The Man in the Mirror

A friend of mine pointed out to me recently a big issue that I've been having. I can not seem to find friends or boyfriends because I often confuse the other people I'm with. What my friend pointed out to me was that the reason I confuse a lot of people including potential partners is the simple fact that I confuse myself. I had once said this as a joke to people whenever they said I confused them, "ya I confuse myself." But now I've come to realize this is the most true statement about me. I understand both liberal and conservative political views and rarely find myself siding with either. I am very religious, but rarely do I find myself agreeing with most other Christians. I believe in a healthy lifestyle but don't really enjoy exercising. I want to be a recording artist, yet I rarely listen to contemporary artists and hardly know of any that most other musicians I know speak of. I have many feminine qualities but would not describe myself as feminine or butch, yet I am attracted to both kinds of guys. Some may call me a hypocrite, but I just believe I am not a hundred percent of anything. If everything could be pulsed together in a blender I would be that smoothie. Some would probably like the taste of that smoothie, many would hate it, and those few of you more open minded wouldn't know what to make of it but wouldn't like or dislike it. It's true, I am an acquired taste, a puzzle a mystery. And perhaps its starts when I look in the mirror and don't know what to make of the person looking back at me. I know that there is some way for all those ingredients to work in that smoothie, but I don't exactly know how. I have a rough idea, and for the most part I try not to worry about it. But I still can't help but ask how it all comes together. God has a plan and maybe he'll let me know one day what the hell it is. Until then I am accepting that I am confused by myself and that I have resolve this confusion and get to know myself before I can ever try and get to know someone else.

I Want You to Know

I feel I have to post this as a way of keeping myself accountable. I recently went with a friend to get tested for HIV and syphilis. I was extremely nervous cause I had had unprotected sex with four different men over the span of one year. Two of them claimed to love me and the other two claimed to be in "open" relationships. At first I thought I was fine since they all claimed to be clean and to be faithful. Well only one guy appears to have been honest, the other three slept around before and after I came into the picture. I am no ashamed of what I've done because I believe shame only tares a person down. But I am not proud of what I have done either. Even if a person wants to experiment and get a better sense of what they like sexually, they should honor themselves enough to use protection. Everyone has a right to have their own views on sex and how it plays into their lives but everyone should be safe regardless. Unprotected sex belongs within the confides of committed relationship where the sexual status of each partner is known by the opposite partner. Why did I do what I did? Cause I was lonely and didn't feel that I deserved better. But even I get lonely again, even if I have sex again, I deserve better than unprotected sex from two guys cheating on their boyfriends, a man I will never see again, and a man who believes in jumping on anything with an erect dick. To all the people out there who have made similar mistakes to mine... YOU DESERVE BETTER! I DESERVE BETTER! So starting now I am trying to be better to myself. I prayed for God to give me a clean slate. Today I got back my test results. I tested negative for HIV and syphilis. Apparently God has answered my prayer.

What Love Really Means

"Why do people have to love people anyway?" - Shirley MacLaine. This quote is from a film that Billy Wilder wrote and directed and stared Shirley MacLaine titled The Apartment. The line was originally spoken by Shirley during rehearsal when she lamented to her co-workers about a love gone wrong. Wilder loved that insight so much he asked Shirley to say it in the movie. This question I find a staggering one to answer. Why do we need to love? I personally think its one of the very things we need to live. We need to eat, to move, to laugh, to yell, to cry, and to love in order to survive. Love is the reminder that to ourselves that we matter in this world. We need to love ourselves so we don't forget that and we need to love others so that they don't forget it. Why I am so focused on this topic of what love really means? Well in America today one of the biggest debates comes from this very topic. Marriage equality is one of the most hot-button issues and we all know it will come up in the course of the 2012 election. I am not here to talk politics nor take sides on the political spectrum, but I get very offended when we as Americans claim that this is a free country and yet its a debate on whether or not someone can get married. How is that free? I get even more offended when the opposition to marriage comes from many of my fellow Christians whom claim it is against God's will or God's plan to allow marriage equality. God created Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve, they say. I love my fellow Christians but I simply just don't agree. First off, we can never know God's plan or what God has in store for any of our lives so how can we claim to know what is or isn't against God's plan? And second, am I the only one who read the story of Adam and Eve? Within that story God creates what appears to be the perfect set up; Adam is a man, Eve is a woman, they love each other, they live in a world of access and need nothing, life is perfect until (insert plot twist here) they discover they have... FREE WILL! And because of free will the screw up making God realize that imperfect beings can not live in a perfect setting and casts them out into a imperfect world. Adam and Eve were not the model of perfection because they proved they weren't perfect. This story proves that perfection can not and will not ever exist for humans. So why do we still fight for it? Why do Christians hold themselves to this unattainable level of perfection only to set themselves up to fail? Why? Because we are afraid of appearing not good enough. So many gay Christians will never come out of the closet for fear of not appearing good enough. What we are forgetting is that God's love transcends all that. We don't need to appear good enough because we are good enough and it doesn't matter who you love because all love is Good. To quote Les Miserables, "To love another person is to see the face of God." As long as we love we are doing God's work, and if that is a person of the same gender that we love, God knows that love is real. And that brings me to my final point; why do people put so much emphasis on loving a member of the same gender? "It has to be a man loving a woman and vice versa to be a meaningful relationship." Note that this is the only relationship where the love is required to be of a specific gender. A father is not required to love his daughter and not his son, and a mother is not required to love her son and not her daughter. If someone said that the gender of either yourself or your child dictated whether you could love and care for them it would be considered hateful and laughable. Even in most social circles gender is not usually a deciding factor of whether or not two people can be close friends. So why does this prejudice only exist amongst spouses? Perhaps its the fact that only a man and woman couple can procreate independently. But even in that case a couple could still be unable to conceive and need to adopt or get a surrogate. They could even just adopt cause they wanted to. But not all straight couples have children, neither do all gay couples want children. But then when they do, the argument comes up that its not beneficial for a child to not have a mother and father and two moms or two dads simply wont do. Really??? How about the mother who's husband died and never remarried? Her daughter is now married, has two kids, has a career, two masters degrees and is happy mind, body and soul. How about the man who's wife ran out on him leaving him with eight year old? That eight year old is now eighteen and just got into Julliard as a concert pianist. These were cases were a child didn't have both roles filled in their life and one person had the strength to fill both shoes. Isn't it fair to assume that if two people are raising a child, even if they aren't both genders, that they will be able to do what all parents do and make it work? When you truly love someone, be it friend, spouse or child, it is not the gender or the supposed role that needs to be filled that matters. What matters is the love you feel and how it drives you to do what you can to give that other person a better life. All you need is to love the other person and everything else will work out the way it needs to. So forget gender, forget prejudice, and forget preconceived gender roles and learn what love really means.

Being Alive

It has been over a year since my last post. I had began to feel like I had no more to say, but whoever is reading this can tell that is simply not the case. My last post was at the end of my freshman year of college, it is now past the end of my sophomore year of college. In the time that has past, I became a camp counselor at a Methodist camp over the summer, I had my first actual boyfriend however brief the relationship may have been, I quit going to safe zone, quit attending Christ Church, became as immersed in the Wednesday Night Bible study as I could, dived head-first into the music department to crack down on my minor and ended up becoming a music major, participated in Western Oregon University's Spring Dance Concert, and some how have come to the end of yet another school year still alive and somewhat smarter and stronger than before it started. Year's Breakdown: Camp Counseling; I was asked by a man attending Christ's Church if I would like to volunteer to be a camp counselor at Camp Magruder in Rockaway, Oregon. I apprehensively agreed upon finding out that there was a background check to be done before I began. I thought being kicked out of school would come up on my record and be a red flag for them not to hire me. I then told them why for fear it would come up and there would be questions asked. Despite my fears they did not care. Not about my past, nor that I was gay, but what I was currently doing with my life. That won them over and soon found myself doing improve with twelve-year-olds on the beach. I felt like a kid again or better yet for the first time. I never really had the childhood experience of just being carefree and fun-loving. As a friend ironically told me a week before hand, "When you accept God as your savior and eternal parent, you can forget about the childhood you were denied and will be given a second childhood for you are now a child of God." I never thought his words would come true in the literal sense, but they did. I am a child of God and I finally feel like I've had some sort of childhood, but its still a work in progress as is everything in my life. Boyfriend; Not much to say. We met online, dated briefly, had too much focus on sex and little else, and grew apart. We still talk on occasion but there is little chance we will ever get back together. Christ's Church and Safe Zone; I had a falling out with the music director whom I was very close to. In fact, too close. I fell in love with him and we both agreed that my affection in that form was inappropriate. We however had different opinions on what the next step to take was. Hurtful things were said and hearts were broken. Thats all I will say in regards to that. It led to me feeling extremely uncomfortable to continue attending Christ's Church. I then realized that I had used Christ's Church as a safe place to hide from the campus when things were hard or scary. I then decided to stop hiding out and dive into campus life by becoming more active with everything, including Safe Zone and I was even elected to be head of their fundraising. It later turned out that I was completely unqualified to hold that position and step down. Due to disagreements in how the organization was being run I stepped away to focus on other things. Music; While working on my minor I began taking other music classes, such as Singer/Songwriter where I got orchestrate and perform my own music. I also continued with voice classes and found a strength from my singing that I didn't know I had. I feel most honest when I sing. After months of deliberating if I could really handle the material and having barely passed the music theory sequence, I decided to take the plunge and go for it. This received much praise from my new best friend Drew whom I owe much thanks to as a friend and as a music theory tutor. I will be taking 18 credits of music classes in the fall. God Help me. Bible Study; This year i really wanted to grow in my faith. I went to Wednesday Night Bible Study almost every Week and about the same for Men's group. I became very apprehensive about the Men's group because this year was a whole new group of guys, only one of which knew I was gay. It never really came up but soon the guys started talking about lust for women and wanting to remain pure for their girlfriends or future wives. I began to feel that I was alone and couldn't tell my everyday struggles or about how much I wanted to find the right guy. I finally couldn't take it anymore and told the leader of the Men's group whom I knew was a safe ally that I wanted to share my testimony. I hyperventilated the whole day leading up to it and the whole day after it. Oddly enough the guys seemed more in shock about me having attempted suicide than me being gay. It was the scariest thing I ever did. Most were supportive but others were confused and remained confused. I answer questions when asked, but no one has been hostile nor rejecting towards me and that is a huge improvement than where I was before. The Dance Concert; And finally, the dance concert. This year I took up tap dancing. I enjoyed it quite a bit and decided I wanted to do the spring dance concert to show off what I had learned. The night before the audition I was plagued by doubt and thought I wouldn't be good enough to get into the show. I kept going back and forth in my head about why I should audition and why I shouldn't. Then I remembered an old quote by Bea Arthur that I refer to often lately, "Sometimes when you take a chance in life, good things happen, sometimes bad things happen. But honey if you don't take a chance nothing happens." And with that line in my head I went to the audition. It turns out they weren't doing a tap number anymore but asked that I please audition anyway. I did and had the time of my life. I couldn't do half the moves they were asking for but still had fun despite the fact that I was sore for the whole next week. I didn't expect to get at all and ended up cast in two dance numbers. I rehearsed for three months, 8 hours a week, had neck and back injuries, had one whole dance number cut from the concert while the other was cut in half. It was hard to see only a fraction of my work get presented before an audience but it was worth it all the same. Not to mention I got to perform that number a month later at the historic Elsinore Theater in Salem, Oregon in front of a one-thousand person audience. I couldn't have foreseen any of the events of this year. Some sucked and some rocked in ways I can not describe. The overall theme I guess was not being afraid and jumping in head first. I can't say I'm proud of everything I've done this school year, but I'm proud that I tried and was able to walk away knowing that I had done something. I feel in order for us to really be alive we have to push our selves to try knew things and go for it. If we don't try we are not living. If we step outside the box, take a chance, lean on the edge.... its not just trying, its being alive.

Where Do I Begin?

It has been many months since I posted an entry on my blog. There are many reasons for that. I've been immensely busy finishing up my freshman year of college, I've had a lot of social and emotional issues that I did not know how to sift through. You are all aware of my struggles to explain my thoughts on homosexuality within Christianity, as well as my desires to find love and acceptance here at Western Oregon University. My freshman year is coming to a close about a week, so where is this year coming to?

For a long time I wanted a boyfriend and didn't know if I would ever find one. However, due to circumstances that I did not expect, a young man the same age as me with many similar interests entered my life. I feel odd being in a relationship since I've never really had one before. But he is very compassionate and patient with me. He is also a christian which gives us many things to bond over. I feel at peace in his arms.

On the subject of faith and homosexuality, I am content where I stand, though it is still hard to explain it to some people. However, I have made many mile stones. I have been a member of a men's bible study for three months now and have been very apprehensive to even speak about my sexuality in front of them for fear they would reject me as member of the group and as someone who shares in the same faith. I finally discussed my issues with my men's group last night. You'd likely have guessed that they all knew I was gay, but they didn't know how to address it. So I finally addressed it for them. They met it with a great deal of respect and appropriate curiosity. They asked if I had felt that way all my life and I told them I had and how I had always followed what everyone else told me to do, but it wasn't till I finally started following my own heart that I truly developed a relationship with God. This of course excited them. We ended up talking for a whole hour prior to our meeting about things I felt and had gone through and they gained a lot of respect for me and in turn I for them. Later that evening two of the guys acknowledged our talk as a blessing for them for the week and the year. they're only regret now is that they didn't get to know me sooner and I share this regret.

Christopher Hampton once wrote, "Regret is an essential component of happiness," and thus this applies directly to my life. I have regrets from this year and many others in my life. But my faith and self acceptance is helping me to learn that those things that I regret are only making me strong and wiser, and eventually happier. It has been a hard freshman year but it is closing in a place that I am very happy with. The question is not where do I end, but where do I begin? This is not the end of my life or college career or time at Western Oregon University, just the end of my freshman year. But so many great new beginnings are just upon the horizon. As a friend told me recently, "the most dangerous prayer to say is 'God give me what you got' for you have no idea what he will throw at you. But it is the best prayer because God will always give you what is best in the end." And this is true. I have no idea what God has in-store for me, but I am confident it will be for the best. and so I leave you with this prayer:

God give me whatcha got....!

Blow Gabriel Blow

I haven't written in almost two months now, which is due to the fact that I've been too upset to write as well as too busy. Winter term is finally over and the three classes from Hell that I never thought would end. Miraculously I passed with a B+ in Writing 135, C+ in Literature of Western Europe, and an A in Cultural Anthropology. How this happened I will never know, but none of these classes were easy. I've done all the writing I am required to do for now, so it is on to the next levels of Literature and Anthropology in just three days.

I became an active member with the Christ Church and their choir. Soon I'll be doing a solo instead of the typical choir performance on Sundays. Recently, I was practicing my solo with the choir director and he said something to me that no one else ever has. He said my singing voice sounded nothing like my speaking voice. I considered that a compliment at first, especially since my own voice sounds like Edna from "The Incredibles". He then said to me that I should always sound like myself and not someone else because that's the voice that God gave me, and that's the voice that will sing God's praises. The next run through of the song came through perfectly.

Finding my voice truly has been the problem. I want to sing God's praises in all aspects of my life, and yet few people seem to understand that. They can't see how a gay guy can want any connection to God. Why not? Does Gabriel need to come down from heaven, blow his horn and announce to all humanity that God loves all his children and accepts them all? I thought that was a given. A Christian friend of mine who was raised to believe homosexuality is sinful, but is trying to be open-minded, asked me why I not pray for God to make straight. I told him I had done that all my life. I thought God had made some mistake and that I needed to pray my sexuality away. It wasn't until I finally accepted it, that I realized this was a blessing from God. God is too clever to show blessings upfront to the world, he hides them so individuals can find them and rejoice in their discoveries. Satan is clever as well. He doesn't show sin to the world, he disguises it so that people fall into and get trapped. Homosexuality is not a sin cause it is not something you fall into and it is far to obvious to be sin. To truly glorify God, you have to not look at the surface of a person, but beyond and into their soul, cause that is where you will find true sin and true holiness. I am learning to speak, and sing, from my soul so that my voice can be God's instrument and hopefully someday people will see that. And if they don't, I think God has Gabriel on stand-by.

What'll I do?

The first month of second term has finally past and i don't know what to make of it. I have now become an active member of the Christ Church and their choir, I went on the Wednesday Night Bible Study Men's Retreat, I have joined the WOU Safe Zone, I joined Poetry Club, I've started the ground work for a gay-friendly church group on campus, I started a relationship with an older man, and a close friend of mine almost got killed.

The music director at Christ Church identifies as queer and does a lot for members of the gay-christian community, both in and out of the church. Through him I met a guy twice my age that has become slightly more than a friend to me. We thought of being boy-friends, but realized soon that we were in different parts of our lives and that forming that kind of relationship just wouldn't work. So now we are just friends. The music director frowned on our relationship from the beginning, but I feel he was just looking out for me. Maybe I do have some family in this town after all.

I was skeptical to attend this all-men christian retreat a few weekends back, for fear my sexuality would become an issue with the group. I resorted to my age old saying, "When you take a chance in life, sometimes good things happen, sometimes bad things happen, but if you don't take a chance, nothing happens," resulting in me going on the retreat. I can honestly say I am in a state of shock. These guys are so warm and so loving. You'd think a bunch of buff male athletes who happen to be Christian wouldn't be as loving as this, but they truly treat their brothers in faith as if they were actually brothers. We stayed at a lodge about a half hour from Monmouth, truly the middle of no where, but the isolation was ideal. The weekend involved pigging out as college men do, hours of prayer, and the most mischievous game of Capture the Flag I have ever played. I wonder where men like this have been all my life, I also wonder why no one up to this point has actually treated me like a man. As a gay guy, people often overlook that desire, but we all secretly want it. Naturally I wonder if the weekend had been different if they all knew I was gay, but I'd rather they know me and know my faith, not my sexuality. My sexuality is a part of me not all of me. I feel I can tell them all in time, but when and where I can not yet say.


As for my friend, she has a close bond with another girl whom she sees a lot of her younger self in. This has led her to enter into a poisonous relationship with the other girl, in which that girl has had total control over here. I warned my friend to not let it go too far, but the other night they wee fighting while on the road. The girls tried to get my friend to shut up by covering her mouth while she was driving. My friend then had to slap her to get her off and keep them from going off the road. As of now, neither me nor my friend is speaking to the girl.

I am reluctant to continue to attend poetry club because lately I've been so focused on on this other stuff that I can't think straight enough to write a poem. I am amazed I can write anything now. So much is happening and I don't even know how I get from day to day. I pray that an answer will come to me at some point, because now, I don't know what to do.