Sometimes serendipity occurs synchronistically. I was talking to a friend of mine who told me that, when he first realized he was gay, he thought he could shelve those feelings, or, as they say in the new musical, The Book of Mormon--that he could Turn It Off. He joined a Catholic religious community of men, which order he even led through twenty-seven abuse cases to resolve the awful crimes against children. At age sixty, he wrote a dating profile that got forwarded to the Bishop, and he was asked to leave the order.
Now, interestingly enough, even I--thirty years ago--would have thought to myself, "Poor man. Here he is trying to be who he is and is asked to leave his religious community for doing so, or--as he so beautifully put it--"freed by my lack of integrity and search for integrity." But look what time brings, for which I'm eternally grateful--a new improved perspective on my part.
Now, I'm certain that being asked to leave a religious order at which one has served for twenty-seven years felt to him like a rug had been pulled out from underneath him. And I don't mean to minimize the psychic terror of "coming out" not only in life, but especially after having served in a religious community for such a long time. But, today, I see what happened to him as something that God's hand was all over. I think his writing a dating profile was the catalyst that removed him from his religious order, but brought him more fully into a sense of his authentic self.
I remember years ago, a partner of mine's family was holding an integrated party of children at their home in the community of Hurricane (aptly named, near Wake Forest) in North Carolina when someone shot seventeen bullets into their front window. Fortunately, physically no one was injured, but my partner's father was resigned from his position of Minister at his church the Sunday that followed. Back then, in the 60s in the south, the sort of hate that surrounded acceptance of African-American people by white people was at full tilt as we began a slow, but more complete and organic sense of integration. Happily, with an African-American President of the United States, we've come a long way since then.
This gentleman's story seemed to spark in me a sense of genuine pride, be it gay or human. Another person, with God's help, has put himself (/herself) on the path to wholeness from which hope springs eternal. And that excites me. Happy Pride weekend, indeed!
