I grew up in a household where God was an invisible being, a formless shape, a mist, a distant but loving fog.  I don't know about you, but a loving fog is scary as fuck.  I mean, really!  In days of late, I have welcomed many thoughts and beliefs of Transcendentalism into my own personal theology.  The criticism I get for these things are "that's nutty," "how can you believe in such nonsense?" "it's witchcraft!"  I hear these things from people I love, and as it leaks out of their faces, I have the strongest urge to stamp STUPID on their foreheads.  How are talking snakes, resurrections stories, and invisible vices of love/wisdom/knowledge not part of that same stereotype?  If my belief in a God who is everywhere (and in everyone) is "nutty or crazy" then by God, believing in stories where men can live in the belly of fish for days falls into the same category.  I am so tired of being told that my beliefs are "hogwash."  How demeaning!  I don't go out of my way to attack your beliefs, but you make a point to belittle me for what I hold true in my heart.  God forbid we get along. 

It is sick to think that we can't leave each other alone and be happy.  We don't need this unnecessary verbal violence!  All we are doing is driving one another to a point of madness, Poe-like nonetheless!  Why? Why? Why?

These thoughts and ideals (talking snakes and resurrections) are the stories which fuel your argument against me.  And because of them, I have a nervous, internal twitch that fires consistently when I kiss boys.  I can't move on with my life and the things that make me happy because of this "witchy" story you have thrown upon my head.  I often times talk to God.  I do... but I never get that verbal/oral response that I hope for.  Instead, I see and hear God in the doings and actions of my life.  I know that mortal men wrote down the luscious imagery that we praise so highly in The Bible, so I have a difficult time grasping how that has dominion over my life.  Couldn't some random crazy man write something and say that God told him to write it?  If that happened today, Christians (including my own self) would be all over that--to condemn it, of course!  But what if that is what happened many, many years ago?  How would we ever know?  What if we are ALL WRONG?  If God really wanted His true word written down, why didn't He just do it Himself?  There would be less reason for the words to be twisted; we could revere them with more of a whole heart.  But then, that would present a problem of "Where did this come from?"  "How are we to take something serious when we know no physical embodiment of an author?"  Either way, what was written in The Bible has plenty of customs preserved from early cultures of Mesopotamia--are they all still relevant to us now?

God has never spoken to me; mortal men wrote the text of the Bible.  So then, why the fuss?

I feel something, something inside.  In my heart.  Right here.  Put your hand on my chest, feel it beat, up & down, up & down, up & down, up & down.  It's there!  Feel it beat.  Do you feel it?  Can you feel my heart?  It is real.  It is there.  It's beating.  You don't feel it?  I promise, it's there.  Feel again.  Feel harder!  Does it feel good?  Do you feel life? ...something real?  It's there, I know it; I feel it...I promise!  Do you think it is real?  I promise it is!  Let me feel yours.  Right there?  Not that?  Oh, there.  I feel it now; there it is--I found it.  I feel it.  I feel beating, I feel breathing--I feel life!  Real life, there in your beating heart, your expanding & deflating lungs.  It's deep, it's real, it's there, it's here in me too.  Are you sure you believe me?  I feel you, do you feel me?  Good; I'm glad you do!  I'm real, I'm here, and I am gay.

There is nothing but assurance in my heart when it comes to my sexuality.  I know nothing but love and acceptance from my God.  He does not discriminate based on your skin color, who you marry (or can't marry), what you say, what you do.  He knows you are human and the capabilities you have for devastation & destruction.  If God is amazing enough to be this invisible, yet ever-present fog, then why wouldn't He have the power to love me despite my sexuality?  He is love; it is true--the mystical fog embodiment of love.  And back to square one, we are. 

An ever-distant but loving fog, my God is...

There are times in which I am separated from our world; I feel as if I'm one-hundred and twenty two miles outside the atmosphere floating among God's colorless palette. I notice all of that around me as it progresses toward heaven and Hell, my observant eye ever-distant from the images it fixates upon. At times it is scary because I'm not exactly sure how I'll get back down--gravity has failed me.


I woke up tonight in search of harmony: that is, I could not sleep and decided to listen to music in hopes of lulling myself back to sleep. While listening, I found that I was drawn into the differences in pitch between the different vocalists echoing from the speakers; the clear tonal harmonies were rich and fluid as they moved ever-so-gently toward the final chord. As I reflected on these notes, a lingering thought tumbled across my forehead...

This music is very much how I want to live my life. In all of my years I have never once tried to truly 'run with the crowd.' Instead, I have always preferred 'going against the grain.' Call me bohemian, if you will, but I don't really view it in that light. I used to wear a church-shirt (complete with little Jesus-fishies on the front) that said something along the lines of "I swim AGAINST the stream." Yeah, okay. At that time those words were more of a lie than any fashion of religious truth. My spiritual counterparts 'swam' with that stream more than I could have noted in those moments. I felt separated then from our world, and still even today, but in a completely different perspective.

My eyes have widened, all senses alert; a serene sense of mutual friendship floods the chambers of my galloping heart. God and nature live together as lovers; organization of anything within this realm is madness, almost Poe-like. And while I still feel so "separate but equal," there are times that I think I have life all figured out. I see the answer in the smile of a night-clerk at the video store, the illuminated fog pressing against my window, the embrace of a friend--now family, and in a dark, cold stream trickling alongside the busy highway.

I may not see my place in your world, but that is only because it makes it more reverent. What makes harmony most special within a great piece of music is using it sporadically. Of course, there are certain songs that ring out with harmony and chord progressions through every-single note, but those combinations of life are very rare. One must seek out the right instrumentation and do much fine-tuning to make that type of relationship work--don't touch the oboe, it's already taken!
 
Our separation and distance are what make us beautiful. As I float around the planet and watch our cloud-covered God swirl round and round, I see where I am supposed to be--sometimes within my "place" of work/play, but occasionally amongst the stars. The sun often burns on my backside, leaving little room for me to predict its forthcoming. After the blinding light leaves my eyes, I can see far past the prairies and the hills, the streets and the alleyways, the waves and the sculpted rocks, the dripping trees and colorful creatures, the ivory mixture and tuxedo birds. And from there, I see myself, standing on the edge of something so far beyond any man or woman's wildest dreams, reaching up to the sky, hoping for something fresh, a beginning; a way to love and be held, an oath of a newly promised lie, a sin unconcealed by the flesh of man and God, a life without vice-grip, a layered, pastel pastry with side-by-side celebration. A division of souls, pitches, livelihoods, persons--the music continues...

Here are four notes stacked atop one another, playing stair-steps in a rehearsed pattern, bringing energy and closure to this life--humming, whistling, projecting until the tap of the rhythm finally reaches the end of its span. The beating stops, the rush of tides--a crimson stain--slows until each ounce has pressed on for the last pulse in a dramatic finale of such a succession. Finally, the music has so abruptly ended, a life joyously wasted on the torments of his own beguiled and erroneous despair.