A Child by Mercy

I went through high school trying to avoid confrontation with a group of my peers. Our house sat on a corner, at a main cross street in the neighborhood, so the school district chooses our corner as bus stop. The guys in the neighborhood would come each morning a wait for bus to arrive. Typical teenage guys, they joked a lot, and make fun of ethnicities, and especially homosexuals. They used “the word.” I spent a lot of time dodging that word. The “F” word… In that day, I understood it to mean one thing, and what it meant was hurtful and full of shame. It would be a long time before I would come to realize that such derogatory words are used to refer to many types of people living in many different ways. I am not a Psychologist, a doctor, or social worker. I am a Christian who has served in the body of Christ at various stages on my journey home. I am also a mere human being who has failed God many times, and represented Jesus poorly to others. This is merely my record of thinking and a product of the trauma and learning I have experienced while living in the dark closet. When one lives in secrecy, he cannot fully express himself in freedom, and therefore does not grow. Closets are cramped. Branches can only reach so far in the confined space society places on we who hide. We hide because we have to. We hide to escape the bigotry and the fear of shame; the discrimination keeps us from our dreams. We hide because we love God and want to serve Him, with all our heart and capacity that His Charism affords. We are never fully free to be who we can be, never really liberated from our chains because shame and judgment has barred the door of the closet. When freedom comes, the branches reach upward freely, and the roots grow down unhindered, the fruit of the Spirit can begin to develop. Whom the Son makes free is indeed free. Living the truth is freeing, as I have found and certainly, I can attest to this, that “no good thing will God withhold from those who walk with integrity.” This subject is neither a black and white issue, nor a dogmatic understanding. The desire to suppress people has resulted in misconception and bigotry. Just think about it – it really is an oppression of the civil rights of human beings, no matter that the people may be different from you. “For God so loved the world...” I believe the Gospel of John, chapter three, verse sixteen says. The Father says He loves the whole world so much so that he gave Jesus to us, to die for our sins, and then to rise again to give us life everlasting. God does not seem to be scrutinizing here. He simply loves the “whole world”. So what about us? The first and greatest point that I could make is this: you must understand the difference between a state of identity and an act of human sexuality and an act considered a sin. Let me put it this way; it may be a sin for some people to engage in an act of homosexuality, but it is not sin for a person to have homosexual tendencies. In other words, a person with a homosexual orientation may have that preference, but may not choose to act upon it in a repulsive way. I do not intent to insult any one, especially the gay community as I say this, but very often the sexual act is either a one-night-stand, or is one connected to hedonism, A person with a certain orientation can choose or develop a Godly lifestyle, through a disciplined life. It is sinful for a homosexual to engage in an act of fornication just as it is for a heterosexual to engage in heterosexual acts that are out of the bounds of integrity. Who I am and what I do are miles apart in the eyes of God. By the way, I am not talking about the well known “Love the sinner, hate the sin” made popular in the seventies. I am talking about the person who has fallen in love with Jesus, and has entered into a relationship with the heavenly Father to the point of wanting to please him. Unbelievably, the Father will seat you at His table just as you are, right now.