LITMIR.BIZ

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God was my parents. Didn't they give me life? Didn't they love me? Didn't they hold my life in their hands? And, unfortunately, didn't they fail me someplace, early on as a child? So I started with a concept of God that was conflicted in love, inconsistent in care and support, and untrustworthy. This was the subject of a fantastic seminar I attended at the Foundation for A Course in Miracles. The teacher proposed that the first painful experience one had with his/her parents was her/his basic grievance against God. That belief had to be made conscious and the grievance had to be given up in order for reunion to occur. Mine was my mother crying as she looked into my face; I was probably like three months at the time. So my grievance with God was that He was unhappy with me, did not love me, and did not want me.

      Is this memory true? I cannot say for sure, but it seems likely. My mom related to me that she cried throughout the pregnancy of my sister, due to her fears over finances. (My sister was conceived within three months of my birth.) As a child, I would not understand the real reason(s) why my mom was crying; I would have thought it was my fault. Her crying meant there was something wrong with me.

      As a child, I was challenged and confused by the words and imagery I was given about God. On TV, at Hebrew school and in temple school, I was told about or had seen the usual images—the white-bearded man on the throne; the guy in the white suit. I learned about a creative, all-powerful, loving God who was also jealous, wrathful, and vengeful. He had no problem "slewing" when he was unhappy and he didn't seem to have much Self-awareness or Self-control! God was a being of conditional love and you had to do a lot of pleasing—or else. At the end of Yom Kippur (the Jewish Day of Atonement), I was taught to pray to God, as the arbiter of life and death, to inscribe me in the Book of Life for one more year. There was a period in my life when I took that prayer very seriously.

      Today, I am thoroughly confused by the phrase "I am God-fearing person." Because nothing will block Grace out of my mind better than fear!

      Perhaps I held that God of my first life responsible for the victimization I experienced from so many and even myself. More likely, it speaks to my self-hating ego that to stay in power shut out everything—including Everything. And yet here at my ego's strongest moment; at my lowest point, I reconnected to Something greater than myself. A paradox. A miracle!

      * * * *

      Those Words stopped me in my tracks. . . my dead end tracks. Hearing them certainly put an end to my thought of suicide. But this miracle dramatically changed how I saw myself and acted in the future.

      Those Words began my "uncovery": the now 38-year path of healing and growing into my truth, under the connection and guidance of a Higher Power.

      Here as in more than one place in my life, my uncovery involved service, despite my belief that I had no worth and nothing to give. I didn't make an enormous splash into the world: I became active in the German Club on campus.¹¹ I agreed to be the organizer of the University of Kentucky's first and perhaps, only German film festival. That may not seem like much to many; then or certainly, now. But for me, from the place I started—wow! The festival was a success, by the way. . .

      With those five Words, I started communications with "The Voice". At this point in my life, the communications were one-sided; The Voice speaking to me. And Words generally didn't come to me. It was more like a feeling of rightness. . . safety. . . when I was in a very difficult life space or facing a challenging issue. That didn't take much given who I thought I was and what I could handle then! So these were additional instances of Grace on my butt. Looking back, I think the miracle is not just that this Guidance came to me, but that I listened. I trusted. And I followed, whatever the difficulties and fear involved in carrying out that Direction.

      I don't believe in a Creator/Planner/Daddy God. So how do I account for the strong, native capacities in honesty, openness, willingness, and courage that I brought with me into this life?

      I can't.

      You may be wondering about my use of the word "uncovery." Here is how I see it. How can I use the words "search" or "recover"? How can someone be lost from Everything? How can one recover what cannot be lost?

      "YOU CAN'T MARRY THAT WOMAN"

      It was less than a year after "hearing" The Voice that It piped up once again. And on a very big issue: my sexuality. This may take a bit to set up, so bear with me. . .

      * * * *

      My first and only sexual experience with a girl/woman was G. I cannot remember how we first met; she was in my high school graduating class but I had never met her before. We started dating when we were both 19. G. worked in Cleveland while I was an undergraduate at the University of Kentucky. For the next two years, we dated during my weekends home, holidays, and summers. The bulk of our relationship was letters and phone calls. (Remember; no cell phone, no internet!) We were not sexual for the first two years of this relationship and I cannot recall any big make out sessions.

      So what was G. doing with a closet case like me? I have guesses about what she was getting by being with me. But I know what I was getting: I was enjoying the illusion of being normal. When you were my age living in that age, you went out socially and you were supposed to be dating—women. My father highly approved of my dating G. I gained something to speak about. . . lie about. . . with my companions at college. I wasn't sexual during my college days but perhaps subconsciously, I had an excuse for not being so. In short, G. was my "beard".

      We should have broken up far earlier than we did. But we didn't and so I move forward to September, 1976. G. pushed to come down to Lexington for homecoming. And she informed me that she had started on birth control pills. I don't remember being frightened—or sickened— by the thought of having sex with her. G. came down for the weekend and that night, we went out to dinner with my college companions and their girlfriends; a straight fantasy of sorts. I use that word ironically, because afterwards, we took in Walt Disney's "Fantasia" at the campus theatre! A segment of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony (No. 6) was part of that film. I owned a record of the symphony and put it on when we returned to my apartment. And while the first two movements played, we moved to foreplay and to bed. My mind moves back to that night when I hear that symphony. . .

      One of my more unique realizations about life is that some of the most important aspects of being human involve holes and tubes: breathing, drinking, eating, shitting. . . fucking. In my humble opinion, people make too much fuss about the holes and tubes we use for sex, as well as the biological sex of their owners. I may be gay but when we were together that night, both of my heads were into the experience! I thoroughly enjoyed the sex.

      But sex changes a relationship. It gave G. expectations. . . fantasies. I heard her speak more and more about her friends getting engaged. G. did not demand it outright, but I definitely felt pressure to propose to her once I graduated. G. was adamant that she come down with my parents for my graduation. I thought her goal was to force that proposal. I was nowhere close to considering the issue of marriage with anybody. I felt horribly trapped.

      One night I was sitting in my apartment thinking. . . worrying. . . about G.'s demands. It was a Grace on my butt moment. I heard The Voice:

      "You can't marry that woman; you don't even know who you are!"

      Once again, I was shocked at hearing a Message. It was a revelation to me to take in Words with such clarity and surety. The portion of this miracle for which I still have wonder is that I was obedient. In my closet of denial, I couldn't have truly grasped what those Words meant! They were Spoken some 14 years before I was "Reminded" I was gay; 17 years before I had the courage to come out. I was still very much a fear-filled person. Yet despite who I was (or wasn't) at the time; somehow, somewhere, I knew I had to end the relationship. And somehow, somewhere I knew I had the courage to do so.

      I needed that courage. I told G. the relationship was over a week before my graduation. But she refused to accept my decision. She lied to my parents and came down with them! My entire graduation experience was marred by her presence. I suffered a night before and eight hours the next day in my car with her, listening to her alternately plead to resurrect our relationship or turn on me when I refused. (My parents drove in a separate car and were oblivious to all of this until after I came home

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