Whether you’re gay, straight, Christian, agnostic, atheist, confused, struggling, conservative, liberal, or whatever else, chances are that you at least sometimes feel left out. Or pushed out. Like you just don’t fit. Or like something’s wrong with you. Like you must be crazy or you’re going crazy or you will go crazy, if your head doesn’t explode first from all the voices jammed inside it — or implode from all the voices competing for it from the outside.
Like you just want peace and love but can’t feel anything but confusion, anxiety, hopelessness, and frustration inside you and around you. And even if you felt close enough to tell them, you don’t get any comfort or encouragement from loved ones. Or you get outright rejection.
I have been there. Many if not most of us have either been there, are there, or go there quite often. So you are not alone. And it gets better. Just ask this guy…
As we recently celebrated Coming Out Day, and although the day has drawn attention to LGBTQ people being bullied, I encourage you to consider that it’s also bigger than that. At risk of diluting the significance of Coming Out Day for all my LGBTQ friends, which I have no intention of doing, I want to take the opportunity to draw attention to all of us who are afraid to ‘come out’ and feel bullied when it comes to religion.
There are many metaphorical directions I could go with this. From drawing parallels between bullies with big trucks and small penises and connecting that with televangelists with big ministries; or poking fun at the religious establishment in general and making assertions of why “they” feel like they must defend “their” way because of their own insecurities. But I don’t want to digress with such generalizations.
Because we all feel left out or pushed out, and some far more than others to be sure — I was a late-bloomer, wasn’t a jock, identified better with girls than guys, and walked around singing Amy Grant or Erasure when everyone else was into Guns N’ Roses and Ratt. And with religion, although I’ve sometimes sat at the cool table, I’ve almost always felt very different, like I couldn’t relate because of my questions and doubts. And now it’s just more obvious with this blog and all. But it’s always been like that for me.
The fact is that the world of religion is no more mature than junior high. There’s an in-crowd as well as a back-corner table for weirdo rejects and ugly people. We say we welcome everyone, but we don’t. And that goes equally for conservatives and liberals. We say we love and just want to help, but as we bless with one hand, we twist arms with the other. We close one eye in prayer as the other glances up and down in pious judgment. We smile with one lip and gossip with the other. We turn our faces and chests toward Heaven in praise while turning our backs on “the other.”
And I propose that we do this because we all feel insecure and blind. I just wish we could all admit it to each other, and maybe then we can really be there for each other, present, sincere, open.
Until then, for those of us who are just struggling to keep up with the storm of competition that is humanity, and that is religion…for those who feel overwhelmed by thoughts of insignificance, overwhelmed by feelings of anxiety and hopelessness, and especially for those who feel like you’re all alone with no one to talk to, no one to trust… that is a lie.
You are not alone. So come join us: The Black Sheep. The sacred band of holy weirdos. We can make it better. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.
Unite.
*****
One more thing…
I know this is dating me, but I had mentioned how I loved listening to and singing Erasure songs. I want to share the lyrics of one song (among many from Erasure) that has especially comforted me in times when I feel like I have to hide my true self. It’s obviously about the coming-out experience of a young man, but I’ve always felt it deeply, not with regards to my sexuality, but with the many secretly held doubts and questions about faith, as well as other things that some internal or external messages said that I should hide because they might expose me as “different,” which might (and sometimes did) lead to rejection. I’ve been very glad for (most of) the times that I ignored those messages.
Hideaway
One day the boy decided to let them know the way he felt inside
He could not stand to hide it, his mother she broke down and cried
Oh my father, Why don’t you talk to me now?
Oh my mother, Do you still cry yourself to sleep?
Are you still proud of your little boy?
…
Don’t be afraid, You don’t have to hide away
The boy, he was rejected by the people that he cared for
It’s not what they expected but he could not keep it secret anymore
Far from home now, Waiting by the telephone
There’s a new world, You can’t make it on your own
…
Don’t be afraid, You don’t have to hide away
Don’t be afraid (Love will mend your broken wings)
Time will slip away (Learn to be brave)
Don’t be afraid, You don’t have to hide away.
– by Vince Clark and Andrew Bell, Erasure
Wow, what a post! Good for you coming out from your church. The video was overwhelming. My sister is gay and it tore our family up for quite awhile. Too bad there are no instruction manuals to pass out when we are born. For me it answered a lot of questions that made sense when she told me. How awesome that the councilman had the guts to be that vulnerable.
Beautiful my brother. Amen. You’ve spoken as a prophet and I feel this and want to live it.
Thanks for my dear friend and fellow black sheep, Jim Schoch who sent this post to me. He knows that this is the cry of my heart. I have been ‘coming out’ to some of our friends and family recently. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done, and also the easiest. It just takes so much energy to always have this hidden part of your life that you feel you can’t talk about. No one wants to hear it (christians)..they just want to ‘fix’ you!!
I have found that, like Lydia mentioned, that it has made me so much more accepting of other’s views that may not agree with mine. I have more love for ALL humans and can appreciate diversity.
Junior High? OH, the stories I could tell!! This past month has been a difficult one in many ways. It’s people like you, blogs like yours, that give me hope.
There really ARE people who are accepting and have love to give…I just need to find more of them! It gets discouraging … you can feel so alone…but it does help to be reminded that you are not crazy!
Keep writing this wonderful posts!!!
OH!! I should make this clarification. Our ‘coming out’ has to do with leaving the church. It ALSO has to do with our views of homosexuals. My good christian friend was appalled that i would not sign his petition and boycott Home Depot because of their ‘liberal views on homosexual’ and for supporting a gay pride parade, etc.
I’ve just about had my fill of the self-righteouness of people who are supposed to live by the teaching of Love your neighbor as yourself and then exhibit hate and judgement.
amen. thank you for showing up and sharing your love with us, teresa.
The good thing about Jesus (not his pretender followers)is that he says, Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy laden, and I will give you rest for your souls. It’s a claim that is testable. Come on his terms, with humility, and faith, and he will do what he says. I know it can be a deadly distraction to look at those who call themselves “Christians”, but come on, if you can see they’re hypocrites, unloving, unforgiving gossips who only care about themselves, then don’t you think God knows it too? They’re not fooling anyone except themselves. Don’t look at the pretenders, look at Christ. He’s perfect, and he’s able to do what he claims. That is, to give you peace.
Yeah, it’s part of human nature. There is an in-crowd and a pecking order at the workplace, in social clubs, at the airport, and on who is or is not invited to certain events in a social circle.
I’ve found that people who have been rejected often react in one of two ways: they go on to reject someone else or they become much more accepting of others. Sometimes one person will act one way at one time and switch to the other later on.
(I’m sure there are many other responses to that experience, these just seem to be the most common.
)
It took me years to come to this point, but I’m actually very grateful for all of the people who have rejected me in the past. As horribly painful as those experiences were, they taught me compassion, forgiveness and grace on a level that I wouldn’t know how to begin to replicate.
It also taught me to seek out those who are accepting. There’s more love in this world than meets the eye at first!