Hello EC community. Thought I'd broadcast a few updates since this has been an interesting week. My last thread detailed the beginning of a sort of meltdown where I told my wife that I will not be able to hold out much longer in our marriage, and am worried that my emotional detachment from my kids is really a huge concern. We have set some goals and are completely on the same page. She and the kids are off to Toronto tomorrow to visit her brother for a few weeks. The poor guy is also going through a divorce and gave a shout out for help. Along side of this is her successful second interview at a hospital (she's an RN) and we are waiting for the green light for a new job for her. This could happen within two weeks and would relocate us to Vermont. I am heading down to LA for some business meetings which will become the foundation of my new life outside of full time church work. I drive one of my least favorite drives down I-5 shortly after I drop my family off tomorrow at the airport. I met with an out gay pastor two days ago here in Sacramento. It was a good meeting and eye opening. He has put me into contact with an organization within the larger Lutheran world who's sole purpose is to help openly LGBTQ pastors, go figure. I talk with them tomorrow and we'll see where this can go. They offer all sorts of assistance to people in my position from counseling, safely maintaing my roster status and even financial support. I'll try to post about it before I hit the road. Finally, I am having lunch in West Hollywood with my on in-states gay friend on Friday. Looking forward to that. Funny how much can happen in 5 days, no?
VT- Brattleboro & Burlington VT are very LGBT friendly! I'm sure you could find support groups & build a "community" for yourself!
I'm close enough to VT to get their NPR station...Very progressive state (I like to think it's the Canadian influence )...great place for leaf-peeping too!
Palimpsest: Congrats on all the progress! I'm curious if there was even more progress today at your meeting with the pastor?
Sounds like things are moving along for you. I pray that your meetings go well and that you are able to plot out a course for the next stage of your life. It's amazing to see what you have come though and how you are doing with it all.
Buckle up kiddies, this is going to be a ride (!) First, thanks for all of the responses so far, always does make me smile. I am now in the possession of roughly half a dozen e-mail addresses from pastors across the country who are openly gay, three of which, came to this realization while married with kids. I will be reaching out to them in the days to come. The organization itself, Extraordinary Lutherans (ELM), seems to be my best bet of trying to live life as a gay pastor. I'm not sure I'm ready for that, but at least there is a group to work it out with right? (&&&) Now, here is where things get a little bit frustrating. I have now had one face to face with a gay pastor and one phone call with a lesbian pastor. I caught myself doing something so stupid with both of them that I need to call myself out on it with you all. Not that I expect people to read my blog posts, because they are written for my ends and purposes at the moment, but there is a tie in here I've got to get your opinions about. I have this tendency to build up a persona around myself, when I'm overwhelmed or trying to protect myself, that get's broadcast out in the real world. I'll be damned if I haven't already begun doing this with my new "gay story." I'm so pissed about it too. This is when I start to narrate some version of my mental wandering in a really detached sort of way (no emotional investment). In this case its like I'm trying to justify something, not sure what. I have been completely numb again this week for a good three days or so. This is really my biggest problem right now I think, I hide inside of myself, in my inflectional abstracting, and I don't want to do that anymore. :bang: I want to reconnect with the world around me, as a full version of me. If what I just said makes any sense to you, or if you have a tendency like this, how in the hell do you break that sort of cycle? How do you let your guard down? The closest I've come to an idea is this, to introduce myself again without abstraction and titles. To add in practical realities. When I'm around an attractive guy I loose my ability to speak. I feel things now that I have never allowed myself to feel before, but it would be a lie to say that I've been unaware of this part of myself for most of my life. Its just been kind of disconnected at the same time. The pure power of it is overwhelming and it yanks me out of my hiding places. Of course, I'm nervous as sh*t because if I stay in the space too long its too much, to get lost in beautiful eyes and an authentic personality, I blush. :icon_redf I was a super sensitive guy once and want to be again because I think it might just allow me to be truly happy again. I just don't know if I have the courage yet to go forward on this road. I'm anxious and isolated, and its the isolation that keeps upsetting things. Oh, and when I get like that and feel threatened I have this nasty habit of disengaging emotionally and start analyzing stuff, even if the stuff is not worth the energy. I need your advice!
Hi Pal! You stated that you are catching yourself narrating your "gay story", and if I understand correctly, what is troubling you is that you have intellectualized it, stripped it of feeling, placed it in a box and packaged it for consumption. Well yes, you have a sharp mind and you know how to think deeply. If I'm not mistaken, what's troubling you is that you would like to feel as deeply as you think. Being "troubled" is a feeling too...there's a "watcher" in you that is taking all this in and judging the situation, no? Here's the thing: you have played many different roles, perhaps more than most because your actual life was so fragmented and divided into separate and discrete contexts. What is troubling you is actually a heightened realization that your "core self" is somehow lost. I think you wrote this post before reading mine about how we are what we perform. I have mentioned before what Roland Barthes has said about how he creates things in his writing: "I begin producing by reproducing the person I want to be." and "To write by fragments: the fragments are then so many stones on the perimeter of a circle: I spread myself around: my whole little universe in crumbs; at the center, what?" From James Ogilvy's Living Without a Goal, he mentions a book by Richard Poirier called The Performing Self. The performing self is aware of his own performance as a performance. Ogilvy goes on to state "The appearance of this performance need not represent some singular true self behind the performance. Again, ostensibly describing [Henry] Miller, [Norman] Mailer writes: 'He comes to discover all those modern themes which revolve around the discovery of oneself. Soon he will dive into the pit of recognizing that there may not be a geological fundament in the psyche one can call identity.' Through discovering the lack of a singular substantial self, Mailer discovers the vanity of the Goal of self-realization." When one is aware of the self-as-performance the monument we call "self" collapses into nothingness, or as Ogilvy would say: "...or crumbles into a multiplicity of fragmentary personalities. There is no possibility of recollecting those shards of identity into a new unity. Miller and Mailer have abandoned forever that 'geological fundament'; they have broached into a sea where the usual assumptions about selfhood hold no water." He goes on: "Here we find not a self in search of its singular identity but whole casts of characters in search of an audience rather than an author. 'The narcissist is not self-absorbed so much as one self is absorbed in studying the other. The narcissist is the scientist and the experiment in one. Other people exist for their ability to excite one presence or another in oneself.' Further, on the inflammatory conjunction of exhibitionistic narcissists in love, 'Promiscuity is the happy opportunity to try a new role.' " You are trying to find that "super sensitive guy" in you. But maybe that is not the role you could be playing now. In the realm of relationships, a certain wildness is called for, I should think. Not promiscuity but rather an opportunity to proceed "as if" (to use the old actor's "Stanislavsky method") you were confident, as if you are able to feel as you want to feel; to pretend, until it no longer feels like pretending, all the while knowing that you are playing a role, and observing yourself doing so.
Palimpsest, I am a fan of doing early memory work. Much of the way that we present in current time is tied to some earlier action that we learned or something that happened to us where we began repeating a particular response reaction. I might suggest that you do some work around trying to figure out when this persona-building first began. Perhaps it was when you first became a pastor, or when you were in seminary. It may have begun even earlier in life. Who knows? Well, the fact is...you know, but you may have to do some digging in your memories to find it. Once you find it, you can examine it, talk with someone about it and give yourself permission to develop a new narrative. Anytime you catch yourself reverting into the old narrative, simply stop and say "I'd like to start over!" Then, you can be conscious in the moment that you're now on track using your chosen new narrative, not the one that has become patterned. Remember, you're trying to do a LOT of new things at once, so go easy on yourself and know that you are doing the very best you can. Best wishes to you!
That's a VERY interesting thought.... I've done enought soul-searching myself in the last week or two to have started realizing just how far back some of those knee-jerk reactions and narratives go. You can't change a largely unconscious behavior, I suppose, without learning to actually be conscious of it.
Good morning Palimpsest! My first thought upon reading your OP was, "Well, seems like a bit of an occupational hazard, doesn't it?" You're so used to telling stories as a mode of imparting lessons to your 'flock' - and if you're anything like most preachers I've heard sermonize, likely in the 2nd or 3rd person as well - that you're automatically slipping into pontificating mode even when it comes to your own life. I can see how that would be difficult to separate out. Perhaps you may want to consider reexamining your method of delivering all lessons as well. Maybe look at each thing that crosses your path or your mind from a personal level, instead of strictly an intellectual level, figure out how you relate to it emotionally and try delivering a lesson from that perspective, instead of from "Preacher Mode". I am rarely as emotional as when I'm speaking on a topic that I have connected to from my heart, and quite frankly, when it comes to the personal story you're attempting to tell now, I can't imagine there being too many things much closer to your heart. You can't break a smoking habit by only not smoking on Sundays, you're not going to change your storytelling by only changing the way you tell this one story.
GW, I agree I need to get in touch with a more aggressive side, that side that is a positive element of sexuality and one that I've never tapped to my knowledge. The idea of the sensitive guy was not "oh shucks, there's a pea in my mattress" but a person who I was for many years who was capable of being emotionally present. This is a concern that I have for myself and my relationship with my kids. The point of the narration, or observation, is that I recognize it as a very old and no longer so dear defense mechanism. Perhaps I need to acknowledge that I've gone 0-60 in such a short time that this is actually a way of keeping myself from overload. ormanout: I think I have been doing this as long as I can remember. I think it began as a reaction to traumatic issues around the time my parents got divorced and handled the custody battles very poorly. I agree that it is time to work with a professional on some of this and once I'm back from my trip to SoCal (In Orange County at my aunt's currently) I will seek out this sort of help. CB: Well, we dug too deep didn't we?!? Let me know how this all hits you. Dragonbait: Actually, I hate telling stories in the 2nd/3rd person and never ever script my sermons. They are all real time and from the gut/heart (depending on topic and mood). I am trying to think of how to clarify what I was observing. I also tend to preach from my own pain, which could indeed be an element of this. Really, I think my focus was a bit off. I think I wasn't ready to try and put career identity and gay identity into the same space, especially because the latter is still way to new to me. I understand what you are saying about passion. I can be an idealist and if I hit the right button then I have a huge drive. My story right now is just so damn big, overwhelming and yes painful. Painful for the loss of family and what I thought was to be my future (though I've been dreading living that future for a long while now) and painful in realizing just how alone I feel. What kills me is that I am really the one who has isolated myself from others. How do you wake up from that cycle? How do you snap out of it? PS: I tend to abstract like this the most when I am circling around something I don't understand. Sometimes I need to talk it out, say it out loud (GW, my most narcissistic moments actually, because I prefer talking to a real person but in such moments don't leave much room for a response). I really think my mind may simply be overloaded with data at the moment. _______ Just a quick update, will be meeting with another gay pastor and his partner sometime in the next few days. I want to go into that conversation without a script and see it through. I fear my meeting tomorrow, though absolutely important for my new career, will require me to play the part of a "solid family guy" as it was presented to me tonight. This does not make me too happy because I am not a solid family guy. Just a half way decent actor. And, in one last note, sitting in Santa Monica this afternoon on the promenade was crazy. (!) An entire microcosm of the full gay spectrum. What a trip, perhaps suffering from a bit of eye strain too
I"m still praying that you will find your way and that you will be lead down the right path. It seems like you are slowly making progress with all of this. It's not perfect yet and I'm sure there will be other things to work out.
Here's to you Palimpsest...(in honour of Lou Reed's passing today). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pAE5G5OBzw&list=PL77B81FB50A74F79F
I am in the same boat. It is maddening, at times. Three things that are helpful to me: 1)Trying to be vulnerable with others. It feels amazing. I get to know others better and I get to be more of myself. (!) *furthermore, If am going to tell somebody I am gay, then I need to think about it less as me passing a prepackaged box of information (as greatawhale mentioned). I try to pay most attention to the feelings that come up as I share information. If I am feeling apprehensive or nervous, then I try to be open about that, as well. That can prevent that intellectual wall from going up. 2)Kundalini Yoga. Nothing is more helpful to me in realizing (and accepting) that I am gay, and shaking this old, repressed, thinking self. It is better medicine than anything I know(including therapy). Our bodies react to our thoughts. If we are repressed emotionally, then are bodies are going to be tense and knotted. This helps me to practice letting my body makes the decision, and not my brain. There is a deep knowing and wisdom in our bodies. It knows we are gay before our brain does. Kundalini yoga is a practice to release the energy and free up the body, and to be aware of those pesky thoughts that are always telling us to stay away from pain and fear. 3)Stop my habitual behavior(so hard!!). The comfort that I provide myself numbs me much of the time. Choosing things that are new, and riskier, keeps me in a more alive state. This could be as simple as what I choose to eat for a meal or what kind of music I listen to. Be bold. Do the opposite! :icon_wink
StellarJ, What an excellent regimen. I think I may have put some of those into practice today before seeing your post, minus the yoga, but I do yoga now and again because it has an incredible way of loosening me up and I know that much of this junk goes right into my too rigid body. ________ So here go the updates. Still many, many moving pieces. Been putting in 13 hour workdays, which does feel wonderful, just a bit tiring. Sorry for my lack of posting across the EC universe. Met with another gay pastor today. Went in with a new strategy, called myself out on the whole narration phenomena and got down to what I was actually feeling. Turned into a lovely conversation with a few great compliments thrown my way; which my current lack of self confidence sorely needed to hear. This guy is in a relationship and hearing about it was also a great comfort in its own way. I told him that I needed to take a step back for a while about talking about "my story" and instead just hang out. Do something fun. Find a few gay friends. So, I will be staying in OC another night so that he can pull some of his friends together so that we might rendezvous at the gayest place in OC. That was his offer and I am overwhelmed at how excited I am. Time to put my foot in the water and enjoy feeling like I actually fit somewhere in this crazy world. I also gleaned form our conversation something that I expected. Being a gay pastor is a terribly complicated political mess. This is one of the reasons that I wanted to forgo the experience. I don't care about other people's agendas and political issues, I care about people and the reality of what they are dealing with. So I have decided that I will instead become a gay theologian. That is probably more useful as this point in history anyway. So I will guard up my loins to become a gay theologian (I precognisantly here your juvenile thoughts and concur) and try to outmaneuver the church in more ways than one I will keep you all posted.
