A story, with love
For National Coming Out Day 2022. A post I first shared in November 2020. I’m glad God made me queer. If that’s you too, you are so loved.
I’d like to tell you a story.
Some of you already know this story. Some have a similar one to tell. Some will wonder why it needs to be told, and some will wonder why I didn’t tell it before. I think some will be glad to hear it, and some will be anxious, or angry, or saddened, or encouraged. And I hope mostly that some will listen; that telling it will mean offering space for listening.
Prologue
To you who’ve heard it, and you who’ve made it clear that you would want to, that my story is welcome, thank you. And much more, thank you to those who have told their own version, who live it out and have held, often with pain and struggle, as well as beauty and humour and creativity, space for these stories. So many have told stories that have made a way for mine, and in ways I know I don’t fully comprehend. I’m grateful.
And, I’m sorry.
I’m so sorry for any times I haven’t heard your story, haven’t honoured it, haven’t shouted it’s goodness from the rooftops, and haven’t been part of making space for it to be heard. I know I’ve done this, and I’ve done it in ways I don’t know too. Please know that I feel deeply the grace and gentleness and acceptance I’ve been offered, when I haven’t always offered it myself. Not lightly, I ask your forgiveness.
The story is complicated and painful and beautiful and - I hope - good. I hang on - sometimes for dear life - to being part of a good story. And I want to make good stories. So here I am. I’ve wanted to tell this one before, or to tell it perfectly, or to understand more of it before telling it, but here’s the thing about stories… They are for telling.
One day, you just have to begin.
Chapter 1
Back in the days of four TV channels and no catch up, I had my first crush. The leading fella in a movie musical that I won’t tell you the name of because it’s too embarrassing. And then a year later, the same movie was on again, and I wondered how I’d feel, seeing him on screen again. And it turns out, I’d feel my heart flip over the leading woman.
By my later teens, knowing for sure I was bisexual, I sometimes told others the story that this was part of who I am; but also, more so, told myself, and was told, another story. A story I’d absorbed most of my life. That this story of mine wasn’t good. That God didn’t write it. That to own it, that to listen to it, was to create something bad.
Chapter 2
From that moment as a child, watching that movie, I already knew how this story went, the narrative of what was required to please God, to avoid hell, to avoid harming others, to demonstrate love, even.
And so I was harmed, and harmed myself. I spent the next 25 years or so, telling myself a story of rejection, of denial, of badness, of being broken in an unacceptable way, of needing to change, and of fear. So much fear.
Fear of being found out, fear of expressing sexuality, fear of endangering others, fear of not being enough in a million ways. I was on the receiving end of, and told myself, a deeply damaging story. That I needed to let this go, ‘give it to God’, ask for healing, declare that being bisexual was not my true identity, not good. And - this is one of the most important parts of the story - and maybe the worst - there are ways that I told this story to others, as well as myself. By absorbing these things, by not speaking up, by withholding what should be given, by hiding my own story, by not listening fully. I was lost in the tangle of it all, but not without responsibility.
The pain and fear and loss that I’ve experienced is by definition bound up in complicity in others’ pain, fear and loss. I’m so sorry - and hope that sharing my story can say, if nothing else, as clearly as I am able, our stories are so, so good.
Chapter 3
My gut has always said God’s love for LGBTQ+ people is deep and constant. Increasingly, I was illogically sure, that while my own story should be severely edited, others were accepted. And I hope that my own love has been real and felt, I have wanted it to be. But many spoken and unspoken stories spilled onto the pages of my own. I internalised, was indoctrinated, turned myself inside out to try and make sense of it all, tried to rewrite my story while I was in the midst of it and wondered why it didn’t feel like fully living. By the time childhood me turned the page that said “here’s a beautiful plot twist”, it was too late. By the time teenage me tried to find a way to live this story, it was too late.
So... it’s complicated, and messy, and probably will always will be. How I’ve been hurt, the hurt others faced that I’ve not challenged or understood, the hurt I may have caused or not prevented. But somehow, in it all, the story kept going until here. Until now.
Eventually, not being able to be fully myself (in a multitude of ways) became too much to bear. Feeling only that I couldn’t stay where I was, I ventured into the unknown - and began to learn, somehow, being fully known.
Chapter 4
In fact, this wasn’t only about sexuality, and there are many other pages of stories, perhaps for another time. But I found myself washed up on a shore where equality and creativity in a million new ways were possibilities, and where, outside of the places I felt squeezed to breaking point, there was a spacious place. I started detangling, tentatively living, breaking free of the tentacles of whatever had been holding me under, and finding that the embrace of God was better and gentler and more real than my hopes had hinted at. That when my gut had told me that real life, real honesty, real pain, real questions, real stories, were good… it was true. Unsanitised and messy and life-giving and scary and embarrassing and joyful and bursting with stories, fullness of life was more. God was more. I was more.
So here I am. Somehow. With relief and uncertainty and grief and hope, and pride. Somehow, the real story held true.
Chapter 5
The story unfolded to pages where being bisexual was written in clearer letters. I started to let myself stop and read them. I showed them to others. I read them aloud. I listened to them. I gradually saw how this story, woven through the whole book, was true. Was good. And that I could live it, that it wasn’t finished.
And I gradually learn by heart the bit that says God wrote it on purpose. The work of a generous and innovative storyteller. An act of creativity. As a better writer than me said, the drunkenness of things being various. It is good.
Chapter 6
That’s what I say on a good day. There are days of doubt, and days of boldness. Days of hurt, and days of freedom. Days of confusion, and days of hope. Days of a wry smile, at what a queer kid I was. Days of sadness and of rage at the years lost. Well, to tell the truth, most days are all of these things. But still, I live into the story. And I wanted to share it with you.
The story is harder, and more messy, and more unknown, and probably better, than I’ve been able to tell it. I’m still smoothing out screwed up pages, deciphering obscured words, sorting and finding parts that have been hidden and written over. But. This is my story. This is who I am. This is what I have to offer, in the hope of holding space for other stories. In the hope of making new ones.
Chapter 7
If you’re reading this, and you’re a Christian who thinks this story isn’t a good one, I want to say that I’m glad you’re still reading it. And that I believe in making space for stories that includes listening, includes the awkward silences, and the holy ones, and the words that are hard to hear, and the ones that say things more perfectly than we could have imagined. So, if I can, I’ll keep sharing my story with you, and hearing yours, in the hope of making new stories.
I know the tales that have been and still get told, and that many believe they’re true, and tell them for that reason. But excluding and erasing and changing and retelling our stories, my story, isn’t the goodness we are made for. To say we are welcome while not welcoming the fullness of who we are, isn’t truly a welcome. To want our skills and energy and time, but not the gift of our sexuality, isn’t fellowship. To say we are loved, while rejecting us at the same time, isn’t acceptance. I messed up and was messed up by these pages. Not naming injustice, perpetuates injustice. Offering hope, while taking it away, makes the heart sick. Stories matter. And each day we tell them, one way or another.
We need new stories. When a story isn’t good, it breaks people. When a story isn’t clear, it is revealed in who makes up leadership teams, in content, in language, in assumptions. Half-welcome, rejection, denial of this story, is deeply harmful, costs years, costs relationships, costs joy and peace and freedom. Our stories get trampled in these things, and we daily try pick them up and deal with the marks and tears before they are knocked to the ground again. Our incarnate stories aren’t issues to debate or disagreements to accept all sides of. They are our lives.
Chapter 8
I’m deliberately not writing about theological arguments. I don’t need to justify being myself, my dignity and existence. But it is justified. I’m also better at stories than arguments, better at a lived theology. For 38 years, the storyteller has been gently writing this one, and I try, imperfectly, to join in. But there is clear and rich theology of the more academic kind, if you want to find it. Stories, if you want to listen.
Some of the people I’ve been incredibly grateful to hear the story of, to learn the theology of, are Jeff Chu, Sarah Bessey, Vicky Beeching, Emily MD Scott, Emily Swann, Ken Wilson, Mihee Kim-Kort, Liz Edman, Nadia Bolz-Weber, Laura Jean Truman, Jen and Sydney Hatmaker, Rachel Held Evans. People who have lived and written and told stories that have held space to tell mine. And so many others I know, or have seen from afar - I am in your debt.
I am convinced, the stories of fear, of division, of rejection, of erasure, of oversimplification, of us and them, of binaries and boxes and barriers, aren’t good. I don’t want to tell them, or make them. That doesn’t mean that I won’t listen and be in community where I am able, to live out the story I hope to create, that I won’t be in dialogue and have compassion, and try to offer the kind of welcome I want to find. But things that don’t carry the voice of the author, I also won’t say are authentic. I want us to create new stories and spaces for stories, together. To sort out our messy pages, together. To listen to the storyteller, together.
And I want there to be a different story than mine when a kid in your youth group casually asks your opinion on sexuality or a young person tells you they are choosing not to be themselves. I long for and want to work for spaces made with (not for) all people. Not that write people out of the story, silence and abridge, leave strongholds of oppression in place while people and their stories get lost and hurt and made smaller and shattered. Changing the narrative is urgent. Lives, and the fullness of the whole story, depend on it.
Chapter 9
The telling of this feels too serious, and in some ways it is. Though the story is good, the mess is still messy. But also, as it turns out, being yourself is better. There is freedom, there is peace, there is joy. There is fun. There is new life. There is more of the story to come.
Queer theology has been a gift. LGBTQ+ Christians have been a gift. Hearing and sharing stories has been a gift. Gradually expressing new parts of myself, moments of realising what fullness of life might mean. Words of affirmation and recognition and allyship and celebration. And the box of darkness, I hear that is a gift too.
Let me also say something important. My family have wholly offered love and acceptance as I’ve shared this with them. They led me on a path of faith that mainly focused on singing and social justice - the other stuff came from elsewhere. I’m grateful always for the extraordinary grace and generosity they show me. And also to my aunt, who trod her path ahead of me. And to you reading. You are now part of the story. All good stories should do that.
Epilogue
Some of parts of the story I’ve re-read, marvelling that I somehow missed them. Some I can barely see though a blur of tears - and remind myself that all good stories do that. Some I am just discovering. Some were there all along.
Some days, I walk down the street, and, amidst the grappling and grief and goodness of being in this story, of what has been and how it will turn out, I realise that there is also a new feeling. A feeling of being inside my skin, a peace that is holy. I am getting used to hearing words about my sexuality come out of my mouth, and the saying of them is in itself a creative act. Whilst carrying and detangling all the story has been, I hold onto hope that maybe I can make space for other stories, be part of telling new ones. Stories needed at such a time as this.
The last words are for you, tenacious, beautiful, faithful followers who are living the same kind of story. Especially if you’re struggling to hear your story over the clanging cymbals of false stories around you, especially if you aren’t surrounded by many or any people who call it good, especially in the moments of piecing torn pages together and struggling to find where pages fit and what comes next. Your story is good. Whoever you are, however your story unfolds; whether you tell your story loudly, or hesitantly, or in tears into your pillow, or words, or actions, or just in keeping walking. Your story is good. You are beloved.
Whoever you are, thank you for reading this, an unfinished story and a creative act. In a moment in time when our ways to share stories are fewer and more difficult. In a moment where living all of our stories is hard, and needs collaboration, and tenderness.
But when, like always, stories can create things. Here is mine.
PS References to Mary Oliver and Louis MacNeice and the Bible are woven in here. The rest is me. Please share if you feel this could help someone know their own story is good, that they are loved.
One last thing, a 2022 addition. I want to end each blog post with a poem. So these beautiful words are from Pádraig Ó Tuama. When he began to hope in something, something altogether other to the God who hated him, he wrote these words that the something else might say:
"What I needed to hear.
This is my gift to you, this springtime blooming, this endless moving from life to deeper life.
I will be your endlessness, your journey start and happy welcome home, your never ceasing, always shining moment.
Caught up in the wink of eternity you will be like you have never been before, always knowing a decade of sunset evenings and the softest of all dawnings to bathe your tender brow with healings of the deepest kind.