methodist Church over the specific issue of homosexuality.  For most folks, this issue is more theoretical and ideological than it is a matter that affects their personal life, but for me it is literally a matter of life and death, and even perhaps a matter of eternal life and second death. 

Both Pleasantdale United Methodist Church and Poneto United Methodist Church have left an indelible and positive, life-changing mark on my soul for which I will be eternally grateful.  It was in these holy places that I first learned about and observed what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ in a broken world.  Pleasantdale has an indescribable place in my heart, for that was where I was baptized, participated in communion for the first time and where 4 generations of my family worshipped, and which even today affects the lives of some of my second/third cousins.  It is also a special place because one could not participate in the life of that church for any period of time without receiving from the strong faith and example of the saints there, the knowledge that God is real, that he loves everybody, and that this love by grace through faith has the power to transform lives.  I could never mention by name all the holy saints in that place whose example forever transformed my life and led me to enter a lifelong relationship with Jesus. 

One of my earliest memories of church is the frequency and power of the spoken testimonies of Ralph Koger, Sr., who seldom let a time for sharing one’s joys and concerns pass without testifying to the goodness and power of God.  I will always have fond memories of Junior Church with Ilene Hornbaker.  I will never forget an older gentleman named Carl, who like Zacchaeus was of very small stature.  He was hard to understand because he had a very severe stutter.  I learned one time when he and my dad were doing work in the multi-purpose area of the church that Carl had a very hard life.  People believed he was stupid and defective because of his stutter, so while the other kids were being educated at the one-room schoolhouse, he was told to do manual labor related to the coal-fueled stove instead.  If I recall correctly, he was also treated poorly because of his polish ethnic heritage.  He never came to church with any family, and he lived alone.  Pleasantdale was his family.  He showed up early every Sunday and greeted everyone as they came in the front door of the church.  At Pleasantdale, he was loved as a human being with sacred worth and value.  He was a child of God and his life had meaning and purpose there. 

At Pleasantdale, I learned my love of church music.  My earliest memory of music is standing on the blue pew next to my grandma Betty Shores holding a hymnal and singing songs that later carried me through some of the darkest hours of my life.  I loved the unique honky-tonk style with which Vera Williams played the organ while Dwight Bell led the singing.  As a 5-year-old, I would anxiously watch the door of the church to see if this Sunday would be one in which Vera would be at the organ.  My eyes would light up every Sunday this elderly, blue-haired woman with an outfit and glasses straight out of the 1960s would hobble in with her cane followed by her very elderly and ornery husband, Leroy.  She is the sole reason that I taught myself to play the piano.  The elderly black women at the church where I now play for Sunday services would be amazed to learn that the “soul” with which I play the hymns was learned by listening to an elderly white woman from rural Indiana play the organ at Pleasantdale. 

I cannot mention Pleasantdale without remembering the godly example of my grandparents, Bud and Betty Shores.  One could not ask for a better example of what it means to love God and neighbor as taught by the Bible.  Anyone who remembers them would know they would give their last dollar to help someone in need.  They loved everyone and they loved Pleasantdale.  My grandpa Bud would climb on roofs and perform manual labor to help someone free of charge well into his upper seventies.  It was the holy example and unconditional love modeled by such Christians, and many others who remain unmentioned, that gifted me with faith in Jesus and which got me through some very dark and painful hours that threatened my very life. 

I knew that I was gay long before I even knew what the word meant.  This reality was something that I never asked for, nor was it a sinful lifestyle that I chose.  Yet notwithstanding my childhood innocence, I knew from a very early age from my family and my church’s teaching that this was a very wicked and awful thing for which I would be damned to hell for eternity if God did not somehow fix it—if he did not somehow miraculously make it go way.  I could not even begin to count the number of hours I spent praying and begging God to take this curse away from me.  The tears I have shed over this could fill an ocean or at least a very large lake.  I would cry myself to sleep almost nightly from the 7th through 9th grades, often begging Jesus to let me die or pleading him to hurry and come back and rapture me away so that I would not have to live through the silent turmoil and hell one goes through being born gay in rural, Christian Indiana.  It was an emotional hell that I had to bear alone, without the aid of family or church, for I could never let them know who I was.  Notwithstanding, I clung silently to Jesus, sang church hymns while in anguish in order to fall asleep, and remembered the love of God I had learned about at Pleasantdale and Poneto churches.  There are multiple times in my life where that was all that kept me from killing myself. 

It is not my intent to go into my whole life’s story, other than to mention that the only reason I married a woman and started a family was because of the church’s teaching about homosexuality and what I then believed the Bible required of me if I were to be accepted by God.  Needless to say, it did not end well.  How can one even write about the inner turmoil and lifelong psychological damage one suffers living most of their life as a lie while fighting an inner war that is unwinnable, no matter how many times one cries out to Jesus.  How does one put words to what it feels like to sit your wife down and tell her after 9 years of marriage and a child that you are gay.  How can I convey to anyone who doesn’t already know for themselves the loneliness and sense of failure and shame one feels after having blown up a straight marriage because one is secretly gay.  Who does one turn to for comfort, for hope, for love in the aftermath of the human wreckage that creates.  Not a Christian church….  I have written a blog entry about my life that attempts to capture in some literary form the inner turmoil one experiences when trying to reconcile one’s identity as a homosexual with one’s identity as a Christian.  The weblink is here if you desire to read it, but I warn you it is emotionally raw and has very strong language:  https://cairnsofstone.com/2018/03/02/stones/

Nor is my story an isolated incident.  I could recount for you the individual stories of about a dozen of my gay and lesbian friends in New York City who suffered their own trauma from being raised in one brand of Christianity or another while gay/lesbian.  Each of them has spent the entirety of their adult lives trying to repair themselves from the emotional and psychological damage this has caused them.  Of these friends, I am the only one who still actively participates in a Christian church as an adult.  Some of them express their spirituality through private practices such as prayer and Bible reading.  Most of them avoid even that in order to protect themselves from the PTSD-like symptoms religion triggers in them.  A few are adamant atheists who cannot even discuss the subject of God without burning with anger, tears welling up in their eyes from the hidden pain.  Many of them fell into severe drug abuse at some point in their lives (meth is usually the drug of choice because it heightens the sexual experience); most at one time or another sought the love and acceptance they were deprived of by the church through high risk and frequent sexual experiences.  As a result, some have acquired HIV.  Others have experienced periods of homelessness and poverty.  None of them had a church they could turn to for love, acceptance or support—at least not a church that wouldn’t also glibly inform them that the church loves the sinner but hates the sin.  Such churches condemn them to earning their salvation by committing themselves to a life alone through celibacy, thereby depriving them of the mutual aid and support of the institution of marriage that straight Christians are permitted to enjoy, even when they are married for a second or third time after divorce.  I have searched the internet far and wide and haven’t found any United Methodist churches that have left their denomination because it ordains divorced persons who have remarried, even though it is a longstanding traditional belief based on Bible teaching that such a second marriage constitutes the sin of adultery. 

I do not want to take up too much of your time reading this message, which has already turned into a lengthy novel.  But I feel compelled to mention a friend of mine from Nigeria whom I met through the internet last April.  He is a young, closeted gay man who lives in the predominantly Christian, southern part of Nigeria.  He found me through social media, presumably from a post I made utilizing a #gay hashtag.  He subsequently read my blog post, which I shared above.  Social media is generally the only safe space for gay and lesbian Nigerians to openly express who they are.  Being gay in Nigeria can result in a prison sentence of up to 14 years—though most often it just results in harassment from the police, who extract a costly bribe to spare them the trauma and isolation of being “outed” to their family and community.  We bonded when he found out that I play the piano for a United Methodist congregation.  Every Sunday he attends a congregation of the United Methodist Church of Nigeria with members of his family.  He can identify most hymns he hears me practicing during our video calls and can even recite their correct page number in the United Methodist hymnal without looking in the index.  During one call, he showed me a calendar he has from a conference of the United Methodist Women in Nigeria.  His family and his church do not know that he is gay.  The day he found out I was United Methodist, he asked me to marry him, and he was very serious.  One can only imagine the trauma he experiences as a closeted gay man in a country where being gay is a criminal offense—to be willing to leave his friends and family behind without a second thought for a chance to have a life in a country where he will be permitted to love free of fear and have a family, something which is very important to him.  He often asks me about New York City and what it is like to be able to dance openly with other gays at gay bars. 

When members of United Methodist churches debate leaving the denomination over the “gay issue”, I often wonder whether anyone is thinking about my Nigerian friend.  Does anyone care what their decision means for someone like him, for people like me, for people like my gay and lesbian friends, for people whose pain is so deep that the very discussion of God is a trigger of PTSD like symptoms.  Do we matter.  Does anyone know what they are doing to the silent members sitting in their pews listening to all their words, quietly being subjected to the soul crucifying consequences of their deeply held beliefs, not a single soul in their church knowing they are talking about one of their own who is presently wishing they were dead behind a silent, churchy smile.  Would it make a difference to that discussion if they did know?  Before church members vote on such a decision, did they give serious study and prayerful consideration to works of biblical scholars who are “gay affirming”, not in spite of but because of their life’s work studying the biblical languages of Greek and Hebrew and commitment to understanding the ancient historical context in which the Scriptures were written.  Did their shepherds exhort them to consider such scholarly arguments before hastily deciding without further thought, that this is what the Bible says.  Is what the Bible says on this issue really so clearcut?  Would it matter if it is at least arguable.  Did any pastors tell their congregations to first read Matthew Vines’ “The Gay Debate: The Bible and Homosexuality” before making up their mind (https://matthewvines.com/transcript/).  Before asserting an unshakeable conclusion that homosexuality is a sin that must be condemned by the church, did anyone read, “Romans 1:26-27: A Clobber Passage That Should Lose Its Wallop (https://unfundamentalists.com/2013/10/romans-126-27-a-clobber-passage-that-should-lose-its-wallop/).  Did their shepherds read it before preaching and teaching them on such topics and passages.  I wonder if any of them know that there are ancient liturgical manuscripts scattered in various museums and libraries across the world dating from the 7th through 16th centuries containing copies of what clearly appear to be Christian same-sex union ceremonies that parallel the heterosexual marriage ceremonies contained in the same manuscripts, or at least a very strong argument can be made that that is what they are (see John Boswell, Same-Sex Union in Premodern Europe, c. 1994).  Perhaps it is irrelevant. 

I have shed enough tears while trying to compose this message for which I have little faith even matters to anyone.  I may never be able to bring myself to find out if Pleasantdale UMC and Poneto UMC remain United Methodist congregations after this time of discernment in our denomination.  Nothing will ever change the gift of faith in Christ that these places have given me.  Without it, I would not be alive, nor could I have endured the suffering of the cross I was given to bear in this life.  I will never cease praying for these churches, that God would bless and revitalize their ministries so that their lampstands will remain burning, giving light to their respective corners of the world, offering love and grace to all, until the day the Bridegroom appears.  May God bless you and your efforts as you lead this holy place through such difficult and conflicted times.

Your brother in Christ, 

Justin Gardner

Dethroning Father Time

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Timing is the sine qua non of human existence and meaning. From the beginning of human civilization, measuring time by reference to the movements of the heavenly bodies has been the preeminent occupation of mankind–time itself being the creature of the celestial bodies.1 From time immemorial, the survival and prosperity of the empire, city-state or even a remote outpost or village depended upon appropriately timing the sowing and reaping of crops, knowing and following the movements and migrations of wild animals hunted for food and clothing, and adequately preparing for the changing seasons, in season. Thus, there arose in the most advanced civilizations a priestly caste of learned initiates responsible for tracking and recording the movements of the heavenly bodies (or gods) and deciphering what their movements portended for mortals and the welfare of their earthly habitations.

To preserve this vital knowledge accumulated by the priestly caste over the generations, elaborate stories became attached to the various gods that ruled the heavens. The development of these stories was intertwined with the establishment of various Holydays interspersed throughout the year, each serving to commemorate the various deities of the heavens and their respective deeds, thereby providing an explanatory or ex”planet”ary framework for the various phenomena affecting human life and serving to enculturate the appropriate activities in their season according to the festivities assigned to that season. Thus, was the prosperity of the polis secured. And in the process, the priestly caste acquired great knowledge, wealth and power, for the fate of empires and the longevity of the kingly dynasties ruling them depended largely upon the accuracy of their advice and upon their ability to convince the unlearned masses, whose labors built the empire, to follow it. An Earthly rulers’ legitimacy was established by their seeming mastery (with the help of their priests) over the heavens, even going so far as to wear headdresses fashioned to resemble the corona (or crown) of the sun to symbolize that even the chief god of the heavens was subject to their sovereignty. As a consequence, the priests became masters of public spectacles and ceremonies.

Imagine being present in the courtyard of Solomon’s Temple for the Passover festivities, taking in the grandeur of both the imposing stone edifice and the magnificent views of the surrounding countryside visible from the Temple Mount. It is just before sunrise, and you are standing amongst the throng of people who made the long pilgrimage to Jerusalem, all of whom are facing westward towards the Eastern Portico of the magnificent Temple, which is aligned perfectly so that as the Sun rises over the Mount of Olives where the Red Heifer was just sacrificed, its first rays shine through the Eastern Portico right into the Holy of Holies, illuminating the gold bedecked Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant. Simultaneously, you witness the illumination of the spectacularly bejeweled breastplate of the High Priest standing in the Eastern Portico facing the crowd, the 12 illuminated gemstones of his garment representing the twelve tribes of Israel, which themselves represent the twelve Mansions of the Sun (i.e. the Zodiac). All are illuminated by the spectacular rays of the rising Sun, which the astronomer priests (the tribe of Levi), with the help of the astrological wisdom Solomon gathered by marrying the daughters of foreign kings the world over, had timed so that the chief festival of their high holy days coincided with the Sun’s alignment with the architecture of their Temple.

One cannot overestimate the effect of this experience on the assembled crowd, which has just witnessed the Glory of the Shekinah that led their ancestors out of Egypt, enter into the Temple. The experience would not be unlike that which would have been felt by the ancient Mayans assembled at the great pyramid of Chichen Itza during the vernal and autumnal equinoxes watching as the late afternoon Sun created the illusion of a snake creeping down the northern staircase of the massive pyramid dedicated to their feathered snake god, Kukulcán. At the time and place appointed by the priests, this ray of light reflecting the image of the feathered snake would slither down the stairway to heaven into the underworld, mysteriously uniting the heavens, earth and underworld in during a religious feast day that undoubtedly included much merrymaking and the offering of religious sacrifices.

In this manner, the entire history of human existence has been mapped to correspond to the cycles of the celestial bodies in relation to each other and Earth. Hence, the feast days, Holydays, creation stories and national myths of all cultures from all eras are strikingly similar to each other, explaining why each empire is so easily able to assimilate the religion and customs of the defeated peoples of the civilizations that preceded it. Accordingly, the ancient Romans and Greeks would recognize their mythologies, Holyday feasts and calendars in those of the Christians who succeeded them, and in like manner, the even more ancient Persians, Babylonians and Egyptians would recognize theirs in the religion of the Jews and each other, for all are referable to the movements of the same heavenly bodies in relation to their effect on terrestrial life within the context of time, and all were birthed within the language and culture of those civil religions that preceded them.

It should come as no surprise then that the most famous passage of literature attributed to that talismanic king, whose wisdom is widely reputed to exceed that of any other human in history, concerns time. King Solomon writes:

3:1 For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: 2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; 3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; 4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; 5 a time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; 6 a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to throw away; 7 a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; 8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace.

9 What gain have the workers from their toil? 10 I have seen the business that God has given to everyone to be busy with. 11 He has made everything suitable for its time; moreover, he has put a sense of past and future into their minds, yet they cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. 12 I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live; 13 moreover, it is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil. 14 I know that whatever God does endures for ever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it; God has done this, so that all should stand in awe before him. 15 That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.

16 Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, wickedness was there, and in the place of righteousness, wickedness was there as well. 17 I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for he has appointed a time for every matter, and for every work. 18 I said in my heart with regard to human beings that God is testing them to show that they are but animals. 19 For the fate of humans and the fate of animals is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and humans have no advantage over the animals; for all is vanity. 20 All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all turn to dust again. 21 Who knows whether the human spirit goes upwards and the spirit of animals goes downwards to the earth? 22 So I saw that there is nothing better than that all should enjoy their work, for that is their lot; who can bring them to see what will be after them?

Ecclesiastes 3

And so, King Solomon, who personifies the pinnacle of human wisdom, bestows his most famous ode upon Father Time, known to the Greeks as Chronos/Cronus and to the Romans as Saturn. In a fitting tribute to this god, the Roman feast day of Saturnalia, which Christians now celebrate as Christmas, was a Holyday celebrated with public feasts in a spirit of revelry, drunkenness and licentiousness in which the entire social order was purposefully turned upside down with the slaves and servants being served by their masters. Tellingly, the Christians who followed them claimed that their Saviour, whose birthday they chose to celebrate on Saturnalia, would do the same thing–viz, that the last shall be first and the first shall be last in the kingdom that he promised to bring down from the heavens to Earth.2 Thus, this feast day to Father Time, who was later conflated by Christians with Father Christmas or Santa Clause (Saturn), is still celebrated by acting out that philosophy dating back to Solomon, who, after observing the ravages of time on human life and the monotony of human labor governed by that wretched sundial, essentially concluded: Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.3

Accordingly, all religious systems operate on the basis of astrological timing, and the people who orchestrate them and operate within them are, at their core, astrologers, sorcerers and diviners, seeking to utilize the movements of the celestial bodies within the constricts of time to the advantage of themselves, their families, tribes and nations. All religions evolved for the purpose of securing the prosperity of the city or nation so that it would ascend in power and could dominate that of its neighbors and thereby accumulate more wealth and resources. And all religions are spread by virtue of their adherents’ unshakeable belief that their gods are greater and more powerful than that of their rivals and that their homegrown sacrifices and ceremonies are more efficacious in securing the favor of such gods. And in one sense, they are correct. The more closely one’s religious beliefs attune one’s actions to the revolutions of the spheres that govern life on Earth, the more prosperity and success one secures. And so it is with nations. Thus, all religious systems are transactional. They exist for the purpose of obtaining a benefit or advantage in this world–i.e. to secure the blessings of food, shelter, health, wealth, national prosperity and victory over one’s enemies. Fundamentally, therefore, all religions seek to gain the favor and blessing of Cronos/Saturn (later Father Time), whom Paul of Tarsus referred to as the Prince of the Power of the Air.4

But almost uniquely among gods, the god of the Hebrews, known as Yahweh, the Hebrew word for “being” itself, namely, I AM, WAS and WILL BE, is frequently portrayed in his Holy Writ as rejecting his own purported worshippers who are seeking to manipulate the movements of the heavenly realms for earthly power and treasure. Mind you, the religious and legal institutions of his followers clearly operate under and are subservient to the same precepts of all the others in that it makes use of astrological knowledge and the cosmic law of karma (reducible to an eye for an eye…) to secure advantage and prosperity for the Hebrew nation in the Earth. And Moses, who was educated in the astrological mysteries of Pharaoh’s Court, purposefully set it up that way with the blessing and at the instruction of Yahweh, as his purpose was to establish an Earthly nation in fulfillment of Yahweh’s promise to his ancestor Abraham, and thus, the chosen nation was still subject to the system ruled by the Prince of this World. But yet, their Holy Scriptures bizarrely portray Yahweh as frequently rejecting their offerings and sacrifices to Him. For example, Yahweh would not accept the offerings of Cain, causing him to become so angry and jealous that he murdered his own brother, Abel, whose offering was accepted by Yahweh.5 Similarly, Yahweh declared, through his prophet Amos, the destruction of his own nation who worshipped him as their God, stating:

21I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. 22 Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. 23 Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. 24 But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.

Amos 5:21-23

But why does Yahweh reject his worshippers’ adoration and offerings to him? A clue is offered in the words attributed to Yahweh’s prophet Zechariah:

In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev. 2 Now the people of Bethel had sent Sharezer and Regem-melech and their men, to entreat the favor of the Lord, 3 and to ask the priests of the house of the Lord of hosts and the prophets, “Should I mourn and practice abstinence in the fifth month, as I have done for so many years?” 4 Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me: 5 Say to all the people of the land and the priests: When you fasted and lamented in the fifth month and in the seventh, for these seventy years, was it for me that you fasted? 6 And when you eat and when you drink, do you not eat and drink only for yourselves? 7 Were not these the words that the Lord proclaimed by the former prophets, when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, along with the towns around it, and when the Negeb and the Shephelah were inhabited?8 The word of the Lord came to Zechariah, saying: 9 Thus says the Lord of hosts: Render true judgments, show kindness and mercy to one another; 10 do not oppress the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor; and do not devise evil in your hearts against one another. 11 But they refused to listen, and turned a stubborn shoulder, and stopped their ears in order not to hear. 12 They made their hearts adamant in order not to hear the law and the words that the Lord of hosts had sent by his spirit through the former prophets. Therefore great wrath came from the Lord of hosts. 13 Just as, when I called, they would not hear, so, when they called, I would not hear, says the Lord of hosts, 14 and I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations that they had not known. Thus the land they left was desolate, so that no one went to and fro, and a pleasant land was made desolate. (emphasis added)

Zechariah 1:1-14

A similar clue is offered in the letter attributed to Jude:

11 Woe to them! For they go the way of Cain, and abandon themselves to Balaam’s error for the sake of gain, and perish in Korah’s rebellion. 12 These are blemishes on your love-feasts, while they feast with you without fear, feeding themselves. They are waterless clouds carried along by the winds; autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, uprooted; 13 wild waves of the sea, casting up the foam of their own shame; wandering stars [planets, which were widely regarded as gods or fallen angels], for whom the deepest darkness has been reserved forever. (emphasis added)

Jude 1:11-13

It is the transactional approach to religious worship that is being rejected here, and it is being rejected in the most forceful terms possible. Yahweh unequivocally does not desire to be worshipped in this manner. It is perhaps human nature to approach the worship of divinity as the dispenser of blessings, prosperity and safety, in both this world and in the next. It is in fact quite common to approach religion as a business transaction, much as a child approaches Santa Claus at Christmas time. But that is the manner in which those whose portion is in this world worship Lucifer (Saturn) and his fallen hosts, who dispense worldly goods and make illusory promises of immortality in exchange for religious rituals, incantations and blood sacrifices.

But, Yahweh desires to be worshipped in Spirit and in truth–worship that is made manifest in the manner in which one treats “the widow, the orphan, the alien, or the poor;” namely, with justice, mercy and compassion. This manner of religious worship has no part with the type of worship engaged in for the purpose of obtaining advantage in the building of one’s own household, business, city or empire, whether political or ecclesiastical. Yahweh called Abram to leave Ur and the gods of his fathers behind and to step out into faith in search of the Promised Land–a land that he did not yet see, and which he never got the opportunity to start building with human hands or stones. Likewise, Jesus, who claims to be the firstborn heir to Yahweh’s kingdom, requires that his disciples, who were promised status as his joint heirs in this Kingdom, leave behind their Earthly homes along with their slavery to the god of time, whose worship was transactional in nature and whose kingdoms were built of wood and stone with the blood and sweat of slave labor.

Thus, those who, like Abraham, “lose their lives” by abandoning their homes and kinfolk, who continue to labor in their toilsome slavery to the god of time in exchange for a measly 30 pieces of silver,6 will find that in their “foolish” act of losing their “life,” they have “gained” their life, having obtained through faith in the unseen promises of Yahweh the Key of David that unlocks the Gates to the Celestial City where streams of Living Water flow freely and the Tree of Life bears its fruit, not by the light of the Sun, but by the Shekinah of the Divine Face of the Eternal I Am. For faith is the Key of David. And the Key of David is greater than the Key of Solomon. Hence, Jesus’ words to his disciples: “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”7 For as Jesus taught, he was and is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Those who desire to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven must follow his teachings and become like little children; they should follow the example of the birds of the air, who do not worry what they shall next eat or drink. For those who chase such things will hunger and thirst again. They are never satisfied; their bellies never filled. They should be like the flowers of the field, who do not fret over what they will wear, yet they are clothed in raiment more beautiful than the silk robes of Solomon.

Jesus was serious when he said that He was no threat to Cesare or even to the Pharisees. For Jesus’ kingdom was not terrestrial, having refused to bow down and worship Saturn while fasting in the wilderness, which would have conferred upon him access to the Key of Solomon and the great wealth and power accessible to those who hold them. Therefore, Jesus had no need to ride into his capitol on a stead or a chariot to take his throne, but instead could saunter into his kingdom to the praise and adulation of the poor while riding upon on a poor man’s donkey, which he had his disciples swipe for the occasion.

Rome and Jerusalem both fancy themselves the Eternal City. Hence their eternal enmity could be set aside on one occasion to conspire to murder this man who laid claim to the Throne of David, which they both covet. For they both failed to conceive that Jesus’ kingdom and David’s Throne is not terrestrial. Rome and Jerusalem both lay claim to their status by appealing to Holy Writ, the prophecies of the celestial bodies and to signs and wonders. But they are no more Eternal or Holy than Sodom or Gomorrah. They assumed that because Jesus, too, appealed to Scripture and astrology for his teachings and was conversant in them to such extent that his magic outperformed that of their most experienced sorcerers and wizards, that he had come to lay claim to their terrestrial sovereignty. Hence they set aside their eternal enmity in order to conspire in his death. For no king can countenance a rival king or kingdom within its borders.

But the kingdom that Jesus came to usher in is not of this world. Hence, the stone the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone of the Holy City in the only Eternal Kingdom. The builders of terrestrial empires wanted no part in that kingdom, for they only cared about amassing and preserving treasures subject to rot and decay. The same was true of the Hebrew children who left Egypt to worship Yahweh, and the same is true today of the people who call themselves Christian and build churches and parachurch ministries the world over to “spread the Gospel,” while making a pretty penny in so doing. Like Esau before them, they trade their inheritance for what will be soon reduced to a pile of scat before the Sun completes even a single trip around the Earth. Because these folks were too busy building ministries to enter into the Kingdom of Heaven, Jesus opened his Eternal City up to beggars, the poor, prostitutes, transgender and homosexual folks, drug addicts, and all manner of the unclean who have been given no part in the kingdoms of this world and its churches other than that as slave labor for the building of their cities of dust. But these cities will prove no more Eternal than the Pyramids of Giza, which to this day continue to crumble into the dirt from which they were made.

ENDNOTES

1 Genesis 1: 14 And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the dome of the sky to separate the day from the night; and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth.’ And it was so. 16 God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. 17 God set them in the dome of the sky to give light upon the earth, 18 to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.

2 Matthew 20: 1“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. 2 …. And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, 12 saying, ‘These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.’ 13 But he replied to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage?[d] 14 Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. 15 Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’[e] 16 So the last will be first, and the first will be last (emphasis added). See also Matthew 19:30; Mark 10:31; and Luke 13:28-30 (“There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrown out.  Then people will come from east and west, from north and south, and will eat in the kingdom of God. Indeed, some are last who will be first, and some are first who will be last.”).

3 Ecclesiastes 8: 15 “So I commend enjoyment, for there is nothing better for people under the sun than to eat, and drink, and enjoy themselves, for this will go with them in their toil through the days of life that God gives them under the sun.” It is noteworthy that this ancient wisdom of Solomon was later criticized in the Holy Writ of his descendants, as the prophets of Yahweh sought to point the Hebrew children to a higher wisdom given by the God who reigned outside of and over the god of time (Satan). See Isaiah 22: 12 “In that day the Lord God of hosts called to weeping and mourning, to baldness and putting on sackcloth; 13 but instead there was joy and festivity, killing oxen and slaughtering sheep, eating meat and drinking wine. ‘Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die.’ 14 The Lord of hosts has revealed himself in my ears: Surely this iniquity will not be forgiven you until you die, says the Lord God of hosts.”

See also Luke 12: 13 “Someone in the crowd said to him, ‘Teacher, tell my brother to divide the family inheritance with me.’ 14 But he said to him, ‘Friend, who set me to be a judge or arbitrator over you?’ 15 And he said to them, ‘Take care! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions.’ 16 Then he told them a parable: ‘The land of a rich man produced abundantly. 17 And he thought to himself, ‘What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops?’ 18 Then he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. 19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’ 20 But God said to him, ‘You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ 21 So it is with those who store up treasures for themselves but are not rich toward God.'”

4 Ephesians 2:1 “You were dead through the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient.” i.e. the spirit of the times or the zeitgeist or Father Time and his heavenly minions.

5 Genesis 4

6 Zechariah 11:4-17

7 Matthew 8:22; and Luke 9:60

The Scream

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Sometimes Scriptures are just words;

And Sometimes words are just nonsensical vibrations cluttering the void;

And Sometimes the void shouts SHUT-UP and then waits for the echo that never comes….

Sometimes comfort is not what is needed because Time is mythical and heals no wounds;

Sometimes a SCREAM is just that!
Der Schrei der Natur by Edvard Munch, 1893.

Fields of Faith

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Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Faith without doubt is dead; Hope without despair is indifferent; and Joy without suffering is superficial.

Like a flower, living faith is fragrant and beautiful, yet delicate and easily bruised; Like faith, a living flower, though its life is fleeting and its petals easily shorn, has a beauty unrivaled by its silken counterfeit–though its petals cannot be torn. Its allure is found in its frailty.

A flower, though deciduous, does not fret, but freely sacrifices its petals to the storm; For it knows that through its death, it will give birth to new life when the spring returns; And thus, one flower becomes three, three flowers become a dozen, and a dozen flowers become an endless sea of aromatic color.

In due time, the seeds sown by the death of that single flower will blossom into fields of hundreds of flowers, teeming with life and attracting onlookers from miles away to gaze upon its evanescent glory, before it, too, gives itself over to death, and the cycle repeats.

To #Gay or Not to #Gay

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To #gay or not to #gay, that is the question.  Or at least that was the question that occupied my mind for an extended period of time after I “came out.”  Once I came out, I was forced to grapple with learning how to accept my identity as a gay man, without allowing my sexuality or the stereotypes associated with it, define me.  And I had to do all this while navigating the relatively new (to me) age of social media and hashtags.  I am ashamed to confess that I did not even understand the import of the omnipresent #hashtag symbol until approximately three years ago.  #facepalm

I started experimenting with hashtags in my social media posts around the same time I had determined that I was ready to live openly on social media.  It was at that time that I began to notice that most of my gay friends’ posts incorporated hashtags that included the word “gay” in them:  #musclegay #gaynyc #gaydaddy #gayginger #beardedgay #instagay #gayinked, #gaytwink, etc….  Part of me was resistant to joining this trend, as I did not want to wear my sexuality on my sleeve or be defined by something that, in my mind, was only a small part of my identity.  I was also afraid of making my straight and Christian “friends” uncomfortable.  Straights generally don’t #straight on their social media posts, so why should I #gay.  On the other hand, I also wanted my social media posts to reach other gays.  I wanted to participate in and be part of the gay community–to exist in spaces, both real and virtual, where I did not have to hide who I was,  but instead could be free to celebrate my whole self.

For longer than I care to admit, this internal debate played out inside my head. To #gay or not to #gay, that was indeed the question–a question that I could not bring myself to answer.  But more than anything else, I did not want to have to be constantly on guard about whether I looked or sounded too gay.  And why should my daily existence be fraught with the angst of whether my very presence would cause others to be uncomfortable?  I wanted to be free, to live like other non-gays live, without giving a second thought to whether someone might be made uncomfortable because I dared to breath free.  A straight man never has to agonize over whether its okay to hold his girlfriend’s hand in public or whether he will get beat up for slapping his straight teammate on the ass during a sports game.  Why should my entire life be consumed with hiding who I am?  That’s not living.

So much of the closeted experience revolved around figuring out how to act “straight” in order to avoid being called a faggot or having to deal with gossip.  I cannot even remember a time in my life where I wasn’t constantly on guard about how I was being perceived by others.  Even as a small child in kindergarten, before I had any concept of sexuality, my daily existence was obsessively preoccupied with what I needed to do and how I needed to act so that other kids would stop calling me a “sissy” or a “pussy” and use that as an excuse to hit me or pull my hair.  By the time I entered my thirties, my gonads had finally dropped enough for me to gather the courage to shout to the entire world, and to God:  “fuck you, I’m gay, so get over it!”   

And now, not only was I ready to defiantly declare my queerness, I wanted to embrace and celebrate this terrible, blasphemous thing that I am now quite happy to be.  Hell, even the word means happy.  And I am happy, happy that I am gay.  #GAY, #GAY, #GAY, I’M SO GAY ABOUT BEING #GAY!!!

So I took the plunge.  Did I notice that a lot of the people who usually liked most of my social media posts did not like any of my posts that had a #gay on it?  Yes.  #honeyiseeyou #dontgiveadamn #sorrynotsorry…  But so what?  This world is full of people who do not have the courage to think for and be themselves, so they go through life never truly living.  Such people will always be uncomfortable around those who have the courage to defy social pressure and step outside of the norm.  But I’m done allowing the fear and shame imposed by others dictate whether or not I live my life.

To #gay or not to #gay, to be or not to be, to live or not to live?  It is, I think, a question everyone faces.  It is a question that I am ready to answer in the affirmative.  And every time I am tempted to allow social pressure to cause me to turn back, I hear Jesus speak to me the same words he said to his would-be follower who wanted to first go back and fulfill the burial customs imposed by their culture:  “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”  (Luke 9:60)

Yaaass, honey!!!  You betta preach, Jesus!!!  The dead can go fulfill their dead works. The God I worship is not the God of the dead, but of the living, because “I get wings to fly, oh, oh… I’m alive…”  (Mark 12:27 & Celine Dion)

#gayginger #nycgay #gaydaddy #gaymodel #gayaspirations #gaygaygay 😝

To be, or not to be, that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles
And by opposing end them. To die—to sleep,
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish’d. To die, to sleep;
To sleep, perchance to dream—ay, there’s the rub:
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause—there’s the respect
That makes calamity of so long life.
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
Th’oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The pangs of dispriz’d love, the law’s delay,
The insolence of office, and the spurns
That patient merit of th’unworthy takes,
When he himself might his quietus make
With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after death,
The undiscovere’d country, from whose bourn
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of?
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast of thought,
And enterprises of great pitch and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry
And lose the name of action.

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet

NYC Pride 2018: Harnessed and Unbound

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“Who has let the wild ass go free?  Who has loosed the harness of the swift ass?  It is I who gave him the wasteland as his home, the salt flats as his habitat.  He laughs at the tumult of the city, for he is not driven by the shouts of a driver.  He ranges the mountains as his pasture, and he chases after every green thing.”  Job 39: 5-8

As I lay there half awake, my hair reflecting the fire of the morning sun as its rays dance through my curtains, my mind slowly drifts to the wadded up bag shoved to the back of my cabinet. . .  Am I going to wear it?!?!  “YAAAASSSS Queen, you better werk it!!!”  “Hell to the NAAAAHHH!”  “Of course I’ll wear it AND post all the naughty photos on my social media.”  “But my mom might see it?!?!”  “Definitely not going to wear it!” “Well, she’s wiped my ass, and this shows less skin than just going shirtless.”  “But people might think I have a leather fetish or am a slut.”  “Well, . . . oh shut up!”

. . .

“Come on Gingercakes,” I tell myself, as I stuff the contents of the wadded up bag into my backpack, still unsure if I am actually going to wear it.  If I’m going to get downtown in time to make it to the Pride mass at St. Mark’s Church-in-the-Bowery, I was gonna have to shift my swift little ass into high gear.   It was NYC Pride, and I was stoked, but I wanted to start the day off in church giving thanks that I was a hot gay ginger and that I had lived long enough to finally appreciate and love that about myself.  For a significant portion of my life, I would have rather died than be gay or ginger.  Indeed, I had spent many nights praying that death would come.  But now for the first time in my life, not only did I not hate myself, I actually believed that I was one of the most beautiful and amazing creatures to walk this cruel planet.  And I was ready to strut my stuff, chest puffed out, with all the other gussied up queers, faggots, dykes, pussies, trannies, whores, queens, butches and bitches at the Pride parade.

Pride is the only festival I’ve ever been to where people of all body types, ages, ethnicities, genders and sexualities get together and dress up, or rather undress as unicorns, drag queens, and leather daddies, donning feather boas and stillettos or just a jock strap, and throw glitter on each other.   It is kinda how I used to imagine heaven might be before those Christians barred its doors to me while trying to strain out a gnat. [Matthew 23: 23].  It never made sense to me how we were barred from paradise just for being born with internal wiring a bit outside the mainstream, but yet all those Christians could, without condemnation, wear pride as their necklace, always free of care, amassing wealth, their mouths laying claim to heaven, as their tongues take possession of the earth.  [Psalm 73].

Whatever, we have created our own heaven, where everyone can feel affirmed, loved, and accepted as beautiful and worthy, and we did it by embracing all of the negative stereotypes thrown at us and turning them into fabulous costumes and floats.  We took the stones thrown at us to kill us and turned them into gemstones of adornment.  Kinda like the disciples did with the cross that killed their Jesus, we made the objects of their derision of us, a source of our Pride.

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But was I really going to wear it!?!?  Hell yeah!!!  I had to!  It was Pride and I had finally found my freedom.  “Who has let this wild ass go free? Who has loosed the harness of my swift ass?”  God did!  That’s what their Scriptures say.  Those religious pricks derided Jesus as a lawbreaker and a blasphemer, too.  They even murdered him for it.  They are still murdering trans women and trying to stone us.  Well those fuckers can just keep throwing their stones at me.  I’m not their slave anymore.  My harness has been loosed from their chains.  I kinda like how it looks on me.  It makes me feel sexy.  And now that the chains are gone, its really not that heavy.  This yoke is easy, and its burden light.  Maybe next year I’ll find a jock strap to match. . .   (just kidding mom!)

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“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.  Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. . . .  You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. . . .   The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”  Galatians 5:1-6

#gingercakesunbound #lovewins #nycgays #nycpride2018 #harness #gayleather #gingersnap

 

Serenata of the Sea

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We are bombarded on a daily basis, through the news, social media and in our daily lives, of the hate that exists in the world.  We are reminded constantly of the divisions that exist in society, whether they be racial, religious, socio-economic or ethnic in origin.  It would be easy to conclude from all that we see and hear, that love has no place in this world.  Yet, if one takes the time to step out of the ordinary chaos of human existence and just be still, one may perceive that there is an underlying current of love that holds the world together and that this love is what sustains life itself.  It was this perception that inspired me to write the following poem comparing love to the ocean:

True love is like the ocean. It is teeming with life, providing sustenance to all who live within its all-encompassing embrace. Its depths are unplumbable; its vastness unending. It magnifies the beauty and intensity of the light of day. It provides cover to all those who seek its protection in the dark of night.

It grows in strength and intensity to meet the onslaught of the storm. Yet it is peaceful and serene in fair weather. Its power cannot be stopped, nor contained. Its currents can move any object, and its persistence can reduce the largest mountain to a pile of sand. Though its waters appear to advance and recede with the tides, its volume and depth remain unchanged.

The ocean is the womb of the earth, from which all life is born and to which all life will return at death, to be reborn again in its eternal cycle, cleansing all who are baptized by its waters. As the ocean is the life’s blood of the earth, so is love the life’s blood of the cosmos.

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Stones

/ cairnsofstone / 2 Comments

Been carrying around some stones.  Waiting for the right time to hurl them.  Been practicing my throw.  Workin on my aim. Honing my skill.

Yep, got me some rocks.  None too big.  Some kinda small.  But they’re git’n kinda heavy.  Some of ’em are pretty.  Others mostly plain.  They got names.  Yep, every single one.

Gonna throw ’em real soon. Bout threw a couple today. Got that kill-shot down. Know right where to aim. Gittin bout ready. Even picked up a few more. This time I’m really gonna do it.

Yep, heard the news today. Them goddam Christians. Held a church council in Nashville. Country’s going to hell they said. Those trannies and homos bout to bring God’s judgment down on the whole country. May end the whole world if something’s not done.

Yep, those goddamn Christians brought in all the big names: James Dobson, John Piper, J.I. Packer, Richard Land, Albert Mohler, R.C. Sproul, John MacArthur, Tony Perkins….

A Council of Augustines, Jeromes and Calvins. Kinda like the Council of Nicea, I reckon. Modern day martyrs. Gonna make Christamericandom great again.

Goddamned Christians. Drafted the next big creed in Christendom.* I can’t keep track of all this shit. Why is gittin to heaven gotta be so goddamned complicated? Gonna grab a couple stones for that hassle. Now what I gotta believe?

Click to access The_Nashville_Statement_Initial_Signatories_List.pdf

Okay, just found it. Goddamn. Wonder who’s gonna pay for reprinting all those hymnals and prayer books to include the new revised creed. Fuck, are they gonna raise the tithe to fifteen percent? Gonna grab another stone for each dollar they raise my tithe.

Only tax those bastards aren’t in favor of cutting. God needs lots of well-heeled staff living in mansions, jetting all over the world to appear on tv and radio, pray over the President, and attend important conferences and shit to protect white Evangelicals now that they’re a persecuted minority and all.

Christianity’s damn near illegal nowadays in ‘Merica. Guess they’re scared the law’s gonna make em serve faggots and trannies just like it forced em to serve the coloreds….

Ah, here’s the Revised Creed:

I believe in God, the Father Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth and of all white, straight, cisgender people and especially God’s elect, the evangelical conservatives who were predestined before the foundation of the world as God’s chosen people to bring salvation to the poor, brown, pagan peoples of the world.

I believe in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord;
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, dead, and buried;
the third day he rose from the dead;
he ascended into heaven,
and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead, and most especially faggots, trannies, and Muslims.

I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy white, evangelical church;
The communion of white, middle class saints;
The forgiveness of sins, except being queer or liberal;
the resurrection of the body;
and the life everlasting of all conservative Republicans .
Amen

Oh, fuck! I’m a faggot. And a homo and queer, too I think… Been one since at least 5. Ever since I could ride the school bus. Didn’t even know what it meant then. Just knew it must be a terrible thing and that I was one.

Meant I walked a certain way, talked a certain way, played sports a certain way, liked birds, butterflies and flowers, was kinda pretty and that I had big, beautiful doe eyes.

I thought I just got those eyes from my grandma’s side of the family–those Pursiful eyes. They all had em. Only mine made me a faggot, prolly because mine came with beautiful long eyelashes. The ladies at the beauty salon and the orthodontist always said the girls were all gonna be after me because of those beautiful eyelashes. That was bullshit. Need a couple stones for that whopper.

Church WAS the only place I had. Being a faggot and all. And I was the most terrible kind because I was a red-headed, Ronald McDonald, pussy, queer faggot. Meant people were supposed to harass me constantly, hit me, pull my hair, spread nasty rumors about me, knock me down on the playground, and push me while trying to take a piss.

I hated getting piss on my shoes… Gonna grab a dozen big stones for that. Yep, church was the only safe place I had besides home. People couldn’t hurt me there. Jesus said you had to love everybody in church, even no good, nasty sinners. My Sunday School teacher said so.

We got to sing in church, too. Only place I could sing my heart out without getting teased or beat up, other than when I sang along with the Sandi Patti cassettes in the car. Actually, Sandi Patti sang along with me. Wish my parents would have told me about Whitney Houston. Could have used a challenge. That omission from my childhood merits a few stones.

In church we also got to sing that song that said Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so. Sunday School teacher said if I said the magic “ask Jesus in your heart prayer” Jesus had to love me and let me go to heaven even though I was a terrible piece of dirt that deserved to die and go to hell.

Liars! Thats 10 more stones. They don’t tell you about the exceptions until you get older. When I could read, I looked up faggot in the dictionary: noun; a bundle of sticks used as fuel for a fire; a pejorative used to describe homosexual men alluding to the historic practice of burning homosexuals at the stake.

Had to look up a few more words and then went to the World Book Encyclopedia and read a few articles. But I got the point. Realized that even though the church was forced to stop burning faggots, the faggots were still gonna burn. That was standard Christian teaching. Didn’t matter what brand of Christian you were. There went my only safe place.

Fucking asshole Christians. Picked up some more stones. These are for their stained glass windows. Gonna hurl these ones right at that pretty girl face of their white Jesus monster. Gonna grab some more stones for his pretty, long, brunette hair and his flowing red and white dress, too. Fucking pussy faggot. His naked ass got nailed to a cross right after he got kissed by that boy.

I thought church was safe because you couldn’t say faggot in church. Not sure why now since those fuckers invented the word. Sticks and stones, my fucking ass. Calling us homosexuals or same-sex-attracted only sounded a lil nicer than faggot now. Seems everyone that I knew and loved wanted me to burn in hell. Even my own fucking family. Didn’t know what to do now, but started grabbing more stones by the bucketful. I loved rocks.

All everyone in church wanted to talk about was those goddamned homosexuals. Homosexuals can’t go to heaven, can’t preach, shouldn’t be allowed around children, were irredeemable perverts, were destroying the country, should be unemployed unless they stay in the closet. Those homosexuals were trying to destroy the church, too.

Used to cry myself to sleep every night praying that Jesus would come back that night or that I’d wake up dead so I didn’t have to go to school in the morning. Did that for years. Every fucking, goddamn night during the school year. More stones for that.

Now how was I gonna survive the next day and the day after that. I had nothing left to pray for. After hell on earth, all I had to look forward to was the real hell. “Fuck you asshole Jesus and git your faggot-hating ass the hell outta my heart. Not today bitch.” Grabbed a fucking wheelbarrow of stones.

Well at least not everyone knew that I wanted to marry boys. Just the kids at school did. My church and family didn’t know. Alright, we got this. Angry white Jesus asshole God, ignore that last prayer or maybe the last ten. Promise I didn’t mean it, was just scared. You can get back in my heart now. We gonna pray the gay away.

Full scholarship to evangelical college, triple major including one in religion, top of my class, 3/4 scholarship to ultra traditional Catholic law school, married a beautiful blond woman from an upper middle class, Republican family, awarded a prestigious judicial clerkship, moved to New York, landed a job at a good law firm in one of the wealthiest counties in America, had a baby, bought a house, elder in my church, all by the age of 33 ….

Not bad for a lower middle class, country bumpkin, red-headed, Ronald McDonald, pussy, queer faggot. I showed those goddamned assholes. Come pick on me now. Losers. More stones.

Well that fucking lie turned out well. Goddamned fucking asshole Jesus freaks. Left me mentally ill, bitter, angry, completely alone in the world, unloved, divorced, with my daughter living 800 miles away. Just you wait till you see all the stones I got now. Goddamned Christians.

You better hope your little magic “ask Jesus in your heart prayer” gets you outta hell because ain’t nothing gonna protect you from my stones. Been practicing my throw now for a while. Don’t throw like a pussy no more. Sure don’t. I’m fucking tough as hell and in the best shape of my life.

Why they gotta go write a whole new goddamned Nashville creed for the church? Not only do I gotta go to hell, now I gotta recite this new ode to my damnation in church on Sunday? I just wanna sit up front in a fancy robe and sing my heart out with all the other gussied up faggots on the down-low.

Those dumbass Christians. I thought this Nashville screed was something new. Acting like this was news and monopolizing my social media with all these posts. Gonna grab a whole bucket of stones for that nasty trick. Ain’t scared of your white asshole Jesus god either. What’s he gonna do, damn me? Already damned.

Fuck that. On judgment day he’s gonna render an account to me. I’ve already been punished for all my sins and mostly for a bunch of sins I didn’t commit. I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody while grabbing them by the pussy, and by anyone’s scales of justice you would still owe an accounting to me. Got my stones ready. Been saving em up. Yep, just about ready to start throwing them now. They all got names, too.

Was gonna start throwing my stones today. Had them all ready. But I heard this voice. Kinda recognized it. Told me to go to the sea. Told me I should take my stones with me. Gonna go fishing for men, he said. That got my attention. Sounded good to me. One of my favorite pastimes.

I knew exactly where to go. Fire Island has the best beach for catching men. Gathered up my stones and caught the next train. Rode the ferry over and got a good spot on the beach. I was ready.

Wonder what I’m gonna do with my stones here. No one here deserved any of these stones. The people on this beach were all carrying their own stones. Many of them had more than I did. Some looked so heavy. I wasn’t sure how they carried them. But then I saw their abs and knew. Damn girl!

As I laid there on that beach watching gorgeous men and queens strut by, I heard that same familiar voice begin to sing to me: “wade in the water, wade in the water children, wade in the water, God’s gonna trouble the water. See that host all dressed in white…”

And I did, too. Saw that host hovering right over the water. I knew that voice. Then another song: “take me to the water, take me to the water, take me to the water to be baptized;”

Yes, I knew that voice. I heard that voice as a little boy crying myself to sleep every night. I began to sing with it: “none but the righteous, none but the righteous, none but the righteous, shall see God.”

I looked up, tears streaming down my face. I saw his face shining as the sun, garments white as light. No one ever told me Jesus was black or damn near it. “You can drop your stones here,” he said.

“These waters will wash them away,” I objected. I was entitled to those stones. I earned the right to throw them. He said, “lay them down here. These stones have you weary and heavy laden. Take my yoke. It is easy and my burden is light.”**

**Matthew 11: 25-30

But the rules, I objected. I’m a… “Fuck the rules,” he said. “Do you see Moses here? We have a party to get to. The hour is late and we got guests to invite.” I dropped some stones and watched the sea wash them away. “What party?”

“A wedding party my papi is throwing for me; I’m gonna gay marry all the guests who come,” he said. “But I wasn’t invited,” I responded. “Isn’t that party for you and those goddamned Christians to celebrate after I get tossed into the lake of fire?”
“Oh them,” he started laughing, “Mene, mene, tekel, parsin”. Wtf? “Look it up in the Book of Daniel” he said.***

***Daniel 5: 1-30

“I kept sending my servants out to invite them,” he continued. “They said they were coming, but they got too busy building empires. The hour had nearly arrived, and it was clear they didn’t want to come. They burned at the stake the last set of servants I sent out with the invites. Pissed papi off real good. They’re fucked now. Papi told me to go out into the streets, invite as many people as would come, from any race, nationality or religion, even faggots, trannies, dykes, bums, druggies, single moms, prostitutes, welfare queens, alcoholics, illegal immigrants, and toothless rednecks, anyone I could find whose presence would offend those goddamned Christians.”

“But there’s a catch, you gotta dress like you’re going out to your favorite gay club,” he said. He looked down at my hot little speedo. “Oh, you’ll be fine, we just gotta have a way to tell if any of those goddamned Christians try to sneak in. They won’t be dressed right for this kinda party. That way they’ll be spotted right away and my servants can throw em out before they do any more harm.”****

****Matthew 22: 1-14

“Hurry now,” he said. “This party is gonna be lit. Drop the rest of those stones. Can’t take none of them with you. This world is cruel enough, you don’t gotta be. No stones in this party, just stoners,” he said with a smile.

So I dropped the rest of my stones, and watched the waters wash them away…