Shadow Void

After my last post…

So after my last post, I decided to let people know for those who might be new to my blog, a little bit about me and where I've been as a man in this life. Well, it's no secret that I am LDS ( Mormon ). Basically, I never served one of those two year missions, because in some ways I thought it would not be good place for a gay guy like me to be. I have no regrets about not going. Sure, there might be people who might have joined the church through me. I needed to be in school right after high school. With my disability in math, I needed my skills whatever they might have been at the time to be fresh in my mind. I needed to be in study mode so that I would still remember how to make good use of my time. I tried to be a good man and look for the "right" woman when deep inside what I wanted was a "right" man. I never found the right woman, they always ended the relationship with the usual "You're too much like my brother." or "You're a too good of a friend.". I still speak with one of the ladies till this very day. I have awesome female friends and I couldn't imagine my world without them. I owe much to them. I was even engaged for a short time. I hold nothing against the opposite sex. The whole engagement thing is not a path that I want to go down again unless it is with the man of my dreams. I have been in and out of activity in my church mostly on the side of activity. I'm finding it harder and harder to stay active too. Some of it maybe because my testimony has faded, in other words my beliefs have faded a little bit. This fading of my beliefs doesn't mean that I'm anti-church it just means that for a while I was stalled without much growth. Any way, not sure why I felt the need to put this out there, but I did and so here it is.

When It Hits

Sometimes, life throws you a curve. It throws you a ball and instead of hitting with a bat, you catch it. Well, yesterday in church I caught the ball. I may not have one the game or made anyone's day. Yeah…I found out what has been circling overhead that feeling like change was coming and didn't know what in the heck it was. Well I found out. I have a new duties at church. I've known something was cooking all way back in February, and as weird as that sounds. Life is throwing me yet another curve. This time, I believe it has something to do with either Family or dare I say it a relationship.    

Solitary and Celibate

Sorry, for not providing any decent material lately on the blog, my muse has not whispered in my ear lately. This thought came across my mind's stage today. Sadly, if you are a gay man in my church and you want to be you and stay active in the church, there really are few paths open to you. After thinking about it all day long, the only path besides getting married to a woman and having kids, which is cool if that is what you want, is to live a life of loneliness and celibacy. Sure, I have met a few guys but no one goes beyond that first meeting. I guess on that score, I just need to wait it out and patient. There are times, that I crave cuddling or being able to just sit back and talk to that special someone into all hours of the night. You, my faithful readers, have all read how I prefer talking on the phone versus chatting. Use to chat all the time, I could literally chat for hours on end and now I just cannot get into chatting, which I know is slowing down the process a little bit. Harder yet, is the celibacy thing.

 

It is hard being without someone. It does keep clean for someone but I miss the connection that other people have. Hmm…guess, I am not just talking about sex but other forms of intimacy. I mentioned the cuddling in the above paragraph, would love to watch a movie and just cuddle on the couch. How cool would it be to cuddle on the couch while we both read our own books while sitting next to each other? Sometimes though it would be nice to go to bed with my guy next to me and wake up to him in the morning. It's funny when things are going great, I don't think about this much but lately, I've been stressed. Stress really brings this out in me. In fact, I tend to take matters into my own hands a lot more when I am stress. Anyone else have that problem. As anyone else noticed that, I'm a little bit more open with this side of me lately? Does it bother anyone? Hmm…come to think about if you do not like do not read my blog. It's crazy!

Hey Gang

Being active or semi-active in my church comes with a few challenges. One of those trials for me is dealing with people. For me this may be the second hardest part other than the obvious. I don't really associate with that many people at church because I don't have that much in common with them. I don't have kids, I'm not married, and even if I was, I doubt very much that they hang with me anyway. The only thing that we have is shared between is our beliefs ( well most of them ). There are three categories of people at church. There are the people who don't get me, they are the ones that I don't talk to and they don't talk to me. Then there are the people who talk to me because they have no choice for whatever reason. Finally, there are people that I do talk to because I want too.

Now it makes little sense for me to get into the other challenges because, I don't want to run my mouth on things that I've already blogged about till the cows come home. Maybe I just mention them briefly. There isn't exactly a recognized program for finding my partner in the church. My marriage will never be recognized by the church. I could choose to ignore what sometimes feels like a huge part of me. Anyway, the first paragraph is really what I wanted to talk about and I lost my train of thought. I need to get to bed.

** My ribs are feeling so much better by the way. Thanks to everyone for the good thoughts and prayers

 

Children Singing

This is going to sound bad, very bad but I find the sound of children singing to be very harmful to my ears. My singing isn't much better, but I can't seem to hear my voice's defects as readily as I can the sound of other people's pitch problems. Granted the voices of the kids aren't trained and neither is mine. Still hearing their singing voices can be painful. Today was the children's program at church and it was torture at times. Sure, their parents are beaming with pride in their little's one's voices and smiles. Sure, it's cool to hear the kids recite their parts, but the singing, each and every time that they slaughter the pitch is torture. By the way, that is why I rarely record myself singing. Anyway, this is post is totally random.

The End of The World?

There are people out there who believe that on Saturday all the good people will be taken up into heaven leaving all the evil people down here on Earth. Who knows you might even be one of them. While I do believe that at some point, there will be a return of Christ, I do not actually believe that there is a known time or a way of figuring out when the end date is on our calendar. Sure there are signs left and right of his return, but it says somewhere in the New testament that no one knows that date expect for Jesus. I put my faith in that rather than someone who has spent hours and hours and hours cooking up some kind of equation to pin point his return. I don't know how many times this has happened where someone thinks the world is going to end and it never does. My mind can't get over the fact, that people are throwing parties or spending their life savings over this. PLEASE for your sake, do not go out and spend your savings this over Friday or Saturday! While things could go totally berserk on Saturday, I do not believe that it will be because of his return. I'm just saying.

Westboro Video

Just before my computer went sour, I came across a video done by a member of the Westboro church on YouTube. It was a spoof of one of Lady Gaga's songs I believe. It literally did something to me that music has never done to me. I was repulsed. I did listen to the whole thing, but it left a very sorry taste in my mouth. Being Christian, I'm okay with someone calling others to repentance in a civilized manner. None of the actions this church has taken has impressed me. In a spoof, I wrote in my blog journal I raise several half-hearted questions. I'm not going to post it at least not yet. I think the thing that upset me the most, was that they were teaching this song to a girl who couldn't be any more than 3 or 4, maybe even younger. I'm sorry but teaching a kid to hate the world, to hate any portion of our population is wrong. It wasn't the only thing wrong with the video, but hit me like a ton of bricks. Oh, the other thing that I noticed was that this little girl somehow didn't seem all that sweet. In fact, I think the word that I used to describe her eyes was "possessed". This little girl looked like she belonged in a horror movie. I know my church has it's issues, and I am not knocking their church. I'm knocking their rather hateful way of showing their beliefs. I was going to put a link into this video for you, however when I couldn't find the video. Hmm…wonder if it was removed by Youtube? I'm not for censorship but I'm also against hate-mongering.

Easter

Happy Easter! I hope you celebrate the day with your family. Rather you are Christian or any other religion or belief, I hope you find reason to celebrate. We, who are Christian, celebrate this day as the day, that Christ, the Lord, was resurrected. I know that he was risen from the grave. If you follow other beliefs, then perhaps today is a time for celebrating the renewal of life following winter. Either way, HAPPY EASTER! Don't eat too much Chocolate. LOL

Christians that don't practice Christianity

A Christian Is one who professes belief in the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Christianity is the religion derived from Jesus Christ, based on the Bible as sacred scripture, and professed by Eastern, Roman Catholic, and Protestant bodies.

We've all seen them on the news, read about them somewhere, or had the misfortune of being around them. Often they come across as righteous Christians, but then their fangs are revealed. They have no problems casting you done to hell while they break a commandment. My personal favorites are the smart ones who find one obscure verse of scripture and use it to attack groups of people that they don't like. Their words are totally covered in venom. Nothing like using the bible to excuse the beating of your wife, use it to justify their racism, or the hate of the other religion groups and how can I forget the hate of other sections of the population ie the GLBT community. The bible is the bible and if you're a Christian then, that means you know it's the word of God. It shouldn't be twisted to serve your purposes. Come on, how many hypocrites does the world need? Don't you think that it sours the Christian faith? Get a freaking grip. By for now!

Why I Stay?

The question was asked "Why do I choose to stay active in the church?", so I'll do my best to answer it. I don't promise to make it any clearer. I'm also not going to convince you that I'm doing the right thing. It is clearly not the choice that others would make or have made. I just hope that in writing this, that I'm able to answer your question.

 

There really isn't' any good reason to stay, that is going to make sense. I mean, the church put money into the fight against gay marriage. It would be easy to just quit going because of the church's stance on our rights. What wouldn't be easy, would be for me to my back on the people there, that I call friends. The one common thread we share is our belief, so one reason that I stick around are my friends. Yes, I can make friends elsewhere, but I'm shy. It's not the best qualities to have when making friends.

 

My next reason for staying is my family. It's funny, that I should choose my family as a reason to stay. Why is that funny? Well as I said in my last post, my mom is homopobic, my sister, and maybe my brother in law too, and maybe even more members of the family that might be haters. There are reason to step away from church and family. My family despite, its problems is still my family. I'm hoping to avoid conflicts by staying active in the church. My current situation is not the best but I'm pushing forward any way.

 

My third reason for staying might sound like a big pile of crap, and that is fine by me. I don't think that all the doctrine is bad. The health code ( word of wisdom ) was mentioned on another site as being many years ahead of science. That is just one example of doctrine that I love. I don't in any support the church's stance on my life and the lives of many other men and women. I still find solace by being there. I don't always go. Sometimes, I hate going. But like I said, there is solace and sometimes a renewal by attending.