#prejudice #GLBT #judgment #personaltruth
Two days in a row, I have woken up with someone posting to my Facebook page judgmental words in the name of God. Today, to my yesterday’s posting about ridding your life of anxiety and stress, which never even mentioned sex, someone posted: “This should read erotic and disgusting! That’s not what I said. That’s what God said!”
Of course, I immediately blocked him from posting to my site. He was a friend of someone who “liked” the post, so he wasn’t one of my friends. Yesterday, I had someone write me a personal message (thank you for not sharing your ugliness with the world), who was on my friends’ list, which said, “I pray that God shows you the real way to heaven!”
This is actually ironic, because yesterday’s post had two scripture quotes from the Christian bible. I thought I was being a little too religious for most of my readers. But, I guess, the more a gay person says he believes in Jesus’ teachings, the more he is persecuted.
I’ve had 6-7 friends who were also Christian ministers who have come out in the past few years. Some have stayed to honor their ministries, others have moved on to find themselves. Either way, the path to people understanding was difficult. One man in Atlanta was a huge evangelical minister with many books and had a campus—not just a church—because of the amount of people who followed him. His story went public, so it is fine to talk about it here. His wife and children knew of his propensity toward being gay, but for years fought it. Jim says he never even had any kind of affair during those years. He just knew in his heart he was gay. However, it was his wife, who told him that he should practice what he preached and come out! Rev. Jim began to take the hard step of accepting gay people into his ministry with open arms without judgment first, which is what led his wife to divorce him and nudge him out of the closet. She told him she would continue to be a co-minister with him at the church, love him, and support his decision to come out, which, I believe, was amazing. When I watched the interview on television on “The View,” I mostly cried because of Deb’s position in the process of his accepting himself and coming out.
I went to his church after the news. Most of the seats were empty. I would say he had about 30% of his following stay with him. Good for them, probably, hard for the ministry to stay afloat, though. I can’t imagine that with so few members they could pay the bills. Still, he managed to continue preaching every week. Rev. Jim Swilley saw me in the pews that morning and remembered my face from sending him a few encouraging messages on Facebook. In the middle of preaching his message, he asked me if I wanted to come up to the pulpit and sing, without even knowing if I could sing and never even meeting me beforehand. This fellow was listening to his heart, clearly. I did go up and sing, “Amazing Grace.” I felt like crying the entire time. I knew Jim’s heart had been bleeding. You didn’t have to be Svengali to notice how hard it had become to find himself and do it in front of all the people of his congregation, most of whom had turned their backs on him and his forgiving and compassionate, minister wife, Deb.
This past year, many articles and books have been written about scriptural interpretation of the Christian bible and its meaning about homosexuality; especially the scriptures about Sodom and Gomorrah. Before I even began reading the books that appeared on the shelves about why God didn’t care if I was gay, I had to find the truth in my own soul.
I couldn’t look in a book to discover the truth about myself. I had to see it clearly in my heart, first. The road to understanding and loving yourself, in the face of those who will judge you, is a scary road—one only a warrior can travel. I honor anyone who does this, especially ministers who will get the most flack and prejudice. One of my best friends had to let go of 1000s of friends when he came out, because most of his dearest friends were in the church. These friends loved him while he was in the closet, without knowing he was gay. Yet, as soon as he voiced his truth, they despised and mocked him.
Your truth is important, friends! No one should be able to snatch it away. You should hold it close to your heart and make it real for you. If you feel the need to put it out in the open for the world to see, you should expect that men and women “of God” will dispute it. For you, I would say, don’t try to argue with them. They have a right to their opinion. Simply just press “block” and keep them from getting in the way of your honoring your personal path to spirituality. Your authentic connection to God and Spirit is all that matters.
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* Bo Sebastian is a Hypnotherapist and Life & Health Coach, available for private sessions to QUIT SMOKING, Lose Weight, New Lap-Band Hypnosis for Weight Loss, CHANGE YOUR MIND, CHANGE YOUR LIFE! at 615-445-8861 or www.BoSebastian.com. Please feel free to comment and/or sign up to receive your blog sent to you directly or stream with an RSS Feed. Please spread the word by liking the page or sharing this with your friends. Also, Bo is the senior editor of Findingauthenticyoupublishing.com if you are interested in checking out the bookshelf for books he has written or acquired, or want to submit a book, to this site for help. Thanks for being a part of my tribe.
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