Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Nathan Gunter's LiveJournal:

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Friday, November 4th, 2005
3:36 pm	Just in case.... I remembered today that I had this little space, you know - three years after I stopped writing it. And in case someone was thinking this was how my story ended - injured and sad and headed for home. Nope. That is where it began. It continues here and here. I can't imagine anyone is running across this thing still, but it's possible. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, November 5th, 2002
10:01 am	The End...on to new things Hey everyone who's been reading my journal...both of you... I'm finishing up my live journal for awhile, but I'll be online weekly at gaychristian.net with my column, "Queer As Faith." Feel free to email or IM me (ConMuchoGusto64 and QueerAsFaith) to discuss. I'm going home to Oklahoma as soon as I can sublet my apartment. I need to be around people who love me, because right now, with the breakup and my head injury, I'm feeling little more than hatred, anger, and sadness, and I find I'm not able to feel much else (a good sign of clinical depression). So I'll be at home. Hopefully Yale is still in my future, but for now I'm on leave. And I do believe that God is good and that this is the best thing...so here goes a brand new adventure... (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, October 8th, 2002
5:37 pm	21 Things That I Want in a Lover... This is partly serious, partly kidding, all peripheral, and inspired 1) by the Alanis song, and 2) by my boredom from a slow day at work. So here, in no particular order, are 21 things I want in a lover. 1) A strong and committed faith in Jesus 2) a belief in love that comes from God's love and is not contingent on feelings of romance -- in other words, a sense of commitment and a maturity about what love is 3) a wacked-out and fairly perverted sense of humor 4) enthusiasm for life without being annoyingly perky 5) cute without being too vain 6) unselfish but honest about what he wants 7) educated and/or well-read 8) possessed of a healthy sex drive and unselfishly versatile 9) physically affectionate at random times 10) A GOOD KISSER! 11) random acts of kindness and romanticism 12) willing and eager to receive and give 13) adventuresome, not too puritan in his thinking ;-) 14) around my age!!!!! (you old guys, you know who you are) 15) not spiritually superior or super-christianey 16) not a snob of any kind. don't bitch if I listen to dumb pop music. 17) you must like one or all of the following: Friends, W&G, Buffy, or SpongeBob. 18) screen name does not contain the words Cute, Jock, or Boi 19) was inspired by "On the Road" 20) likes to dance at clubs 21) wants to see the world Some of these are musts, some are suggestions. Discuss with me further to find out which is which. Until then boys, anybody up to the challenge??? ;-) (2 Comments |Comment on this)
4:18 pm	I've thought several times of turning this live journal into a series of monologues, kind of using what I've written here to script a one-man play for myself. Just an idea I was having. Lots has happened, for those of you who don't know (which is no one, but it still helps to say) Rich broke up with me last month. At first I really didn't know how I'd get through it. But it wasn't just that. Everything seemed to be going wrong for awhile. The breakup was the worst, obviously. Here was this man who I'd finally learned to commit to, and to whom I was excited about commiting. We were struggling, granted, and I thought it was all my fault. I deal intensely with things, and when things would go wrong I'd want to talk about it, to work it out, and I began to think I was putting too much pressure on Rich to be something he wasn't ready to be. And maybe that was true. But I realize now it wasn't all me. And it wasn't all him. I think we just weren't really meant for each other. Still, I don't regret the relationship, I learned so much from it. And there is a part of me that will always love him, and a bigger part that will always miss him. Still, I think it's for the best. Granted, it wasn't my decision, but I need to be big enough to admit when I'm wrong, and I think the timing for us -- moving, starting new schools, and trying to live together -- it was just poorly timed. Maybe in another time, in another place it could've worked, but those fantasy scenarios are pointless to try to dream up. The big difference, I think, was that we have vastly different ideas of what love is. I won't get into it, but when that's the difference that two people have, it will be very hard for them to work things out when love begins to wane. But I'm slowly moving on from that. It would've been easier if everything else that's been going on hadn't been piled on top. I'm new here, and I haven't yet met many people I can turn to. I've made some good friends, and they were instrumental in helping me deal -- hanging out with me, coming over to chill when I was alone in the apartment, just listening when I wanted to talk... but it's nothing like Wake or Oklahoma would've been in this crisis. Nobody I can call in the middle of the night yet, nobody who I'm comfortable crying in front of...it'll come though... ...plus, I was really not enjoying school at first. I was wondering what the hell I was doing in Div school when (and for the first time I'm admitting this to myself) I know I really want to write. I've been writing a lot of good stuff lately -- a lot of songs, and a lot of expository-essay-type stuff. I'm wanting to improve a lot in music, and I'm practicing at least an hour and a half every day on all the new sheet music I ordered. Hopefully someday it'll happen... ...but I'm getting more into Div school now. I cut down to 3 classes -- no need to add extra academic stress on top of everything, plus I was hating OT Interpretation -- and my ethics class is really turning me on to the possibility of pursuing ethics. I mean, I still want to write and perform, but I am completely fascinated by this stuff. I'm amazed that for all our talk of morals, Christians can be the most unethical people on earth. I've experienced this as a gay man (see previous entries) and I really believe that it's incumbent upon the Christian community as a whole to help the gay community to construct an ethic (which is different than a set of moral rules) by which it can seek God and grow in Him. All that to say, here's to the beginnings of not feeling so lost career-wise. Speaking of career stuff, I'm writing a LOT. For those of you old avid readers of my OGB column, and those of you who still read this (both of you, Elena and Dyl), I'll be doing a weekly column on gaychristian.net (thanks Justin!!!) and I'm going to be writing some stuff to submit to XY magazine. Let's hope they like me. I sorta think I'm good enough to get published there. So writing's happening, music's beginning to think about happening (I ordered a cheap but nice new guitar w/ some of my refund money), and I'm beginning to get used to being single again. I feel like a bit of clay that gets put into a container. Its edges are defined while it's there, but when you take it out, it starts to regain a bit of its own shape. I feel like that, like as the constraints I put on myself because of my commitment to Rich -- those habits I cultivated, the little things I did out of love for him -- as those things fall away, I'm becoming something new, something more of who I was. It's a little scary because there's no safety net (okay, yes, I just switched metaphors) but I know it's going to be good. So I've had a couple dates, met a few cool people, given and received numbers. It's exciting but I feel neither the need nor the desire to rush into anything. Well that's not true. I want to rush into the waiting arms of my God... Mercy is good. Life is...getting better. Still hard, still a bit heartbroken, but it's okay. I don't feel the need to fix things right away. I'm okay to just let it be broken for awhile. Future, here I come...kicking and screaming, but still... (Comment on this)
Monday, August 26th, 2002
10:12 pm	learning who I am... I talked to Tish tonight for the first time in over three months. God, that was a good feeling. I've missed her a whole lot...I tried to think about what she was doing in Africa, but it was hard for my imagination to conjure the life of a missionary in Uganda, so I just resigned myself to praying for her peace. I told Rich when I got off the phone, "It never ceases to amaze me that no matter what's going on separately in our lives, the things Tish and I are thinking about and dealing with are always remarkably the same." Like we've both been dealing a lot with relationships, and wanting very much to find our own way in life, and wondering if the context of a relationship is the best place to be doing that. It looks very different for both of us -- no worries here about the future of my relationship with Rich -- but it's something that's on our minds...me, at my register in Wal-Mart, and Tish living in Africa all summer, and here we are, dealing with the same thing. And I marvelled at how it used to frighten me to examine and struggle with and admit where I was. The theme, if you will, of my life these days is that I'm trying to find my own way. I'm trying to find out who I am, and I'm realizing how scary and hard that can be. Because when you learn who you are, you have to admit that no matter how much you're just like every other human being on earth in being sinful and screwed up on some level, you also have to admit that you're a pretty unique and special and different human being. Which we're taught to think is a good thing -- and it is. But it's also a scary thing to admit, because it can feel lonely. I know I can feel like I'm the only one who feels a certain way, likes a certain thing, experiences a particular event in the way I do. It can be lonely to be me, because I'm the only me there is, so it's not like there's another me to talk to. Which I guess is why we all need people around us. I think community helps us learn who we are, and, among believers, helps us learn how to worship as ourselves. Or at least, it should. Not that it always works that way... Anyhow, I'm learning who I am, and I'm learning not to be scared of being alone in that. I think part of that involves owning who you are, how you feel, what you think and what you do... ...and, since everything in my life seems to point me to the Gospel, I'll go on to say that doing that is, I think, what salvation is all about. Learning to learn and accept and (if you want to be a Kierkegaardian about it) appropriate your own need, your own sinfulness, and ultimately your own complete, total, and unconditional belovedness in the eyes and hands of God... Thank you Lord that I'm learning, that I'm growing, and that it doesn't happen all at once. Because if it did, I'm sure I'd forget it all in a few minutes anyway.. Current Mood: hopeful Current Music: Alanis Morissette, "Precious Illusions" (Comment on this)
Thursday, August 15th, 2002
9:51 am	Awakening Americans... Last September 11, after I recovered from the initial shock of what was happening (a process which, like most, probably took several hours at least), I realized what was going to happen. I predicted it: "Break out the Lee Greenwood." Patriotism ran amok. And while I've never been a big fan of the emotion -- it tends to exist in extremities or not at all, I think -- I think it did serve a good purpose in helping our nation to heal. Of course, it also served a good purpose for our President. George W. Bush's approval rating soared after Sept. 11. I will admit that he handled the immediate situation well. His confidence and faith in America were instrumental in helping this country begin to heal from a freshly gaping wound. However, his administration began to scare me after a little while. John Ashcroft instituting military tribunals for Al Qaeda fighters caught in Afghanistan, then saying that anyone who questioned the administration's methods was aiding the terrorists. Things like this frighten me as to the state of our leaders' minds, and the state of the world we will find ourselves in when "Homeland Security" starts knocking on my door for writing this. Bush's father, I can imagine, had some advice for him. After all, George Sr. experienced a 91% approval rating during the Gulf War. His big mistake was to end that war as quickly as he could, for once it was over the American public saw what a bad job he was doing as President -- the economy was terrible, he had no real connection to the public, and chaos was breaking out all over the globe in places like Bosnia and Somalia, and it simply wasn't in our power to control it. Bush Jr. faces a similar situation. Our economy sucks -- take it from someone who just graduated college and couldn't find a job to save his life (yay for grad school). New moral debates rage over cloning, civil rights, and a number of other issues which beg for a President's input, if not leadership. The cool thing about Bill Clinton was that he could navigate these waves, these eddies, he could stand at the head of the ship of state and seem totally cool, as though he was loving every minute of it. I always admired that about him. George Jr. is seeing the winding-down of the war on terror. It may still go on for another year or two, but the public's lost interest. We've moved on, and now he's seeing his numbers drop. I'm betting that when war broke out in Afghanistan, George Sr. called him up and said, "Drag this out as long as possible so they feel like they have to support you, otherwise you're dead in four years, just like me." So once more into the breach, my friends, into Iraq. Let's consider. Yes, Saddam Hussein is probably dangerous, but what are our real motives? At the helm of our ship of state is this Texas cowboy who sees the United States as his own personal ass-kicking machine. The world -- not even our closest allies -- will support an incursion into Iraq by U.S. forces. Shouldn't that tell us something? It's simply not our place, not our time. It's grandstanding, plain and simple. It's a mistake. If we start going to war with every unfriendly country, it could be the world that turns on us. Think about it. We can't ignore the implications, the message that a U.S.-forced regime change anywhere in the Middle East would send to the world. "Your future is in our hands." And with our unconditional -- and highly mistaken -- support of Israel in that area, we are sending an ethnically-tainted message to the Arab world that what we say goes. And when the entire Arab world worries that Israel has become entirely too powerful standing on the giant's back of America, that message could prove more dangerous to us than we can fathom. We must stay out of Iraq. Give it some time, at least. Let Saddam try something stupid and get the world to stand behind us. Now is not the time. Our motives are exposed and clear to the world, and the world will not stand behind this. We are powerful, but can we stand up to the moral opposition of the entire world? To attempt to do so is arrogant and presumptuous, and it sends the wrong message to the rest of the globe. America is not the maverick cowboy peacekeeper of the world, despite what George Jr. may have learned in his Texas schoolroom all those years ago. This mentality may prove incredibly dangerous not only to Bush's administration, but to all of us. This journal entry brought to you by Insta Soap Box. Just add current issues and BAM! One soap box! Brought to you by Spishak Industries, the makers of "Something so Right" and the "Needy Evie" doll! Current Mood: annoyed (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Wednesday, August 7th, 2002
10:40 am	why the end times hurts people... Here's a sample of the thoughts that go through my head during the day... I'm sure you've all seen the "Left Behind" series of books. Some of you, regrettably, may have even seen the film, starring TV's Kirk Cameron. It's Mystery Science Theater material all the way. There seems to be a lot of fatalist thinking in modern Christianity, and as well-intentioned as it may be, it seems to hurt people, both believers and non-believers, on several levels. On one hand, it can be compared to the UFO phenomenon or parapsychology. People go around having speculative conversations late at night talking about when Jesus is coming back, etc. etc. It all has an air of disbelief to it but it serves as good urban myth, a good scare tale, a good campfire story. And when non-believers hear nothing from Christians but this stuff about the end times, they think of Christianity in terms of Santa, UFO's, or another good urban myth. Untrue and ultimately not useful. Then there's the well-intentioned but ultimately unthoughtful Christians. The passages about the end of the world in the Bible (while VERY difficult to decipher) were intended to give the (first century) church hope, and they still serve that purpose. However, it also gives the church a fatalist mentality which is sorely misplaced in our world. Evangelism can become hit and run, because it becomes about "getting as many people ready as you can." Jesus could come any moment, so we have to save tons of people! What gets left out here is relationship. Is growth. Is even an accurate or true picture of the Gospel...we get so focused on getting people to that moment of decision as quickly as possible that we a) don't care about what we do to get them there, including manipulation of many kinds, and b) don't worry too much about them once they are there. We plug them into a church and tell them how to live, but it seems we don't care too much about how they're growing, how they're learning, and how they're (or we're) fulfilling the greatest commandment to "love your God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself." We want to get people into the club, but once they're there, they stop mattering as much. The person gets left out because they've never been a person. They've been a project. There's no time, in a fatalist frame of mind, for PEOPLE, there is time only for projects, for getting as much done as we can. Conveyer-belt evangelism -- which comes from this end-times fatalist mentality -- hurts Christianity, because it hurts believers, it hurts new converts, and it hurts non-believers. It perpetuates this image in our culture that Christians don't care about anything but the numbers, about making themselves look good, about enlarging the flock. The fact is, being a believer isn't about being good or being fatalistic. "I came that they might have life, and have it to the full." It's about this moment, about how we're loving -- how we love God, how we love others, and how we love ourselves -- this very moment in time. It we believe, we're ready for whatever comes, because we know we're loved. We're ready for the end, but we constantly experience a new beginning. And as we love people we show them Jesus in our actions and in our lives, not in our tracts or our Bible-beating. Not in our goodness, but in our fallenness, people see redemption. (Comment on this)
Thursday, August 1st, 2002
1:07 am	Slim Slow! That's the new diet I'm on: Slim Slow. Rich is worried about money, and frankly, so am I, a little. But I really do believe -- from exerience -- that God wouldn't bring us here to strand us in an impossible situation. It's just that sometimes the way out of a situation isn't always the one you like...sometimes it involves parents, and that always sucks. On the flip side, I think I got a job working at the supermarket branch of People's Bank, and the woman who interviewed me said pay was 11-15 an hour, which would ROCK. Especially for 30 hours a week! Please Lord let that pan out soon... Mom's 50th birthday is tomorrow/today. I sent her flowers today. She's the greatest, I miss her. Went out last night, met some GREAT people...two from the Divinity school. Michael, who I already knew from online, introduced us to Andrew, who is very cool, and a lot of other people. And I finally got to meet the legendary Chris and Jean, which was GREAT. Things are looking up...thank You Lord. (PS if I misspelled anything it's because the keys on my keyboard don't seem to want to work tonight (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 30th, 2002
11:29 am	home... Now that I'm here, moved in, stuff put away (mostly), with Rich at last and really learning to see how much he loves me and why, I feel this rush of creativity. I want to start writing again. I have a new story idea, but I haven't written fiction in so long and after being shot down so much in my short story workshop sophomore year, my confidence might just be all shot to hell. I want to write lyrics. There are several stuck in there waiting to be birthed out, like a big piece of food stuck in your throat and eventually you know it's got to go somewhere. Pleasant, huh? I'm a little less crazy now, but I pray that out of my insanity comes something good and creative and that will uplift and teach and inspire and be praise or useful or maybe even just a hit song somewhere down the road (Comment on this)
Saturday, July 13th, 2002
2:38 am	need we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this power is not from us. It is from God. I'm cracked and broken. I'm breaking down. and I look at it from the outside, from the place of security that I should inhabit constantly but that I just visit when it's looking really bad, and I see something I regret. I see me insecure beyond my wildest imagination. What is it about being in a relationship that brings out insecurities I didn't know I had? Does that make the relationship a bad thing? Absolutely not. It makes it a powerful instrument of growth. Don't ever tell me you can grow without seeing your weakness. Don't tell me you can learn who you are, that you can become an authentic person, without looking at the worst that it is in you, without staring into the abyss of your own heart and seeing the blackness and the vile sin that is there. Thank you Lord for my relationship with Rich. Thank You that I'm looking at me and seeing stuff I didn't even know was there. I look into me, into my behavior and into my thoughts, when I am given the grace and courage that let me be honest about what those truly are and where they come from, and I see the Fall. I see a scared boy who is so afraid that no one in the world loves him that he's forgotten what love looks like. He's almost forgotten how to hope that love can be true and powerful and meaningful. I'm scared. I'm deeply, vitally, essentially frightened. Of being alone. Of being unnecessary. Of being peripheral. Everyone I've ever loved has left. In one way or another, they've all left. Right out of the garden gate with an apple in their hands. Even if they've always been physically here, it's been a hurtful existence. That's our world. And I'm so scared that after all that, I'm afraid and unable to love. I need empowerment. I experience death now: I need life. I need the power of an unlimited and undying love. God's. John Bruns said to me tonight, "Be God's." I need that. I need to belong to something bigger than my own worries, because when they roam free like they do, they ensnare me, and I belong to them fully and completely. I don't know what it is about me that does this (original sin?) but I am owned by my fears and trepidations, by the thought that no one loves me, that no one wants to love me, that no one even wants to know me or be around me or ever see me again. But there is a faith that says that's not true. It's given to me, it's a gift, because in the midst of this I cannot conjure it. It's simply there. It comes from outside me. (Calvinism? No, just experience.) I need to get to New Haven. I need to feel like I have a place there. I don't feel like I do, not even in my own apartment. I know that's not true, and asking for help from Rich was so incredibly difficult, it felt like dying. I'm glad we were IMing and not talking on the phone. Current music is "What You Want" by Caedmon's Call. Right now, in my desperation for grace, it's how I feel: You're softer than a canon blast, but your effects much longer last And I want you just like a hole in my head, but I need you like a meal and a bed So you say "Come on," I'm not what you're after But I know you're not just anyone, anyone 'Cause I'm not what you want, no I'm not anyone But if you needed me, I could be someone. And you're an army in a horse, and you have taken me by force and all the freedom in this world could not resist the sweet temptation of your sweet elusiveness. So I say "Come on," as the gate swings open And I know you're not just anyone, anyone 'Cause I'm not what you want, no I'm not anyone But if you needed me, I could be someone And the lie's always cheaper than the truth But the lie's all I've ever known of you, so maybe none of this is true. I'm not what you want, no I'm not anyone But if you needed me, I could be someone I could be someone. I can't love Rich -- or anyone -- until I know what it is to be loved. And the only way I'll ever know that is to believe that I am. To live that out. To listen to it and let it calm my fears, to let it say the only thing it knows how to say: "Nathan, you are loved. You are the adopted child of God and nothing can change that." I may not feel like I have a place in New Haven. But I have a place in God's heart. And now I'm crying again. This is what it means, I think, to be poor in spirit. To lack everything that could make it okay except the one thing that actually CAN. Rich Mullins was right. We are not as strong as we think we are. Having a poster on a wall in an apartment, having good grades, a good job, a good relationship, being needed, being wanted, being desired and cool...none of that can give me life. None of that can bring me to the brink of eternity, sit me at the throne of God, and cry every tear for me. Love can. Jesus can. He did. I sound like I'm on a fucking soapbox. tell you the truth, I'm just a man without anything else to lose and on the brink of emotional breakdown (through?) I'm done. You're probably bored anyway and for the first time, I don't care. This journal is for me, not you. I'm loved. Help me to believe that. Current Mood: thirsty Current Music: Caedmon's Call, "What You Want." Cindy Morgan, "Need." (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 2nd, 2002
12:19 pm	PS Post-script to the last posting: HIV test results: negative. not that I thought I had anything to worry about, but certainty is nice. There's a good poster for monogamy. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
12:08 pm	For a wal-mart cashier to have two days off in a row, now that's odd. But here I am, on my second day off, and I can barely countenance going back to work tomorrow, to running boxes of macaroni and cheese endlessly over a scanner, the whole time, thinking "I have a college degree. I have a college degree. I have a college degree." The hubris of the deflated. I just want to be in Connecticut now. I talk big about Oklahoma when I'm here, and this truly is a great place, but I am so profoundly lonely I don't know what to do with myself. Eric's vanished into thin air. Erica's spending all her time in Stillwater and Tulsa. Liz is back in NYC, Laurie's AWOL, Bryon has vanished off the face of the planet -- he wasn't even at Pride -- and Todd ditched me Sunday night to go shopping in Dallas. I have no friends. I know that this isn't true, but it's how it feels. I am so incredibly lonely. I did get some good hang out time with a new friend, Michael West, to whom Todd introduced me, I guess to make up for ditching me. Fun guy. We all drank coke and vanilla vodka, talked, and watched "Head over Heels." Drove home after 4 AM. So for a little while I felt less alone. But everyone else has a life and I don't, and the part of me that's envious and stupid gets really jealous. The doctors say if they remove that part of me, I'll die. But maybe in this case, to die is gain... I'm so much more susceptible to loneliness than I used to be. I left Wake feeling like very few people, if any, wanted to be my friend, and now, with everyone in Oklahoma having vanished as well, and with Rich 1100 miles away... ...and he's moving in 7 days, and he'll be there, and I won't... ...and I'm scared that I'm so bitter and cynical and self-pitying that I'll get to Connecticut and everyone will see how screwed up and sad I am and want nothing to do with me. Seems to happen a lot in new places... I need friends. Hanging out on Sunday night felt so great, even before Todd came along, because Mike and I really clicked and I didn't feel so alone... Then again, I find myself finding things to do. Maybe I handle loneliness better than most people. I'm not going crazy or anything. I'm managing to get a lot of errands and tasks done: mailing Rich the rent check, consolidating my bills, working out my Yale finances.... It's just money, Nathan. It's not love. "Maybe my time will come, but I know I can't lose you." It'll happen. I'll get there. I'm thinking July 20. That sounds like a good moving day, and if I time it right, I'll get to go see Britney in concert (yes, I know, I hate her too, but it should be funny), get to go see Woody, and still make it to New Haven by my birthday... Maybe my time will come Current Mood: numb Current Music: Caedmon's Call, "Can't Lose You" (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, June 28th, 2002
3:18 am	lyrics that hit where I am now... When it rains or it shines on this pillow of mine, I will lift up my head to the sky So I have chance to see where my hope has come from, no there's nothing that I can't abide When nothing satisfies you, when nothing satisfies you When nothing satisfies you hold my hand. Send forth your light Lord and send forth your truth, let them guide me to your holy place Then will I go to the altar of God, to my joy, my delight and my strength When nothing satisfies you, when nothing satisfies you When nothing satisfies you, hold my hand O, why are you so downcast, O my soul My soul disturbed within me, put your hope in God, my savior my king. When nothing satisfies you, when nothing satisfies you When nothing satisfies you hold my hand. --Jennifer Knapp (Comment on this)
Tuesday, June 25th, 2002
1:59 pm	the sound and the fury... So I'm driving home from (trying to) get my HIV test results back. I know in my head there's nothing to worry about, but part of me manages to think the worst. And the whole way up, I'm praying. Not asking God for anything, not begging for a good result or anything like that. I'm not even talking. I was just communing. Just listening. Realizing that God is there. Good. Powerful. And vitally interested in me. Loving me like I have never been loved and like I have always desired to be loved. Fully. Powerfully. Without weakness or folly, without guilt or guile, without manipulation or fear or question or reserve, without lack or desire of something more. In my relationship with my God, I am wanted, loved, affirmed, and answered fully. It's so hard to see that sometimes, because like everyone else, I can't see the difference between life and death, light and dark, health and illness most of the time. I know I should see what's bad for me, what's untrue, what's dishonest and manipulative, but there are so many times when I just don't want to, and many others when I am unable. But today, the song on the radio was "You Answer Me" by Jennifer Knapp, and listening to that lyric: You answer me with love. That's why I wasn't talking in my prayer. Not even thinking. Because I knew that no matter what I asked, what I said, what I cried or told, the answer would be love. Complete, unreserved, total love. Todd asked me the other day, "Does God have to be perfect for any of this to be true?" We had a whole discussion about how I see the world as a fallen place. The OKC Pride Parade was Sunday afternoon, and it was great fun, but the whole time I was watching it thinking, we live in a fallen world. There were the protesters with their signs, not realizing they're in the same world we are. Damning us to hell without understanding or knowing any of us. There were people searching, everywhere I looked, people searching. At the Cimmaron Freedom Tea Dance at Angles after the Parade, I realized that I'm searching too, but I'm found. I was looking for someone to affirm my existence, someone to look at me and say, "I'm glad you're here, it's good that you're alive..." in some way. I thought if I found someone who found me attractive...or someone who wanted to dance...or someone who wanted to talk... ...but there was no one like that... at least, not there. Not that day, not that dance, not that place. There are those people in the world, granted. People who think something of me, who are glad I exist. I'm sure there are those who think otherwise of me as well. Point is, I was looking for affirmation. For something to make me feel alive. Then it hit me. I am in need. It's all over me. Need is written on my forehead, and as I looked around, I saw it written on the forehead of every person there. And for a moment, for a fleeting moment, I was disgusted by it. I think part of the reason so many people hate the gay community is the same reason it bugs me when people come in Wal-Mart and they're paying with food stamps, and although the register is set up such that I (nor anyone else) has to know they're on welfare, they feel the need to announce it loudly to me and to half the store. "This is a FOOD STAMP PURCHASE!!" It's because they're not trying to hide their need. They're not trying to hide what makes them less of a person, so to speak, in the eyes of the world. Hell, at the Pride Parade we were celebrating it. We were positively rolling in it. But the fact that we boast in weakness doesn't make the weakness good. It just makes it honest. It means that on some level we're admitting that we're no different, that we're no better, that our pedestal has been knocked out from under us and the cheese is sliding off our cracker. Which, in our world, can be its own pedestal. Our goodness can be as dangerous as our evil. I look around the world and I see everyone in need. Straight, white, rich, American people are in need. We all live with unfulfilled desire, frustrated hopes, unsoothed fears. Uncertainty. Death. These things abound in us and make us all the same. I don't believe that Christianity is one of many possible truths or paths to salvation. But to couch it in those terms makes me seem more closed-minded than I am. I believe that people need a Redeemer. A patron, an act of grace more powerful than they themselves. Because no matter what the humanists say, I see no signs that the human race is progressing toward a day when we will all join hands across the globe and begin to treat one another with compassion. I don't look at the human race and see a bunch of people who are basically good. I see people who mourn for a loss they don't understand. I see people trying to fill a void in themselves they have yet to confront. I see people who need the kind of love that is incapable of letting them down. Pop songs tell us that we all need a person to love. I think that if that is our foundation we are lost. Because no matter how much I love Rich, I know that I have failed him on more occasions than I can count. So I have to know that he and I are both loved by Someone more powerful than either of us, separate or together. Jesus said, "Abide in me." I want to abide in that kind of love. I boast in nothing. Nothing I do will ever mean anything real, anything eternal, anything unlimited and perfect. But if I abide in the love of God, and if I listen to that, if I let it answer me, then I find myself changed. I find myself reborn. My will freed, my heart unfettered, my fear...dissolving. I say "dissolving." Not gone. Not eradicated. Because I've found, in my life, that you can't see this kind of love if you don't see that you need it. You can't see this great light unless you understand the darkness that is in you, and in the world. And you can't understand that the greatest thing we will ever do is learn to love, until you understand that we all need to be loved, and to know that we are loved with a kind of certainty we cannot give ourselves (3 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, June 9th, 2002
11:55 pm	being with me... the bad thing about being me is that I have to be around me all the time. I have to hang out with Nathan Gunter 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and I can figure out why some people don't like me at all. I hate feeling like this. Good things happening: Karen and I are going to hang out soon. I miss that girl a lot and am ready to eagerly pursue friendship with her. making some friends at Wal-Mart but am unsure how or to what degree I should pursue those relationships. After all, I'll be gone in two months and then what? chased a sunset down 104th until it dead-ended today, then called Emmy but she wasn't there. I wanted so badly to share that sunset with someone, and Rich was hanging with Dylan and I didn't want to interrupt that and it just seemed very lonely, the whole thing, and I'm tired of feeling this way because it sucks. I need Jesus. Amanda Arey just told me that she's going to be working with Greg Farrand in the new church he's planting in Greensboro. And I feel this incredible tinge of jealousy and stupidity. How could I let my relationship with my church fizzle like I did at the end of my time in Winston? I felt like God was telling me to stay, to learn to love that church in spite of its shortcomings, and I didn't even try. And yet, I feel like my reasons were good ones... So to any Redeemer peeps who read this, I'm sorry. I owe you an apology. I'm going to write Greg a letter. I'm tired and I've only got 9.5 hours until work. I'm going to go to bed. peace of Christ to all of you (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Thursday, June 6th, 2002
9:04 pm	"a day in the life of someone else..." Ever since I first heard Pink's song "Don't Let Me Get Me" I cried. The biggest part of that song that still gets to me today is this lyric: "So doctor doctor won't you please prescribe me something, a day in the life of someone else..." The past three days, since I started my job as a cashier at Wal-Mart, I almost feel like I've been given another life. It's just that the life that for the past year has been so frustrating, so hurtful and difficult (see the first entry in my live journal), seems almost behind me. No one at the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Moore, Oklahoma cares about Wake Forest University. They're even hard-pressed to care about Yale. It's so incredibly refreshing. It's not that they don't care about me, it's that they're not impressed by all my so-called wonderful accomplishments. They respond to me on the basis of ME, of my personality, of how I act and how I treat them. I wish more people would do that. So here's a day in the life of someone else: I woke this morning at 8:00, both to my alarm and my mom yelling "Don't be late for work!" as she ran out the door. It's odd, having her work in the same store as me. Of course, she's the pharmacy manager and I'm some lowly cashier, so we don't see much of one another, which is good, because I don't want people thinking I got my job because she hooked me up, which she kind of did, but still. When people know that they don't expect you to be any good at anything, and I want to prove myself for being good at my job. So I awoke, and wanted to be lazy and take a bath but I knew I'd fall asleep so I toughed it out in the shower (I don't even remember the water draining from the bath I'd run). I managed to kill half an hour playing computer Solitaire (I might be addicted) then quickly ironed some corduroy pants and sped the whole way to work. Where Western meets 134th and the right lane ends right after you pass through the stop light, some stupid-ass girl almost forced me off the road by refusing to yeild the right of way when she clearly didn't have it. I flipped her off at 50 MPH for a solid mile. Bitch. But I'd forgotten it by the time I got to work late. I know it's lame and stupid and it makes me a loser, but fuck you: I like working at Wal-Mart. I enjoy it. Nice people work there, I get to interact with all kinds of people all day...that's the best part. Today I had conversations with people...I would talk to them about the movies they were buying (Harry Potter's easily the best-selling), about how I never can keep pens, about their adorable kids. One woman invited me to her church...which was funny because I could see her shut down a little bit when I told her I was involved in the Metropolitan Community Church...she asked me to go to Crossroads Cathedral... I'll take just a minute to explain the Cathedral. For those of you Wake Foresters reading this, think about the "God Dome," the massive Assembly of God church across the street from campus. We call that "Six Flags Over Jesus." If that one is Six Flags, this one is the entire Disney World Complex, including Magic Kingdom, Epcot, MGM Studios, Typhoon Lagoon, and the monorail system. It's more massive than some small towns I've driven through. She invited me there, and to be honest, the sight of thousands of people writhing on the floor, speaking in tongues, and telling me I wasn't a believer until I've done the same didn't really appeal to me. (Don't accuse me of being judgemental, I've been there. I know what it's like.) That's what I like about working at Wal-Mart. I like the people who come in there, for the reason I said above. They don't care that I'm a Yale student or that I graduated with honors from Wake. They don't care that I'm gay (they don't know...granted, and I've heard some nasty stuff from people in line and can't wait till Pride so I can get another rainbow necklace). I like the people. Even the mean ones. I learn from them. And I imagine being in their place. It helps me learn not to objectify people, but to see them as subject...I believe this is crucial to learning to love people. You have to see other people as people. You have to understand that they are just like you. They see the same things, they feel the same emotions. Understanding that they are experiencing life, the same life, and trying to see inside that life to understand where they're coming from and speaking into that....that's what trying to love people looks like. So I like it. My day went by quickly. I'm reading "Traveling Light" by Katrina Kittle, which Emmy sent me (because she's SO sweet) and which I can't put down. It made my day go by faster. I was thinking about Rich all day...I miss him.... I had my USDA Daily Recommended Allowance of adrenaline in the parking lot, when I saw my car leaning severely to one side. "I can't have a flat after a nine-hour day," I thought to myself. Luckily, it was only the peculiar topography of my parking space... Discussions with mom and John at home of my considerable issues with the Wal-Mart corporation...more on that later, I'm sick of writing... damn, I wanted this to be eloquent.. (Comment on this)
Saturday, May 11th, 2002
8:57 am	last night So I was going to streak the quad with Emmy, instead I got drunker than I've ever been and they had to drive my sorry ass home, and now I can't find my keys. Fuck. (Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 7th, 2002
5:52 pm	studying Well, the Modern Paper due date got pushed back to Monday, so that's good. Still, I'm not sure how everything's going to get done. But it'll happen. I need prayer. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Thursday, May 2nd, 2002
10:11 pm	watching ER Thinking about next year....about that great apartment that, on Monday, will be legally ours. That will mean that on Monday Rich and I will be as legally married as we can be. And living in a great apartment with french doors leading into the bedroom. And I'm so behind I don't even know what to do. Two papers, a hard final, Charlotte pride this weekend, a take-home final, and then another final. Again: KILL ME. Thinking about next year. I can never let myself get this far behind. I might not have much time for people or friends or anything next year. Two classes a day, homework, and work. You know what they say, "That which doesn't kill me....makes me want to die. (Comment on this)
10:07 am	dopo dormire: after sleep... I'm calmer now. Not angry really, at least not outwardly so. Got some nice responses from people. Brianna, you are awesome. I know I'll be okay and that my memories of Wake will mostly be great ones. I do love this place. (Of course, the only reason I'd donate money would be for a scholarship for gay kids...) So don't worry about me, I'm alright. God is good. I probably won't write for awhile because I'm entering finals HELL. Here's the schedule: Monday: Social and Political Final (HARD!) Friday: Modern Final Politics Take-Home Final Due Modern Paper Due Social and Political Paper Due KILL ME. And this weekend is Charlotte Pride and I can't wait, but I don't know how I'm going to get enough work done to feel good about going. Oh well. It's one last fun road trip with Rich and Ross. I love Rich so much. If you're reading this, it probably means you followed the link in my AIM profile. And you're probably wondering what "Squishing the Tomato" means. It's an old story, going back to first semester sophomore year in college. Summer and I were talking once about how her small group had played the "fruit game." You know: "What fruit are you and why?" Summer said, "I'm a tomato. Because no one really thinks of it as a fruit, and if you put the slightest bit of pressure on it, all this nasty crap comes spewing out." At the time, I didn't really understand it, but now I know exactly what she was talking about. "No one really thinks of it as a fruit:" I feel a lot lately like nobody thinks of me as fully human. And then, as evidenced in last night's entry, when you put the slightest bit of pressure on me, all this nasty crap comes spewing out. I wonder at how valid last night's entry was. But it was how I felt, so on that level, if anyone has a problem with it, kiss my ass (Comment on this)