Feeling Both Hopeful and Sad

PART NINE OF
THE JOURNAL OF JAMES CURTIS
BY MICHAEL J. BAYLY

(To start at the beginning of this series, click here)

Friday

I guess it's been two recent things that have got me thinking upon my first sexual experience. First, Tony from Dignity has been seriously making the moves on me. He’s called twice since Sunday and even e-mailed me at work. He says he wants to spend time with me and get to know me better. The thing is, Tony’s already in a relationship, and has been for well over ten years. Vince shared this bit of information with me after our Dignity gathering on Sunday. He says that Tony and his partner have an “arrangement,” or so Tony has told him.

Personally, I don’t get it. I’d give anything to be in a relationship, and yet here’s Tony in one but who doesn’t seem to take it very seriously. I’m half tempted to go out with him just to find out more about how this “arrangement” actually works and to hear him try and justify it.

The other thing that got me thinking about my first time has been my interviewing of a number of young gay Catholics – or former Catholics, I should say. Many of them are at the age I was at when I had my locker room experience with the older guy who turned out to be a priest. I look back on that experience, and my life leading up to it, and realize what I child I was. I mean, even though I was twenty-two at the time, I was basically still an awkward teenager. I can't help but think that, in general, young gay people today seem to have it much more together than I and others in their thirties had it when we were their age. And that's especially true, I'd say, about most people of Vince's generation.

Not that I regret that first encounter. And I certainly don’t view the actions of the priest as abusive, as some may be quick to declare. No, as inexperienced as I may have been, I was (legally speaking) an adult. And I wanted it. It was an experience that helped me begin to grow up. It was more than a quickie in the locker room. I felt we genuinely connected; that we touched one another's souls, helped one another – however briefly. He gave me the opportunity to be loving and giving – and I took it, embodied it, grew from it. How can I regret that?

Anyway, as I said, I’ve been working on a feature article that the paper’s doing about why young people are abandoning organized religion. I was able to convince my editor to let me focus on young gay people, and thanks to some contacts in P-Flag was able to connect with seven of them over the past three days. Believe it or not, all come from Catholic families. None of them, however, identify today as Catholic. I don’t know why I’m surprised by this. I mean, let’s face it, I’m the aberration: a relatively young gay man who’s still in the church. And I can't help but think there's a connection between the "togetherness" of these young people I interviewed and the fact that they've consciously moved beyond the Church – a Church that, truth be told, prefers its members be good little obedient children. But does it have to be this way? Can't one be an adult and a Catholic?

One woman I interviewed, Monique, works with immigrants from a number of less developed countries – countries where AIDS is a real problem. She believes that the Catholic Church is perpetuating a major public health crisis because of its position on condoms. She can’t, in good conscience, identify with the church’s stance. Despite missing the social justice agenda of the church, she can’t bring herself to be part of any local parish because in her view, the wider church’s right-wing agenda overshadows conversations about poverty and justice.

Another interviewee, a guy in his mid-twenties, told me that organized religion hasn’t seemed relevant to him for over ten years. He finds the term organized religion, along with “faith,” to be artificial labels that are independent of people’s inherent goodness, sincerity, and capacity to love. For him, the church is more exclusionary and divisive than it is welcoming and inclusive.

What I found most interesting was how all seven people I interviewed reported having satisfying and meaningful spiritual lives – even though they were not connected to a particular church or religious tradition. I must admit I was shocked and not a little embarrassed by how taken aback I was by this – initially, that is. Once I started listening to what it was in these young people’s lives that gave them meaning and a sense of the sacred, I could totally relate to what they were saying. That was actually kinda scary. I mean, could I walk away from the church? Have I already began walking away? Sure, I attend daily Mass at St. Aelred’s, but I’m no longer connected to a Sunday parish community. Plus I attend the outlawed Dignity services – some of which are celebrated by women priests!

Anyway, as I said, I was struck by what some of interviewees had to say about what gave them satisfying and meaningful spiritual lives. Deb, for instance, says that positive and loving relationships between people are the most important ways of finding and expressing meaning in her life. She actively seeks out ways and opportunities to show others kindness, enthusiasm, sympathy, and non-judgmental thought.

Eric says he's learned to value bypassing what he calls limited and dehumanizing man-made rules. "I try to approach life thinking about how Jesus treated people while on this planet," he told me.

Claudia practices meditation, reads lots of books on different world faiths, and follows the example of individuals that she knows and who inspire her. Jeff finds volunteer work to be very meaningful. "Unlike a lot of organized religion," he said, "volunteer organizations don’t ask, 'Are you gay?' but rather they appreciate what you do for them."

Finally, Meg shared with me that she believes in "life and love." "I consider our relationships of love to be of God, to be sacred," she said with a warm smile - the type of smile I realized with a start one rarely sees on the faces of those bishops and priests who are ever-so-ready to judge and denounce the likes of Meg and I. Indeed, all the young people who shared so openly and honestly with me their spiritual lives.

I must admit I feel both hopeful and sad. I'm hopeful for our world because it seems clear to me that young people are much more self-aware and self-accepting of themselves as gay then were past generations. Things are changing for the better, and will continue to change. But I'm sad because the Church I love – or at least its official leadership – has had absolutely nothing to do with encouraging or facilitating such a loving and positive movement forward. Quite the opposite: it actively attempts to thwart it. Yet who knows: perhaps our confronting and grappling with such attempts to oppress and deny that which many of us intuitively sense and experience as beautiful and good, has actually helped gay people become more aware, more self-accepting, more determined. Kinda ironic, isn't it?

Tomorrow the Courage conference takes place at St. Jerome's. The local Dignity chapter is planning a peaceful protest outside the church, given that the group's attempts to have a public forum with members of Courage leadership have been rejected. It should be an interesting day.


To be continued.

See also the previous installments of The Journal of James Curtis:
• Part One: A “Bells and Smells” Kind of Guy
• Part Two: A Quiet Visit and an Exhausting Conversation
• Part Three: A Journey Begins
• Part Four: Carlos
• Part Five: My Lunch with a “Medicine Bearer”
• Part Six: Father Brandon
• Part Seven: The Note
• Part Eight: A Swimmer’s First Time