Thursday, May 31, 2012

What If Chruch Was About Goodwill And Not About Dogma?

When I was in college, I studied the writings of Paul Tillich, the German-American theologian and philosopher. I had the good fortune of being guided in my studies by a professor who had studied with Tillich while in graduate school at Harvard. Reading Tillich influenced how I view the world. When you pull back all the dense theological arguments and philosophical language, Tillich basically said that human beings act selfishly when they feel they live in a dog eat dog world. People lash out without regard to the feelings and needs of others when they believe it’s solely up to them to look out for their best interests. And, conversely, when they feel they are a part of something bigger, when they feel they belong to a community, that brings out their best instincts.

Tillich’s theology was interesting, but I simply don’t know if his ideas about being, non-being and God as the Ground of Being are true. I don’t know if he was right when he claimed that the Ground of Being accepts us as we are and that believing it--accepting acceptance as he would put it--sets us free. But it has been my experience that people who have friends and family who support them are generally happier and nicer people than those who have been subject to gross and systematic abuse. I’ve also noticed the same thing with dogs. Dogs who are loved tend to be friendly, and dogs who have been abused growl at you and bite.

I’m not sure we have to work our way through Tillich’s metaphysics or accept it as true to come to the basic conclusion that cruelty breeds cruelty and kindness breeds kindness. And Tillich himself would argue against turning his philosophy into a dogma. Even though Tillich did a powerful lot of theorizing about his Ground of Being, he insisted that God--assuming there is one--would necessarily transcend our thoughts and conceptualizations of God. And he claimed that doubt could never be overcome, and that doubt was a part of faith.

So I was wondering what if going to church wasn’t about standing up and pledging a loyalty oath to a specific creed or dogma. What if it wasn’t about trying to persuade others to pledge a loyalty oath to your dogma? What if it wasn’t about defining yourself as special, as “saved”, because you believe something others don’t? What if it wasn’t about trying to scare people by telling them they’ll be punished if they don’t believe what you believe? Instead, what if it was about fostering a sense of community and goodwill? And not because someone claims Jesus demands it or whatever, but because those who go simply want to live in a world where people look out for one another and not just themselves.

 

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Losing Old Friends To Homophobia

I recently lost a friend because she couldn’t find it in her to respect me as a gay man…an old friend, someone I met while in school. For a number of months she repeatedly attempted to challenge me with some rather extreme but, sadly, prosaic homophobic notions--gay people recruit young kids, being gay is a choice, homosexuality is caused by molestation, homosexuality is caused by domineering mothers and abusive or neglectful fathers, gay people are only interested in sex, there’s something wrong with being gay, gay people are not as decent as straight people, if only gay people would stop making such an issue of their sexuality, they wouldn’t be bullied or mistreated… She admitted that she had suspected I was gay for a very long time, but once it was out in the open, it became her habit to throw these accusations at me. It was like she was going up and down a laundry list she had gotten from The Family Research Council or Focus On The Family. And she seemed to think that her beliefs, fears, misconceptions were legitimate until I disproved them. Then she got angry because I didn’t give her any cover, didn’t excuse her bigotry. And I grew tired of her offensive questions and comments, especially when she started repeating herself and pretending that I hadn’t already told her the truth.

Before things turned ugly, I showed her something I had written, something about what it was like for me growing up gay. I wrote about how lonely and isolated I felt and how fearful I was of being found out. After reading this, she claimed that if I had told her when we were still in school she might have been a little confused at first but she would have understood eventually. And you know, I believe her. I believe she would have been much more open and less judgmental and supercilious back then. She’s not the same person I used to know. She’s changed.

I noticed that she was starting to become bitter and resentful a number of years ago. She is not happily married, she was unable to find a career that suited her, and she felt burdened by her obligations. I think that happens pretty often.

Young people can be moody, and they are sometimes rude to the adults in their lives. But on the other hand, young people are idealistic and they tend to be enthusiastic about learning new things. They are generally much more willing to consider new ideas and perspectives.

So what happens to us? Why do so many of us become bitter, self-serving and stubborn? I suppose most of us have more time on our hands when we’re young. Then most of us get married, get jobs and have kids. That doesn’t leave much time for learning and thinking, especially just for the joy of it. After a few years of getting up before you’ve had enough sleep, getting the kids off to school, going to work, coming home and fixing dinner and cleaning the house, you fall into a rut. Beliefs become more riged.

Maybe young people are more open because they instinctively know that they don’t know everything. Yes, I know they can be sophomoric, pretentious and arrogant. But isn’t that usually because young people are often desperate to be taken seriously? I think the arrogance of middle age can run twice as deep, and it can be many times more harmful. That’s because when we’re middle aged, we usually are taken seriously and we have power and influence.

Wisdom can come with age, but it’s not a guarantee. Many of us actually become more foolish as we age. And some of us take the hits that come with the passing years and conclude that there’s always more to learn and that we never really stop growing up.

I’m sorry that my friend got stuck along the way. I miss the hopeful, curious and compassionate person she used to be.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Going Home

Right before I was born my parents and sister moved into a little house in Oak Hill, West Virginia. It had two tiny bedrooms, a small living room, a kitchen, a bathroom and a laundry room. It was at the end of a dirt road and there were woods all around. Only one other house was in sight, the Johnsons’ house. The Gravelys’ house wasn’t too far away, but their house was hidden by trees. There were woods in front of us, beside us, and just beyond the Johnsons’ house. Behind our lot was an open field.

The Johnsons had two kids, but they were both a good deal older than me. The Gravelys had some teenagers, too, but my parents were afraid of them and insisted that my sister and I not talk to them. It was the late 60’s, and the Gravely kids and their friends had adopted the hippie style of dress, and they drove around in an old wreck of a car. My parents were convinced they were on drugs, and they believed this meant that they were wild maniacs. I’ll never forget waking up one morning and finding their old junker in the backyard. It turns out they had been out joyriding the night before and their car stalled…in our backyard. Yes, they had been driving around in our backyard. Maybe my parents had reason to be concerned.

I can remember how isolated that house was, how the house and the yard seemed like a private island. But as the years went by, the neighborhood grew up around us and it became much less woodsy. The trees around our house were cut down because the house was supposedly too damp. Several trailers were installed in the field behind our house. The farm at end of the road was sold and a hundred nearly identical houses were built on the land. The woods in front of us were cut down and at first two houses were built there, and then two more.

Even though our financial situation was very tenuous and we lived very modestly, we had a small, rustic cabin near Sherwood Lake. It was a family owned property. My father and grandfather owned shares, as did several cousins and a great uncle. It was built as a hunting cabin in the 50’s with a main room that served as a dormitory and a kitchen. There was no indoor plumbing or electricity, and the cabin didn’t merely seem isolated, it truly was. The closest town was over an hour’s drive away and you had to go down a winding mountain road to get there. When several family members with shares died, my father and grandfather believed they could never enjoy the cabin again, so they sold their shares--a decision they both regretted.

These two places were home to me when I was very young, and I’m sure that my desire to have a cabin in the woods is rooted in my experience of these two places. One place was lost and the other was transformed, so there’s a part of me that wants to go home again, home to the woods.

Sunday, May 20, 2012

I blamed those who call themselves Christian and use their religion, the religion of love, to spread hate and division.

Last night I had a disturbing dream. My father and I were in our car stopped at a traffic light. We were in a town or a city. There were red brick buildings several stories high all around, but the place seemed deserted. There were no other people around or cars on the road. My father was the one driving. And then all of a sudden a man appeared out of nowhere. He stuck his head through my father’s window, put a gun to his head and demanded money. My father calmly claimed he had no money. When the man called him a liar, my father asked me to look to see if there was any money in the glove compartment. When I opened it, my father asked me to give him the small writing pad and pen that was inside. I did, and my father wrote down a name: Richard R. Wright. As he wrote the name, my father calmly said, “You are Richard R. Wright.” The man with the gun insisted that wasn’t his name. My father replied, “Yes, it is.” And then he asked me, “Gary, do you know Richard R. Wright?” That’s when the man with the gun shot my father in the top of his head and killed him instantly.

I was shocked and horrified. I wasn’t afraid for my own life because at that moment I didn’t care any more. But it seems the man with the gun thought better of shooting me and ran away. As I sat there not knowing exactly what to do and hoping help would arrive shortly, I became angry, very angry. I blamed those who call themselves Christian and use their religion, the religion of love, to spread hate and division. I thought of how they make people feel desperate, alone and afraid. I thought of how they often show no mercy. I thought of how they are often unyielding, how they insist that they are absolutely right about everything and how they don’t want to hear anyone else’s point of view. I thought of how they gang up on people and justify each other’s aggression and hostility and make many of us feel like trapped animals in an unforgiving and uncaring world.

Then I woke up feeling rather sad.

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

The Company Of Friends And Strangers

I don’t know if there’s a god or not. I’m full of questions and doubts. But I’ve noticed that for me personally, my worries, doubts, fears seem far less important when I’m in the company of someone I care about. This person doesn’t have to be someone who will be in my life for very long. I can enjoy that feeling of togetherness for an hour or a day or a week. If it lasts a lifetime, then that’s great, but I don’t undervalue the chance conversations I sometimes have with strangers. When I was younger, the chance encounters sometimes included some hanky panky. I remember some of the people I’ve met and shared experiences with fondly. And I remember the feeling of peace and joy I had when I was with certain people. The encounters gave me hope and strength that sustains me even now.

I can’t help but feel that if there is a spiritual dimension to life that these feelings of connection help us see it, feel it, even if we don’t articulate a specific dogma or creed. That state where we stop asking all those pesky questions for which there is no answer that seems to satisfy everyone… To talk to someone, to laugh, to share a meal, to play a game with them, to watch a movie together, to hold them, to touch, and to have sex sometimes… These seem like good things to me.

It really bothers me, this idea of telling someone that they love in the wrong way, or that they connect to others in the wrong way, or that they shouldn’t want to be with certain people, or that they should embrace an abstraction, a dogma, a set of beliefs and shun a real and positive experience that doesn’t demand explanations while it is being experienced.