Over the weekend, my eighteen year old niece contacted me to ask me a bunch of questions for an AWANA project. I found the questions interesting, if a little simplistic (and maybe slanted), but I did the best I could to give her short, somewhat simplified answers. I’ve decided to take at least some of the questions and turn each one into a blog post, where I can explore the thoughts that the question brought up for me in a bit more depth.
Where are you going when you die?
I’ll be honest in that this is one of the questions that bothers me. To me, it’s rooted in a body-spirit duality, and one where the body is seen as unimportant and a shell to be cast off, whereas the spirit or soul is our “real” being. I just don’t buy into this. To me, mind, body, and spirit are an integrated whole and all three are necessary to make me the person that I am. In a very real sense, I believe that when I die, I will cease to be. While some part of me may live on in some sense (and I’ll talk about that in a moment), without this body, it will no longer be truly me.
I tend to believe in spirit. Note that I said spirit, not a spirit. I don’t think that spirits are a basic, irreducible part. What I call spirit, I see as an enlivening force. It’s what makes me a living thing rather than lifeless matter. (Then again, I often doubt that any matter is truly lifeless.)
I believe that this spirit does go on after death. Then again, I think all of me goes on after death. My body goes on after death, even as it decomposes. It is reclaimed by the universe, transformed, and is then used to fuel new life. I think spirit follows this same pattern.
I envision this as spirit separating from the body at the time of death and making its way back to what I think of as the Heart of the Universe or the Fount of Creation, that place from which life flows. (Whether it is a physical place or exists in some state beyond our concepts of space and even time is a question to ponder.) Spirit constantly returns there and then once more flows out into the universe anew, vitalizing new life.
Over the weekend, my eighteen year old niece contacted me to ask me a bunch of questions for an AWANA project. I found the questions interesting, if a little simplistic (and maybe slanted), but I did the best I could to give her short, somewhat simplified answers. I’ve decided to take at least some of the questions and turn each one into a blog post, where I can explore the thoughts that the question brought up for me in a bit more depth.
Why are you here on earth?
I think that the answer to this question flows directly from the answer to the previous question. If I am a part of the Divine Universe trying to grow and recreate itself, then my purpose for existing is to help continue that process.
First and foremost, that means that my purpose here is simply to live and to celebrate and honor that life. This means that insofar as it is my power, I am called to live an abundant and passionate life, one that is as full and vital as possible. Life is not meant to be drudged through or born as some grand test, but to be enjoyed.
Of equal importance, as part of the greater whole, I am meant to celebrate and honor life collectively with the rest of the universe. A hedonistic life of abandon that ignores others who struggle to merely survive or a life that thrives at the expense of others is not in line with my part of the greater whole.
There is also the continuance of the creative process after my own time passes. As I mentioned, my actions and the legacy I and those around me leave behind will lay the foundation for the future as creation continues. As such, my purpose is to help keep the whole thing going and to build something that will allow for the lives of all who come after me to be even better.
Over the weekend, my eighteen year old niece contacted me to ask me a bunch of questions for an AWANA project. I found the questions interesting, if a little simplistic (and maybe slanted), but I did the best I could to give her short, somewhat simplified answers. I’ve decided to take at least some of the questions and turn each one into a blog post, where I can explore the thoughts that the question brought up for me in a bit more depth.
Where did you come from?
When I answered this question, I stick with the simple and “mundane” answer of where I was born. However, I got the impression that there’s a greater metaphysical intent behind the question. And that’s what I’d like to explore more in this entry, as for me, answering it involves considering the nature of existence, the universe, and the Divine.
I tend to be a pantheist, in that I believe that the Divine is immanent in all things. To put it more succinctly, I think the universe and the divine is one and the same, and that the various “things” — whether we’re talking about particles of dust or human beings — are a part of that Divine.
To me, the Divine and therefore the universe is driven by the dual principles of being and changing. From the gigantic cosmic explosion that got the ball rolling to everything, the Divine Universe has sought to grow, expand, and recreate itself. It’s that impulse to become that spawned the astronomical bodies, the rocks, the plants, and little old me.
So where did I come from? The Divine Universe. But that implies that I am separate from it. I am not. I am still a part of that greater whole. I occupy another series of moments in that great history of the Divine Universe’s self-creation. I am a part of that process that continues to this very day. However small, my actions will help lay the next layer upon which successive efforts in that ongoing self-creation continues.
May what I help create be filled with beauty and other virtues.
This morning, I was listening to the morning radio show. For their “What would you do” segment, they chose a woman who was dating a guy who was practically perfect and with whom she had been building a great relationship. She indicated that she had looked in his bedside table drawer the other day and found a dildo and wasn’t sure how to react. To the credit of many people who called in or texted the show, many people seemed to have an attitude of “who cares?” Some even went so far to suggest she offer to incorporate it into the couple’s own sexual experiences, which I thought was awesome.
However, there were also those who were leery about the whole thing. One of the (male) radio hosts was even trying to come up with non-sexual explanations why the guy might have one. (Seriously? To massage an old shoulder injury?) Because, you know, heaven forbid that a guy might enjoy actually having his prostate stimulated. That might make him gay, I guess.1
But here’s the thing: Stimulation of the prostate can be highly pleasurable for men. A lot of men enjoy it. Some of us are gay. Some of us are bisexual2. Some of us are even heterosexual, which is great. Heterosexual guys should be free to enjoy whatever pleasure their bodies offer them as it pleases them.
Other guys — of all orientations — prefer to skip that particular activity for whatever reason. That’s great too. But we as a society would be well served to stop getting squeamish and/or offering up value judgments on those guys — reagardless of orientation — who know what they like and choose to indulge themselves.
1I’ll note that there’s not just a negativity toward the idea that a guy is gay, though. There’s often added negativity toward the idea that some guys actually like being the receptive partner in anal sex. It’s something completely unthinkable by some people, as can be noted by Phil Robertson’s underlying assumption that the only two possible choices a man could make is whether to stick his penis in a vagina or anus in his recent homophobic remarks.
2A possibility I suspect neither the show’s hosts nor those listeners who responded even considered.
[Content Note: Congestive Heart Failure, Health Issues]
Me (mostly) wired up for my sleep study.
One of the things that the doctors at the hospital did while I was in for CHF back in September was observe my oxygen levels overnight. Based on the data they gathered, they determined that I had several apnic events (where I momentarily stopped breathing) throughout the night. The next night, they reran the test while I used a CPAP machine. The end result was that they arranged for me to get a CPAP machine. They told me at the time that I still had to go in for a formal sleep study to better understand what was happening in my sleep (also to see if I had any other sleeping issues) and fine tune my treatment. Last night, I went for that study, or at least the first part. It’s still not clear to me if there will be a second part.
I got to the Strong Sleep Disorders Center around 7:30pm and was promptly shown to my bedroom. I began unpacking my stuff and tried to relax while I waited for my technician, Tim, to come in and talk to me.about the study. When he came in, he asked me a number of questions and then described the various places he was going to wire me up. The picture on this post shows about 75% of the probe points he eventually wired up. It doesn’t show the four (six? I lost count) on the back of my head, the two EKG probes on my chest, or the probes the had me run through my pajamas so he could connect to my legs just above my ankles. (They also put a cannula in my nose that they used to monitor the airflow out my nose.)
Once he explained everything, he set up the CPAP machine just in case they switched me over to that after the first two hours (I didn’t have the requisite forty events in the first two hours, so they didn’t). He also had me pull out my mask from home so we could test that with their machine. He was actually somewhat fascinated by my mask, a Fisher and Paykel Eson, as he had never seen one before. He thought it was pretty cool. He then went and did a few things with his other patient for the night, then came back to do the actual job of wiring me up. I spent that time watching the last few minutes of Futurama and most of South Park. (Sadly, USA Network was running wrestling rather than NCIS or Law&Order, either of which I would have preferred.)
After that, he had to go wire up his other patient before he came back and helped me into bed. He than started the computers int he monitor room and ran a bunch of tests that involved having me move my eyes in a certain way, wiggle the toes on each foot, change my breathing pattern, and do other funny things. Then it was time for me to try to sleep.
I found it somewhat weird to sleep in a room with no windows, which made it pretty dark. There was no light from outside (like from streetlights or rooms.) The only light in the room was the couple LED’s on the equipment and the infrared light for the camera. (Yes, they watched me while I slept. They also listened in.) I had an okay night of sleep, though I felt I had a little extra trouble getting to sleep and staying that way. I’m not sure if that’s because I’m that used to the CPAP machine now or more due to the strange surroundings and being turned into a cyborg. I did eventually manage to fall asleep, but not before Tim came in and asked me to sleep on my back (this often makes sleep apnea more pronounced).
I also dreamed a lot, and it seemed like I woke up from a lot of those dreams, which was weird. (The weirdest dream was the one where I thought I had already gotten up the next morning and was talking to the doctor about the study.) But I managed to make it through the night and don’t quite feel like a zombie this morning. Tim got me up around 5:45 so he could disconnect me and I could take a shower to get the probe paste out of my hair. Then I filled out the questionnaire asking me how I felt about my sleep that night and how I felt about the study and the level of care I received (which was great) so I could leave.
As I said, I didn’t meet the threshold of apnic events for them to switch me over to a CPAP machine. Tim noted that this doesn’t mean that my home machine isn’t helping or that I should stop using it (the doctor will instruct me when I see him next Wednesday). At that point, Tim stopped himself. I think he was getting close to discussing things that technically, he was supposed to leave the doctor to review with me. (That’s the fun thing about technicians and nurses: they have to be careful about how much they share despite the fact that they probably know a lot from the data they collect.)
So at this point, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I may have to go back another night so they can figure out how best to adjust my CPAP machine. Or they might have enough information to make a call on what to do already. Or they may take me off it altogether (though I get the impression that one’s not likely.) I guess I’ll find out the next steps next Wednesday.
In the meantime, I’m looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight.
So, I’m a bit bummed. Back in the summer, I started writing a speculative fiction short story with the intent of submitting it for publication to Icarus, a quarterly magazine that publishes spec-fic pieces featuring leading gay male characters. I sent it out to a small group of friends who agreed to proofread it and offer critiques. Due to it taking time for my readers to get me feedback and my health issues toward the end of summer and the beginning of fall, I kind of let the whole thing slide. A couple weeks ago, I started thinking about the story and started thinking about picking it back up again.
It looks like if I’m going to get back to the story, I’m going to have to start by hunting for a new magazine to submit it to. When I received my notice that the Winter 2013/2014 issue was available, it came with an announcement that the magazine is being discontinued. The winter issue is the last issue it will be.
So now I have a story about to enter into the editing phase without a home. Which is a bummer. So far, my quick Google search does not show any other magazines that focus on spec-fic with gay male characters, so I will have to look for a magazine that either focuses on spec-fic in general or one that either focuses on any story with gay characters or stories written by LGBT authors. Which is fine by me. The bigger problem is that in its first draft form, my story is already almost 5,350 words long. (To add a few things suggested by readers, I expect the final draft will be a bit longer. Icarus allowed stories to be up to 9,000 words (they they reminded authors that longer was not always better and the magazine preferred something closer to 5,000 words.) Other magazines, like Apex (5,000) and Jonathan (3,500), have much lower maximum word count limits. So either I have to revise the story to meet those limits (which would be challenging at best), or I have to cross a bunch of possible candidates off my list of places to submit to.
Part of me is tempted to just forget about it, post the story to my WdC portfolio, and start over from scratch with a new idea to get published. After all, that was my main purpose in writing this story. I wanted to actually get published. (Plus the fact that I would’ve gotten a small amount of money if my story hit print was a nice touch.)
As he is often wont to do, Bryan Fischer had some horrible things to say about gay people, this time in the context of how he’s greatly upset over the legislature’s most recent consideration of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act, which would protect LGBT people from discrimination in the workplace. In his diatribe, Fischer refers to homosexuality as sexual deviancy, and compares it — shocker, I know — to pedophilia. He even refers to ENDA as “The Jerry Sandusky Pedophile Protection Act.”
People have covered how laughably offensive it is to compare gay people to pedophiles and other sexual predators. The idea that any sex between consenting adults is the moral equivalent of non-consensual sex of any kind demonstrates a complete failure to appreciate the importance of consent when it comes to sex, and this is a failure that I’ve noted before. Today, however, I’d like to draw attention to how this kind of rhetoric, as evidenced by Fischer’s statements, also erases victims of sexual abuse and assault and trivializes their experience.
Note that Fischer mentions that Sandusky was imprisoned for “engaging in sexual deviancy.” That’s not an entirely accurate statement. Sandusky was imprisoned for raping and otherwise sexually abuses young boys. Sandusky’s crimes were not “deviating from some norm,” but violating other human beings, human beings he had some measure of power over due to his work with them. Reframing his crimes as “sexual deviancy” ignores and erases the fact that other people were harmed by his actions. They become the easily forgotten pawns in Fischer’s rhetorical campaign against LGBT people.
I’ve mentioned before that I tend to listen to the morning show on 98PXY during my five minute drive to work most mornings. I’ve blogged about the sexism (and worse) that I’ve heard the hosts of the shows espouse. Today, I want to talk about some of the regular segments that they do for the show and why they bother me.
The first is “War of the Roses,” which has disturbed me so much that I often will turn off the radio on the days that it airs if it comes on during my commute. The basic notion is that someone call in to the show because zie suspects hir romantic partner of cheating on hir. So to “help out,” one of the hosts calls the partner at hir office and tells them that they are eligible to have a free bouquet of red roses sent to any person of hir choosing. The idea is that if the partner chooses to send the flowers to the original caller, the caller’s fears are (hypothetically) allayed. If the partner chooses to send the flowers to someone else instead — which has been the case for all of the half dozen or so times I’ve listened to the segment — zie is deemed a cheater and the original caller — who is also on the line the entire time — confronts hir. Usually some sort of fight ensues and “great drama” is achieved.
For the record, I threw up in my mouth a little typing “great drama.” Even in the scare quotes. Because it sickens me to think that we as a society (or at least the segment that listens to morning radio) apparently consider this something great to listen to. I mean, thinking your partner might be cheating on you is serious business, not to mention actually having a cheating partner. Having dated guys who proved themselves completely untrustworthy, I get that. Which is why I find the whole idea of using some radio show stunt as a way to try to find out or confront a cheating partner so disconcerting.1 Truth be told, dealing with a cheating partner or even just a partner suspected of cheating is not easy and I don’t think there are any simple ways to deal with that. That includes having radio hosts try trapping and catching your partner in the act and then confronting them on air.
The other segment that bothers me is called “Communicake.” The idea behind this one is that the hosts invite someone to call in with a situation in which they need to have an uncomfortable conversation with someone or tell them something that isn’t easy. The hosts then put the message — letting the caller choose the exact phrasing — on a cookie cake, drop it off outside the recipient’s front door over the weekend with a card inviting them to call the show Monday morning to talk it out. The resulting conversation is then aired, of course. I haven’t listened to this segment (especially the conversations after the cake is delivered) very often. The handful of messages I’ve heard about include break-up messages and one person telling her neighbor that a rank odor is wafting from his apartment into hers.
Again, I find this weird and creepy. First of all, I find the idea of relaying uncomfortable messages via a cake troubling and trivializing. To me, it’s like saying, “I know this might be the start of a difficult conversation, so I’m going to start it as flippantly as possible,” which strikes me as counter-intuitive. Then there’s just the fact that the conversation is then aired for the benefit of the show’s listeners. Because if I’m talking about something that may be uncomfortable for me and/or the other person, I sure want to have hundreds of eavesdroppers listening in on it.
The thing I note is that both of these segments have a couple things in common:
They both offer “easy solutions” to complicated and troubling issues.
They both offer listeners a chance to be voyeuristic when it comes to other people’s interpersonal struggles.
Are either of these things that we as a society really want to encourage?
No, don’t answer that. The answer is obvious. And depressing.
1I admit though that I’m more disturbed by the shows hosts who would use people’s real relationship concerns for a few laughs or even just a spectacle to observe on their show.
Today is the day that Wiccans and many other Pagans in the Northern Hemisphere observe Samhain. So happy Samhain!1
Among other things, Samhain represents the mythological and metaphorical descent into the underworld, the realm of Death. It’s the traditional start of a season where life slows down (or used to, before our technology allowed us to keep a fast-paced frenzy going year-round) and offers much time for introspection and reflection. It’s also a great time for deconstruction of oneself, one’s ego, and how one looks at the world. In Gardner’s Myth of the Goddess, this is represented by the guardians to Death’s Domain when they challenge the Goddess and tell her she must remove all her jewelry and even her garments. She had to bare her true self to descend.
I find it somewhat amusing that the modern adaptation of this holiday — Halloween — involves donning costumes and pretending to be someone or something else, when Samhain traditionally is also about divesting oneself of such pretense and facing the Darkness without one’s armor and accepting that such armor cannot truly protect.
Of course, that’s a frightening realization to embrace. We tend to like our sense of control, especially over ourselves. We like to think that we can present to the world who we want to be and have this accepted. And there is some witchery there. Letting go of that and becoming bare, vulnerable to any who may see the real us rather than the perfected image we prefer to present is a terrifying process. It’s terrifying to let ourselves be confronted with the real us, for that matter.
But it’s also necessary. To know who we truly are — stripped of all the pretense and illusions we create for ourselves and others — also enables us to improve ourselves and even reconstruct us. Often, we can do that in ways so that we are more substantively like the person we imagine and project ourselves to be. But making that improvement requires we first take a close look at admit we are not that person yet.
So to all my readers, especially any who follow a path where Samhain has meaning to you, I wish you a blessed Samhain. May you find the serenity and courage to face the Darkness alone, naked (only figuratively, if you prefer), and vulnerable. May you find comfort in the journey and hold tight to the hope of seeing the First Light of Yule.
1Happy Beltane to any Wiccans and other Pagans Down Under who are celebrating that instead.
[Content Note: Sex, Policing others’ sexual choices, Homophobia]
While perusing Twitter today, I ran across a link to a Queerty story (linked article includes NSFW image) about a young man who plans on having anal sex for the first time as performance art. The article describes the planned event thus:
The sweeping act of teenage narcissism deflowering will be tittled “Art School Stole My Virginity” and will feature 19-year-old Pettet and his friend engaging in safe sex until completion. Afterwards, they will ask the audience what they thought of the performance. Because who doesn’t like to be critiqued after sex?
That quote is verbatim. I did nothing to edit it. The phrase “sweeping act of teenage narcissism” is included in the original article, complete with strikeout font. Because apparently, the Graham Gremore, the writer, couldn’t help but fill the entire article with signs of his contempt for Pettet’s choices.
And that what my blog post is about. I have nothing to say about Pettet’s plans, other than to wish him the best and hope that he finds the whole thing rewarding, however he chooses to evaluate what would make the experience rewarding to thim. Because in the end, I’m pro-choice and fully embrace Pettet’s agency.
It becomes pretty obvious that the writer for Gremore would rather condemn and ridicule Pettet’s choice. Fankly, I’m not okay with that. I think this is just more evidence that the LGBT community — or at least certain segments of it — is still all too willing to police the sexuality and sexual choices of others.
Of course, a lot of this plays into the attempt to gain LGBT approval through mainstreaming. “Oh, we’re not all like those promiscuous [a word which, in my experience, is highly subjective and simply means “has had more sex than the speaker personally approves of”] gay men in bath houses.” It’s true, of course. But I’m deeply troubled by the fact that some people are willing to throw gay men who are like that under the bus for the sake of their own increased freedom. (And to make matters worse, it’s not a very effective strategy.)
I am pro-choice and I believe that everyone’s sexual choices should be respected. People should be allowed to have as much or as little sex as they want, with who they want (and only with who they want), how they want, and for whatever reason they want (be it love, the need to get off, or performance art). To me, this idea is central to the equality and freedom of sexual minorities.
And I would like a site like Queerty to be a bit more onboard with and sensitive to that notion by telling Mr. Gremore and anyone else like him to keep their contempt for others sexual choices out of their writing.
The thoughts of a gay witch living in upstate New York.
