I never expected to be the gay one.
In between all the Sunday school, youth group and Fellowship of Christian Athletes’ events, being gay wasn’t quite outlined in my plans. Call it a lack of creativity or contentment with the status quo, but I was expecting it to come from one of my off-their-rocker relatives instead.
Either they already had enough excitement going on, or I looked rather boring. Whatever the reason, I drew the gay card.
Today I call it the Queen of Hearts. In 1999, it felt more like a Joker instead. It was the one card that couldn’t be played in this holy poker game I’d betted my life on.
The first time I ever saw God, I was fourteen years old. He was pulling on my arms with oversized puppet strings, chanting, “Watch what I’m going to do.” Followed by some sort of Dr. Evil meets Fran Drescher laugh -- as frightening as the Alf still on my shelf, which probably spurred my nightmare in the first place. I looked away for a moment, and when I looked back God was a tiger walking on his hind legs making His way at me.
With my dad, I went exploring and camping and fishing and hiking. All the things that little Southern boys do. I had the coolest dad, one who was present every minute I needed him. Yet, to no fault of his, I didn’t feel like all the other kids. I’d have rather kissed the other boys than race them.
The disconnection between what was and what should have been threw my life into a whirlwind. The way I saw God with my eyes closed mirrored the way I envisioned him in the daylight. He looked like most of the grown men I knew, viewing everything except blatant masculinity and an expertise in football as weak. He was a crueler version of redneck testing me with every volt of His power. And He was all-powerful, that much I knew from the hymns. If I could just hold on long enough, if I could just not give up, I would not be eaten alive. And one day He would change everything.
Everything did change. Well, everything except my gayness. That part stuck around like a dryer sheet in a sweater. No amount of arm flinging or four letter prayers could rid myself of its cling. It was a part of me.
The second time I ever saw God was when He told me I had AIDS. Which was thirty-seven hours after I came out to my best friend. I remember sitting up on the futon where I’d fallen asleep and being drenched in sweat. A virgin with AIDS, I was still convinced. After all, they said that's what was destined for gay people.
Three years earlier, and twelve miles down Interstate 65, a middle aged preacher told me that I could get rid of these unnatural feelings. That I should get rid of such feelings. Before God decided He’d had enough.
My God was a punisher. One that reflected the most religious of people I knew. He was made in their image. He quoted only seven Bible verses, and all of them led to death. I’d made my choice, now there was His back.
Unsatisfied, I threw rocks at His house, mad at this hand He’d dealt. But I wasn’t going anywhere. I wish I could say it was out of bravery or of wanting justice, but truthfully, there was nowhere else to go. I wasn’t gay to gain anything, I was gay just because I was.
In that moment, I felt like a vase being thrown onto a slab of concrete, complete brokenness doesn’t begin to describe. Even rock bottom looked like Mt. Everest from the view of where I stood. It took every ounce of my energy to roll my carcass out of the bed and into the shower each morning.
I would have slept all the time if the Almighty hadn’t kept showing up when I did. Instead, I laid my back on the cool bathroom tiles every night and let every ounce of salty water be drained from my eyelids. For as many days and weeks, and then years, that I could bear. Until finally I wondered if I was still breathing.
This time when I closed my eyes, He came to me as a blue-eyed crocodile, and He whispered something my ears couldn’t understand. I leaned in closer to make out the words, but not close enough to smell His fishy breath. A safe distance held between His mouth and my feet. Yet, part of me still wonders what He was whispering, and if I’d leaned in a little closer, would I have understood?
With nothing left to give and nowhere else to go, I surrounded myself with the outliers. The ones that Jesus had spent His time with. Soup kitchens and tent cities became my living room, where the only thing that we left out in the cold were our judgments on each other. Surrounded by an undeniable grace, soon my hunger for hope began to rebuild.
The fourth time I ever saw God, it was when I was awake. Standing inside an old brick chapel on the East side in Nashville, Tennessee, he looked up from a blow-up twin mattress stuck between two stained glass windows. His eyes watering while he said, “Thank you for giving us a place to sleep.” I wanted to hug him and say, “No, thank you for saving me.” Perhaps my smile said it instead. We watched Lord of the Rings on a 17-inch television screen delicately placed atop an old A/V cart, and my heart was full.
Slowly, my God became a friend. One who looked an awfully lot like the drug addict on my street, like the teenager who’d been kicked out of his house, like the veteran with no job to return to back home. Sometimes He didn’t say much, only looked for so long into my eyes that I was certain He was reading my soul. Finally, I felt known.
God existed as the love between us, forcing fear to find another place to live.
There was no separation between church and this state of my being. Loud voices echoing from former pulpits quieted by the whispering of love in action. One that filled my heart with reason and purpose and joy.
For the first time, God felt real.
This morning I saw God again. As the breeze squeezed between my ear and sideburn, just cooler than was comfortable, a certain light radiated down Sixth Avenue stopping me in my steps.
Sometimes God shows up in ways we don’t expect, in ways we really don’t want. And at times that aren’t convenient. Sometimes we’re looking at the wrong faces when we call His name. And sometimes He doesn’t give us the answers we want. Or answers at all.