My friend’s neighbor’s roommate is one of the funniest black men I have ever met.  He was born in Dominica (not the Dominican Republic) and has a very funny Jamaican accent (don’t make fun of him though! he will punch you).  It’s difficult to figure out what’s funnier, the things he says, or the way he says them.  Anyway, through a bizarre twist of events that happened a few months ago, I ended up going with him and my friend and my roommate to McDonald’s. 

One of the reasons he is so funny is because he jokes about racism and other black people.  Things like one time when my friend asked him if he had his ID, and he said, “Because I’m black I took it?” Anyway, when we were getting dropped off outside our dorm when the trip was over, he said to me, “Lock your door, there’s black people out tonight!”

It’s easy for me to understand why a black man can dislike black people, because I myself do not like gay people.  Seriously- I do not want gay friends.  We are not good people.  (Haha…of coarse I mean “many of us…”  I would never say that about all of us).

The gay people that I’ve met during my life (with only a few exceptions) are not good people, they are people who care about one thing, and I don’t care what their excuses are because I have the same reasons to be messed up and I’m not.  Just yesterday I met exactly the worst kind of gay kid.  The one who doesn’t like religious people, who doesn’t like even gay guys that are religious, the gossip queen, that says things like “I can’t be held accountable for the stupid things I did when I was drunk,” the one who cares about little more then having fun and getting laid.  The one who gives the “gay community” a bad name. 

I would never be mean to someone because of this. I treat him the same way I treat anyone else, that’s my goal.  In fact, I wave and smile every time I see those lesbians that I partied with a few weeks ago.  But I don’t want to be friends with them.  I’ll still be opening minded every time I meet a gay guy or a lesbian, I won’t dismiss every homo based on these accounts.

I’ll just say I have very little faith in the gay community. 

The religious debate still bothers me though. I really don’t want to be the one to write it, since I’m not an expert, but I figure I should address it once so I can get it over with and then anyone who reads it will understand my jusification once and for all.  and since I don’t have anything else to write about today, (Big sigh…) here we go.

Leviticus 18:22: Thou shalt not lie with man, as with woman: it is abomination. (KJV)

There you go.  Proof that homosexuality as it’s known today is ok.  I’m guessing you don’t understand.

I didn’t for years.  It took a butt-ton of reading and bible study and prayer but now I get it.

Let’s start by talking about the laws of the Old Testament, many of which Jesus himself was accused of breaking.  There are three kinds:

a) The moral law.  Examples of these are the Ten Commandments.  These laws reveal the nature of how God expects us to live and get along with other people.  Such a law would never be anything isolated; they are repeated throughout the old testament and emphasized in the new testament (this doesn’t mean if you find and isolated moral law in the bible it doesn’t apply, it means you won’t find one, if it’s isolated it’s not a moral law). 

b) The civil law.  An example is: Lev. 19:19: Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woolen come upon thee. (KJV).  These were laws like state laws are laws.  Like “no food or drink in the library” is a law.  They don’t apply today.  Only the principles behind the laws apply, meaning civility, submission, and the golden rule are key.

c) The ceremonial law.  Laws like how to prepare a burnt offering.  The only purpose of these laws was to point foreword to the coming of the savior, Jesus Christ.  Therefore, when Jesus was born, these laws were no longer necessary.  Not even Jesus followed them.  The only thing we can get from these laws is that when we want what God promises we have to do whatever God tells us to do.

Because I seem to be neither the author of the Old Testament nor an authority on the subject, I can’t answer the question of which type of law Leviticus 18:22 is with a simple proclamation of “A,” “B,” or “C.”  I’ll therefore have to answer the question in the following way:

First, let’s look at the context of the sexual act between two men.  Prohibitions of certain sexual acts in the Old Testament were intended to be a means of distinguishing worship of the lord from pagan worship of idols.  In pagan cults, homosexual acts were part of idolatrous worship and had everything to do with the satisfaction of lust and nothing to do with love.  Prohibition thereof does not refer to monogamous same-sex relationships outside the cult that have nothing to do with idol worship.

Second, let’s look at the other part of the verse.  The as with women part.  The first time I read this verse (several years ago) this is the place where I figured a loophole would exist if a loophole did exist.  It turns out one does.  The way man lied with a woman (which I am aware means sex) during the time the old testament was written is definitely not the same way as man lies with a woman today.  Back then, acceptable sex happened only one way: male dominance and female submission.  Such is not the case in marriage today, or is not expected to be the case when a man and woman get married.

Therefore, if Leviticus 18:22 was a moral law, the morals behind it would be not to engage in sexual acts with a man the way sexual acts were performed with a woman (they must be consensual and within a holy union, no dominance and submission), and they must not be lustful acts of idol worship as part of a pagan cult.

If Leviticus 18:22 was a civil law, it would no longer be in affect today because homosexuality is widely accepted by individual and organizations, and while not every state and country has legalized gay marriage, very few prohibit same-sex relationships and sexual acts, no state in the United States prohibits sexual acts between two people of the same sex.

And if it were a ceremonial law, it doesn’t apply anymore anyway.

To say that it doesn’t matter what the context was, all that matters is that fact that it says “don’t lie with a man,” is to say that it’s equally wrong to wear clothes made out of two different types of material (good luck without polly-blends!) and planting two different seeds in the same field (that means no one can have a garden in their back yard that grows more then one plant).

I could also mention that there are exactly six places in the bible where homosexuality is mentioned (not condemned, mentioned) and 365 places where heterosexuality is mentioned.  It’s obvious who needs more supervision.

I don’t like when people say our sexual orientations are our true nature, whether they’re homosexual or heterosexual or whatever.  Our true nature is a sinful.  just look here.  If it was my “true nature” then it would be something I have to overcome, because it would be sinful.  Sexual orientation has nothing to do with “true nature,” rather, It has to do with lust.  Consider for a moment that heterosexual lusts are just as sinful as homosexual lusts.  So, what is a sexual orientation then? If it’s not “true nature?” I guess I can describe it as something not quite as set in stone as your race, but more set in stone then your nationality.  I like this quote, “sexual orientations are a gift from God and part of the marvelous diversity of creation.”  It doesnt’ matter what you call it. 

phhiew! writing that was exhausting!  But I had to get it over with.

Holloween was…ok.  That’s about it.  The whole day pretty much panned out exactly as I would have expected it to and I learned a lesson that I didn’t really need to learn.  I suppose I can write about it anyway.  Who knows…usually when I start writing something I feel differently about it by the time I get to the bottom of the page.

So…It started on Friday.  I could really go back farther, but I’ll start Friday.  First, after band I had to go to a KKY rush.  Well…I didn’t exactly have to go…I had to go if I want to be in the fraternity, and I do, so I had to go.  Kappa Kappa Psi is an honors fraternity.  It do have anything to do with fraternities in movies where there are crazy parties and people all living in a frat house with pizza stuck to the cieling…there is no such house with no such parties.  An honors fraternity is basically an organization of people who serve another organization.  For KKY the service is to the band.  You join by going to the rushes, exhibiting charecteristics that the brothers like, and being invited in by getting a “bid.”  Then you have to go through the top secret “process” in which there is absolutely no hazing.  Anyway, I went to the rush because I wanted to join.  It has a lot to do with the t-shirts that brothers get to wear.

After that me and my freinds from band who were also at the rush went on a “ghost walk” around campus.  It’s no balogna: Lock Haven is the fourth most haunted place in Pennsylvania.  There was a lot of bad things that happened here that we learned about on the tour, girls hanging themselves from the bell tower, people falling down elevator shafts, murders, and all the stories were true according to newspaper articles in the library.  We had this big guy in leather pants and these huge platform boots with spikes on them for a tour guide and he walked us around campus and into the buildings where people claim to have seen or heard or felt ghosts.  Anyway, we actually heard something that could have been a ghost.  When we went into the basement of one of the buildings, there was a loud pounding on one of the doors, and there was no one behind the door.  I’ve learned from TV that when you investigate paranormal activity you have to rule out all other explanations before you can claim it was something supernatural.  I say it was a kid who lived in that building and knew our tour was coming through.  He probably pounded on the door and ran away really quick.  But who knows, maybe it was a ghost.

After that I went up with my freind toby to his building up on the hill to watch Japanese horror movies (Tobes is obsessed with the asians.  don’t ask.)  And when he was checking me in (guests must always be checked in to residence halls) we bumped into the guy who gave us the tour, he was in front of us in line getting checked in also so he could visit one of his freinds that lives in the building.  Toby said Hi and we started talking.  He asked me what we were doing for the night, and I said, watching japanese horror movies.  “aaahh…” he said, as if something was cute, “night in? are you guys dating?”

I don’t know why it came as such a surprise to me as it did that someone would think we were together.  Tobes, being the strait one, was the first to jump in with the “We’re just freinds.”  When me and Toby were in the elevator after that he told me I had to have realised people would think that.  I told him I honestly never thought about it, and it’s true.  Now that I do it’s not a surprise.  But whatever.  Tobes isn’t the kind of person to care about it.  He wasn’t even upset.  We had our little japanese horror movie night and got the crap scared out of us by the japanese version of “dark water.”  It was pretty much the same as the American one only mysteriously scarier.  I think it was the subtitles.

So then we have the next day.  Real Holloween.  I was so busy that I really didn’t think about it all day.  Since I have to march on the field during the half-time show of the football game, getting my band uniform on and getting my instrument all set up and marching up the hill to the stadium (we go parade style all the way up the hill) and then being in the show and then marching back down and taking my uniform off and such other things took up most of my time.  It was as fun as every other football game (only a band geek could understand why such things as donning an uncomfortable uniform and marching around all day with a trombone and sitting in the stands playing stand tunes and also doing it in the rain could be fun) but had nothing to do with holloween or the rest of the story.

So then after that…it was party time.  I didn’t really care to go to any parties but there were two that all my freinds wanted me to go to.  I would have felt too pathetic if I just went back to my room and sat there by myself.  I couldn’t hang out with Tobes either because he went home after the game (he’s an education major, that means if he ever gets caught drinking he gets in big trouble and has to change his major- you can’t be a teacher if you have that on your reacord).  So I went with my freinds to the party.  I planned to dress like Donnie Darko, but I couldn’t because the jacket that I needed to wear was covered in mud from when I went spelunking a few weeks ago and I never got around to cleaning it off.  So I just wore the Donnie Darko shirt and a different jacket and I had to wear a bandana because I wore one under my uniform hat to keep it on (it’s too big, I head dreads when I was fitted for it) and I couldn’t take it off because then I’d have bandana hair.

So.  I’m at the party.  There was no alcohol there; there was a threat that someone would call the cops on the people who’s apartment it was so they didn’t have any alcohol there.  I decided to go there for that reason, even though most (NOT ALL- I am good freinds with the hippie, the jesus, and the 80’s chick at the party) of the company would be disappointing.  It was at a lesbian couple’s apartment; their roommates went home for the weekend.  All of my other freinds went to this party at a frat house, so they could get drunk

What actually bothered me most about the night was the lesbian couple.  I know they’ll never get on here and read this and I have no interest in maintaining any kind of freindship with either of them so I’ll go ahead and talk about them.  We played this game.  It’s late and I don’t feel like explaining it, but basically you go around in the circle and say things.  I’m not exhaggerating when I say exactly every word out of both of their mouths had something to do with sex with each other, or at least sex in general.  Everything.  I was wondering if they were capable of talking about anything else.  In fact by the time I left I was wondering if they did anything else.  Have a relationship mayble?  Who knows.  I seriously didn’t want to think about them having sex that much.  I texted Tobes and told him and he said yeah, that’s how he would have expected them to act.  The bad part about this is that every little sex joke that anyone says gets a huge laugh by everyone in the room (I guess sex is hilarious) and even though I don’t think what they’re laughing at is funny, it’s hard not to laugh, or at least smile, when you’re surrounded by people who are laughing hysterically, and of coarse I can’t be called a kill-joy or a Debbie-Downer (unless I was perfect: 1 Peter 4:3-5.  It’s something I’m supposed to deal with, not avoid).

Anyway…despite the fact that I was disappointed by yet another gay relationship making a bad name for the rest of us, and the fact that all of my freinds were drunk except the absent education major who used that as his only reason, and my phone vibrating all night with text messages that read something like “jpw’s ye kohjy” because the author was drunk, the worst part about the whole weekend is that I was not surprised.

The biggest surprise of the whole two days was that someone thought me and Tobes were together, and that only comes from me being naiive.  I guess I can find relief in the fact that when I look back on these nights, I will have no regrets, and when I really think about it I guess it’s never going to be things like wild parties or fake laughing at stupid sex jokes that I’m going to remember, it’s going to be things like Japanese horror movie night with Tobes and laughing at someone because he thought we were together.

Basically Holloween is a pretty mediocre holiday.  There’s not really anything behind it like the birth of Christ or the resurrection of the body that I can get into, I mean I know it came from that “all hallows eve” or whatever and it has to do with dressing up to scare off the spirits, but it’s really just about little kids trick-or-treating in a Power Ranger’s gettup (you’re welcome mom- that’s her favorite word).  And there’s also carving pumpkins and going to haunted houses, but it’s all pretty routine and predictable.  So predictable in fact that I don’t even feel differently about the subject now that I’m at the bottom of the page.  I never really thought I would.

I’m kind of excited today.  You know that moment of profound enlightenment that I’ve been waiting for since the day I was born?  Well I think it might just be here.

So I’ve been having some of my friends read my blog recently- some of them real friends and some people on the internet that I don’t know.  One of the reasons I started this blog is because I like to write but I was so lazy that I never really did any of it.  I figured this could be the initiative- if I had people checking up on what I wrote periodically then I would be more likely to write.  At first I thought it was just going to be the illusion of people reading what I wrote.  I didn’t think anybody actually would.  It turns out there’s a whole network of “wordpress” people (other people who have blogs hosted by wordpress) who actually do get on a read these things, I usually average about ten hits a day, and I don’t mean that to be bragging: what’s ten? A pretty small number compared to things like YouTube videos with millions of hits.  I mean it to say, there are people reading this blog other then my family members who know about it.  That’s pretty exciting.

Anyway, what happened was, I gave one of my friends the address here and told him to check it out, just because I like to know what my friends think, since I write about them a lot on here and they know the whole story behind certain things it’s interesting to hear their opinions.

So, one time a friend told me I should be a journalist.  It got me thinking, that’s really what I’ve been this whole time isn’t it.  I’ve been “journaling,” so I’ve been a “journalist,” right? I don’t know why it took me so long to realize it but I think I could really be a journalist.  I don’t mean working for a newspaper and covering car wrecks and break-ins and nursing home celebrations of 100 years of life, I mean maybe as a columnist for a magazine or as a free-lance kind of thing for different publications, the kind of thing that people like Hunter S. Thompson did (of coarse I’ll do it without the drugs and the guns).  That would be ironic because I would have to go back to being a communications major like I was when I came in, the only thing that would change is my concentration, it used to be media broadcasting and now it will be print journalism.

But!! What about seminary?  I’ve been planning to go to seminary after college and become a youth pastor, and I was considering a major in psychology because it would come in handy in such an endeavor.  Well, what I’ve learned from camp counseling is that God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called.  Think about me as a youth pastor.  I really don’t mean to brag or to toot my horn, but I could be awesome at it despite many personality traits that beg to differ.

The only thing is I kind of think there’s a certain age when youth ministry is no longer appropriate.  Really once I get to my late thirties and early forties my career as a youth pastor should probably come to an end, just because at that age I’ll probably get disconnected from the younger generations.  These aren’t things I can say for sure, obviously I don’t know what I’ll be like when I’m middle aged, but If it came to that and I felt like it was necessary to chose a different career, having studied something like journalism will come in handy.  I don’t really think it’s something that can get out-dated, like if I studied computer science or medicine they would have changed by the time I’m ready to use them, but things like math and English and on some level journalism don’t really change like that.  And that’s pretty cool.

So.  Next Wednesday at 7:00 (luckily that’s one of my two free hours that day) I will be attending a meeting about writing for the Eagle Eye (It’s the Lock Haven newspaper) and we’ll see how it goes.  After that I talk to my advisor and tell her I changed my mind yet again and I want to come back to communications (two weeks in I came to her and told her I was leaving it) but this time with a different concentration, and that I would also like to add psychology as another major.  I guess having two majors is pretty ambitious considering I already have two minors (I might drop German as my minor- I’ll still study it, it just won’t be my minor- what’s really the point of a German minor?) but it’s what I want to do and I won’t let her talk me out of it. 

But I’m not going to fantasize about these things.  I mean, about the rest of my life.  Do you know what I think the fantasy does? fantasy kills dreams.  I want what God has planned for me, not what I have planned for myself.  If (by fantasizing) I focus on what I want for myself, and only seek that, I might miss what God wants for me, or I might see it and ignore it.

Jeez.  I went from no direction at all to talk of a double major and a double minor.

My mom texted me the other day and told me to check out this article.  I texted her back, “That was interesting. P.S. I’m joining the army.”

I should clarify before I go on that I’m not really joining the I army.  Just army ROTC.  I won’t be contracted,  and I won’t be applying for any financial aid, so I’ll have no obligations.  I have no intention of going into the Army as an officer after college. 

Why then, do I want to join? I have several reasons but none of them are very easy to communicate.

I guess I should start by mentioning the whole gay thing and that “don’t ask don’t tell thing.”  The first thing I would like to say is that I am not joining as an act of rebellion to the rule.  But I won’t lie, doing something I’m not technically allowed to do will be kind of awesome.  My freind is in ROTC, and also GSA.  When asked if she was a lesbian, she said no, but that since she’s in ROTC she couldn’t come out even if she was.  I don’t really know what’s going to happen because of it, I mean everybody already really knows so…we’ll just see.  I mean if it ever matters I doubt it will be to a freshmen in ROTC it would probably only matter if I were to get contracted and intended to join the for real army.  I always used to be against the military because they didn’t allow open homosexuality, then I realised it was far more productive to be for such an organization.

Considering homosexuality already exists in the military just like it quite possibly exists everywhere else, I won’t be breaking any ground.  I heard somewhere that president Obama intends to end the don’t ask don’t tell policy.  If I think about it the only conflict I can think of that could arise from having gay people in the military is the whole shower thing, that they would have to be naked together and that could obviously cause problems.  I have a question…Why can’t people in boot camp take showers just like I take a shower in my dorm? there’s a row of stalls, and at the back of each stall is a shower stall, so when I step out of the shower I’m still in a stall with a locked door where I can dry off and put clothes on before I come out.  Is there something about that that won’t work for people in the military? Why is it so important that men and women take respective communal showers?

Are they worried that gay men aren’t tough enough? because I’m pretty sure gay men are still men…our bodies are the same shape.  also, women are generally smaller then us and aren’t usually as muscular but they are allowed in so what’s the problem?

Another reason I want to join is because I will learn a lot in the military strategies classes that I’ll have to take.  My Dorm building is right beside the ROTC house, so I see the ROTC kids out there sometimes doing really awesome things.  Like they’ll legit rapell up the trees with ropes and then go back and forth between the trees on the ropes.  That is so awesome!  I looked at the list on the LHU ROTC website of classes that I’ll have to take over the next two years and one of them was called “Adventure training.”  I want to be trained in adventures!! 

Another reason is I’m not really the kind of person that has such a loud voice like…in tough situations, you know what I mean? like I’m not really the person that would ever speak up, and I don’t know…on the website they talked about how you’ll get leadership training and you will do all of these charecter building things and I guess I just want to learn more about it.  It could never hurt to learn.

And then there’s physical training every Monday Wednesday and Friday morning at 5:30.  I know it’s wierd, but I’m kind of excited about it.  I’ve never been physically active in all my life, so it’ll be a new experience for me.

When I told my freind that I wanted to join, he said, “you know they’re not really accepting of gay people right?” and I said yeah…”and they’re like really hardcore partiers?” yeah…”and all the guys are like alpha-males with complexes?” yeah…”and all of them could kick your ass?” yeah…”and they do a lot of physical activity?” yeah…

There were others, but I can’t remember them.  The point is, I’m not naive.  I know what the guys in ROTC are like, I mentioned that the ROTC house is right beside Woolridge hall? that means most of the guys in ROTC live in Woolridge.  they’re my wing neighbors (my wing goes like this: handicapped kids at the begining, then the ROTC guys, then me and my roommate, and then more ROTC guys.  There are a few regular people mixed in, but you get the picture).  I know what I’m getting myself into, but I have reasons for getting myself into it.

I mean I already mentioned that I want to be more physically active, and that I’m interested in what I’m going to learn, but there’s more.  It’s easy for me to write things on here and it’s easy for me to believe them about myself, but only because these aren’t things that are tested everyday.  I surround myself with freinds that are accepting of gay people and say “right on David” about what I wrote on here the other day about “how I make it easy,” but I want to know that I am still like this when it’s not easy.  I have to know that I’m not all talk.  It’s kind of like I’m challenging my own principles to see if they hold true in real life and not just on a blog or in a discussion.

And if it’s hell I can quit at the end of the semester.

When I came back from class the other day the words “HOMO LOUNGE” were written on my door.  I know, I should be above blogging about such an act of stupidity, but this isn’t like most other acts of stupidity, it’s a new level of stupidity.

Because ya know…I’m not really sure how to take it because…I am homosexual, and this is where I sleep so…What else is it really?

With This in mind I’m wondering what the intent of the writer was.  To label the room?  Should I go to his room and write “Hetero Sleeps Here”?  Or was it his intent to insult me? If that were the case he shouldn’t have chosen “lounge.”  maybe he should have chosen “pig-sty” or “dive” or any such thing.  Or maybe he should have changed the “homo” to something that’s a negative quality about me…like that sometimes I’m lazy or that I can’t keep track of money well.

Just today I said this to my freind, “I found out that the people I go to bible study with don’t like homosexuality, so I keep going,” and she laughed.  This was the first act of stupidity by anyone in this wing, and I have no intention of being affected by it. 

I love it here at Lock Haven…because the majority of the people have absolutely no problem with homosexuality, and while those who do are looked down on by pretty much everyone else, they come around often enough that I have plenty of chances to be nice to them and to be unaffected by their stupidity.

Here at LHU they have this little saying: “LHU: where the boys are men and the girls are too.”  In other words, there’s a Butt-Ton of lesbians.  Seriously- I made the mistake of going to a party at the women’s rugby house.  I think I was one of exactly 4 guys there.  Don’t worry, I didn’t drink: I have no desire to be drunk and surrounded by lesbians.  wrong gender…wrong orientation…wrong fantasy…it was all wrong. 

After sitting there for a little while, I knew that these were either not christians, or were at least people who didn’t let their beliefs, if they had any, interfere with there lives (there are many places in the bible where is says believing means obeying.  To say “I believe in God” means nothing to someone who doesn’t allow God’s influence into their lives, therefore they don’t truly believe).  Of coarse I didn’t want to leave because of it.  I know that God works in ways we can’t understand, and that maybe I was there for a reason.  If not, I would have been able to feel it or something.  I mean, I can’t really say what I would have felt if God wasn’t trying to do something…because he was.

Anyway, I’ve met a lot of gay people up here.  Mostly lesbians…I can count uuuhh…four gay guys that I’ve met. Two people who say they’re “bi” and  two more that I’ve heard stories about but never met.  I can’t count the lesbians.  and there’s no way I can count all the times I’ve heard “she’s that one lesbian that’s…” or that “she” is coming or going or late because of or at home taking care of “her” girlfreind.  LHU even turns some of the girls.  I know two girls who were dating men when they came here, two months in they dumped them and started dating each other.  That was last year and they’re still together.  Not that that means anything about lesbian relationships or strait relationships besides proving that it wasn’t just a stupid thing these individuals did in college because they wanted to experiment.

Anyway, (jeez I gotta stop saying “anyway” but hey, at least i cut back on saying “anyways” because I learned It’s not actually a word) I’m in gay strait alliance at LHU, and I’m in Full Gospel Fellowship, the bible study group.  FGF doesn’t like gay people (this just gives me all the more reason to go: I love being nice to people who are against homosexuality; they never expect it and it always makes them feel bad about whatever they said or did.  I let no anti-gay comments or actions by any individuals alter my treatment of them.  That’s my rule) and the people at GSA, well…I wouldn’t say they “hate” christians, because the goal is to celebrate diversity, and that would be regressive; it’s more of a “We know you don’t like us so get out of here and leave us alone” thing. It’s not universal, it’s just the vague feeling I get when certain things come on the television and certain comments are made.  Little does either group expect me to be in the other.  Nobody expects me to coexist in both and I can say with absolute certainty that I am the only one who does.

People at GSA support me in my christianity…or at least they respect me. enough to say, go ahead do whatever you want, we won’t dislike you because of it.  They’re very liberal, or coarse.  They understand that for me to be gay and christian I must be a different breed.  People at FGF think homosexuality is a sin, but being progressive as they are they would never turn me away.   They just let me sit quietly as I sit quietly everywhere I sit and listen to the bible study, every now and then endouring such exchanges as “Can anyone name ways sins are ignored in our society?”  “Well the other day at work someone tried to convince me that homosexuality is just another form of love”  and other times when the pastor says things like “Everyone in here has a mother and a father, weather they’re present in your life or not you have both, and those mothers and fathers have mothers and fathers all the way back to Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve” (I can’t argue, it couldn’t have been Adam and Steve.  I would only protest the necisity of such an obvious statement in front of a homosexual when it had so little to do with the topic at hand, evolution; one might suggest it had nothing to do with my presence, he was just STF.*  If it were so I might ask why he chose “Adam and Steve” rather then “Amanda and Eve”?).

So it seems like I’m in conflicting worlds.  To say the least, the gay people here are not very Godly at all.  I mean, not the ones I’ve met.  I can’t say that I am either, but I can say it’s what I strive for.  Most homosexuals I’ve come across in my life tend to be full of lust; they might only be looking for sexual partners rather then life partners, or may be looking for life partners but will have unhealthy sexual relationships therewith,** which could mean sex before marriage, usually early in the relationship before it’s even serious, or any number of things.  It’s a common thing among homosexuals.  Yeilding to feelings of lust means instant gratification, and since many homosexuals have gone through a lot of greif and hardship when it comes to their families, their freinds, their relationships, their self image; the instant gratification is often worth more then the long-term rewards.  It’s not a problem unique to homosexuals, heterosexuals have problems that yeilding to lust brings instant gratification to, but for homosexuals it’s almost universal.

This leads many homosexuals down the wrong path.  Dealing with these issues of lust coupled with so often being rejected (or having the illusion of being rejected- thinking they will be if they try) by christian groups or organizations (or individuals)  who say, “You’re not good enough the way you are: change,” means that there are many who never find God.  When this is the case, only more problems arise and what’s the medicine of choice? unhealthy sexual relationships, drugs and alcohol, development of other mental disorders, basically anything awful, suicide, disconnection with freinds and family… bad things. 

This is what leads many people to think that homosexuals have low morals, or care only about sex: because so many of us do.  NOT ALL.  just many.  Homosexuals come in as many shapes and sizes as heterosexuals, as humans in general.  there is no mold that fits all of us.  I’ll just say I have made many gay and lesbian freinds, and sometimes I think, maybe this is the one that will be different then all others.  I always end up…disapointed.  It doesn’t mean I can’t be freinds with them, I can learn something from everyone and I can teach everyone something.  It just means when I ask my magic 8 ball if I will ever find such an individual, the answer is “outlook not so good.”  They exist; I’ve seen them on television, I’ve heard stories, I have freinds who have cousins who have freinds that are, but these are all places where reality and fiction go hand in hand.

So you might ask, what makes me immune? How does this not affect me?  I guess I’m just a rebel. 

See it starts like this: I need no acceptance of anyone but the lord.  I don’t need a church to sanction my christianity or my relationships or my orientation or anything about me.  I need no acceptance and I seek no acceptance.  haha life is more interesting when I’m denied acceptance: I find a way in anyway.  In fact, Romans 12 verse 2 says: “Do not be conformed by the world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.”  To me that’s God saying, “Don’t listen to anyone else, listen to me.”  so go ahead.  disapprove.  It will mean so little that I won’t even dignify it.

But this alone is not enough; if scripture alone ever were we’d have a lot more christians.  Even when meanings are clear. motivation to act is usually lacking.  For me it has become easy, The more I study the bible and go to church and pray, the less I want to disapoint God.  It’s that simple now, but it hasn’t always been. 

The truth is, what really makes it easy is that I guess it’s just my nature to want to be different then everybody else.  not in such a superficial way that I would change something about myself just for the sake of anti-conformity, and not so overwhelming that if everyone were to join me on my side I would leave it just to be different.  But when I look back, I can see ways that I did a lot of things differently then most people.  For example, in junior high I rode a unicycle to school everyday, in high school, I lived miles away but never once rode the school bus, I have no desire to “chill out” in a coffee shop (what is so chillaxing about coffee shops?? And what on earth could one possible be doing on a laptop in a coffee shop?? work? with a coffee shop to cause a distraction?), the hood of my car has a mural painted on it.  It’s never things I do on purpose just to be different, I find that quite pointless.  It just works out that way a lot and I embrace it when it does.

I guess I just find it exciting to be different and not even really have to try.  That’s why it’s easy for me to be both gay and christian, to care so little about the acceptance of others and focus on the acceptance of God, to be proof that a homosexual can care more about a real relationship then about sex, to turn down alcohol at parties and leave at the  first sight of marajuana,  and that it’s possible to be on top of any negative situation.  I quite like my life.

However, it was under such a bizarre set of circumstances that I came to these conclusions.  It’s a result of having been in the right place at the right time, and having been in the wrong place at the wrong time.  Having been influenced in the right way by the right people, and having been influenced in the wrong way by the wrong people.  The chances of many others having similar experiences and coming to similar conclusions is very slim, and that gives me little hope for the rest of the gay community.  That’s ok.  progress is progress.

It turns out I was there for a reason.  As I sat idolly on the couch while the party went on and my freinds that I came with abandoned me to my idolatry as I’m so used to (I don’t mind, if I did I wouldn’t come.  I like sometimes just to sit and watch other people, I’ll not get upset about such things), I met another unfortunate idoller. Something I’ve learned about myself is that I don’t choose my freinds, my freinds choose me.  In other words, striking up conversations is not my forte, luckily it was his.  I can’t remember how the conversation started or how it got to where it went, but he asked me what I want to do after college, and I told him I was thinking about seminary.  He was surprised (having known that I was gay) but was respectful.  This led into a long conversation about faith and acting on your beliefs as opposed to idolling in them (I don’t think I’ve ever used so many versions of the word “idol” before this paragraph), and understanding the context of certain scriptures that reference homosexuality which many people have used as proof that homosexuality is a sin.  I’m not naive enough to think that I turned his life around by that one conversation, but if we’re not more then the combined influences of others, I must have had some effect.  If nothing else, I had a nice time talking to him and I made no mistakes that night.

*STF: stating the facts

**I was so proud of myself because I thought I made it up, but it turned out to be a real word

I have to admit this because I’m so ashamed.  I spent more time writing this post then I have on any other post, proofreading it, making sure all the I’s and first letters are capital, that I used the right word between affect and effect, your and you’re, their there and they’re, that all of the sentences with (these things) read the right way, that I always used the word “many” over “all” and “usually” over “always and other such things, but I spent more time trying to get the words “real word” to be clickable then I did on the whole thing; and in high school I even took a semester of HTML.  I told you high school was useless. 

You better click on them!!!

Anyone who went to Chambersburg High school knows that AT&T is just not the carrier to get.  I can remember sitting in class trying to send a text message over and over again, always getting a message sending fail message because there was no service in most rooms of the building.  Verizon was the thing to have- at least three bars everywhere in the building and that’s more than enough to send a text message.

Something upset me the other day when I was sitting in intro to Lit.  Not like literally upset, more like a “i can’t believe this is really happening to me” upset.  I mean, I don’t want anyone to think I sat there and cried about it.  no, i do more productive things when i get upset about things- i come here! haha no just kidding that is exactly what i try NOT to do.

That was all very pointless.  You see what happened was as I sat at my desk I tried to send a text message to my dad.  I can’t remember what it was about, we text all the time.  Anyways, I couldn’t get the stupid thing to send and as i sat there i said outloud to the girl in front of me something along the lines of “i wish i had stupid service in this stupid building.” and she turned around and said “who do you have?” and i said “At&T” and she showed me here phone and said “I have verizon and i have four bars.”

Can you see how this would make me upset!? i just want to be like “really!? I’m here again!? NOOOO!!”

And you know what else? When i was a sophomore and a junior i had just the worst acne in the world.  i used to hate it when people would get upset over one little pimple, because i would think, if you can’t stand just one little pimple what do you think of me? i was literally just solid pimple.  they were everywhere.  if you don’t believe me just ask me to show you my driver’s license, that was junior year right in the middle of the worst of it.

I seriously used to stand in front of the mirror in my bathroom forever and be poppin pimples and pickin scabs and squeezing nastiness out of freakin huge pores and then pushing wads of toilet paper on my face to stop the bleeding- it was miserable.

then I got on this awesome stuff called acutane and it got rid of the acne strait away.  I could not have been more happy to wake up and not have to worry about stupid little pimples being all over my face.  coarse there were still scars, but i could deal with that.

But now here I sit, in college, with acne again.  Not as bad, definately.  But just the other day I was standing in front of the mirror poppin a freakin pimple, and just like i did in intro to lit i said “really? i’m here again!?”

Seconds after i almost went down into a “I’m still the same person i was in high school” spiral I realised something- i need to take control of stupid things like this and not let them affect me (a action a affect not effect that’s how i remember) like they used to.  I can’t always change what happens to me, so I can only change how i feel about it. It turns out cliches only take meaning when you can apply them to your life.

I mean, I’ve made so much progress in the five weeks I’ve been here.  I made a lot more freinds then I thought I would make, I’ve been doing all of my assignments, and everything is great.  Acne has NO BUSINESS bringing me down! so I looked at myself in the mirror and I said, “I look distinguished.” and since then I have not let a stupid pimple ruin my day, or even my minute.  Maybe a few seconds, but i’m working on it.

And I’m not gonna cry because I can’t send a text message when i’m sitting at my desk in intro to lit and it reminds me of how sometimes I couldn’t send a text in high school.  Am I so stupid to think that the facts that there is no service in a high school in chambersburg and that there is no service in Raub Hall at Lock Haven university have anything to do with each other? It’s a coincidence! and guess what, lots of people have verizon.  Why do I care that the chick in front of me has it too.  These things mean nothing.

I really hope this “i’m on top of the world” feeling lasts, but if it ever doesn’t, I’ll just bring it back.  I’ll feel how I wanna feel.

I want to talk about what God did for me.  Because it’s really real.

Ever since I came here and started going to the church up here they’ve been talking a lot about being thankful to God all of the time.  Even before I came to Lock Haven they were talking about it in Chambersburg, I remember it.  For graduation my pastor gave me this book called God Calling by anonymous and it said you should praise God and thank him all the time.  it should be constant- it said you should look for things to be thankful for.  and I know it’s possible because there are a lot of people who look for things to complain about and ya know it just has to work both ways.  if you can find something to complain about you can find something to be thankful for.

Kinda like all my life i looked at the miracles that God performs as things that happen to other people like on tv and stuff.  But if i look at my life i can find miracles. real ones too.  just as powerful and meaningful as healing the lame and making the blind see.

ok.  First let me just say, last week was a LOUSY week.  i’m not gonna go into detail because i don’t wanna be a debbie downer or a betty buzz-kill and ya know I can’t just get on here and talk about things between me and some of my freinds- even if I wanted to, but there was a lot of drama between me and one of my freinds and it had to do with things like jealousy, low self image, ungreatfulness, and selfishness.  honestley, I cant remember a time when i felt worse.  It was just sucky.  i felt kinda like depressed and i just didn’t feel like doing things that i knew would cheer me up.  i just wanted to sulk. 

But here is what i did.  The most obvious and simple thing that i did was pray.  i really didnt know what to ask for so i just did this thing i learned to do at church camp where you just open up a figurative channel in your mind and there’s like a spiritual connection between you and God and there’s no words at first (or at all) and things just start to happen.  you can sort of feel it. 

And when i did use words i just expressed that i would really like this thing to come to whatever conclusion he would like it to come to.  I thought about the negative feelings that i had and i handed them over to God so he would know just exactly what i was talking about.  I used to think, why should i do such a thing? he knows what i’m feeling!? but then i read a passage- i wish i could remember what verse it was- but it said, you have to ask God for exactly what you want, even though he could really just find out for himself if he wanted to.  It really did say you have to be specific.  so i said God, get rid of “These” and i handed all those crappy feelings over.  I told him i want to enter into this “peace” or “rest” i’ve heard so much about.

So then the next day in church the pastor said just exactly what i needed to hear.  In fact he talked about when he was younger and he described the same problem that i was having with my freinds.  He then said that the image of “God’s peace” that we have in our heads is off.  when we think about things related to God we have to remember that his ways are not our ways- we should never go with our human instinct based on earthly persuasions.  He said we look at entering into God’s peace and rest as like going into a quiet room somewhere and meditating and finally becoming content within ourselves.  NO. 

now that i think about it i can see that that is absurd.  What good would that do anybody?? who would it benefit? me? uuh selfish much!? God wants us to help others he doesn’t want us to just go into a room somewhere and be at freakin “peace.” can you think of anything more useless? remember- his ways are not our ways.  to him, being great means being humble.  being rich means giving away.  helping yourself means helping someone else.  making love means keeping your pants on.  and if such are true, than being at peace means doing a lot of work. 

I mean two things by work.  the first is easy.  It’s physical work.  helping someone.  Who cares if you have whatever problem? you can find a way to help someone and there is no reasonable excuse not to- everybody knows that.

But the other work is more intrinsic- and what i needed to do.  God asks us not to be jealous when someone else has what you want.  he asks us not to get mad when someone does something horrible to us.  he asks us to humble ourselves when we really think we should be on top.  he asks us not to feel lust when someone really hawt walks by.  but sometimes we can’t help it right? WRONG! you know sometimes when i sit down at my desk to do homework, i get this feeling that i really just don’t want to do it.  do you know what i say to that feeling? PLLLSHS! i spit on it.  and that’s what i can do to all of those other feelings to, and so can anybody.

And sometimes i think that it’s healthy to feel those feelings, or that in some twisted way it will do me good.  i mean, sometimes i just want to mope around for a while, when it’s been a really sucky day like some of the ones from last week.  But that’s when i have to realise that if i trust God, believe in him, and OBEY, everything will work out as God wants it to.  And he wants things to work out for me.  he wants things to work out for everyone.

And Isn’t it sweet that God helped me realise these things right at the very moment when i needed it the most?  OH! what i have to be thankful for!  I prayed and my prayers were answered.  perhaps i haven’t described them in such a way that’s easliy understood, but i understand it in a very concrete way.  none of this figuritive stuff.  this is real.  Once he showed me that all i have to do is ignore any of these negative feelings that i get and just slap on a freakin smile even when i’m not feeling it he showed me all kinds of things i have to be thankful for- i mean, my dad has called me on the phone before and said “Do you need us to send you any money?” even when i wasn’t having problems.  he just emailed me today and asked me if i needed him to bring me anything when he comes up next weekend.  I talk to my family on the phone.  i have a crapton of food in my room.  i’m writing on this awesome laptop.  im freinds with my roommate.  i go to college.  i have a lot of shoes.  i play the piano after lunch sometimes.  Im going cave diving on monday.  Scuba diving on tuesday.  I ask God a question, and he gives me the answer.  OH!! what i have to be thankful for!!

I don’t mean this to brag, i mean this to praise God. to say how greatful i am that i get to be this blessed and the reason i have to say it is because it was just another thing that helped me realise, i have not business being upset about anything.  there is nothing i have the right to be down about.  absolutely nothing.  so yeah, last week was a lousy week.   but this one will be better, i just had to bring God into the picture and he fixed everything just like he do.  how cool.  it’s a miracle, and i won’t forget it.

When I say “our” I mean gay people’s.

For a while I thought that just because I’m gay means I should have gay pride.  That it meant I have to go around wearing gay pride buttons and march down the street carrying a rainbow flag and spit in the faces of bible thumpers.

Of coarse I soon realised that this was not the case; that there were no requirements or prerequisites or stereotypes that I had to fit.  In fact just until recently i was against gay pride.  The thing is, we keep telling everyone that this isn’t a choice (and it’s not), so if it isn’t a choice that we made, and if it’s not something we have control over, then what do we have to be proud of?

If that’s what gay pride meant then we had nothing to be proud of.  But I, as well as a lot of other gay people, misinterprited “pride.”  I understand now that we aren’t just proud that we’re “gay.”  that would be like me being proud that I’m 6 feet tall.  I had nothing to do with it.  

Instead, we are proud of overcoming what we have overcome.  I’m thankful that all those people fought during the seventies and eighties so that I don’t have to be scared about letting the people in this dorm know that I’m gay.  Some people would call me crazy for telling anyone.  Guess what.  this isn’t the nineties.  there isn’t anyone i’m afraid to tell, and that i’m proud of. 

and i’m proud that i had the guts to tell my family and my freinds.  and they were fine with it to (well…my freinds were).  However, i don’t have cause to be extremely proud.  all my freinds in school knew and at work knew, I didn’t ask anyone to keep it a secret so they probably told other people too.  and you know what? i was NEVER harassed.  In fact people at school thought i was cool because of it.  one time at work this guy came in that i had never even seen before and he started talking to me like a freakin creaper and then my boss came up to me and said “you better not bring your boyfreind around here again.”   that was the extent of the harassment i ever got (and don’t worry i told the head manager and she got in trouble for that).

And i really am sick of this arguement about it being a choice.  because first of all, if you want to know if it’s a choice or not, just ask me! i’ll tell you! it’s not a choice! yeah i had the choice of weather i was going to accept it about myself or weather i was going to hide it.  but why shouldn’t i choose the former?  why should i put myself through the torture of hiding it? what would be gained?

Lots of gay people probably don’t understand what they should really be proud of.  they probably think that gay pride means just being proud of who you are, when it’s really being proud of what you’ve done.  But all i can do is have what  i believe to be the right kind of pride and hope that other people have it too and then maybe someday everyone will understand.

The other day in FGF (full gospel fellowship- this bible study club that i joined) first of all i came in late because my roommate took his good old time getting ready and he has this really wierd thing where he hates being early so he always waits until the last minute to set out for somewhere… but anyway when i did come in, the thing they were talking about was condemnation from people vs. condemnation from God.

The “pastor” (he’s not really the real pastor but the real pastor was in europe so he was covering for him and leading the group that night) said condemnation from people was like getting hit on the head with a hammer, while condemnation from God was like getting pricked in the heart with a pin.

I understand it now, but i didn’t at the time.  I would have thought that if God condemns you it means your like going to hell or something.  I would think that would be worse then getting pricked in the heart with a pin.  And i also didn’t understand what I was supposed to think getting pricked in the heart with a pin was like vs. getting hit on the head with a hammer.

So i thought about it for a long time and i guess i kind of figured it out. 

in 1 corinthians 4 Paul was talking about his faith.  He was saying that he doesn’t care what anybody thinks about him, he said he doesn’t even trust his own opinion.  he said only God can judge him.

I guess this kind of means people- including ourselves- don’t have the power to judge certain things.  i’m not talking about judging weather a cake tastes good or bad or weather a pair of shoes looks hot with this outfit, im talking about judging ourselves as christians. we shouldn’t look to others for validation, and we shouldn’t give it to ourselves either, we have to rely on God.

But we can’t just “rely” on God to judge us, we have to do more then that.  When we pary we have to ask him to give us spiritual guidance, and then we have to listen to it and accept it.  we can’t be like no, i don’t believe it.  we have to listen to it and let it change us, because i don’t think god let’s us stay the same for very long, he wants us to improve.

so now i’m thinking about when we make mistakes, it’s kind of like our nature- if we feel bad about it and regret doing it- to say stuff like geez i’m such a screw-up or i’m so worthless- BUT we have to stop ourselves and ask ourselves if that’s how God would talk.  Would God say such a thing about us? at first you might think he would, if the screw up was really bad.

But consider that the lord doesn’t just give up on us when we make a mistake.  like, say i went out to a party Saturday night and I didn’t wake up in time to go to church the next morning.  and say like i had a group of freinds expecting me to go with them and I didn’t tell them that I was at that party.  I would probably feel pretty bad and I might hate myself for it.

But I shouldn’t, and i’ll tell you why.  I’m allowed to make mistakes.  In fact, God expects it from us.  he even says in the bible that nobody is perfect except for Jesus Christ himself.  In other words, my mistakes are not the last word on me: God offers me a chance for redemption.  A person might say to me, you’re such a F-up for screwing around saturday night and missing church and letting your freinds down.  but God would probably say something like, you screwed up, but it’s ok, you’ll do better next time, i believe in you.  And i guess that’s the difference between a pin prick to the heart and a hammer blow to the head.

A hammer blow to the head would just kill me, there’s no chance for redemption or for a second chance.  but God likes to forgive and forget.  he gives us another chance.  If our heart gets pricked by a pin we can heal, and we can become better people.  so we shouldn’t listen to any criticism from people and we shouldn’t criticize ourselves either.  we should rely on pin pricks.