I Found God in the LGBTQ Community.

I have been thinking about writing this post for a while. Since my coming out I have truly experienced an outpouring of love and support of which I am tremendously grateful.  My journey of coming out started in November of 2012 and has led me to places and people that I never would have imagined knowing and experiencing that night I came out to my parents.  God truly is wonderful and patient and has touched my heart in ways I could have scarcely comprehended just a little over a year ago.

After coming out to my parents, I attended my Spring Semester at school and I endeavored to start coming out to very close friends of mine.  This was harder than I had anticipated.  Keeping something secret for eleven years and hoping it would go away is hard to talk about.  It was a difficult but also transformative process in many ways.   I started feeling like I was becoming a more genuine person as I shared this part of myself with others.  Not only that but I felt closer to God.  I felt God was pleased with me being honest with this part of myself.  I began walking through my day to day life with a renewed vigor and hope.  I felt like a burden was beginning to be lifted off of me and that the Atonement of Christ was working in my life to lift that self-inflicted burden.This brought a spiritual healing that I most desperately needed. I felt God prompt me in my day to day life, I felt like I was becoming a better person and closer to God.

One day last year, on a normal day I felt God prompt me in a direction that I had not anticipated.  I was prompted to go to a meeting of my school's LGBTQ organization on campus.  This was something that left me confused and nervous.  At this time I had only known a handful of gay people and then not extremely well.  I had never been taught any overtly anti-gay things.  What I had learned was that marriage was between Man and Woman. I also heard the youth  make gay jokes making it seem like it was  something to be mocked, scandalous, or dirty.  This compounded with homosexuality being a taboo discussion in LDS congregations and that no older gay people that I could tell were in my ward.  So I automatically assumed, just like I feel many other people do, that LGBT people were sinners that have shunned God and that they were devoid of  natural love and were lost in the lusts of the flesh,  which created in me an internalized homophobia toward myself.  I hated myself because I was one of those awful sinners.  Coming out allowed me the opportunity to push off this burden of self-hatred, but I would soon find out that God had so much more for me to learn about others as well as learning about myself.

Going to the meeting left in me a certain anxiety because of what I had heard about gay people.  I felt scared that I would be tempted and be led down a path that would be destructive to my soul.  All these things jumbled in my mind and put a fear in my heart. Even with all this opposition I followed the prompting.  I went to a meeting and luckily saw a friend there who I was able to sit with. So we sat together and the meeting began.

I was at this point incredibly nervous.  Here I was sitting in a meeting with gay people as if it was a disease that I could catch.  The thing that I took most from the meeting surprised me.  This surprise came from how normal everybody seemed.  They laughed and joked like everyone else and we actually talked a little about The Hunger Games afterward.   It was an experience that surprised me more than I think I anticipated.  These people treated me well and we talked and socialized.  I also found out that there were other LGBTQ Mormons like me.

I eventually was led to find another gay Mormon.  This experience became the most touching and powerful spiritual experiences of my life.  This experience is very private.  The fact that I had this experience is one of the reasons I know that God brought me down the path that he did and it truly reinforced my faith and devotion to him.

But God wasn't done with me yet.  I felt very welcome by everyone, much more than I had ever felt while in college.  I was invited to parties that actually turned out to be the most moral parties that I had ever seen in college.  We ate ghost peppers, played games like catchphrase, and watched movies.  The company was wonderful and the food was great.  Really for one of the first times in my life I felt like I truly fit in and was accepted.  This made a truly stark contrast to what I was led to believe and what I thought was truth in how gay people were.  They were normal people who were just as bad or as good as heterosexuals there was nothing sinister or evil about them.   However there seemed to be something that was different, something that I knew God wanted me to learn from them.

As the weeks and months went on I was invited to be a volunteer at the Equality Virginia Commonwealth Dinner.  I accepted and was interested to see how the dinner would go.  It was going to be the largest gathering of LGBTQ people and allies that I would ever have been too.  The purpose of the dinner itself was both a place to commemorate exceptional LGBTQ people in Virginia and also a place for political fundraising toward various causes.  It wasn't the politics or anything so worldly that caught my attention.  I still was trying to figure out more of what it was God wanted me to learn.  Something else much deeper and richer touched my soul at this meeting.

I felt a powerful love that filled the whole room.  It was a unique kind of love that I had never experienced not even in a church congregation.  The spirit filled my soul and testified of it too me.  Thinking through it later I realized that I felt no judgement from the people in the room.  As I thought on this I realized that many of the people sitting at the tables in that room had experienced pain and abandonment from their families.  The majority had been forced from their congregations and places of worship for the soul reason of being born the wrong way.  These people understood the sharp knife of judgement and hate toward them.  They felt the pain of being abandoned left for nothing and treated as less than human.  

This treatment from others in my view taught them what love really is.  Love is something that is unconditional it is something that doesn't see sexual orientation, race, or creed.  It is something that looks beyond earthly prejudices.  It isn't love the sinner hate the sin.  It is pure and simply love that sees no judgement.  As I looked out on that group of people.  I saw people that are as Christ taught "the least of these."   In God's great mercies whether they realized it or not.  He had taught them through their trials what true love really means.

I had found Christ among them.

Never in any congregation had I felt the same love and lack of judgement as I felt there.  It was something that was very moving.  The only time I had felt that same type of love was from God himself when I was on my knees crying to him to take this away from me.  When I was seeking to accept myself and when God spoke in my heart his acceptance for me.

This was when I knew what I saw that was different in the people I had met and got to know.  In a way the people of the LGBTQ community understood better in their journeys on this earth, what love is.  Every person I met were in different stages of life and all had there imperfections and challenges, but this one thing seemed to resonate in them in a more profound way than most other people I have known.

A certain scripture comes to mind that connects with this experience it comes from 1 John 4: 18-21 it reads:

"There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear:
If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?
And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also."

"45 And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

 46 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail—

 47 But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him. If ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity,"

Moroni 7: 45-47

I think the part of Charity that most, if not all there understood was that true love, Christ like love, endures forever.  Many had felt the sting of family members taking away their love for them on the basis of their romantic orientation.  Many saw religious leaders preach the love of Christ from the pulpit and then tell them they did not deserve his love in private.  But God's love is never ending and never changing and the atonement reaches toward all.  They truly have endured all things, and have hoped through adversity.

Judge not, that ye be not Judged.  Matthew 7:1

Only God can judge, to us we are only commanded to love and accept our brothers and sisters where they are, who they are, and who they love and want to spend the rest of their life with, they are all Sons and Daughters of God.  This is a wonderful video of how one woman learned from God that all she needed to do was to love unconditionally her gay brother and son.






 Other good resources,
LDSwalkwithyou.org
mormonsandgays.org
http://affirmation.org/
http://northstarlds.org/
voicesoflove.org

"As a church, nobody should be more loving and compassionate. Let us be at the forefront in terms of expressing love, compassion and outreach. Let’s not have families exclude or be disrespectful of those who choose a different lifestyle as a result of their feelings about their own gender."  Quentin L. Cook

An Open Letter to LDS Members and Priesthood Leaders

This is an open letter to all members and Priesthood Leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  This letter is about a Young Man that I know who is going through a very difficult time.  This is a real person who is going through real challenges.  Many people like him have suffered and are currently suffering in the dark.  This story is all too common and affects many people and families within the LDS Church and outside the LDS church.  I implore you to read this and realize that there are children who are going through the same ordeals in every stake and in a good portion of our congregations.  This was specifically written for a particular stake but I think it can apply to almost every stake in Zion.  

To members and Priesthood Leaders,

  I have recently been in contact with a young member of the church within your stake.  I won't name any names and I have been given permission to share a little of his story.  This young man is currently in his senior year of high school.  He is a wonderful young man with a strong faith in God.  He recently came out to his family, friends, and church leaders as being gay.  According to his account of what he is experiencing after coming out there has been very little Christ like sympathy coming from many people in his life.  His parents have been un-accepting of him and his father has threatened to kick him out of his home.  He has described to me a very antagonistic atmosphere where most family home evenings are spent discussing his sinful nature and his destiny for eternal damnation.  He has been regarded as disgusting, deviant, and revolting.   

I do not doubt that his family loves him.  It sounds like his mother is seeking to understand what he is going through.  Unfortunately in regards to this issue there is too much misinformation that people have grown up on that is hard to reconcile.   Many members have been taught their whole lives that Homosexuals would not be found in our congregations and that they are sinful, unnatural, and antithetical to God.   His parents have felt that this is a choice that he has made when that simply isn't true.  If they were to realize that he didn't choose this they would have a greater compassion for him.  

His Bishop has expressed love for him but has a hard time understanding what he is going through.  He has been asked to not take part in the youth program, his bishop says it is because he has graduated from it, his father says it's because he's gay.  He has described the bewilderment and discomfort of many of the members when he came out.  He doesn't feel comfortable at church and usually wants to leave after sacrament meeting.  

Along with what's happening at church, at school he has been openly mocked and ridiculed for being gay.  He has become the victim of bullying many times.  Luckily he has a group of friends that are very supportive of him.

This young man because of the pressure and hurt he is receiving has been contemplating suicide.  This suicidal ideation seems to be stemming from the constant negative and hurtful comments and feelings that are coming from his home and ward.  He has expressed his willingness and want to follow God's will but it seems people think that because he is Gay it is impossible for him to do so.  

I am bringing this young man to your attention because of the seriousness of this issue.  I do not believe he is the only one within your stake who is feeling the same ostracism, hurt, and pain from the people that should be at the foremost for expressing love to them.

I have spoken with many LGBT Mormons, unfortunately most of them are inactive.  This isn't because of their "sinful nature" or an act of rebellion, it's because of the ignorance and pain they have felt from the members of their wards.  These children of our Heavenly Father have expressed a deep desire and want to come back and sing the songs of Zion with the saints of God.  They also want to be open with their sexual orientation while there.  I have experienced this as well.  When an LGBT, SSA person within our congregations is not open with this part of themselves.  They feel isolated, they feel that their relationships are not genuine and that they are living a lie that they are telling through omission.  It is a deeply painful and lonely experience.

There is always a constant fear that if anyone found out they would be tossed aside and thrown out for something they had no choice in.  There are many young children in your congregations who feel this exact same way.  Children who are precious and pure and who love God, love our Savior, and want to follow him.

These children instead of hearing love and compassion from the pulpit, the only time homosexuality is mentioned is with negativity, and is discussed as a sinful nature that is antithetical to God.  These children are told that they are akin to murderers and pedophiles,  that they are somehow diseased and disgusting. (Yes Priesthood leaders have said this including prophets and apostles). These pure and precious children, some as young as 10, hear this and their souls are horribly wounded.  Their precious beautiful souls are afflicted and damaged by these members and priesthood leaders. They become afraid to tell anyone because of the terror that the words of others have created in them.

(On a side note, I am a worthy and practicing member of the LDS church who completely sustains and respects my leaders.  I do know that people look at the world through the lens of their own personal experience and can be mistaken or have a different understanding born of their upbringing.  And that's ok, God works with imperfect people and the church has since moved away from those previous statements regarding homosexuals as they have learned more about the plight of LGBT members.  This reversal is starting to take hold among the general membership and of that I am grateful.  A group I highly recommend is Mormons Building Bridges.  MBB is a grassroots group that seeks to build a bridge between the LDS and LGBTQ community.  They have a Facebook Group that I recommend people check out.)

These wonderful children are those that Christ spoke of when he said that, whoever would offend them it would be better that a millstone be hung around their necks and they be cast into the depths of the sea.  A wonderful talk given by Robert A Rees describes the way this hurt and pain can be rectified.  

"Part of what it means to be a Christian is that through the grace of Christ we have the capacity to imagine what it is like to suffer as another person suffers. It is impossible to do this if we have anger, hatred or revulsion for the other. Such imaginative projection is possible only within the context of love. Thus, those who revile and persecute homosexuals, who treat them as if they are flawed or have some kind of sinister agenda, cannot possibly take on their suffering, cannot possibly hope to feel what they feel, but those whose compassion is inspired by Christ, can feel, at least to some degree, what it must be like to be anathema to society. We can imagine what it must feel like to be taught to hate our own bodies, to be condemned for feeling what we naturally feel, to be denied normal fellowship within Christ’s kingdom, and to want to blot out our deep soul suffering through suicide."

Unfortunately, instead of members of his familiy and church seeking to use the grace of God to understand how he feels and the pain he's going through.  He has been met with unkindness, hatred, and even misguided counsel that doesn't fit with reality.

I told him to read my blog post of my coming out.  He did and asked as well if God accepted him and loved him for who he is.  Immediately he said he felt an outpouring of the spirit of love from God completely the opposite of what he has been feeling from members of the church.  Never had he been told by his priesthood leaders or parents or members to go to Heavenly Father for guidance in regards to this.  Too many times it's only God who expresses love for these children.  

I am very passionate about this because I have felt how he feels.  I too am gay and have felt the bitter sting of the words of others.  Children should not be taught to despise their God given bodies.  A child should never feel that if they were truthful they would not be loved by those they care about.  The church and the leaders have failed in this regard, many children besides the young man I have spoken of have been kicked out of their homes by their families and bullied to the point of suicide.  And sadly many of them are lost to us forever.  All their potential blown away from the barrel of a gun, the bitterness of an overdose, or the shock of oncoming traffic.  Their souls destroyed and helpless, left ragged and torn from the words of their priesthood leaders and members of their congregations and families.  They feel that God doesn't love them.    

These are the words of Mary Griffith whose Son Bobby Griffith committed suicide because of the pain he felt from his mother who refused to accept him.  

“ I realize how depraved it was to instill false guilt in an innocent child's conscience, causing a distorted image of life, God, & self, leaving little if any feeling of personal worth.” 
― Mary Griffith

Their souls are precious to God and he knows each one of them.  Jesus Christ taught love, compassion, mercy, charity, and patience.  He was never against anyone.  The one's who He spoke the most against were those who unrighteously judged the people who were deemed unworthy, and treated others with disdain or enmity.  Christ however taught a simple way,  Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and love thy neighbor as thyself.  Simple, love is the solution.  

This love is not a judgmental love or loving from afar.   This love requires action, if we are to follow the example of Christ and take upon ourselves his name.  To serve others we must hear their stories, learn and listen.  Christ takes care of everything else and will lead us to what we must do.  This does not mean to briefly mention it during a talk or lesson, this means actively seeking out those who have been hurt and trying to fix the wrongs committed.  This means standing up and saying in your meetings not just the words, God loves everyone, which is true and very unspecific, but that God loves all his children no matter what race or creed you belong, no matter who you are, and yes no matter what your sexual orientation or gender identity is. Mary Griffith wonderfully expressed these sentiments in a speech (This is part of the condensed version from the movie "Prayers for Bobby," and the real speech with no changes from me.  This speech is about her story of accepting her son and his death.

"Homosexuality is a sin. Homosexuals are doomed to spend eternity in hell. If they wanted to change, they could be healed of their evil ways. If they would turn away from temptation, they could be normal again if only they would try and try harder if it doesn't work. These are all the things I said to my son Bobby when I found out he was gay. When he told me he was homosexual my world fell apart. I did everything I could to cure him of his sickness. Eight months ago my son jumped off a bridge and killed himself. I deeply regret my lack of knowledge about gay and lesbian people. I see that everything I was taught and told was bigotry and de-humanizing slander. If I had investigated beyond what I was told, if I had just listened to my son when he poured his heart out to me I would not be standing here today with you filled with regret. I believe that God was pleased with Bobby's kind and loving spirit. In God's eyes kindness and love are what it's all about. I didn't know that each time I echoed eternal damnation for gay people each time I referred to Bobby as sick and perverted and a danger to our children. His self esteem and sense of worth were being destroyed. And finally his spirit broke beyond repair. It was not God's will that Bobby climbed over the side of a freeway overpass and jumped directly into the path of an eighteen-wheel truck which killed him instantly. Bobby's death was the direct result of his parent's ignorance and fear of the word gay. He wanted to be a writer. His hopes and dreams should not have been taken from him but they were. There are children like Bobby sitting in our congregations.  Unknown to you, they will be listening to your 'Amens' as they silently cry out to God in their hearts.  Their cries will go unnoticed for they cannot be heard above your 'Amens'. Your fear and ignorance of the word gay will soon silence their cries.  Before you echo'Amen' in your home or place of worship, think and remember... a child is listening."

Mary A Griffith

“As a church, nobody should be more loving and compassionate. Let us be at the forefront in terms of expressing love, compassion and outreach. Let's not have families exclude or be disrespectful of those who choose a different lifestyle as a result of their feelings about their own gender,"
– Elder Quentin L. Cook of the Quorum of Twelve ApostlesFom the website mormonsandgays.org.


Thank you for reading this letter,  I hope it will help spur others to action as Quentin L. Cook exhorts us to do.  I call upon everyone regardless of religious belief or lack thereof to be more active in making our congregations and society a safe place for LGBT people both young and old.  So that they may be able to follow the spirit and become the children of God that God intended them to be.  Let's replace fear with love and misunderstanding with compassion.  For we are all in need of the grace of God and we are all dependent upon the ultimate sacrifice that Christ made for us.  

Thank you for your time and God bless you in your endeavors.  

Love and the Christian Imagination: a way to Understand Others who are Different as Taught by Christ.

Hello Everyone,

After I recently came out on this blog I have been overwhelmed by all the positive responses and wonderful declarations of support. I am planning on writing more on this blog about many different topics that are important to me.  However with school starting up I may take a little longer to update the blog.

So in the mean time I thought I would post a wonderful talk given by Robert Reese Ph.D. an active Latter-day Saint who has been an ally for LGBT Mormons for a long time.  This talk gives a very thorough and wonderful insight into what it is like to be an LGBT and Christian.  He calls on both sides to build understanding and love for the other.  He also speaks on an interesting subject that I am guessing the vast majority of people probably haven't thought of before.  I encourage everyone to read this talk. I hope that it can open hearts and promote greater love and understanding for all of God's children.  Enjoy!
       Lance

Love and the Christian imagination 

~ Robert A. Rees, Ph.D.

Part of what it means to be a Christian is that through the grace of Christ we have the capacity to imagine what it is like to suffer as another person suffers. It is impossible to do this if we have anger, hatred or revulsion for the other. Such imaginative projection is possible only within the context of love. Thus, those who revile and persecute homosexuals, who treat them as if they are flawed or have some kind of sinister agenda, cannot possibly take on their suffering, cannot possibly hope to feel what they feel, but those whose compassion is inspired by Christ, can feel, at least to some degree, what it must be like to be anathema to society. We can imagine what it must feel like to be taught to hate our own bodies, to be condemned for feeling what we naturally feel, to be denied normal fellowship within Christ’s kingdom, and to want to blot out our deep soul suffering through suicide.

Reviewing the sad history of homosexuality among the Mormons, I conclude that where we are today as a Church and as a people, though in many ways advanced from where we have been, can best be described as a failure—a failure of faith, a failure of courage, a failure of imagination, and most of all a failure of love.

I want to talk about two aspects of that failure today—the failure of imagination and the failure of love. I don’t think one can have a truly mature faith that isn’t to some degree graced by imagination. We don’t often speak of imagination and Christ in the same breath, but I read the gospels as the product of a great and fecund imagination. It isn’t just the inventive language, the subtle irony and humor, and the fresh narratives that flowed from his expansive heart and mind that make Jesus of Nazareth such great imaginer, but especially his capacity to imagine each of us caught in the snares of sin, lost in the tangled wood of mortality, each uniquely in need of love, mercy and grace. Beyond this was his god-like capacity to imagine each of us as glorified beings, each of our futures a reflection of his present. Only such an imagination, I am convinced, could have emboldened him to descend into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday and ascend to Calvary the following Friday.

If we share some of Christ’s imaginative gifts, as I believe we all have the capacity to do when we take on us his name, then we can use such gifts to expand his work in the world. We can imagine not only that, but how, we can be better disciples than we are and the Church a better institution than it is. The Church I imagine, like Joseph Smith’s view of God, can be “more liberal in [its] views and more boundless in [its] mercies than we are ready to believe.”

The way in which I believe we have failed you our LGBT brothers and sisters is that we have not used our Christian imagination to try and understand your experience or to understand our stewardship in relation to you. Instead of seeing you as Latter-day Saints who have made heroic efforts to conform to Church requirements, we have instead characterized you as rebellious and unrepentant.

Instead of seeing you as exercising faith in promises made by Church leaders and therapists that if you were only sufficiently faithful, you could change your core identity, we have tended to see you as willfully disobedient and unfaithful.

Instead of honoring the often heroic efforts you have made to prove to God and the Church that you were worthy of such a miraculous promise of change, we have accused you of not being sufficiently righteous.

Instead of applauding you for spending years and in some instances decades in therapy trying to deal with your depression, despair, and existential angst over your identity, we have accused you of not being sufficiently valiant.

Instead of seeing you as people who have made amazing sacrifices to fit in with your family, friends and congregations, we have stereotyped you as lustful, narcissistic Sybarites bent on indulging in and celebrating a “life style” that we have labeled outrageous, deviant, and predatory.

Instead of seeing you as desiring the Mormon ideal of fidelity in marriage, we have characterized you as desiring something unnatural and uncivilized.

In short, instead of seeing you as fully human, we have tended to see you as alien and other.

We have failed to imagine what it must have been like for you as children or adolescents when you first recognized that you were different from your peers and the societal norm you were expected to conform to and how frightened you were of telling anyone about your feelings. According to the recent survey of 1,600 Latter-day Saint homosexuals conducted by Dr. William Bradshaw and his colleagues, on average, participants report a ten- year gap between the time they first realized their romantic or erotic attraction to those of the same sex (around age 12) and their first disclosure of this to another person (around age 22). We have failed to imagine the exquisite fear and loneliness you must have experienced during that long, lonely decade—or how painful it was when you did finally muster the courage to tell someone, only to discover that they rejected you, driving you deeper into your loneliness, despair and alienation.

Nowhere has our imagination failed us more than in our refusal to place ourselves in your lives, in your hearts, your minds, and your bodies, to imagine how we would feel and act if we were asked to do what we have asked you to do—forego all romantic love, intimate affection, erotic expression, marital companionship and parent-child relationships for the duration of your mortal lives. Failing to consider the complexity of same-sex orientation and identity, we have encouraged (and even pressured) some of you to bind yourself to another person for whom you have no such desires or hope of any. We have also failed to imagine how it must be for you to suffer opprobrium, denigration of character, and alienation from the families, friends and congregations you most want to be a part of. We have failed to imagine how you feel on Sunday mornings when you want to be worshipping with your fellow saints and singing the songs of Zion.

Finally, we have failed to imagine the despair, the hopelessness that has led so many of you to take or attempt to take your own lives.

In a talk I gave over twenty-five years ago when I was bishop of the Los Angeles Singles’ Ward—addressed to the heterosexual members of the ward--I cited Gerard Manley Hopkins’ poem, “As Kingfishers Catch Fire,” in which Hopkins says that each of us

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is—[that is,]

Christ. For [he says] Christ plays in ten thousand places, Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men's faces.

What Hopkins means is that Christ as our advocate takes our part, acts on our behalf before the Father, letting his light shine through our features and faces so that the Father may see us as Christ sees us—lovely in limbs and eyes (that is, body and soul), in spite of our weaknesses, limitations, and sinfulness.

Since we have the light of Christ within us, since we take on his character when we are born anew through him, thus becoming his children of light, then beyond expressing who and what we are, we also express who he is. Christ justifies us to God, and it is through His grace that when we act before the Father, in a sense we become Christ, because his light shines through us. Christ plays in ten thousand places and through many times ten thousand faces which he makes lovely to the Father through his grace. Those faces Christ plays through are both heterosexual and homosexual. He would bring us all to God.

The Gospel of St. Matthew shows us that Christ intends for us as his disciples to imitate him in this way—that is, that we are to see one another as he sees us, to consciously engage our imaginations as he employed his so that we, like him, can see the very essence of one another’s being, in Latter- day Saint terms, see the light of Christ in one another’s faces. When we do this, our only response is to love one another with as pure a love as we are capable of manifesting. As the novelist, Francisco Goldman says, “The great metaphor at the heart of the Gospel According to Saint Matthew is that those who suffer and those who show love for those who suffer are joined through suffering and grace to Jesus Christ.”

I concluded my remarks to members of the Los Angeles First ward with these words:I pray the Lord will bless us as brothers and sisters in the Kingdom of God, as those who have taken upon us His name, that we will let Christ's light shine through our faces, that we will make of our community a wholeness, that we will seek that common ground of peace of which Paul speaks, and that we will learn how to love and serve the Lord by celebrating who we are, his heterosexual and homosexual sons and daughters. Because we are all his creatures, we are all born with his light. I pray that we may let that light shine among us, that it might grow, that we ourselves might be its beacon, and that, as a Church and as individuals, we not only will pray to the Lord for greater light and understanding, but that we will turn ourhearts with greater charity, love and acceptance of all of those whom we might consider strangers.

In Matthew 25 Christ puts Himself in the place of the stranger--of the homosexual, if you will, saying in effect, "Inasmuch as you have done it or not done it unto the least of one of these my homosexual brothers or sisters, you have done it or not done it unto me" (25:40).

What does this mean for you, my homosexual brothers and sisters? I wish I could say that you just have to be patient with us, your unimaginative, incomplete and wounded fellow saints, that you just have to continue to endure our spiritual immaturity as we strive to become more enlightened and more loving, but the fact is, you too have this role to play—you must also see us, those who have despised and rejected you, who have belittled and banished you, who have failed to find you in our imaginations—you must see us in the same way Christ calls us to see you. That is, even as we continue to cause you to suffer, you are called to imagine our lives--our fears, ignorance and prejudice that characterize our un-Christian treatment of you. That above all is what it means to be a follower of Christ. With him, we are to replace, ignorance with knowledge, error with truth, injustice with justice and, most of all, hate with love.

I know it is not just for you to have to respond in this way to an institution and individuals who have treated you in unkind, unjust and, yes, un- Christian ways, but if we are to find our way out of the labyrinth we are in, which I think we must do together, it is incumbent upon us all to do what Christ calls us to do. It is through this work that we reform both ourselves and our Church. It is in this constant reforming that we prevent both ourselves and the Church from becoming idols. Thus, in order for this to happen, we have to get out of our social and religious ghettos, see one another’s real lives and try to understand one another’s lived experiences. I love the old Shaker hymn titled “More Love,” which includes the following lyrics:

If ye love not each other in daily communion, How can ye love God whom ye have not seen? More love, more love;

The heaven’s are blessing

The angels are calling O Zion! More love.

If in the Church we can imagine change beyond policy and practice, beyond culture, perhaps even beyond currently accepted doctrine, we may become agents of change and thereby help transform the Church, perhaps liberate it from some of its less enlightened traditions, and even glorify it in new ways, thus demonstrating that we are indeed ready and anxious to receive on this subject new revelation regarding "great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God." As the humanist Ihab Hassan says, "Liberations come from some strange region where the imagination meets change. . . . We need to re-imagine change itself, else we labor to confirm all our errors." Or, as Saul Bellow’s Henderson says, “All human accomplishment has this same origin, identically. Imagination is a force of nature. Is this not enough to make a person full of ecstasy? Imagination, imagination, imagination! It converts to actual. It sustains, it alters, it redeems!”

In his powerful essay, "Notes of a Native Son," James Baldwin speaks about the rage he felt as he went through a series of humiliating experiences as a young man living in New York [City]. He was refused service in a number of restaurants simply because he was black. Finally, the accumulation of humiliations caused him to react with a kind of unconscious violence . . . . I saw nothing very clearly but I did see this: that my life, my real life, was in danger, and not from anything other people might do, but from the hatred I carried in my own heart."

Later in the same essay Baldwin concludes, "In order to really hate white people, one has to blot so much out of the mind--and the heart-- that this hatred itself becomes an exhausting and self-destructive pose. But this does not mean, on the other hand, that love comes easily: the white world [and here one can substitute the straight world] is too powerful, too complacent, too ready with gratuitous humiliation, and above all, too ignorant and too innocent for that . . . . Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated and this was an immutable law."

Twenty-one years ago I gave the keynote address at the Affirmation national conference in Palm Springs. In that address, I made an analogy between what was happening in the Church in relation to homosexuality and what had transpired in American and Mormon culture in relation to blacks. I quote from that address:  In a letter to his nephew, James, written on the hundredth anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, Baldwin writes, "There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for their impertinent assumption that they must accept you. The really terrible thing, old buddy, is that you must accept them. And I mean that very seriously. You must accept them and accept them with love. For these innocent people have no other hope. They are, in effect, still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it. . . . We cannot be free until they are free."

Have any of you ever considered that part of your work for humanity might be teaching heterosexuals how to love better? It may not be fair that you are asked to do this, but I believe that it is God's will that you do so because, like blacks and other hated groups, you have experienced the deprivation of love in a profound way, and that depravation has given you a gift which, if you will use it, can bless your lives and the lives of others. Having been subject to rejection, ostracism, and even hatred, you may understand something about the importance of love which others do not. I believe that it is in rising through our suffering to such love that we attain holiness.

I would like to close with a story that illustrates this principle, Raymond Carver’s “A Small Good Thing.” In this story a couple, the Weisses, make preparations to celebrate the birthday of their only son, Scotty. They order a cake from the local bakery. On the day of the party the boy is hit by a car and lapses into a coma. The parents wait anxiously by the bedside day after day but their son never awakens and, after a short time, dies. The baker, unaware of the accident, continues to call the parents to come and pick up the cake. Grieving, they do not return his calls. He continues to call and leaves abusive, threatening messages on their answering machine. Finally, one night they go to the bakery to express their outrage at the Baker’s behavior. When they tell him that their son is dead, he is embarrassed and ashamed. A simple man, he does the only thing he can think of—he offers them some of his fresh-baked bread. As they sit in the darkened bakery eating, he reveals his own life of loneliness, of being childless, of working sixteen hours a day baking thousands of wedding and birthday cakes and imagining the celebrations surrounding them, none of which ever touch his life personally.

Finally, he takes a fresh loaf of dark bread from the oven, breaks it open and offers some to them. “Smell this” he says, “It’s a heavy bread but rich.” Carver writes, “They smelled it, then he had them taste it. It had the taste of molasses and coarse grains. They listened to him. They ate what they could. They swallowed the dark bread. It was like daylight under the florescent trays of light. They talked on into the early morning, the high, pale cast of light in the windows, and they did not think of leaving.”

This is a powerful story of loss, grief, death, forgiveness, and most of all of love. It is also a story of redemption. The association in the story of bread with light reminds us of Christ who is both the bread of life and the light of the world. Partaking of the bread of life each week, we too taste of his light. (Here I would add that if you do not feel comfortable partaking of the sacrament in a Latter-day Saint congregation, find one that welcomes you and partake of it there.) It is a small good thing we do and is akin to all of the other small acts of understanding, forgiveness and compassion we give to one another. Such acts of love, it seems to me, have their genesis in the light of Christ which is in every one of us. It is our sacred calling to magnify that light in our hearts and souls and to carry it to and receive it from one another as we receive the emblems of Christ’s sacrifice, that is, with gratitude and hope.

In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

More love, more love; The heaven’s are blessing The angels are calling

O Zion! More love.

My Mormon Coming Out Story

 This blog is written from the perspective of a faithful member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I have tried to put my words and my story into terms that all Christians and those of religious affiliation hopefully will understand.  I also hope that those who are not religious may  be helped by my story as well.

My Mormon Coming Out Story

So I have decided to officially come out and say something that most of my friends and my immediate family already know about me.  I am same-gender attracted, or I am gay.  I have known I was gay since I was about 10 years old, at that time I could tell that I was a bit different from the other boys at my school. As other guys were starting to develop interest in girls our age I didn't seem to care at all.   During this time, I was friends with both boys and girls, and I was content with that.  When I started realizing I was different, I basically ignored those feelings initially because I was at the end of elementary school and I didn't understand sexuality up to that point except for what society told me that guys were only ever supposed to like girls and girls were only ever supposed to like guys.

It wasn't until I had reached middle school that puberty really hit hard and my attractions became more noticeable, which in turn made me react by suppressing my sexuality.  Before in elementary school, I was a very mentally healthy boy who loved spending time with friends.  I was as social as any boy in elementary school is. I was a little shy around strangers, but as I warmed up to people, I quickly lost that shyness.  With the transition into middle school, I started to become quiet.  I started finding it difficult to talk with people when before I never found it to be an issue.

The transition between elementary and middle school is typically a difficult transition for children.  This was especially true for me.  A lot of my old friends from elementary school were in different classes than I was.  The building was new.  The teachers were new.  I had to navigate what felt like an alien world to me.  This was all the more challenging because I knew I was different and I refused to accept that reality.  The refusal to accept it spiraled me into a long period of very low self-esteem.  I was pretty sure my parents suspected I was gay at a very young age and being the loving parents that they were and not having a complete understanding about what I was going through, they tried to coax the gay out of me whenever I displayed any signs of non-masculine behavior, although this never happened often.

As middle school continued I tried to reconcile my faith and my sexuality.  I am Mormon, which I think a large amount of people reading this blog will be.  For people who aren't that means that I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  As part of that, I go to church every Sunday, and I was  in the Youth Program.  When I was young, I was surrounded by a super heterosexual culture.  The boys would be flirting with the girls all the time, I just followed along but didn't participate because I didn't see the point.  So every Sunday never failed to remind me that I was different.  So instead of focusing on the social aspect of church I focused my energy toward scripture study, prayer, and church attendance.

At about the 7th to 8th grade I was in complete suppression of my sexuality, which caused my self-esteem to continue to plummet.  At this time, I fought to find out why I just didn't like girls the same way other guys liked girls.  So I made the excuse that the reason why I didn't like girls at the time was because I was preparing for my mission and that I wouldn't date anybody until at least the age of 16 anyway if not 18 or after my mission.  I would take girls to school dances and have a great time with them but have no desires other than to have a good time with friends.

So I coasted . I put all my suppressed energy into other things.  I did a lot of acting when I was younger and was in many plays with a private acting troupe,  I also performed at my school where I played lead roles through middle school.  I focused on my studies and got straight A's.  Also, I put my greatest attention into my spiritual life. I felt deep down that God didn't make me this way and that maybe if I prayed more, did more service, and participated in everything I could, I would gain an attraction to girls like I had with guys because I still denied that that attraction was permanent and therefore I thought it to be unnatural.

There were a few girls through this experience that I really liked and enjoyed spending time with, but it was exclusively a close friendship and I had no desire for nothing more.  So I kept going through my pre-teen into my teenage years.  I was still suppressing my sexuality, and therefore my identity.  As people grow as adults their personality grows naturally through their experiences.  Mine felt forced into a box that felt unnatural and suffocating.  I felt that I would be rejected by my friends and my family if they knew.  I was afraid that God hated me because of who I am and it seemed like everything at church pointed to this  idea.  This was because there was no one there to speak on the subject, and if it was spoken about, it was spoken very negatively.  So I assumed that God was against it.

Near the end of my freshman year, I started developing depression.  I don't remember exactly when it started.  I just remember my world getting darker and darker.  My life seemed to start being caught up between two worlds; times where I felt fine and days where I would sink into a pit of unexplainable sadness and fear.  I grew distant from people.  I felt alone and my thoughts turned inward.  I had always been a quieter kid, but now it felt so pronounced and horrifying.  I felt everyone was going to hurt me.  I would find excuses to lash out at others especially those people who cared about me the most.

There came a point where only two people kept me going, and that was God and a wonderful friend.  My depression lasted for a while and into my sophomore year.  Around my sophomore year, I dropped into one of the worst phases of my life.  I decided that it would be better if I could just die.  My life felt like a never-ending pit of despair with no exit.  Their seemed to be no other way.  I felt like I was unworthy of love.  I had seen and heard how gay people were thought of in my church, and everywhere I went.  They were dirty, sinful, deviant, unnatural, without hope of salvation.  That was who I was.  Through no fault of my own, I was gay.  I had been caught up in believing that God didn't love me because he hadn't taken my attractions away  from me.

One day I got home before everyone else in my family.  I had made the decision to kill myself, and I was on my way to do just that.  There wasn't anything lethal at my house except pills, so I decided to do an overdose.  That whole day, I was praying to God to take everything away from me. I told him that I wouldn't kill myself if God would just fill this horrible hole that I felt inside of myself.  Continuing to pray, I passed by the telephone on my way to the cabinet, and as I did I had strong and powerful impression to call my friend.  I stopped and looked toward the phone.  At this point, I really had no other avenue.  I was going to kill myself or seriously damage my body.  So I dialed up my friend and talked to him.  After an hour or so, this person was able to convince me not to kill myself.  He truly showed a Christ like care toward me and showed me that Christians could care  for someone like me,  and if other people cared maybe God would too.  For the first time in a while, I walked away from the cliff that I had been prepared to jump off of.

I began to accept myself.  Slowly but surely, I started walking out of the haze of my self-hatred and depression.  Life started to be worth living.  I started enjoying the simple things and delighting in what Heavenly Father had blessed me with.  I still hadn't told anyone else about who I was except for a few people, but even then it had been kind of a confusing explanation because I really didn't understand it myself, and I had no role models or people who felt the same way I did.  So at the time, I thought I was bisexual because I could love women (although it was a brotherly love and not romantic).  The years went on where I felt that I was still stuck.  However, what was new was that I accepted who I was.  But just accepting myself wasn't enough.  I needed others to accept me, which I felt they would not.

This view I felt was very legitimate considering how the word gay was used in a derogatory way in regular converstaions.  How people would talk about gay people as if they were something different and sinister which was very dehumanizing for me.  It frankly terrified me for the longest time that I would be treated less than human.  But, even through all this haze, I felt God continue to move me forward in my life and help me find my way through my confusing and difficult childhood.

 Throughout this time, I sought to date a small number of women.   However, nothing came out of any of these relationships, kissing was awkward and weird, and I felt once again as if something was wrong with me.  At this time, I still felt that I was bisexual, because I still held onto a hope that maybe I could find a way to escape who I was.

It wasn't until my freshman year of college that I started reaching out to see if there were others like me.  I started finding blogs and other materials.  A source of wonderful hope for me and strength was the It Gets Better videos from BYU students.  Here were LGBT Mormon students, my age, who were seeking to do God's will like I was and who had found a loving community that understood them.  Many of them shared their coming out stories and how they found that most people were accepting and truly interested in their well-being. Amongst all these good stories however there were examples of people whose families rejected them and turned them away.  Their were some who went through extreme trials, and almost every single person on the video had contemplated suicide just like I had.  These shared experiences gave me comfort and helped me know for the first time that I wasn't alone.

The one thing I found most interesting was how they talked about receiving a confirmation from God that they were loved and completely accepted by him, sexuality and all.  They felt the loving power of Christ comfort them, even when others around them hated and reviled them.  God still knew who they were individually, and he loved them unconditionally.  I decided to try this myself.

I kneeled down one night and prayed to my Heavenly Father.  I asked him if these feelings were acceptable in his eyes and whether or not he still loved me even if I was attracted to the same gender.  What followed would change my life.  A wonderful, indescribable warmth filled my chest and spread to the rest of my body.  I knew at once it was the spirit and that God accepted for who I was and would always love me.
All my life I had not only lived in fear of others rejection but God's rejection.  I found out beyond a shadow of doubt that night that God loved me and accepted me for who I was.  I came out of that spiritual experience with the knowledge that God accepted me.  This acceptance gave me the courage to eventually come out to my  family and friends.

Thanksgiving 2012
About 8 months after the revelation of God's acceptance, I decided to come out to my family.  With my twin brother (who is gay), together we told our parents what we had known for a long time.  And they accepted us, albeit after many questions from my mother who wanted to make sure that we were actually homosexual. They both accepted us and said they would love us no matter what because first and foremost we were their sons.  I was very grateful for their reaction, considering how many LGBT children, including from LDS homes, get thrown out on the street for confessing something that they had always had.

With my parents and God as my support, I started coming out to more friends that next year.  As I did this, I felt a wonderful spirit, and I knew God didn't want me to live in fear anymore.  The weeks that followed were wonderful and exhilarating.  I felt more comfortable around people I came out too. Not only that I felt my friendships strengthen through this process.  I also began enjoying coming to church more and felt more love, peace and, fellowship among the members there, even though I have only come out to a couple of them before this post.

One night a few months after this process started, I  found myself praying about where God wanted me to once again go.  After all the changes that had begun to happen in my life I wanted to see if there was more in store.  During this prayer, I had an impression to ask God if I was completely homosexual and not bisexual.  I had begun to question whether I was bisexual.  I think this came about because of my renewed confidence and affirmation from God and also my previous experience with women.  So I decided to ask God if I was indeed completely homosexual.  As before I felt a surging rush of warmth in me and utter joy filled me heart, and I knew that God was waiting for me to finally make this realization and once again God completely accepted me and loved me.

And now I come to this blog post a little more than a year after coming out to my parents.  After a lot of meditation and prayer, I have decided to write this blog in the hope that someone may read it and find hope in it, that a family member of someone who is LGBT may read this and understand the importance of love and dialogue in their relationship with their family member.  I am not writing this blog to stake a position.  I am writing this blog in the hope that it might save someone's life, whether they are a child or an adult, who feels alone and unloved not only by their parents but by God as well, that they may not be turned away from their families to live homeless on the streets.  I am here to tell these children, teenagers, adults; whomever they may be, that God truly loves them and that the only feeling that should be in anyone's hearts when it comes to this is love, acceptance, and the knowledge that God has a plan for each and everyone of us, that God created people with same-gender attraction for a reason, and that he has a greater wisdom than we could possibly have on this earth.  So let's discuss it.  Let's listen to each others stories and hopefully develop the charity that Christ showed each and everyone of us as he suffered and died for us in Gethsemane and was lifted on the cross in Calvary.  For He truly did die for each and everyone one of us not just straight people, not just gay people, for God is no respecter of persons and his love and grace are over all.  He died for everyone on this earth and he loved each and everyone of us equally.  How much more then should we do the same and follow his example to everyone not just people who are like us.

As I look at the diversity of the people of the earth, I see God's amazing grace and imagination.  I see his tender mercies, and I see him moving his people toward a greater understanding and greater love through these diversities.  I encourage everyone to take a moment and reflect on my story.  I hope that you will have gained something from it, and I hope it has encouraged each and everyone to go out into the world seeking a better understanding and a better love for all of God's children.  I was saved from a potential suicide because of an impression and a loving friend.  Many others, however are not with us now and many still need our love and support.

We only have one life to live.  Let's all fill it with love, kindness, and service. It's time to come together so that there may be no poor among us; whether they be poor in spirit, in love, in understanding, or in forgiveness for past wrongs, all are entitled to the tender mercies and blessings of God and his son Jesus Christ there are no exceptions.

Once again thank you for reading my post.  If you think someone may find peace and acceptance in reading this post please share it with them.  If not I hope that it inspires everyone to be more loving and kind in their service to their fellow families, friends, neighbors, and all humanity .  I hope that you all find, faith, hope, understanding, and love on your lifelong journeys.

First Post!

Hello, my name is Lance Irons and this is my blog.  I  know it sounds kind of cheesy but I needed something to start this post.  I am a 21 year old faithful member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I am studying to be a Psychiatrist and have been accepted into medical school.  I have a diversity of interests including music, history, religion, politics, policy, a little bit of sports interest, and most especially I have an interest in what it means to be Human.  What is it that sets every person apart.  What is a person's story?  Everybody has their own secrets, their own triumphs, their own regrets.  This is what makes us all infinitely important and life truly worth living.  These are some subjects I think I may put into this blog.  I say may because I haven't written it yet and I have no idea where this journey will take me.  If you decide to become a reader, Great!  If you decide you'd rather read something else, that's great too!  I wish everyone success and happiness in life and I hope that all may find peace on their lifelong journeys.