I’ve had an emotionally tumultuous two weeks. First, the shooting at the AME Church in S. C. left me feeling raw and speechless. But after hearing about the Supreme Court’s ruling allowing marriage for same-sex couples throughout the nation, I became ecstatic and hopeful once again.
Twenty-nine years ago, I was standing on the R.I. State House steps for Gay Pride. I watched my fellow LGBT’s, glittering Queens, buff gay men, butches and femmes, rainbow flags triumphantly raised, and plenty of hyper-sexualized carrying on blending perfectly in a saucy commemorative celebration of solidarity, liberation and freedom. I was wearing my best jeans with a blouse left over from the seventies. Although there was excitement all around me, I couldn’t hold back the tears in my eyes and the rage in my throat.
That day I, like many LGBTQ, was exiled from my family of origin. “Do not come home. We disagree with your morals and values (being lesbian), so we think that you should spend your life in Newport, RI.” This was written in a letter Fed-Expressed to me by my father. After reading it I turned his hate and rejection against myself.
I believe there are two active ingredients without which nothing happens. One is anger. The other is love. It is a volatile mixture. Most of us have been burned trying to get the balance right. Many of us have been blown up. That’s because anger is love’s poison, and if it’s not harnessed right it can destroy the sacred joy, love and real power that are possible for us.
For years the feelings that came after reading that letter tormented me, building up pressurized fumes from the wrong mix of love and anger, a formula for self-hatred that outlives life’s blessings. A wise person once said, “If you forget or ignore the past, it grows inside you.”
The self-hatred that afflicts many of us doesn’t just go away, not on its own. So if a person is ashamed of being gay and feels like their sexuality is of a lower status, their relationships cannot grow. Many of my relationships crashed because I was ashamed of being gay … ashamed of looking at myself in the mirror … and I could not see past the beliefs that others had imposed on me. I suffered with low self-esteem and insecurity, which ultimately led to violent, destructive relationships and heartbreaking break-ups. The lack of information and acceptance led to a lot of ignorance.
Relationships are at the foundation of all of life. The journey from childhood to adolescence to adulthood is a journey of coming to terms with who we are and leaving home from parents who say, “Do this, don’t do that, be this and don’t be that,” and learning for ourselves what is important. The letter that I received almost three decades ago was my call to find out who I was in relation to self, others and the Divine.
I discovered that there was really a natural way to be and love. For me, it is spiritual. I understand that to be a loving, spiritual being is really just being “me” without the “knowledge” that has been pounded into me. I had to consider this and you may have had to consider it also: Everything I had been taught growing up and as a young person was someone else’s idea of right and wrong, good and bad, sin and not sin, and I said, “yes Mama, no Daddy.” I didn’t think. I just did.
But when I went on my own spiritual journey, I didn’t have anyone else to depend on, so I learned to listen and pay attention to my inner voice, the inner voice that whispers to us what to do. The inner voice helped me create a natural way to live. I consider my inner voice my Higher Self or my Higher Power and it lives within me. I consider it “me” without the knowledge that others have tried to impart to me.
It took a long time to recognize and embrace the notion of how different we all are; that we are individuals … that we are not all alike. In my work, I often teach couples, “If we are going to be the individuals that we should be, we have to allow others to be the individuals they should be.” For example, I’m not like you and you’re not like me and that’s okay. It’s like a big jigsaw puzzle. If we don’t find out who we are with our own special jigs and jags, the puzzle is not going to be complete. There will be a hole left.
I know there are many out there angry about the Supreme Court’s decision allowing same-sex marriage in all 50 states. I empathize because I grew up in Louisiana during the end of segregation. I remember how angry and afraid folks were when Civil Rights legislature passed granting Black folks the right to vote. I understand what it is like to be so threatened when change happens that the only way out of that fear is to annihilate and destroy the “thing” and everything associated with it.
But I believe that we can learn so much from our fears. The key is in having compassion for ourselves and knowing that we must dive deeper than the fears and polarities within. When we do this, our understanding takes on a slightly different color and flavor, loosening the grip of hate and anger’s burn, and we see that we have a choice to move into a more conscious response. Once I stopped buying into my own self-hatred and rejection, I was able to land in a transcendent fiery passion I call “Loving Out Loud Vibe.” Inhabiting the “Loving Out Loud” vibe is an opportunity to celebrate love, relationships, liberation and freedom throughout the planet.
It is my deepest hope that, as conscientious love-seekers, we stand together as grateful beneficiaries of a supreme decision spurred on by intolerance, homophobia and hatred. I hope we can rise-up with dignity, grace and respect for the courageous leaders killed and those who fought relentlessly to secure marriage for the LGBTQ community. Let’s hold the space under the rainbow flags for all those who continue to suffer violence and oppression, homophobic bullying, denial of respect and anti-gay bigotry globally. And last, let’s remember to have compassion for all those human beings walking and running down the city streets with tears in their eyes and rage in their throats.
