Since I named this blog Gay Pentecostal Atheist a couple of years ago I have received a fairly steady stream of reactions to the name itself. Those generally fall into one of two camps: (1) Awesome!!!! and (2) I know you and you are NOT an atheist.
In light of the steps of my journey in the intervening time frame, perhaps it is time to revisit the label. What do I mean by that? Am I actually an atheist? What does the term "atheist" mean? Where am I going with this?
First a bit of reflection: I believe that we are all journeying, regardless of the signs and labels we hang on ourselves. Thank goodness, we can discard and pick up different signs as we move along life's path. Wouldn't it be horrible if we couldn't do that? Perhaps that is one of the benefits of living in a linear time frame. So what's that label Gay Pentecostal Atheist about? At the time I put those three words together I was in a very specific place. I had already dealt with questions of sexuality for years and after more than a decade in a wonderful, life affirming love relationship I had reached a place of deep understanding in myself about that part of me. There is no doubt that I am gay, whether god-given or otherwise. But I, like many people my age and older have struggled to see how gayness can exist in a godly life.
In fact, I moved into adulthood suddenly on a May evening in 1988 but only after I began a deliberate process of separating from and rejecting the Pentecostal god of my parents. I needed to do this to resolve the internal conflict between the good I knew was in me and the evil I had been taught was in me. I had to do this to survive, to find some clarity. A few years later I was able to look back and explain my journey in this way: In order to survive I had to kill god. That explanation honored the fact that I had spent at least 10 unproductive years surrendering myself to god and accepting internal conflict as a personal fault. My teenage years were spent in prayer and it was prayer without resolution, without healing. So I found myself at a decision point: kill god or kill myself.
Who are you after you kill your god? How does one then live a good life? If even god himself is false what can be trusted? Who can provide rules for good conduct, models for proper behavior? I think a lot of gay kids from conservative religious backgrounds go through the yo-yo phase where they abandon all the rules and then struggle through a morality void. They have to work hard to regain a more meaningful grounding. I know it was a slow process for me. I probably never lost the core value of kindness to others but most everything else was up for negotiation. In that process of testing boundaries and building a new morality for myself I probably found a lot of comfort in reminding myself of the failings of religion. Pentecostalism, in particular, is rich in failings so there is plenty of fertile ground for ex-verts to find fault.
So I found solidarity in the ranks of atheism. One of the strengths of atheists is their ability to recognize and call out hypocrisy. This resonated with me and, hey, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I never quite fit in with the atheists though. I wasn't angry at god (even though I had to kill him), but in the process of building my own morality I came to believe that he didn't actually exist outside of people's minds. I put a lot of really hard work into my new morality so, of course, I wouldn't want to give some distant god the credit for that. Then I discovered the sentiment attributed to Voltaire: "If God did not exist we would have to invent him."* That really resonated with me and it still does (although for different reasons) now.
However, I never stopped quoting scriptures in my head. Any regular Bible reader knows how remembered scripture can explain things, how it can comfort and support you in times of need. Eventually I found myself to be a scripture quoting atheist. After a few years I no longer felt the same relevance in that old idea that I had killed god in order to live. I have kept a journal since I was eight years old and part of my process has always been to look at old journals every few years, to review decisions and outcomes.
No doubt that reviewing helped me eventually revisit my killing god explanation. I found myself thinking more and more about one specific event recorded in May 1988: a prayer I prayed on one particular day. This was the day when the unnecessary guilt in me had grown to match my will for life, the day I might have killed myself but instead grew up. This prayer concluded two tearful, prayerful days spent hiding in my bed, in a dark room, in a lonely college dorm room. I was 19 and on this day I decided to be a man, make a real world decision and to then live with it. This was when I first accepted that all the praying in the world wasn't going to change my nature and that to continue to ignore the obvious was an even more basic transgression than being gay. Remembering the prayer I prayed helped me re-name this day as the day I stepped out in faith. In those last moments of dusk before I rose from my bed I prayed something like this: "God I don't know what's going to happen next but this can't continue. I'm going to find out tonight what it means to be gay. I don't know if you will go with me or not. I don't want to leave you and I don't know if or when I'll come back but your word says you will never leave me..."
It was very much an unfinished prayer because I had no idea what lay ahead. I just knew I couldn't stay where I was. I sat up on the edge of my bed, in silence, in dark, for a few minutes. Then I got up, dressed and went out into the world. So after a while I was able to remember this moment not as a defeat but as a really pivotal and trusting decision that there was a future for me but I would need to discover it. The story changed from "killing god to survive" to "stepping out in faith into the unknown".
I eventually fell out of love with atheists. In my experience many atheists are in a place of anger. The public figures we are most aware of as atheists seem to be fighting against religion and against the concept of god. Their discourse doesn't honor the good that lives in religion, the beautiful impulse that comes out of human souls. There seems to be little or no place in atheism for an inner life. What I came to realize a decade ago is that I still have an inner life. Even though I can't find something that is real out in the world that I can label GOD, my inner need for the god-like stuff, for meaning, for context, for love -- that's all very real. I also have allowed myself in recent years to revisit the songs, the rituals and the scriptures that brought me such comfort as a child and sometimes as a teenager. I discovered that the comfort felt real and true even while god remained unreal for me so I decided the need was real too.
How do you satisfy a need when the original solution was a made-up figment of someone's imagination? Does the need exist as a product of believing the hoax? Once I have recognized the conundrum, can I live an authentic life without exploring it? Am I running from or am I running toward?
Then I found myself in a serious crisis a few years ago. This is the kind of crisis that ruins lives, ends marriages, breaks people forever. I needed to pray and I found myself unable to pray. I couldn't bring myself to pretend that someone out there was hearing me and I couldn't pretend to believe just in case someone was listening. So I just prayed from my heart and I directed that prayer back into my heart. I needed help so I sought it as authentically as I could, as an atheist, just where I was. I prayed something like: " I don't know if you're there. I have no faith at all that anyone is there. But I need the kind of strength I used to get when I prayed before." I'm still praying a version of that prayer and it still feels like the most authentic thing I can pray because I truly do not believe in an old man in the sky. For so many reasons. But the prayer is authentic and it feeds my heart.
So I have come to a place that does not fit comfortably with some of the major paradigms of our society. I am gay but I am moral. I am atheist in belief but I am drawing on the strengths of my Pentecostal cultural background. None of this makes any sense at all but I still exist. These three things live together in me and my existence is sufficient evidence that there can be a gay Pentecostal atheist. If you can't understand that join the club. Understanding isn't the only game in town though. Reality often surpasses understanding.
Sunday, March 22, 2015
Monday, January 26, 2015
The four faces of Shaw
Its been a while since I've sat down to write anything, mainly because there has been so much to process lately and the old squishy bio-RAM has been working overtime! After the death of Vonderrit Myers and the ensuing protests many of our neighbors here in Shaw stood up and joined the ranks of the righteous and the outraged. Lots of others responded differently, trumpeting the most racist of sentiments and turning all opportunities for thoughtful discourse into argumentative Round Robins of name calling, self-centered whining and downright bullying against those they saw as their opponents. Most of us just hunkered down like little baby birds, hoping the storm would pass soon. What once seemed to be a peaceful neighborhood full of kindly neighborly folks has turned into a cesspool of cliques, some of which remind one strongly of St. Louis from the 1950's.
But maybe that's just me. Maybe the jerks were just as jerky last year but, for whatever reason, I ignored all the warning signs and I've actually been surrounded by jerks all along. Anyway, let's look at what Shaw actually seems to be in the light of this new spring -- in the spring after so many of us got angry, behaved like children, refused to show compassion and ignored our neighbors' pain as loudly as we possibly could.
They say a crisis shows you what you're really made of and is that ever true in Shaw! This crisis has laid our reality bare with near X-ray clarity. As revealed by recent events, Shaw is like a body whose organs are in revolt, a corpus whose limbs take independent directions, a being with no agreed upon sense of direction. From my point of view there are four main groups of people in Shaw and none of us are on the same page. If you do not find yourself in this list then you may live in Shaw but you are an outsider. There are a lot of us here too.
Those who hold the most power in Shaw are a diverse group but they in no way represent all of Shaw. I call them the Old Standards. These people are invariably and strongly linked to St. Margaret of Scotland church and school. Many of these people have lived in Shaw for decades and they are almost exclusively white. In collective, this group has always been in control of the most important political and fiscal decisions in Shaw. They often run the neighborhood improvement association to one degree or another. They use the association, the alderman, city government and the courts to redistribute property ownership in the neighborhood. Perhaps the most visible effect of this group's power over the last 30 years is the transfer of about 20% of Shaw's housing stock from rental property to single family ownership. This group is used to making the big decisions for everyone else and they don't take challenges to their power kindly.
The secret weapon of the Old Standards is the undeserved social status that comes with residence on Flora Place. Not all Old Standards live on Flora Place but many do or have in the past. Those who live elsewhere in the neighborhood often strive to buy on Flora Place. At social events and in meetings of the neighborhood association Flora Place residents generally receive a certain amount of kowtowing from the other, less worthy residents of Shaw. Street of residence, religious affiliation and race are the three most important qualifications of an Old Standard. You might become one if you can provide two of those qualifications, but you'll be lucky if you do!
The Old Standards are often supported by the Reliables, a sizable but shrinking number of off-Flora working class whites. Some of these people have spent their whole lives trying to fit in with the Old Standards and never quite make the grade. Others accept their inferiority and settle for supporting the shady class structure imposed upon the neighborhood by the Old Standards. Quite a few of the Reliables have either given up on this fool's errand or were never really into it in the first place. These are the people who repeatedly rise to the occasion in times of crisis and actually do something worthwhile! They provide the rest of us with inspiration and hope for the future. Reliables are generally good folks with good intentions and some actively work for change but too many of them remain silent when they should be sharpening their pitchforks.
There is another group of people in Shaw who have been here even longer than the Old Standards and the Reliables. I call them the Neighbors. This group is made up of the African American families who anchor nearly every block in the neighborhood by virtue of their longevity here. In many cases four or five generations of these families live in and around Shaw. Their matriarchs have been here since time immemorial. Many of the Neighbors own their homes but younger family members tend to rent. The Neighbors all seem to know one another and they form a network of care and support that flies completely under the radar of the Old Standards. The Old Standards don't know (and don't seem to want to know) any of them. When the Old Standards are not ignoring the Neighbors they are doing their level best to get rid of them - one family, one house at a time. BTW, the Neighbors don't seem the least bit impressed with the Old Standards.
It's hard for me to imagine how a place could include two groups of people so separate and isolated from each other. In fact, it might be closer to reality to say that there are two Shaws - one white, one black, coexisting uneasily, seldom interacting, seldom even acknowledging the other except when forced together at a court hearing. It's rather like an old episode of Star Trek where two star ships exist at the same place and time but in different realities.
Of course I am generalizing but this is, in broad strokes, the reality I encountered when I moved here 15 years ago. Some of this has become clear only in the past few months, but most of it was readily apparent on Day 1. There are no significant bridges between the Old Standards and the Neighbors. Never have been, never will be. Some of the Reliables have coexisted more easily with some of the Neighbors but overall there's not much going on there either.
During the past decade a very important fourth group has emerged in Shaw. The Newbies are quite diverse when it comes to religion, race, and political bent. Early arrivals were mainly from out of state but in recent years they have been joined by an increasing flow of local suburbanites. The Newbies are mostly younger and better educated than Shaw's entrenched groups. They tend to have more money than either the Reliables or the Neighbors.
For me, this is where it gets really interesting. If anything is to ever change for the better in Shaw it will be because the Newbies make it happen. Many in this group are uncowed by the Old Standards and they bring a real desire to live in a just society and the energy to work towards it. Our streets were crowded not just by Ferguson protesters this fall, but also by Shaw Newbies.
Unfortunately, success is in no way assured. Quite a few of the Newbies are as racist as any of the others here. As Newbies buy homes on Flora Place they seem to be falling hook, line and sinker for the same sham promise of meaningless social status that has plagued that street since it was built. Other Newbies are poised to join the ranks of the quiet Reliables - good of heart but more concerned that the neighborhood looks good to outsiders than that it becomes a place of justice. The poison vat that passes for our neighborhood social media website has become what it is largely through the inability of some Newbies to really hear one another and through others' unwillingness to rock the boat.
So what can be done to change this place for the better? My hope is that the Newbies vote -- in every election. I hope Newbies pay attention to how power is meted out and how decisions are made in Shaw and the 8th Ward. I hope the Newbies realize that while we work, eat our dinners and watch our TVs, there are a handful of people who are deciding the fates of so many of our neighbors. What do you want this place to be in the next 10 years? Are you going to trust that the right things will get done for the right people without your input? Shaw doesn't exist as it does by accident. Our own little apartheid regime is the result of lots of those decisions getting made by a few people while the rest of us sat around and trusted our leaders to do the right thing. As you know, they haven't been doing the right thing - not by a long shot. If they had, we wouldn't be where we are now.
Most of all, I hope the Newbies resist with all their might the tendency to join one of the entrenched groups in Shaw. As you come in your hundreds, do not become an Old Standard or a Reliable or a Neighbor. Instead become a bridge. Shaw has about 5,000 homes. That is 5,000 different families. Imagine what a wonderful Shaw this would be if we had 500 real and permanent bridges. Imagine what that would do for our children and for our city. Imagine what it would do for all of us.
But maybe that's just me. Maybe the jerks were just as jerky last year but, for whatever reason, I ignored all the warning signs and I've actually been surrounded by jerks all along. Anyway, let's look at what Shaw actually seems to be in the light of this new spring -- in the spring after so many of us got angry, behaved like children, refused to show compassion and ignored our neighbors' pain as loudly as we possibly could.
They say a crisis shows you what you're really made of and is that ever true in Shaw! This crisis has laid our reality bare with near X-ray clarity. As revealed by recent events, Shaw is like a body whose organs are in revolt, a corpus whose limbs take independent directions, a being with no agreed upon sense of direction. From my point of view there are four main groups of people in Shaw and none of us are on the same page. If you do not find yourself in this list then you may live in Shaw but you are an outsider. There are a lot of us here too.
Those who hold the most power in Shaw are a diverse group but they in no way represent all of Shaw. I call them the Old Standards. These people are invariably and strongly linked to St. Margaret of Scotland church and school. Many of these people have lived in Shaw for decades and they are almost exclusively white. In collective, this group has always been in control of the most important political and fiscal decisions in Shaw. They often run the neighborhood improvement association to one degree or another. They use the association, the alderman, city government and the courts to redistribute property ownership in the neighborhood. Perhaps the most visible effect of this group's power over the last 30 years is the transfer of about 20% of Shaw's housing stock from rental property to single family ownership. This group is used to making the big decisions for everyone else and they don't take challenges to their power kindly.
The secret weapon of the Old Standards is the undeserved social status that comes with residence on Flora Place. Not all Old Standards live on Flora Place but many do or have in the past. Those who live elsewhere in the neighborhood often strive to buy on Flora Place. At social events and in meetings of the neighborhood association Flora Place residents generally receive a certain amount of kowtowing from the other, less worthy residents of Shaw. Street of residence, religious affiliation and race are the three most important qualifications of an Old Standard. You might become one if you can provide two of those qualifications, but you'll be lucky if you do!
The Old Standards are often supported by the Reliables, a sizable but shrinking number of off-Flora working class whites. Some of these people have spent their whole lives trying to fit in with the Old Standards and never quite make the grade. Others accept their inferiority and settle for supporting the shady class structure imposed upon the neighborhood by the Old Standards. Quite a few of the Reliables have either given up on this fool's errand or were never really into it in the first place. These are the people who repeatedly rise to the occasion in times of crisis and actually do something worthwhile! They provide the rest of us with inspiration and hope for the future. Reliables are generally good folks with good intentions and some actively work for change but too many of them remain silent when they should be sharpening their pitchforks.
There is another group of people in Shaw who have been here even longer than the Old Standards and the Reliables. I call them the Neighbors. This group is made up of the African American families who anchor nearly every block in the neighborhood by virtue of their longevity here. In many cases four or five generations of these families live in and around Shaw. Their matriarchs have been here since time immemorial. Many of the Neighbors own their homes but younger family members tend to rent. The Neighbors all seem to know one another and they form a network of care and support that flies completely under the radar of the Old Standards. The Old Standards don't know (and don't seem to want to know) any of them. When the Old Standards are not ignoring the Neighbors they are doing their level best to get rid of them - one family, one house at a time. BTW, the Neighbors don't seem the least bit impressed with the Old Standards.
It's hard for me to imagine how a place could include two groups of people so separate and isolated from each other. In fact, it might be closer to reality to say that there are two Shaws - one white, one black, coexisting uneasily, seldom interacting, seldom even acknowledging the other except when forced together at a court hearing. It's rather like an old episode of Star Trek where two star ships exist at the same place and time but in different realities.
Of course I am generalizing but this is, in broad strokes, the reality I encountered when I moved here 15 years ago. Some of this has become clear only in the past few months, but most of it was readily apparent on Day 1. There are no significant bridges between the Old Standards and the Neighbors. Never have been, never will be. Some of the Reliables have coexisted more easily with some of the Neighbors but overall there's not much going on there either.
During the past decade a very important fourth group has emerged in Shaw. The Newbies are quite diverse when it comes to religion, race, and political bent. Early arrivals were mainly from out of state but in recent years they have been joined by an increasing flow of local suburbanites. The Newbies are mostly younger and better educated than Shaw's entrenched groups. They tend to have more money than either the Reliables or the Neighbors.
For me, this is where it gets really interesting. If anything is to ever change for the better in Shaw it will be because the Newbies make it happen. Many in this group are uncowed by the Old Standards and they bring a real desire to live in a just society and the energy to work towards it. Our streets were crowded not just by Ferguson protesters this fall, but also by Shaw Newbies.
Unfortunately, success is in no way assured. Quite a few of the Newbies are as racist as any of the others here. As Newbies buy homes on Flora Place they seem to be falling hook, line and sinker for the same sham promise of meaningless social status that has plagued that street since it was built. Other Newbies are poised to join the ranks of the quiet Reliables - good of heart but more concerned that the neighborhood looks good to outsiders than that it becomes a place of justice. The poison vat that passes for our neighborhood social media website has become what it is largely through the inability of some Newbies to really hear one another and through others' unwillingness to rock the boat.
So what can be done to change this place for the better? My hope is that the Newbies vote -- in every election. I hope Newbies pay attention to how power is meted out and how decisions are made in Shaw and the 8th Ward. I hope the Newbies realize that while we work, eat our dinners and watch our TVs, there are a handful of people who are deciding the fates of so many of our neighbors. What do you want this place to be in the next 10 years? Are you going to trust that the right things will get done for the right people without your input? Shaw doesn't exist as it does by accident. Our own little apartheid regime is the result of lots of those decisions getting made by a few people while the rest of us sat around and trusted our leaders to do the right thing. As you know, they haven't been doing the right thing - not by a long shot. If they had, we wouldn't be where we are now.
Most of all, I hope the Newbies resist with all their might the tendency to join one of the entrenched groups in Shaw. As you come in your hundreds, do not become an Old Standard or a Reliable or a Neighbor. Instead become a bridge. Shaw has about 5,000 homes. That is 5,000 different families. Imagine what a wonderful Shaw this would be if we had 500 real and permanent bridges. Imagine what that would do for our children and for our city. Imagine what it would do for all of us.
Monday, December 1, 2014
Monday, July 28, 2014
Becoming a gay Pentecostal atheist
While other children were barely able to sit still in church I was listening to sermons, singing hymns, praying with fervent intensity and actively seeking a meaningful relationship with god. I was a bit different from the other kids around me. Even outside of church I was overly engaged with spiritual pursuits. At school I hid in the library during breaks and study hall. As the librarian's aide I took advantage of my private office to play gospel music on my little cassette player and gather spiritual strength to get me through the school day. I occupied my time on the bus with reading the Bible. If I’m being honest, this was as much an attempt to avoid interacting with the other kids as an exercise in piety but you can digest a fair amount of religious content during twice daily one-hour trips. After school I spent afternoons and summers exploring the woods, running with the family dog, reading books and doing homework, all the while in some form of prayer or meditation. Prayer was a constant for me and I probably didn’t go more than a few hours without talking with god during my entire childhood.
I didn’t know it then, but I wasn’t a preacher or church musician in the making. I was just gay. Gay people usually have a mystical side to their personality and many cultures make great use of that quality. Sadly, ours does not (yet). Instead, people all along the queer spectrum are excluded from religious life in multiple ways. In my case I was told, and believed, that being gay was a demonic possession that would separate me from god, family and a meaningful life. This falsehood was so central to our Pentecostalism that it blinded me to my true nature for many years. This violent belief still permeates Pentecostalism and American society in general. The result is wounds so deep and lasting that thousands and thousands of young people lose their lives while struggling to be authentic to themselves.
Over the years I have miraculously avoided much of the sexuality shrapnel while watching friends and acquaintances fall all around. I don’t enjoy evoking war imagery but it seems authentic to my experience. Today the noise around queerness has quieted considerably, at least for me. I know what I believe and I’m comfortable with my existence in the world. It doesn’t hurt that the world itself is becoming a bit more sane with respect to sexuality and gender issues.
My childhood was a blessed time. I loved Jesus and he helped me through the troubles of adolescence and the teen years. And then, unexpectedly, my spiritual life was shattered in the process of coming out. I lost the ability to really talk with god because I lost trust in god. My most fundamental relationships fell apart - my parents deserted me, friends rejected me and the authority figures at my college indicted me. More importantly, the relationship I had with god could not absorb the challenges posed by my emerging identity. In the process of figuring out how to be an authentic adult I found that I had to leave god behind.
Perhaps things would have turned out differently if I had encountered good role models. I did know a couple of Pentecostal people who were gay but I didn’t want to be like them. They were laughed at and scorned and were tolerated only because they pretended to be straight. Everyone joined in the pretense when they were present and later laughed at them behind their backs. I knew I could never live like that, denying reality, pretending to be other than what I am, pretending that no one else knows who I am. Most of all I didn’t want to be part of a community of believers who acted like that. The role models I saw around me were untenable and my solution was to create my own brand of atheism.
My atheism has always been a Pentecostal atheism. By that I mean that I've continued to seek truth and authenticity. I do that through an introspective and recursive interior conversation that is a lot like the prayer process I used as a child. In fact, I still pray once in a while but I don’t really believe that there is anyone listening. I pray when I need to. I pray when I need that kind of comfort. I pray because I still believe in the value of some of the religious experiences of my childhood. I can’t inhabit those experiences in the same way I did as a child, but I don’t run from them. Instead I take what I can defend and what I can use and discard the rest. Learning to pray in this new way has been a blessing and it has been on my terms.
Pentecostalism is much more than a religious experience. It is a culture that emerged from the working class struggles of the late Nineteenth Century. Once you peel off the anti-science foolishness and the political bullshit of the culture wars it is easy to see its roots extending back to Colonialism and the Enlightenment. At the core of Pentecostalim are the principles of self determination and personal agency. The struggle of my life has been to use those principles to bend that culture towards my experiences of biology and personality.
Anthropology tells us that every culture has its shortcomings and contradictions. Each culture has imbedded within it rules that produce designated winners and preordained victims. Our saving grace is that all cultures change and individuals can shift the rules. None of us gets to live in the Garden forever. We must make the future out of what we are given.
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
I was kicked out of Rhodes College for being gay
Well, sort of. I was kicked out in an unofficial way - the "we hate you and we will make your life hell until you go" kind of way. But it was Rhodes College and I was fully and completely gay.
To be fair, it was a long time ago. 1991 is (doing the math) -- OH SHIT -- that's 22 years! Correction: it was ages ago.
I often think about my experience at Rhodes but it rarely occupies my mind for long. Today was different. It came up in conversation with a friend this morning. I don't know what we were talking about but it was apropos to the conversation and for some reason the pain of this old event seemed particularly fresh to me and I have dwelt on it off and on all day.
I burst out of the closet like a tiger through a flaming paper hoop. My idea of gradually introducing the idea was to show up in Russian History II wearing shiny teal polyester pants, a burgundy red button up shirt and matching red eye liner. Fair dues though, I had been working up to it for nineteen years and this was, to me, just another small step towards self-realization. Window dressing, if you will.
That was the spring of 1989. By that fall I had tired of shiny polyester and was growing impatient with eye liner as a means of self expression. I was reading The Advocate and going to the sad, sad gay bars of Memphis on the weekends. I was also searching for allies on campus. I found a few potentials but scared them off with my brash openness, my inability to blend in. I didn't lose much sleep over that though.
Probably the smartest move I made was to seek counseling services on campus to help me sort through the major issues I was having around the need to cram my Pentecostal self, my gay self, my blue collar self, my high-academic-achieving self, my searching self and my lonesome self into one consciousness. This worked well for me. I could talk to someone and they got paid to listen. In the process I came up with the questions that lay beneath my growing pains and I figured out the answers to a lot of them.
My next smartest move was to fall in love with a guy old enough to be my dad. Jay was HIV positive and didn't bother to let me in on that secret until we had been dating for several months. I decided we should get married. I am typing this as a nearly 45 year old man and, yes, I am cringing as I type. Back then I was 19. Don't even ask what was going on in my head. If you imagine the worst cluster fuck of co-dependency, insecurity and naivete, you're on the right track. That isn't the point of this story though. I've worked through most of that. The point is my decision to marry led me to the campus chaplain, Steve.
Steve was not ready for me. He was open minded though and, after some prayer and study, agreed to enter into a period of couples counseling with us both. He didn't promise to marry us. He said he would work prayerfully with us and see where that led. Over a period of a couple of months he learned a lot about gayness and we learned a little about couples counseling. Steve took us at face value, never judging, never disrespecting in spite of his inexperience. In the end he agreed to perform our commitment ceremony in the Voorhies Chapel.
It was Fall semester, 1990. We dressed and drove to the chapel. Our guests arrived early. My dear sister Rebecca was there. The chaplain arrived fifteen minutes early with a grim look on his face. The college president, James Daughdrill, had summoned him and delivered the news that if we were married he would be fired. Jay and I made the decision in less than a minute. Steve has stood by us through this process and grown with us. We would not be responsible for the loss of his job. The wedding party followed us back to Jay's apartment in Midtown where we ate the wedding cake and had drinks. It was not a celebration.
Since coming out I had faced several threats and confrontations on campus. My dorm mate moved into a different room. My dorm room was vandalized repeatedly. After our wedding was scuttled the abuse intensified. Obscenities were hurled down to me from windows as I walked across campus. A couple of times things were thrown at me. I was a leper in the Refectory. I received death threat phone calls late at night.
At some point I requested a meeting with Daughdrill to discuss the difficulties I was facing on campus. He refused to meet with me and instead sent a dean to run interference. I was told that no one had committed any crime but to let them know if that happened. The dean informed me that Daughdrill was very busy and would not be able to meet with me.
My grades took a nose dive. I was unable to study, concentrate, couldn't physically relax on campus. I was unable to get an appointment with my advisor, the chair of the Political Science department, until I caught him in the hall and pushed the point. When I explained my situation he did not seem surprised and was not helpful. In fact, the air in his office had a distinct flavor of disdain. I got the message.
As my life became less comfortable on campus I spent more time off-campus. By Christmas Break I had moved into Jay's apartment and my transition away from school was complete. That is how I went, in five semesters, from having high hopes of academic success at a highly regarded private college to being a college drop out. That is how I was kicked out of Rhodes College for being gay.
According to their website, Rhodes now has an LGBT Working Group and a nice little anti discrimination policy here. The school is still affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA) and that denomination has recently published a lengthy and carefully constructed statement about same sex marriage.
Apparently there has been some growth within the denomination and on the Rhodes College campus. I would like to visit again some day and see whether the on-the-ground reality matches the online presentation.
I would also like to reconnect with Steve. Aside from a couple of boyfriends, he was the first adult man I interacted with on an equal footing. His practice allowed me to see myself as a man. I hadn't gotten that previously from my dad or from men at church or school. That meant a lot to me then and it still does today. I would like to thank him for that.
To be fair, it was a long time ago. 1991 is (doing the math) -- OH SHIT -- that's 22 years! Correction: it was ages ago.
I often think about my experience at Rhodes but it rarely occupies my mind for long. Today was different. It came up in conversation with a friend this morning. I don't know what we were talking about but it was apropos to the conversation and for some reason the pain of this old event seemed particularly fresh to me and I have dwelt on it off and on all day.
I burst out of the closet like a tiger through a flaming paper hoop. My idea of gradually introducing the idea was to show up in Russian History II wearing shiny teal polyester pants, a burgundy red button up shirt and matching red eye liner. Fair dues though, I had been working up to it for nineteen years and this was, to me, just another small step towards self-realization. Window dressing, if you will.
That was the spring of 1989. By that fall I had tired of shiny polyester and was growing impatient with eye liner as a means of self expression. I was reading The Advocate and going to the sad, sad gay bars of Memphis on the weekends. I was also searching for allies on campus. I found a few potentials but scared them off with my brash openness, my inability to blend in. I didn't lose much sleep over that though.
Probably the smartest move I made was to seek counseling services on campus to help me sort through the major issues I was having around the need to cram my Pentecostal self, my gay self, my blue collar self, my high-academic-achieving self, my searching self and my lonesome self into one consciousness. This worked well for me. I could talk to someone and they got paid to listen. In the process I came up with the questions that lay beneath my growing pains and I figured out the answers to a lot of them.
My next smartest move was to fall in love with a guy old enough to be my dad. Jay was HIV positive and didn't bother to let me in on that secret until we had been dating for several months. I decided we should get married. I am typing this as a nearly 45 year old man and, yes, I am cringing as I type. Back then I was 19. Don't even ask what was going on in my head. If you imagine the worst cluster fuck of co-dependency, insecurity and naivete, you're on the right track. That isn't the point of this story though. I've worked through most of that. The point is my decision to marry led me to the campus chaplain, Steve.
Steve was not ready for me. He was open minded though and, after some prayer and study, agreed to enter into a period of couples counseling with us both. He didn't promise to marry us. He said he would work prayerfully with us and see where that led. Over a period of a couple of months he learned a lot about gayness and we learned a little about couples counseling. Steve took us at face value, never judging, never disrespecting in spite of his inexperience. In the end he agreed to perform our commitment ceremony in the Voorhies Chapel.
It was Fall semester, 1990. We dressed and drove to the chapel. Our guests arrived early. My dear sister Rebecca was there. The chaplain arrived fifteen minutes early with a grim look on his face. The college president, James Daughdrill, had summoned him and delivered the news that if we were married he would be fired. Jay and I made the decision in less than a minute. Steve has stood by us through this process and grown with us. We would not be responsible for the loss of his job. The wedding party followed us back to Jay's apartment in Midtown where we ate the wedding cake and had drinks. It was not a celebration.
Since coming out I had faced several threats and confrontations on campus. My dorm mate moved into a different room. My dorm room was vandalized repeatedly. After our wedding was scuttled the abuse intensified. Obscenities were hurled down to me from windows as I walked across campus. A couple of times things were thrown at me. I was a leper in the Refectory. I received death threat phone calls late at night.
At some point I requested a meeting with Daughdrill to discuss the difficulties I was facing on campus. He refused to meet with me and instead sent a dean to run interference. I was told that no one had committed any crime but to let them know if that happened. The dean informed me that Daughdrill was very busy and would not be able to meet with me.
My grades took a nose dive. I was unable to study, concentrate, couldn't physically relax on campus. I was unable to get an appointment with my advisor, the chair of the Political Science department, until I caught him in the hall and pushed the point. When I explained my situation he did not seem surprised and was not helpful. In fact, the air in his office had a distinct flavor of disdain. I got the message.
As my life became less comfortable on campus I spent more time off-campus. By Christmas Break I had moved into Jay's apartment and my transition away from school was complete. That is how I went, in five semesters, from having high hopes of academic success at a highly regarded private college to being a college drop out. That is how I was kicked out of Rhodes College for being gay.
According to their website, Rhodes now has an LGBT Working Group and a nice little anti discrimination policy here. The school is still affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA) and that denomination has recently published a lengthy and carefully constructed statement about same sex marriage.
Apparently there has been some growth within the denomination and on the Rhodes College campus. I would like to visit again some day and see whether the on-the-ground reality matches the online presentation.
I would also like to reconnect with Steve. Aside from a couple of boyfriends, he was the first adult man I interacted with on an equal footing. His practice allowed me to see myself as a man. I hadn't gotten that previously from my dad or from men at church or school. That meant a lot to me then and it still does today. I would like to thank him for that.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Questionnaire
This poem is published in Wendell Berry's 2010 volume Leavings. I read it yesterday morning and must have re-read it four or five times during the day. It is a very sneaky poem, beginning with an obvious easy question and gradually working up to one of the most basic (and ignored) conundrums of life as a member of society.
“Questionnaire”
1. How much poison are you willing
to eat for the success of the free
market and global trade? Please
name your preferred poisons.2. For the sake of goodness, how much
evil are you willing to do?
Fill in the following blanks
with the names of your favorite
evils and acts of hatred.
3. What sacrifices are you prepared
to make for culture and civilization?
Please list the monuments, shrines,
and works of art you would
most willingly destroy.
4. In the name of patriotism and
the flag, how much of our beloved
land are you willing to desecrate?List in the following spaces
the mountains, rivers, towns, farms
you could most readily do without.
5. State briefly the ideas, ideals, or hopes,
the energy sources, the kinds of security,for which you would kill a child.
Name, please, the children whom
you would be willing to kill.
Of course, no one would kill a child for energy or an ideal. If the child is in front of you and you know her name, you will not kill her. You might step between her and the bullet and give your own life. Lots of people have.
What if you do not know her name, see her face? What if her existence is within a small rectangle on a monitor and you are at a command center thousands of miles away? Her parents are Afghanis? Does that make the killing any easier?
I'm burning babies every day as I drive to work. Their ashes are invisible to me; I do not examine my exhaust pipe.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
The letter that will probably get me fired
Background:
I teach part time at a community college where my division (anthropology) is combined with the psychology and sociology divisions. The rivalries between members of the departments are at times divisive and fierce. The rivalries are mostly over meaningless bullshit. This morning I received an email from a colleague that said "YAY". The email was in response to an earlier email from the department chair stating that anthropology would be moving to the history department. Said faculty member has a long list of historic gripes with the other members of our present department. Having just arisen and still waiting on the coffeemaker to belch forth my morning sanity I hit 'reply all' and said "I wonder if the adjuncts will be treated like janitors there too?"
Well, the shock and awe that followed was monumental. You would think that we adjuncts had been hidden in a closet all these years. Various full timers upbraided me for "attacking" and "causing pain" (Boo-fucking-hoo). Others showed me various levels of support in person and (in one case) by email (brave since that is admissible in court and there is no more reticent sub-species of Homo sapiens than your run-of-the-mill college professor).
Further background:
I have in the past received special dispensation to attend departmental meetings, participate in specialized faculty training and development (you know, the basics of professional life) - but only because I made a fuss. Adjuncts are normally excluded from these things.
Below is the letter I wrote this afternoon after thinking more on the topic. I am surprised at the depth of emotion I am still feeling.While I live this on a daily basis, this email was my first time discussing it in a public forum. I do not broach all the issues faced by the adjunct work force but I think I hit the high lights. If you teach full time at an institution of higher learning in the US your department is likely functioning exactly as I describe below. Please think about it.
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I teach part time at a community college where my division (anthropology) is combined with the psychology and sociology divisions. The rivalries between members of the departments are at times divisive and fierce. The rivalries are mostly over meaningless bullshit. This morning I received an email from a colleague that said "YAY". The email was in response to an earlier email from the department chair stating that anthropology would be moving to the history department. Said faculty member has a long list of historic gripes with the other members of our present department. Having just arisen and still waiting on the coffeemaker to belch forth my morning sanity I hit 'reply all' and said "I wonder if the adjuncts will be treated like janitors there too?"
Well, the shock and awe that followed was monumental. You would think that we adjuncts had been hidden in a closet all these years. Various full timers upbraided me for "attacking" and "causing pain" (Boo-fucking-hoo). Others showed me various levels of support in person and (in one case) by email (brave since that is admissible in court and there is no more reticent sub-species of Homo sapiens than your run-of-the-mill college professor).
Further background:
I have in the past received special dispensation to attend departmental meetings, participate in specialized faculty training and development (you know, the basics of professional life) - but only because I made a fuss. Adjuncts are normally excluded from these things.
Below is the letter I wrote this afternoon after thinking more on the topic. I am surprised at the depth of emotion I am still feeling.While I live this on a daily basis, this email was my first time discussing it in a public forum. I do not broach all the issues faced by the adjunct work force but I think I hit the high lights. If you teach full time at an institution of higher learning in the US your department is likely functioning exactly as I describe below. Please think about it.
----
Some days I feel like an animal with his leg in a trap.
I should explain my outburst. I was in a good mood this morning so when I read ___’s email I was a little off guard. I have always kept my thoughts to myself because if I speak my mind I risk losing my job. Unfortunately, I failed to guard my thoughts this morning. Since I have opened this can of worms in public it is only fair that I clarify my thoughts in public and leave no doubt about where this is coming from. After all, the inequality I am speaking of is being acted out publicly every day, by each one of us.
I have been teaching anthropology classes at _______ for seven years. I have been unable to find a full time job. It is also clear to me that there is no chance of a full time position being created for me at _____. At the same time, the longer I spend in this menial job, the less suited I am for any good job outside of academia. What has changed for me during the past year is my realization that the _____ job position descriptions are highly inaccurate. The adjuncts are not filling temporary positions. The positions are full time. It is the humans filling the jobs who are temporary. It really, really sucks being a permanently part time human.
We all know about the low pay and no benefits when we accept these jobs. Maybe a lot of adjuncts think there is a full-time job just over the horizon. I thought I would find one. I have seen just enough adjuncts getting hired into full time jobs to keep my hopes up. As I have sought jobs and watched the teaching labor market it has become apparent that colleges all over the country are trimming their course offerings and replacing retirees with the permanent part-time positions. At the same time, graduate schools are pumping qualified applicants into the teaching market like a 24-hour sausage factory.
I know that none of this is your fault. I also can’t forget that your office, your computer, your vacation leave, your sick leave, your maternity leave, your sabbaticals, your expense accounts, your salary, your professional support, etc., are all paid for with funds that are generated by the work of my large underclass. I learned all about inequitable economic systems as a college student. Is it any surprise that I would experience existential angst once I realize that I’m mired neck deep in one without an apparent resolution or even an apparent avenue of escape?
What am I looking for? When I ask myself that question I go through that sociological checklist of things that people get from their work: money, status, sense of belonging, a mission. I know there is no money or status associated with being an adjunct. What’s left? I love to teach so I have a mission that has sustained me this long. The sense of belonging is largely absent. A number of people have voiced their support to me today and I really appreciate that. Of course everyone has always been very nice to me and I find that invaluable. The problem is that I have no role other than providing low cost labor to a faceless, dehumanizing system.
I’m not one to complain without offering solutions. In my neighborhood organization there are no temporaries or full-timers. We all play a role based on our interests and abilities. I help manage an annual budget of about $2 million and organize a number of public events, direct actions, and community building activities every year. No one “invites” me to a board meeting because I AM a board member. I have a specific role in the organization.
I appreciate being “invited” to _____ faculty meetings but it also underscores the fact that I don’t really belong there. I have no role. Who decided that the people who teach 75% of the classes here, who generate the lion’s share of the revenue, have no role? Who decided that we aren’t interested, aren’t able, aren’t qualified to share in the governance of the organization? When I’m feeling trapped I don’t chew on my leg like an animal. Instead I look for meaning and meaning is the thing I’m lacking in this job.
I apologize for getting all political and making everyone uncomfortable. I didn’t intend to storm the Bastille when I got up this morning. I don’t envy any of you full-timers. You have those positions because you are highly qualified. I don’t feel especially singled out for marginalization. I am a part of an enormous group of people in exactly the same position. Many of us are also highly qualified but we are never going to find full time teaching jobs because the numbers just aren’t in our favor.
I do think you full timers, especially in the social sciences, have a moral duty to be aware of the political and economic landscapes of our discipline. I know you teach Weber and de Tocqueville but how much consideration have you given to how that applies to our own field? Even more importantly, please consider how our jobs (and lives) can be made a little bit more meaningful as our slice of academia (and apparently all post-secondary academia) continues to adopt the corporate model. We’re all a bunch of smart people. Why are we so behind on this? I love to teach and I want to continue teaching at _______. The crappy pay would be more bearable if I was more of a colleague and less of a servant.
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