tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post707596598165124511..comments2024-01-22T01:52:37.473-06:00Comments on RENEGADE TRADS: Counting Our Blessings...A Sinnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05083094677310915678noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post-32254039652922442362013-01-14T17:40:54.718-06:002013-01-14T17:40:54.718-06:00Wow, my experiences aren't that deep, probably...Wow, my experiences aren't that deep, probably because my IQ is lower than the current thermostat reading in my home. I came out at 16 and never chose to hide being gay from the clergy or anyone else for that matter. Whenever I hear a priest go off into a homophobic rant, I just cringe knowing how much self hatred these men experience daily. Oddly, Pope Benedict's chaste embrace of Msgr. Gaenswein is all chill. Why don't more priests have a "special friend"? It'd do them good and the special friendliness doesn't have to be sexual. <br /><br />This Christmas an agnostic/atheist friend of mine asked, "Jordan, why do you go to church? Isn't Catholicism all about hating on gay people?" I said, "Yeah, you're right. But a healthy chunk of priests, if not a majority of priests, dig dudes. I've learned that I just have to roll with the hypocrisy, because it isn't going away any time soon."<br /><br />Catholicism, or any religion, is a miniature magnifier of the depravity and triumphs of societies. I'm still in the faith because of a love of the Latin language and a fascination with theological philosophy. Ain't anyone's business that I had a 10 year relationship with a hardcore Marxist (it worked, really!) <br /><br />Anyway, glad to know you're on the sane path. Can't say that about myself, though. <br /><br />All he wrote, JordanJordannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post-1999302958935856552013-01-13T17:55:07.247-06:002013-01-13T17:55:07.247-06:00I no longer feel that way, of course. I've fou...I no longer feel that way, of course. I've found such a peace from all anger or judgment or fear or guilt in the past couple months. I suppose I never "really" felt that way in the essence of who I am. And yet, as I said, I pursued that logic to its bitter end "hypothetically" (which could really only mean suspending my disbelief and actually entering into it, in all it's wrath).<br /><br />Maybe this suspension of disbelief to enter into a wrong position in order to find the end of its logic was a sort of kenosis, inasmuch as this "exploration sailing off the edge of the flat earth" was what finally let me come to my new realizations when, at the extremes, that logic finally broke down totally.<br /><br />But, I think that would probably be flattering myself. Even if that was the ultimate effect, it could only be God bringing good out of evil. In reality, from my perspective, it was more like demonic possession I'd think! As my intentions were not really pursuit of Truth (though somehow, truth found me in the end) but to weaponize such a position.<br /><br />I lost someone very special to me in the fallout over this. Even when I began to change recently (if haltingly) and move away from the hellfire part in response to a growing (if naive and finally yet-again betrayed) trust on my end, the damage was perhaps already done for now, and only time can bring healing.<br /><br />Sometimes two people are each waiting for the other to make a leap, but it's a catch-22 because neither wants to do so before the other. Well, I've made mine on my own, again. Maybe that's the only way it ever can or should be. It all just seems so silly to me now. I suppose the truth I've gained is worth the price, but it's a truth I wish I had had then, as maybe things would have been easier or worked out better. But there were other complicating factors too...<br /><br />I don't really update the blog anymore except with like quotes or links or little videos, but I may do one more big post in the coming weeks about Virtue Ethics and my realizations regarding rejecting closed systems and dogmatism and legalistic/fundamentalist approaches to morality. <br /><br />Of course, I don't in the least BLAME Faith for these approaches or manifestations. To me, it's obvious that I was attracted to such interpretations OF religion because of underlying psychological factors on my part, that involved their own sort of fragmented attraction to the Good understood in a childish way. Religion didn't "cause" it, and indeed it has only been in the context of a religious narrative or world-of-symbols that I've been able to resolve those issues and grow "through" them. Something like "Came for the repression but stayed for the redemption" I guess.<br /><br />I'm not sure if it will do much good for people who haven't discovered such realizations for themselves experientially (I really don't think it's something one can be debated into, as I was once on the immature side of such debate, and only became more polarized and reactionary) but maybe it would help provide a language for people who have achieved it.<br /><br />PaxA Sinnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05083094677310915678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post-56028829422200633062013-01-13T17:50:14.306-06:002013-01-13T17:50:14.306-06:00Thanks!
It's a little more complicated than t...Thanks!<br /><br />It's a little more complicated than the stages of grief, I think, though definitely this is all part of a decade-long process of growth. I've been out to my secular friends for 10 years now, since high school, and in the past few years actually did a lot of "gay Catholic" networking and (unfortunately) identity-craft. The synthesis I tried to pursue there and craft by sheer will-power ultimately showed itself unstable and unhealthy. Live and learn.<br /><br />I did, however, for whatever reason, compartmentalize from my straight "Catholic friends" and in my online persona here and with my family, however. In that latter case, it was not so simple as just the religion question (if anything, the causation there worked the other way around). I suppose the fact that I had at least some "outlet" for that side of me forestalled concern regarding full disclosure to everyone...<br /><br />My "angry" phase was actually related less to coming to terms with my sexuality and more to a very messy situation I was in with a lot of betrayal/trust issues (though, I suppose, the latter was really a phase of the former playing out, now that I think about it) that sort of pushed me to the extremes of "fundamentalist" logic in spite of myself and in spite of somehow also remaining a "renegade" especially on gay identity/relationship questions. "Consistency is the bugaboo of small minds" I suppose, and I'm great at bearing cognitive dissonance.<br /><br />In fact, I can remember during that time thinking simultaneously how obviously evil and wrong the things I were saying were (and sometimes being embarrassed afterward) yet still saying them because, at the same time, there is a certain very real (and dangerous) logic to advocating that sort of All-Consuming Submission. Indeed, it seems to be a progression that is echoed in historical progression, and in that reported by other people; there is perhaps an analogy between the phase of history where heretics were burned literally and the phase of my development where I was burning them in my mind.<br /><br />I can remember saying something like that if I were not Catholic, I would be an atheist BUT, as an atheist, I would then become a Muslim by sheer will power in a sort of existential/psychological suicide in order to destroy the world or something like that (radical iconoclastic Islam being a trope for that sort of philosophy of total desolating "God's Wrath" submission). To which a very wise friend pointed out to me: "But then you're saying that Islam is really everything that Christianity risks betraying?"A Sinnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05083094677310915678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post-60080520673192643742013-01-13T14:24:33.488-06:002013-01-13T14:24:33.488-06:00Congrats for reaching Kuebler-Ross stage five! I k...Congrats for reaching Kuebler-Ross stage five! I knew you were gay from pretty early on, so I'm not shocked. <br /><br />Your "hellfire" posts got me a bit concerned. I thought that maybe you were going into emotional meltdown. Glad to see that didn't happen.<br /><br />Keep the blog going. Tell the reparative "therapy" touting hater types that usually a closet doorknob is on the left of the door from the perspective of a person trapped in a closet.<br /><br />Jordan (e.g. VN etc.)Jordannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4213316015209503694.post-23437965984453259042012-12-30T04:16:40.094-06:002012-12-30T04:16:40.094-06:00Well, I'm grateful for you and your thoughts, ...Well, I'm grateful for you and your thoughts, Mark, as they have been a gift to both myself and, I'm sure, many others. <br /><br />May the Lord bless you and keep you.<br /><br />Aricnoreply@blogger.com