A Coming Out Letter: Holy Week 2012 (Repost)

As one of the 111 signatures on the "coming out" letter presented to the denomination this week, I am standing on the shoulders of others leading and advocating on my behalf.  I have been given the gift of being a pastor who just happens to be gay.  The least I can do this week is share my story.  

In gratitude for my friends, family and colleagues who supported me, for the LA LGBT center's "coming out group" who helped me find my way, and for all those who speak for the outcast while people of faith remain silent ...

A Coming Out Letter

Life is a gift and far too short not to claim the life you have been given.

When we lost our marriage, my wife and I were devastated. The apostle Paul, in one of his letters, says that human beings are like clay jars.  The only benefit that I can find to being fragile pottery is the chance to have a long, good look at the pieces when we are broken.  As I labored to put myself back together, I realized that there was a more obvious form to the pieces than I had been living.  I am writing to tell you that I am gay.

Since I was a child, I suppressed my primary attraction in life. There was no room in our culture for my homosexuality to be acknowledged, so I safely packed it away at the edge of my awareness.  I lived my life well and as fully as I could.  For that I am deeply grateful, but three years ago it fell apart. It is time now to fully claim the life God has given me.

This is not a choice.  I had been suffering, suffering for a long time: chronic anxiety, acute panic attacks, painful physical tension, self-loathing, toxic perfectionism.  Many suffer these symptoms for different reasons; however, it wasn’t until I let the unacknowledged part of myself be my self, that I realized the burden I had been carrying.

As early as kindergarten, I knew I was different.  I blamed myself, made up for it by being the best little boy I could.  As an adolescent, I was desperately lonely and didn’t understand why.  I never doubted, for a moment, your love for me.  I had just never loved myself.  Among the LGBT community, I am finally among people who are like me.  They are extraordinary people.  Being gay is a remarkable gift.

Human beings, in all their complexity, imperfection and beauty are simply a miracle.  Each of us is created in the image of God who is Holy, wholly Other.  I now understand that difference itself is sacred, a sacrament of that divine otherness.  For the first time in my life I am beginning to see that my value lies not in my ability to be the person others would like me to be, but rather in the unique beauty and complexity of my own heart, soul, mind and body.  

To use an Old Testament metaphor, the last three years have been all wilderness, but now, at least, I am standing on the shore of the Jordan. I can see my way across.  On warm summer nights I swim naked in its waters.  The water is good.  I know that I am a child of God.

Ancient Israel met God in the wilderness.  As I have drawn closer to myself, I too have drawn closer to whatever it is that we gesture at with the word God.  I am a better pastor, a better interpreter of the Bible.  The New Testament, after all, is written by folks challenged to live their faith openly in a hostile world.  I am Nicodemus, standing in the shadows, afraid to step into the light of day. I am the woman at the well, drawing water alone to avoid the judgement of her peers.  I am the blind beggar, healed without asking for the gift or for its consequences.  I am Lazarus.  Once, dead.  Now, called out to new life.   

Know that I am happy.  Celebrate this with me.  If you don't know what to say, begin there.

- Rev. Mark Sturgess, Holy Week 2012

---