Stand in the Light and Be Seen as We Are...

HAPPY PRIDE MONTH!!!

June is always a wonderful month to look inwardly and be thankful for all of the fighters who came before us to get our community to where we are today...and we have made HUGE LEAPS AND BOUNDS!!

One of the biggest challenges I faced moving to Arkansas and taking on a new job opportunity 7 years ago was moving from the city of Omaha, where I was VERY visible, very comfortable, very involved in the gay community, both in charitable fundraising and support. Oh the stories I could share!!!

Then to make a life change by moving to a city heavily immersed in the Bible Belt was EXTREMELY JARRING. It felt like I was heading back into the proverbial closet and it was a huge amount of denial...basically be forced to deny who I am and was in Omaha, denying the accomplishments I had achieved on many levels. I even had a mentor tell me that a harmless Tie-dyed Peace Frog on the back of my car could be misconstrued as a equality flag and that this community was of the good ole boy mentality. I took this in and held it close. And felt the struggle to close that door a little bit.

However, over the next 7 years, I sensed the shift in the mentality of the community(and our country) and the opportunity to come back out and live in my truth, to bring my students and my community around to who I am and who I was as a person on many levels. This last year was the most "OUT" i have ever been...my students embraced me, encouraged me to share my life with them, and applauded and begged for pictures of Justin's and my wedding from the summer...I felt great pride and joy that we were finally here...

Over those years, many students have bravely stepped forward and have asked for my help, my opinion, my thoughts on coming out. They have shared their struggles and their fears and their sadness at the struggle with their parents, with their community, with their church and I am just grateful that I can be there to assist them in any way I could...Because it was all too familiar. It was all too clear that this was the reason I was brought to this profession...to serve as a role model, a sounding board, a confidante on many levels...to help others find their true selves and to encourage them to know that they are okay...not trash, not less than, not unloved and disrespected. 

And the struggles they are voicing were familiar...mostly about their concern about their parents and about God and the Bible and the feelings and the emotional baggage they had already endured and it just was like light bulb flashes going off... I have been here...I have struggled with this...I have endured and pushed forward and found my own light to stand in.

I have voiced this before in many blog posts but what I always encourage them to do is brave the waters...perhaps wait until they have their own stronger sense of self...stronger sense of comfortability before bringing others into their light. I always say, "You have to be good here (pointing to head) and be good HERE (pointing to heart) before you can bring others into your own light." 

In regards to the Bible, I had struggled for years and years to get to today and where I am in my own head space in regards to this book...I always come back to the fact that the Old Testament is called OLD for a reason. That in fact, the New Testament brings us to the ideas of Jesus and nowhere does Jesus tell us to hate each other...in fact it is quite the opposite,,,he encourages us to love one another as he loved each of us...no where does he say ANYTHING about homosexuality...he speaks only of love and this is how I choose to live my life...with LOVE in my heart.

We are all created in God's likeness and God does not create TRASH, which is a common theme that comes from some students' mouths. Many even hear their parents tell them that they are going to hell. Many have said that they fought to try and get them out of my classroom, hearing that I was gay and had recently been married. I am of course, saddened by this but not shocked. This always strikes a chord in my heart as this is a common feeling sometimes that comes through in our discussions...we are forced to believe that we are less, that we are inferior and not human, that we are abnormal, that we are animals or trash. God does not create something in his own image and turn his back on it. We are brought onto this Earth to be lights, to love, to live this life to its absolute fullest and to take care of one another. We are brougt here to live our authentic lives and to support each other on thier journeys as well.

And then this song comes along and the light bulb goes off once again and and it is like saying YES!!!! Beautiful message and powerful and artistic. I am so thankful for its words as they struck many chords in my heart strings.

This is how I would tell my students to hold on and to live their lives...

Fight for their own truth.

Fight hard for LOVE.

Hang on until they have their own home, their own life, their own community and then live it FULLY and BEAUTIFULLY and FAITHFULLY.

Brave the storms as the surface is coming and you can and will break through to the other side.

This is who I am inside.

This is who I am...I'm not gonna hide.

Stand in the light and be seen as we are.

Carry on fellow sojourners.