Hello everyone

[novaseeker]

Hi everyone!

I'm Brendan. I'm 38, divorced, I have one son and I am gay. I live in Virginia, so that admixture of facts is just lovely ...

I came across your site through a blog link and through my reading of "Religion Gone Bad". In faith terms, I suppose my current status is a bit blurry. I grew up as a RC (12 years of Catholic school, in fact) and then drifted away during college and after, and then picked things up again as a RC after meeting my now ex-wife. Towards the end of the marriage (which coincided with my coming out more or less), I grew away from faith again, and I've been pretty aloof from faith for around 4 years or so. To be honest, the current situation for gay people in the US, and particularly in Virginia where I live, doesn't make me have a high opinion of Christianity in general and of many Christians in particular, but my mind isn't completely closed on the subject.

And that's ... that. I'll probably see you around some of the threads in the coming days.

B

[BenL]

I hear ya, Brendan. I, too, drifted away from Roman Catholicism after coming out to myself while a member of a religious order (not yet ordained). I happened to find a comfortable home in the Episcopal Church, but I know that there's no guarantee of that in any denomination. I also recognize that there are many holy and committed Catholics in this country, and many who are ready to give GLBT people a place at the table, except for the prouncements of the church's leaders.

It took me a while to realize that relgion and spirituality are distinct. Religion can foster spirituality ... but it can also hinder it. My relationship to and with God is more important than what religion I belong to. Like you, I took several hiatuses from organized religion during my lifetime. I don't feel that I left God or that God abandoned me because of it.

Folks here at Soulforce are about reconciliation and rehabilitation for people who have suffered implicitly or explicitly at the hands of organized religion. Peace is at the center of of the Soulforce mission, starting with personal peace for all of us. Welcome to the forums. I hope you can find it a place of peace and connectedness to your GLBT brothers and sisters.

BenL

[scott snedeker]

Been there too Brendan!

In my new spiritual journey I had no choice but to change how I determined what was true.

For me I set a couple of basic guidelines:

I was gay from the time of my dawning of sexual awareness.

I was created this way for a reason by God's design.

Affirmation, acceptance and love of my self then must be the foundation of my spiriuality otherwise I would be loathing God's creation.

Now that I know that my nature is a deliberate will of God, I must live and be what my drives, feelings and dreams attract me to do.

By doing this I honor my God-given soul. This means making love to men. And the more I make love, the more of God's love I feel in the afterglow. Love of men strengthen's my connection to God's love for me. And I love Him in return for this gift.

Any message that contradicts this fundamental foundation does not come from God [ not intended for me].

My nature/soul/love and God are as one Source that has only positive energy. Any negative feeling comes only from disconnection with Source. I use my feelings to determine what is a true touchstone (positive feeling indication strengthening connection to Source) and what is a false touchstone (negative feeling =disconnection).

I may represent the new age extreme of spirituality on this site. Sin and forgiveness by God become irrelevent concepts in a spirituality based on connection/disconnection with Source. We see Believing yourself deficient(sinful) and needing forgiveness as a disconnection from Source. These are the basic Teachings of Abraham. (Abraham-Hicks.com)

Life is supposed to be fun! Choose the best feeling spiritual foundation available to you and you will grow toward awareness empowerment, love and joy.

love and affirmation,

Scotty:cowboy:

[Daniel]

Hi Brendan,

Welcome.

After I came out at the age of 28 I found that my relationship to spirituality changed a great deal from my days as an Assemblies of God person.

I concur with what BenL has to say on the matter: there is a great deal of difference between religion and spirituality. The former seems contained to me while the second can go with you anywhere!

Rather than throw the baby out with the bath water, I found myself interested in Eastern faiths- found myself especially drawn towards learning about meditation (learned that many Catholic monastic communities have an interest is this as well), things Buddhist and the teachings of the Desert Fathers. And like BenL, I've spent a good deal of time in the Episcopal Church, though as a professional musician. There's nothing like the view from the choir loft.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that once I figured out I didn't exactly fit the mold made investigating my curiosities much easier.

Gore Vidal said something I really like: "It's not what they think of you that matters, but what you think of them." :rolleyes: While this statement could be viewed as being merely judgemental or arrogant, I think there is a lot of truth in it.

My translation: It's not how we fit into a particular faith that matters as much as the quality of faith/spirituality that we have.

We really can be, I believe, that which we seek. That's what this site is all about: being the change one want to see.

[BruceChris]

I have a slightly different definition of religion. I define religion as one person's relationship with God, so obviously there are over 6 billion religions! You could not know and believe exactly the same thing as any other person if you tried. I guess that, pretty much by default, spirituality would be defined as trying to learn as much as you can about God and yourself, and finding the best possible relationship with God, and yourself.

Some people are toxic to be around, and for most of us, some Religions are toxic. You need to be around people that nurture you, that bring out the best in you. I find I am blessed, see below

http://www.soulforce.org/forums/showthread.php?t=1093

[novaseeker]

Thanks, everyone. These are in many ways helpful thoughts and interesting perspectives.

I suppose that a significant part of my own struggle in these areas is that I absorbed a lot of ideas during my time when I was closest to faith, and some of these ideas have, of course, shaped the way I view faith in general, even during times when I have been away from an active faith life as is the case today. What I mean specifically is that in my prior faith life (which was exclusively Catholic/Orthodox), I absorbed a lot of ideas relating to faith itself that have left a lasting impression on me: ideas about other faith traditions, ideas about spirituality vs. faith, ideas about the “fullness” of faith and the like. To take one example, I can remember a Catholic former pastor of mine giving a sermon about the “false distinction” between “religion and spirituality”. Now at this point in my life, intellectually I don’t agree with the distinction he made, but at the same time the traces of the distinction have left a wake in my brain, as it were, with the interesting sub-effect of very much encouraging me to throw the baby out with the bathwater. In other words, ideas like that one have, I’m fairly certain, encouraged me to simply walk away from both spirituality and religion when I walked away from the latter, and have also (likely, but less certainly) impeded me psychologically from trying to access one without the other. It’s something I need to reflect on more, and try to unravel a bit inside me, I think.

Another, and somewhat related (as I’m reflecting on this, I’m seeing how much of it may be inter-related) example of this is the struggle I have with accepting some things and not others. What I mean by that is that when I was living my Catholic/Orthodox faith life, I was very much what you could describe as a “maximalist”. Although I did not personally agree with everything that the hierarchs taught (what Catholics call the “Magisterium”), nevertheless I did agree with most of it … but regardless of how much I agreed with or not, my “attitude”, if you will, was that the whole thing is of one piece. So, for example, I struggle with the idea that if the church’s magisterium is wrong about homosexuality, then why should I believe it to be right about Christ or anything else? It’s this “all or nothing” problem, and I think it results from ideas I must have imbibed during my prior faith life as a Catholic to the effect that the church is basically inerrant as a matter of faith: in other words, once that inerrancy goes away for any one particular thing, it can become like the first brick of the dam being loosened, only to cause the torrential flood to come gushing forth shortly thereafter, meaning that the rest of the edifice crumbles when the brick is loosened.

After reading “Religion Gone Bad”, I now understand that this latter approach which I seem to have had, and which seems to have left its residue in my brain, may be what one could call the Catholic variant of fundamentalism. It’s an interesting thought, if that is indeed the case. I certainly never considered myself a fundamentalist (I don’t think many, if any, Catholics or Orthodox do), but it seems to have been, in some key aspects, a parallel track of sorts in terms of approach.

So as I approach these kinds of issues, the process “feels” to me at least initially like an interior engagement of disentangling myself from the remnants or residue of some of these ideas which seem to have seeped into my brain. Namely, the effort of potentially disentangling spirituality from religion per se, the effort of potentially accepting parts of a faith tradition while exercising discernment or a kind of conscientious objection to other parts of it, and so on. It’s without doubt a significant effort, and it’s very much the beginning of the process for me.

Thanks again for all of the responses, as I said above, they’ve been helpful in framing up some of my own reflections about this for myself.

[Zerbie]

Welcome Brendan. :)


You're obviously going to figure this all out for yourself, as you're on an intellectual/psycho-spiritual path already that will lead you where you're meant to be. But fwiw I'd like to throw out this possibility:

Could you look at the "religion" one belongs to (in your case the Catholic background) as one piece of the entirety (let's say a pie :lol: ), which is spirituality? And that people along the way have perhaps gotten a few details mixed up, thrown in some ingredients (raisins, walnuts, homophobia) that didn't fit with the original recipe? The original recipe is still pure in its entirety even if we have fiddled with the momentary outcome. Silly analogy, but meant to be concrete - hope it's not too ridiculous. :p :lol:

That might be a way of adhering to the spiritual/religious link you *feel* so deeply, yet allowing you the intellectual distance to re-evaluate those details that don't seem to fit, that might otherwise for not fitting, "crumble" the whole thing. You get to keep the blueprint for the entirety (that spiritual-religious Both/And), but you can still toss the added gobbledeygook.

Were you raised Catholic since a small child? Things we are taught very very young tend to stay with us for a lifetime, unless we really want to and really work hard to revise those trainings.

[novaseeker]

That might be a way of adhering to the spiritual/religious link you *feel* so deeply, yet allowing you the intellectual distance to re-evaluate those details that don't seem to fit, that might otherwise for not fitting, "crumble" the whole thing. You get to keep the blueprint for the entirety (that spiritual-religious Both/And), but you can still toss the added gobbledeygook.

That's a very interesting metaphor, actually, thanks for that. I'll have to slip it into my metaphorical pipe and give it a few puffs over the next few days, but initially it seems like an interesting way to look at things.

Were you raised Catholic since a small child? Things we are taught very very young tend to stay with us for a lifetime, unless we really want to and really work hard to revise those trainings.

Yes, I was a so-called "cradle Catholic" and attended Catholic schools for 12 years, so there was quite a bit of mind molding going on during my younger years. I know this takes a lot to undo, and I suppose a part of what I am doing now is trying to probe myself a bit to discern what is there that may need undoing before actually setting out on the undoing part.

Thanks for your note, it was helpful! :)

[BenL]

Yes, I was a so-called "cradle Catholic" and attended Catholic schools for 12 years, so there was quite a bit of mind molding going on during my younger years. I know this takes a lot to undo, and I suppose a part of what I am doing now is trying to probe myself a bit to discern what is there that may need undoing before actually setting out on the undoing part.

What we learned as children, whether from our parents or our CCD/Sunday school teachers, is indeed imbedded deeply in our psyches. Nothing wrong with that. When we become adults, we need to go deeper than the way we knew things as a child. That's where spiritual discernment comes in.

Gay folks are forced to walk away from their childhood understanding, which is all about rejection. If they are able to leave that baggage on the platform, they can then begin a journey deeper into a God who loves them unconditionally.

I believe that no single religion has a monopoly on that journey, but that they're all -- well, maybe almost all ;) -- given to us as different paths to God. Scotty McLennan, the chaplain at Tufts University and the model for Garry Trudeau's character Rev. Scotty Sloan in Doonesbury, discusses that in his book Finding Your Religion: When the Faith You Grew Up With Has Lost Its Meaning. It's worth the read.

BenL