LITMIR.BIZ

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changing, most families at that time did not want a gay child and they didn't want to be confronted with that fact. A joke I remember hearing in gay circles is that families build the closet around their kid!

      My closet started before I could have even understood what sex was—as early as five years old. I remember my dad yelling at me: "Stop walking like a woosie!" I didn't know what that word meant. . . but I knew it was not something of which I should be proud. Being gay was not part of The Script and my parents wanted me—needed me—to read their lines, exactly as written. My home religion needed more Jewish children, so it didn't want a gay Jew. (It wasn't the only religion that thought and taught that way.) My sibs and the kids around me didn't want to face the possibility that they might have a gay side to them. . . or be gay themselves. So anyone who didn't fit the notion of "straight" was a target of disrespect, even physical abuse. And fear of being gay and gay people goes on even after kids supposedly mature. The society of the '50s and '60s was based around straight people, "traditional" marriage, and heterosexual, nuclear families. That society didn't want to admit that gay people existed nor did it want to admit gay people, period.

      Hearing me discuss all of these aspects—mismatches—in my life, my friend Chitra put it succinctly: "Why did you choose to "walk on" to the world in that family at that time?"

      Using my gifted, highly-sensitive mind, it didn't take me long to realize that in so many ways I was different and definitely out of step. Without the support of my family, peers, or the larger society, my being different was not OK. The deepest aspects of who I was and what I needed to feel safe and grow transgressed the demands of The Script. Not satisfying—not obeying—your parents? That was a schande; a sin. ("Honor thy father and thy mother" is Commandment #5, at least in the Jewish version.) No matter where or how I looked at me, I decided I was fundamentally and irretrievably fucked up. I use the vernacular because these are the exact words my ego uses to keep me down, even today.

      I didn't actually think this out—I was a child, right? But at some point, I decided to suppress who I really was and to hide from others as much as I could. By hiding, neither they—or I—would find out my truth. What I couldn't suppress, I accepted should be punished; emotionally and physically. I accepted my parents' statements that I was "sensitive" (they didn't mean that in a supportive way!) and "moody" or as my sister put it, "The Strange One". To the kids in school, I was "the nerd", "the dork". . . "the queer". The latter word was applied to me even before they or I knew what it meant! I faced bullying and abuse within and outside of my family, even after I left childhood. I had low self-worth and I abused myself.

      I became used to being a victim. On some level, I may even have wanted the abuse, to support the lie of no self-worth. Such a subconscious offer finds a lot of takers, because there are so many scarred and scared people out there. They want to project their fears and self-hatred on to a scapegoat, rather than look within and take on the challenges of their own healing and growth.

      Fear dominated my life. And fear blocks out love. I was too hurt and frightened to be intimate with others. A Trinity with anyone, had I understood this when I was younger, was impossible. And how could I be present—even consider myself worthy—to have a conscious, sustained contact with Something greater than myself?

      I made the choice to give up asking. . . even hoping. . . for what I needed.

      Need I say that this was not a prescription for a healthy or happy childhood, teenage experience, or early adulthood? I had few experiences of true friendship and even fewer chances to learn about love, intimacy and sex. The loss of my childhood, teens, and twenties is a place of regret whenever I choose to visit it, which thankfully is rare. And so I see no benefit to giving any more detail on this period of my life than this. Thankfully, as love-starved and dead as my first life was, my second life has been love-filled, alive, and amazing!

      I close with a summary and a challenge. This was my version of "individuation": my creation of an ego; a persona to define me, separate from my parents, and function in the world. In that process I hid, suppressed, and denied certain truths about myself. I lost touch with many of my gifts in the process. I lost the joy and wonder of being alive. The remainder of this book details how I found my way back to me, through the communication, guidance, and obedience to Something greater than myself.

      I know I am not unique in creating a persona, nor am I unique in needing to make a spiritual journey. My deepest hope is that you do not get so engrossed in my story that you do not see your own process, realize your own losses—and make your own journey back.

      AMAZING GRACE

      Fear is exhausting. Mistrust is exhausting. Needing to justify your right to take a breath on this planet by every last thought you have or action you take. Denying the truth of who you really are. . . carrying out a script handed to you by someone else—and trying to be perfect through it all. There must be a word more exhausting than "exhausting"!

      Try doing all of this while carrying an ongoing feeling of hopelessness. Depression is like dragging a mental weight day in and day out; a vise that squeezes the lifeblood out of you. It takes a lot to get through the day so there isn't much energy to reach out to others, or a desire to give to others. So you are largely left alone in your depression. And that just feeds into the depression.

      I coped to survive one day at a time. But not in healthy ways. I didn't eat well and too much. I took up smoking although I knew it killed and was killing my father for one. I drank, although I learned that alcohol had screwed up and led to the death of many in my family. I studied/worked too much, too hard, and too long. I didn't exercise much. When I did take breaks, I lost myself in the unreal world of TV and movies. But I didn't take many breaks because I couldn't give myself a break. I didn't sleep well or deeply and I woke up unrefreshed.

      Go back to that last paragraph, stir it all up, and repeat this toxic recipe for let's say, 25 years. Does anyone seriously want to tell me that all of this did not affect every aspect of my health? I consider it amazing that I had as few physical health challenges as I did by that point. (I wonder if those years have shortened my life.)

      Double the time of this toxic recipe. I maintain that if something hadn't intervened I would not be here today. You pick the killer. Include AIDS, addiction, or suicide as very possible causes.

      * * * *

      But Something did intervene; gratefully, early in my life. When I was five, I had the first of many peak spiritual experiences. Sitting in the main sanctuary of my reform temple, I looked up at the dome and saw a shadow on the bricks. At that moment, I felt certain that God was in that dome and that He was speaking to me ⁸. I don't remember any words; just a feeling of total openness, total freedom, total acceptance, completeness, peace. . . ecstasy.

      From this vantage point and understanding, I know God was not in that dome. Looking at pictures of the sanctuary, I see the same dark spot on those bricks! In that and all of my peak experiences, God did not come to me, nor did I come to Him. For the first time that I had awareness of it, my ego let go and my mind naturally joined with that Something greater than my own mind.

      There was only one mind—one Power. This is my experience and definition of Grace.

      * * * *

      Lest you think that I am some crazy religious freak at this point, I will describe what I mean when I use the words, "God" and "Grace". The answer is: I don't know. I only have working concepts!

      In a Course in Miracles workshop I attended, someone became Inspired to impart this:

      We are nothing, thinking we are something—to keep from being Everything.

      That pretty much describes what I believe about God. God is not a separate entity or any entity. It is Everything; a perfect whole beyond my limited mind's ability to perceive and impossible to impart successfully in words. And that is the challenge here; there is no way I can or should adequately be able to cover this subject. I am reminded of the story of the blind men who each touched a different part of an elephant and thought they could describe the animal in its entirety. So I, too, will fail in this attempt. (And I ask: how many problems do we create in this world because of our blindness yet certainty that we know

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