Life As Performance Art 123

My own personal responses and reflections on Pride are always going to be mixed and nuanced. I still will not physically carry or wear the rainbow, not out of embarrassment or shame, but for one simple reason. I don't do labels. Even when I call myself a Christian, who is also a queer, somewhat non binary asexual male, these are things that do not define me, just as I try not to define others by labels or categories. They simply describe some of the many facets that make up a complete person. Labels are like scaffolding, but they should never be mistaken for the finished building or monument. People also often need these labels, or this kind of scaffolding, in their own evolution from one stage in life to the next. So, during Pride week, there were rainbow colours festooning everything, especially banks and shops, since the queer dollar is a big dollar. Also some of the more liberal Christian denominations, not all of them, were sporting Pride flags. There was talk and discussion in my church, about displaying the rainbow, but eventually nothing was done. I'm okay with it either way, though I really prefer my place of worship to be detached from secular labels and concerns. It is the same principle as staying separate from the state. As much as I welcome that my church, the Anglican Church, welcomes and affirms queer people, they always seem to go too far in embracing social movements that have really nothing to do with the Christian faith, while going on blindly ignoring the more pressing calls of Christian urgency and ministry, especially serving, defending and advocating for the poor and homeless, whose needs, in my opinion, trump the also legitimate aims and desires of queer people. It is unfortunate that some of the more vocal LGBT etc. Anglicans, are still too blinded by pain and trauma to be able to see this, and end up wasting valuable energy proclaiming their cause as though it is the only legitimate claim in the universe. But this also suggests the narcissistic underbelly to Pride, and that elephant in the room still has to be named. A lot of people are still growing into the awareness that LGBT etc. really are part of the mainstream and should be treated and welcomed as such. So they carry and wear the rainbow flag and other rainbow adornments, but also to remind themselves that this is how they must grow and are growing into a city, a country, a society, a community, and a culture, that welcomes everybody (as long as they are not poor or on low incomes, unfortunately), especially a minority that until recently was so cruelly ostracized, punished and abused, and in some parts of the world are still at risk of being put to death for having same sex attraction, desire and love. The rainbow flags and adornments are like visible affirmations, and some need these visible affirmations, both for others to see, and to also see them on themselves. I am way ahead of them. I was fully aware that I was queer when I was fourteen, and was fully out when I was eighteen. But at that time, it was impossible to reconcile a gay lifestyle with Christian discipleship as I then understood it. But there was for me one essential difference that set me apart from the Christian homophobes and the self-hating Christian gays and closet cases that were surrounding me. I did not hate my sexuality, and even then, I was dead set against reparation therapy (trying to change one's sexual orientation). I left my lover at the time, just when I was shy of my twentieth birthday, out of a desire to fully embrace Christ and to live as he commanded, in loving service, joyously abandoning myself to God. Discipleship without compromise. Even then I was asexual, and unlike most young men in their early twenties, getting laid simply was not important to me, even though I had been in a relationship, but I didn't know this at the time and for the simple reason that in that era there was no language, there were no words, to describe or define asexuality. No one seemed to know or believe or even want to believe that there was such a thing as asexuality. Especially since we were right in the throes of the Sexual Revolution. I accepted a life that was chaste and without intimate human love, for the simple reason that the call of the Holy Spirit was far stronger and more compelling and more consuming. Does this rule out that I will ever have a partner in my life, even now that I'm in my sixties? That is something I refuse to forecast and for one simple reason. I have no idea what the future is going to bring, nor if next year I am going to go on being the same person I am today. As they say, the only constant in life is change. If it seemed appropriate, with a really good and patient person, could I see myself getting married to a man? Sure. But right now, this for me is not a priority, but still a possibility, and right now my focus is on following Christ one step at a time, in whatever direction he wants to take me in, even if that means taking me into the life of another man. But who only knows? I never hated my queerness, and because of this I was able to leave behind the more damaging expressions of the Christian faith. I have never bothered to get into other relationships but for the simple reason that God has called and enabled me to a life of holy chastity, and this has also empowered me in ministry to other queer people. We are not damaged goods, and finally others are beginning to recognize this. As for myself, I am going to go on living unlabeled and undefined, except by the love of the God whom I serve. No need to carry the rainbow, because my life and spirit are the colour of water, and the colour of glass and pure crystal. Rather than wear the rainbow, as the light passes through me, all the colours of the rainbow will be reproduced around me, in my art, my writing, the way I live and the way I speak (hopefully!). Love is love, yes, but it must be a higher love than what many of us want to settle for, a love that transcends all preference and desire, a love that embraces all, a love that liberates all, a love that holds in order the very wonders of the universe and the most intimate details of the cosmos that are contained and reflected in our own small and very tiny lives.