Saturday, December 24, 2011

Luke 1:67-79

Merry Christmas!

So, perhaps this is a bit heavy for 2:30 a.m. on Christmas morning, but I had a disproportionate number of ah ha moments today. I'm not going to share them all, but I'm going to start with the last one. I've been thinking a lot about how you know something that happens really is a sign from God - what is God's voice in your ear and what is you wanting justification or, if you have a history of occasional OCD moments and self-dare syndrome, just an impulse.

And I realized that a good way of telling is if it makes me laugh. I've made several people in my life mildly uncomfortable by turning upwards and shouting, "You think you're sooo funny!" In fact, whenever I have a truly big revelation - not just the "I didn't know when I started writing about this where I was going" blog entry realization (that happens almost daily, by the way) - but something finally clicks - it's usually in a way that just makes me laugh. Because of what triggered it or because I suddenly realize the appropriate parallel or because it's just too ironic for words. And I realize it's those moments when He just makes me shake my head and laugh that I am most hopelessly in love with God.

God and I have a very joke-filled relationship - or at least laughter filled one. I don't turn up for every crazy thing that happens to me, just so you know, but sometimes you get the feeling God is knocking you down a peg or trying to get your attention and I just have to smile at His Mischievous Divinity up there trying get His unobservant, distractable attempted handmaiden's attention.

Really unobservant, but I'm not going into that ah ha moment.

One of the respond-with-laughter moments I had today - and it's actually a little hard to explain why it was quite so funny when I try to put it into words, like inside jokes tend to be I suppose - was actually fairly big.

Basically, I realized what my life-changing moment was. And I realized how long ago I had it. And I realized that it was in a completely different form than I would have possibly thought. And that it was something that happened in an instant. If I'm being honest, there was a moment when suddenly my life became clear and it unfolded into something completely different than any of the potential lives I had thought out for myself.

Basically, it was when I realized that I was bisexual. Oh, I had been confused for a long time, and I didn't know that word until college so you can imagine how confusing high school was. But it was an almost embarrassingly short time ago that I was walking home up the hill in Virginia and the penny suddenly dropped.

I went through all the "wait, are you sure?" phases, of course, but one minute I didn't know and I assumed my life was on one path. Then the next I did know, and my life and my faith was about something different. That's starting to make it sound overblown - like your sexuality defines your life. I don't mean that.

What I mean is that I spent a lot my life thinking maybe I would be a nun, then thinking no, I want to be a mother if I can't be a priest. Thinking I'll be an activist pro-life lawyer, only to become a theatre director when I fell in love with Shakespeare and rehearsal rooms. I spent a lot of my life as a very right-wing Democrat.

And I realized that God didn't leave me like Zechariah, struck mute in the temple for refusing to believe the manifest and suddenly gifted truth. I remember (and often remind myself and a little bit Him) once He promised me that He would never leave me - that there would never be a time when I would have to be without Him.

It was probably during a retreat or prayer session of some kind, but I don't remember. I just remember making the request and feeling an unequivocable "Yes," in response.

He kept His promise. Within the first week at Rice, I had completely reversed my opinions on homosexuality. Pretty much the moment I met my friend Guy. Turns out all I needed to change my right-wing mind was an actual face to put with the minority group. Which - I don't love what that says about me, but at least if I catch myself in other upsetting prejudices it should be a fairly easy fix.

I spent four years working that out, in my head, with other members of my faith, over prayer. I stumped a nun in an argument. I matched Bible thumpers verse for verse in debates that didn't always maintain an entirely productive tone but never crossed a line (that I saw - unobservant, me). I made peace with the idea.

God made me ready for the penny to drop. For that I am eternally grateful, because the moment when the penny dropped didn't include a "Does this mean God hates me?" at all. It freed the realization of bisexuality to be a glorious gift - there's a word for what I've felt and been unable to understand for so long. There are other people like me. It's not a confused issue - it's an answer rather than a question.

What I realized was that He gave me an "your cousin Elizabeth is also with child" period for when the penny dropped - so that He wouldn't leave me mute like Zechariah. That's what I found so funny. God never shut me up. Must like the sound of my voice almost as much as I do.

I've thought all kinds of things about what God wants me to do here, on earth. And I remember a period of thinking that I should be a missionary, and, when I was very young, making a deal with/realizing that I was instead called to work in the First World, rather than the Third World. I wanted a different kind of fight.

And I have a feeling - will I ever get it.

I think what God wants me to do with my life is be a liberal, bisexual Christian who is right with God and practices in the Catholic Church. So that a) those who rejected the Church can see in someone who shares their views on social issues maintain a connection with God and b) those who are in the Church can have the same moment I did with Guy - a real face on bisexuality to make it harder to condemn. To make you realize that it's love however you slice it - so how can God not be a part of it? It's not only faceless heathens. It's also good Catholic girls.

I can't tell if I'm blowing up my importance or giving myself a pass to just "be" as my mission from God but - well, it's odd to think you might have already had your "life will be different than you ever imagined now" moment. I imagine Peter was still as confused as heck about what he would do with wife and mother-in-law and James and John sometimes wondered where their next meal would come from (in fact, that's on record). Heck, Peter still sank literally while Jesus was walking on water right in front of him. So I think it's safe to say I haven't gotten everything figured out by a long shot.

But reading Zechariah's burst of words after his long silence, I can't help thinking how I may have many moments like that when I tell people my sexuality in my future, but that my voice was never cut off from God's. I was never silenced, and He has never been silent in my life.

In fact, He and I are regularly cracking up over here.