Walls (Part 3)

<-- Walls 1
   <-- Walls 2

The wind had a slight chill to it, but luckily, there were few clouds in the sky, making the sun shimmer off the ocean and into my eyes, making me squint as I looked at the San Diego skyline just across the bay. His luster-filled blonde hair didn’t help too much either.

A few months beforehand, he and I sat on the cliffs where we finally reconciled the moments that went unaddressed: the reason why he had so little to say, the reason he waited so long to call, and the reason why he became so distant.

Denying my tears, I kept listening as my abandonment – birthed at that cafeteria table – cleared the air tainted by months of passive aggressive bitterness. I always found comfort in his voice, and the more he spoke, the more I could see the guilt I imposed start leaving his heart.

There, we were restored. There, we were made new.

---
He was biting into his burrito when he looked up at me asked to hear more of a story I told him earlier: “So what happened with those two guys?”

“Oh yeah! I forgot about that!” I muffled with a mouth full with bacon burrito, thinking back and remembering a conversation we had a few week ago.

We sat in his room, rallying a tennis ball around his room, trying to keep it off the floor. As we bounced the ball off the walls, bunk beds, and mirrors, we kept our conversation just as alive. We were killing time until his laundry finished and could walk back to our friends’ condo just down the road.

The laundry finished, he loaded it into the dryer, and we left. We walked silent until I asked him, “Did I tell you about what happened with these two guys?”

“No, you didn’t! What happened?” he replied, eager as a kid in a candy store.

“Oh man, we have a lot to catch up on…” I smiled, searching for a starting point to my soon long story. “Well, back in the beginning of last semester, there was this guy…” I started.

Strolling down the street, jaywalking to the other side, and entering into our friends’ neighborhood, I constructed the groundwork for my story.

As we climbed the massive flight of stairs to our friends’ condo, we approached the condo’s doorstep.

“Should we stay out here and keep talking or should we go inside?” He stated, subtly implying the awkwardness if I continued to talk.

“This is a good point to stop,” I insisted with a cool smile on my face. “But the crazy part comes next,” assuring him that what he knew was unsatisfactory in the grand scheme.

---
“So I left off at…” I continued, sharing the heartbreak, the kissing, and the confusion, more than what I have dealt with personally in a while.

He engaged with me as I told my story, not just letting me tell it but also letting me immerse him into it.

After I finished, our conversation continued to flow, and we caught up on life: our goals, our aspirations, our struggles, some stupid decisions, and the list goes on.

I revealed to him how in the months following that conversation on the cliffs, one by one, I started opening up to my friends and, brick by brick, I tore down my walls.

My fellow Oregonian and closest friend my first two years of college found out after I told her, and she finally realized that I never actually did have that crush on her.

That friend I made the beginning of this semester tugged it out of me that night I sat, for hours, slouched in the passenger seat of her car, head pounding.

My tenderhearted roommate called me an idiot and embraced me after I hinted, “I understand if you don’t want to live with me anymore.”

Lastly, that friend, who despite his misunderstanding, said those powerful words, “You’re my friend, and I still love you.” Providing me the opportunity to finally see the Love of God, and changed it all.

With each of them, nothing changed. They were willing to walk through it with me and be present. The greatest relief overcame me because I had been exposed but for once, not disowned. I could be honest and no longer pretend.

---
As time passed, our conversation approached a timely end, and we got up from the picnic table. Getting closer to his car, he fired me one shocking question, “So, what does your ideal guy look like?”

“Are you serious?” I chuckled, failing to think of another straight friend that had asked me that question before.

“Of course, it’s no different than you asking me what do I look for in a girl,” he laughed, as we both got into the car.

Driving away, we started talking about boys, and I realized I was no longer trying to impress him. I wasn’t trying to hide myself. I was just being, myself. Nothing more, nothing less. Just Sean.

Walls (Part 2)

<-- Walls (Part 1)

Inside our cafeteria, we have short tables each accompanied by two chairs sitting on both sides, "date tables" as we call them, ideal for a laid-back and highly unromantic date in the university cafeteria. That’s not why we are here though.

---
Sometimes, outstanding individuals catch you off-guard. I met this guy who was a character of love, or so I thought at the time. Whether it was random road trips, artistic bouts, studying, or philosophical discussion, much of our time was spent together. He became the friend I had continually asked for. He seemed to be one that was on my side and could something was wrong, but I still could not tear down the walls.

Two years beforehand when I initially built these walls, they held firm, but the autumn following their construction, I left for school in sunny San Diego: "This is staying in Portland. There is no way this coming to San Diego." I would tell myself that eventually, it would go away. I was wrong. It followed me.

---
We sat at one of these date tables when I prepared for one of the most difficult conversations I would have in over two years.

Suppressing my feelings for so long only made them stronger. Closing myself off only made me more insecure. I longed to be known, but I failed to let them in.

"Oh, Sean, the track guy," people would say. I cringe and anxiety builds when I become associated with track. To me, it holds only a small portion of my life. I like music. I like art. I like feeling my heart melt as I sit at Filter Coffee House, listening to Bon Iver and pouring my life out into a red, Bible-sized notebook filled with graph paper.

Embarrassed, I thought if only they knew me, they would want nothing to do with me as I replayed the toxic tape once more: "I don't like the way you live and don’t feel like associating with you. I was just blind to the way you are I guess. Sorry man."

To liberate myself, I had to be there. I had to be sitting with my friend staring at him in silence, scrambling for the words I wanted to say. I had to release those tears that I kept tucked away.

Finally, I said it, chiseling at my walls: "I have this gay struggle." Seeing a perplexed look on his face, I continued, "It plays into so many areas of my life, and I don’t know what to do. You have no idea." I vented about past problems with my father and betrayals by friends, the reasons I had these walls.

Time finally started to pass, and we glanced at the clock. It was two minutes past 1:30pm, and we were late to class already. We parted ways, and there it stopped.

We didn’t talk for a while. I’ll blame it on busyness, but I still take it personally. The next week was finals week, loaded with studying. After that, school was out, and he was gone. Our conversation was never finished, and I almost felt it again, abandoned. The walls still remained, and I continued with my normal pattern, reservation.

A month and a half later, my phone rings. He called, and we caught up, on the surface level, getting nowhere, but at least I knew he didn’t completely leave me, shutting me out. At least, he contained an ounce of compassion, but hollow words only last so long.

Walls (Part 3) -->

Walls (Part 1)

The rain splattered across my windshield as my wipers raced to remove the thousands of droplets so that I could see. Portland, Oregon tends to get a little wet. My hi-beams guided me through the old country roads; so far out they lacked streetlights. The night felt sinister.

I was on my drive home from my high school small group when I decided to text a good friend of mine. For about a week and a half, this friend had been treating me very differently.

---
I did my devotions before school everyday at the coffee shop just down the road from our high school. Around the time I would finish up, my friends would come and sit with me. He would arrive later, order his quad-shot caramel latte, and sit with us. He stopped.

During lunch, we and a few of our other friends would go off-campus, grab some food, and bring it back to the school’s parking lot. My friends and I would sit in the back of his lifted Ford Ranger, eat our lunches, and have a good time. These days, they left without me.

He distanced himself from me and stopped talking to me. I wished it had been something different, but I knew exactly what it was.

A week and a half prior, after failed attempts of calling my mentors, I felt overwhelmed by shame and said some words to him that I still regret to this day: “Dude, I messed up. I did something with a guy.” He had known that I was gay for about a year, but the whole time, we had been trying to get me a girlfriend. We failed.

He said he was busy, and he quickly finished our conversation. There, I began my descent, and as soon as an earthquake crumbles a bridge, we got to where we were, distanced.

---
A message came back and finally, I understood what he had been trying to do. His words tore me like lion devouring its prey.

"I don't like the way you live and don’t feel like associating with you. I was just blind to the way you are I guess. Sorry man," I read on my dimly lit iPhone screen.

My eyes began to water as I continued my drive back home. That night, I didn’t sleep. The blow to my already flustering guilt drove me into one of the lowest points of life.

“If that is what I’m to expect from my best friend, no one will know this about me. I’ll figure it out on my own,” I would tell myself.

These hurtful words provided the perfect foundation. On this statement, I built my walls. I pulled myself away and removed my loved ones from one of the most vital pieces of my life.

Starting from the ground up, I laid down a brick of rejection, followed by a brick of shame and a brick of depression; and the self-loathing-based cement held them firmly in place. Soon enough, I cut myself out.

Walls (Part 2) -->

Pain In Sincerity

It’s two o’clock in the morning, and pinholes of light pierce the dark night sky. The melodies of Arcade Fire trickle from his speakers, and the sounds of somber crashing waves climb up the cliffs and reverberate throughout his car. From time to time, we have done this. From time to time, we have late night conversations, but the essence was different.

Before, my brokenness bound me with impenetrable grandeur walls, leaving others wandering the deserts of my soul as a thirsty nomad, waiting for a drip of enlightenment. But this night, we talked about how far I had come. Those walls had finally come crashing down, and I finally started making sense of who I am.

The conversation flowed, and I started piecing together more parts to the puzzle and finally made the connection.

“I can’t do this,” I thought to myself. My selfish actions had already hurt him, and I knew hurting him more would be excruciating. After I had already crushed him, I had to destroy his hope.

A lump of anxiety grew in the back of my throat as I scrounged for words, debating my statement’s worth. Absolutely. I pride myself on my honesty. I had to be honest. I grabbed my head, looked down to my feet and, like vomit. Out. It. Came.

“Sorry, I don’t feel the same way anymore. I’ve moved on,” I stated as I slowly looked over at him, knowing the words would not be taken well.

The anguish on his face peered into my eyes as his feelings of rejection washed into my core. My heart grew heavier with each second we held eye contact. His soaking eyes spewed guilt into my being, where it still continues to writhe.

Breaking someone’s heart hurts. It hurt me to have hurt him. It hurt encountering the pain of acknowledging that I am the source of pain for someone I still care about as a human being.

Greater than that pain, though, is realizing that he offered me the most genuine gift he could have, himself, and I denied it. He deliberately and dangerously offered me the gift of his affection, and I had to say, “No, thank you.”

At times, the price of honesty is brokenness. At times, we don’t want to hear it, but at least this conflict is derived from genuineness instead of insincerity. Genuineness presents the situation as it truly exists, independent of blind-hope that wrongly guides a victim to the flourishing of his pseudo-optimism.

The hole that I dug with blind-hope got deeper with each interaction. Every shovel full of dirt and dishonesty piled into one towering mountain on which he stood, making for one flattening fall when I finally realized what I had been doing.

Sincerity inhibits that hole from getting deeper and that mound from getting higher. Sincerity makes that fall slightly less miserable, slightly less traumatic. I would much rather know that I’m pursuing something genuine rather than blindly chasing something that fails to exist because once I reach the mountain’s summit, it is one shredding descent down the abyss to come.

Liberation and the New Way

Each year since I was thirteen, I’ve made the same New Year’s resolution. I would look up into the night sky and watch the streams of light launch into the air and glimmer in their glory as they illuminated my face. Imagining the lights as glowing dandelions, I would dream and wish, “I’m going to fight so hard this year that these gay feelings will go away,” dreaming like a goal, or more overpowering, a covenant.

With many resolutions, we tend fail and forget what we were trying to accomplish. We allow our negligence to fight off our will and shoe away our determination. With few resolutions, they evolve into a life’s mission, enticing the very fabric of our minds. These resolutions are like weeds, burying their roots in our tender thoughts. These resolutions, we do not forget.

This resolution became my life. The next year would come: “I’m going to fight so hard this year that these gay feelings will go away.” I continued to fight for its sake, but the consistency of my determination generated the very consistency of my feelings. They never changed. I never changed. Pseudo-hope filled my pillow with hopelessness as I laid on my bed, the same ol’ Sean, depressed and weeping.

Encountering God’s love -- His love displayed through all people -- finally drew me to a resolution, my resolution with the present. Until I was freed from the enslavement by the present, I could not look ahead. Now, I embrace my unique alignment within this world and can face my future and this year, a year different in every way: full of new people, new experiences, and new identities.

This distinction calls for an alternative resolution, a resolution wrought out of hopes for a new future and love for my community. An intentional resolution where my happiness does not end with me. A committed resolution where God’s love reaches beyond the confides of my body. A welcoming resolution where all can discover they are first and foremost sons and daughters of the Lord Most High.

Jesus calls us to love; that is what I plan to do with my year. Leaving people where I had been left over the last several years of my life is a gruesome act. Leaving people without love is inhumane. The first step towards resolution requires love, and experiencing love requires a hospitable environment.

I want to create a place where my friends and I are welcomed and presented the love of God, where they are embraced and introduced to their design. This year, I aim to love others, helping them discover where they can participate in this community, their design in the greater Kingdom, for each individual has a distinct role in this network called life.

The Greatest of These Is Love

December nights in San Diego can get surprisingly cold from time to time. After throwing a thermal over my t-shirt, I pulled over the thickest sweatshirt I could find and slid my jeans right over my warm sweats. In the process, I remembered a pair of purple wool gloves that I took from Mama Lewis just before I left Oregon and covered my hands. Opening the door, I turned to my roommate sitting at his desk, dreading the difficult conversation to come, I mumbled, “I’m going to tell Steven.” Walking out the door, I heard an empathetic “good luck” slipped through just before it closed.

Tentatively glancing up the staircase, I sighed and started dragging my feet, plopping the thousand-pound anchors on each step. Once I finished yanking my apprehensive body to the entrance of my dorm, I saw my good friend, hands in his pockets, slowly walking over from his dorm just across the parking lot.

Steven and I had known each other for two years now and had been close friends over the last year. We’ve had countless conversations before but none like this, none so personal. I would say some of them were more like intellectual debates while others were primarily silly disagreements for the sake of optimism and pessimism. So I knew exactly how he would lead conversation, deeply clinging to Scripture with primarily conservative ideas. He’d call me an idiot and tell me I’m wrong, leaving me exposed, naked, and once again, abandoned.

While I silently hauled my lifeless body up another set of stairs, he coolly scaled them beside me, waiting for me to initiate something. As we got closer to the top of the stairs, pressure began to swell, pressing on my soul and bawling for freedom. After building it up for hours upon hours, I couldn’t suppress the pressure any longer. The words were violently pressing on my tongue, and like a long-dormant geyser erupting, I opened my mouth: “Steven, I’m gay.”

Silence filled the air as my heavy words lingered above us. Nothing. We took a few more steps. Nothing. Where was his outburst? Where was his reprimanding? Where was the condescension? Pure silence. For a moment, we stopped walking, and I looked him in the eyes. Looking at me as he faintly squinted and gently flexed his forehead, he responded.

“Okay.”

One simple, four-letter-word response: “Okay.” A straight-forward, “okay.” Not a disgusted “ooookay,” not a terrified “okaaaay,” or not a scoffing “oookaaaay.” Just an abrupt “okay” without contempt, without judgment. A mellow okay of considerate curiosity. A conscious okay of intentional acceptance. A moderate okay of hospitality.

Indirectly, he invited me to fill the conversation with my experiences and my thoughts, liberation. My burden of rejection dissipated into the illusion that it truly was, and I realized that I was wrong. My presuppositions about him and my ideas about his character were wrong, elaborate fantasy that could not last in the presence of love.

Sometimes, we’re just wrong. We respond to the world with what we think is best. When friends come to us in times of sadness, we tend to encourage them with the words faith and hope, but these words fall short. Faith just left me wrestling with myself, wondering if I actually believed. Hope just reminded me of my hopelessness, considering the worthlessness of life. Independently, they're insufficient. By themselves, they’re powerless.

It’s love. When a person is waiting to be belittled and unheard, love keeps the dialogue open for the individual to fill with their self, with what weights their heart. When a person is ready to be torn to pieces, love creates space for them to process with you, free of judgment. When a person is on the brink of quitting, love shows them that they are not alone, that humanity is designed for community. When a person is about to give up, love invites them to stay engaged in the ongoing, perplexing conversation that is the concept of God. It. Is. Love.

As we walked back to where we started, the conversation began to dwindle. With his flawless conclusion, Steven comforted me: “Sean, you are my friend, and I still love you.” Following my gratitude, he topped it off with a hug, and to my surprise, my life was changed. He had done it all. Through love, I discovered faith. Through love, I discovered hope. Through love, I discovered God. Love won.

Who's Saying Grace?

Today, we had another annual Christmas dinner in the small town of the Dalles, Oregon with my mom’s sister’s family. Yes, my aunt. The family of atheists. Christian-ridiculing atheists. Every year, my family and I make our way to their house. Every year, we say grace before dinner. Every year, either my father or I do it. This year, it happened differently.

Our two merged families, totaling ten bodies, gather around the table. It had be several hours since our last meal. We’re getting hungry. We’re getting antsy. So, we end up ditching the traditional course distribution. As more food was taken from the kitchen to the table, everyone was standing around the table and gathering what they wanted and placing it on their plates.

My uncle is the first to gather his collection of food and starts digging in. A couple of us started giving him a hard time because people were still preparing their plates, and no one said grace. Seconds later, everyone is finishes grabbing their food, and we sit crammed around the table.

“Well, who’s going to say grace?” says my mom as she glanced at me, implying that I ought to.

I spout out, “Since Uncle Mike ate first, he should get to say grace this year,” curious because I know the agnostic he is.

“If I do it, it won’t be that great,” responds my uncle.

After reassuring him that it does not need to be perfect (and various comments of pseudo-prayers by others), we all hold hands and bow our heads, and he begins to pray.

“Thank you for this food in front of us. Please bless us and this meal… if You’re up there.”

If You’re up there... The words reverberated in my heart as I became silent, slicing my ham and taking a bite. I have spent thing year wrestling with the continuous belief in God, and he laughs off any of the beliefs. I respect him greatly as a wise individual, but really?

At our Christmas Eve get-together the night before, a few of us began a conversation on Mormonism. The talk is not as important as what I overheard him say to another girl in the conversation, “Everyone thinks their religion is right, but really no one knows. It just depends on where you grow up.” Taken aback, I sat silently in my chair. I’m here incessantly wrestling with the existence of God, and you carelessly blow it off. How is that possible?

What is it that makes me so attached to Christianity? Can I really explain it in such a way that a non-believer would find in appealing? Or make the connection for the agnostic? Is that on me or the doing of the Holy Spirit?

There.

Sit, Sean. Love. That’s your job.

We are told to love and be loved.

Here’s to spending time with my family and the ones I love, enjoying my community and participating in what really matters. Love. Merry Christmas!