Coming Out of the Closet

Living in the closet is a terrible thing.  It makes a person secretive, wary and untrusting of those around them.  It causes them to be withdrawn and introverted, or else it causes them to create a for-public-consumption personality that they end up wearing like a daily costume.  In my case, I have always vacillated between being withdrawn from the conversations around me, sitting back and listening to other people energetically expressing their likes and dislikes, usually dislikes, and being the comic, who quips from time-to-time just so that the people in the room will remember that I’m still alive and breathing.

Before I learned to make jokes, being in a group setting usually made me feel no more important than the other chairs scattered around the room.

Living in the closet means that almost all of a person’s interactions and relationships will be rather one-sided, because the person in the closet won’t want to be judged and rejected by the person who is outside, who probably won’t understand.  It will be one-sided because friendships will boil down to other people appreciating the way that you listen to and support them as they go through their problems, not even pausing to realize that you don’t share your private thoughts in return.  Even greater than not understanding is the probability that the non-closet-dweller will judge harshly, belittle, reject, mock and persecute the closet-dweller, believing that they have good cause to judge and reject or even that God demands them to judge and reject the person that they now realize they never truly knew and they don’t truly understand.

I have lived in the closet for pretty much all of my life because of the many people that I have tried to open up to who initially seemed sympathetic to my gesture to connect, but ultimately decided never to speak to me again, destroying whatever possible closeness I had initially hoped that I could build upon.

I live in the closet because the book that I value most in the world appears, on the surface, to publicly condemn and reject me.

I live alone in my own unique experience in a world that I understand but can’t really share with.

I live alone in a group of supposedly like-minded people because I choose not to share contrary views, beliefs and perspectives.

I live alone even with my friends because they have sympathy for me in a very general sense, but I’m not sure that they can handle what I’ve experienced in my life, which is so very different from their life.

I am condemned in the Book of Leviticus. 

The most often quoted Leviticus verse for judgment and condemnation is:

Leviticus 20:13

If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.

It may surprise the reader to know that this is not the verse that causes me to have lived a life in the closet.

I am not gay.

Here are two of the verses that condemn me and make me afraid of the misunderstanding of others.

Leviticus 19:31
Do not turn to mediums or seek out spiritists, for you will be defiled by them. I am the LORD your God.

Leviticus 20:27
Men and women among you who act as mediums or psychics must be put to death by stoning. They are guilty of a capital offense.

            

            Throughout the fifty-six years of my life I have been taught by those around me that ANYTHING that falls outside of the common experiences of life is to be regarded as coming from the Devil, is occult in nature, and needs to be rejected.  But what does one do when their life has been FILLED with supernatural experiences that other people simply wouldn’t understand?

            There is a powerful verse in the Bible that tells us how Jesus intends to teach us about all of God’s secrets.

            
            John 14:26

But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.

I am prepared to come out of the closet now and share with you one of God’s secrets that the Holy Spirit, whom I have actually seen face-to-face, taught me.  The Holy Spirit and I are on a first name basis, and that statement alone, instead of blessing the ears of those that hear it, most probably causes fear and concern, just like when a gay soul decides to share their true life with a cold and scary world.  There is no real word for what I am because psychic or spiritualist doesn’t really cover the situation.  It appears that I am, for better or for worse – unique.  As for what I have experienced, what I can do, and what I can sense in and about others, that’s not as important right at this moment as the need to bring more Love and acceptance into this world, which I shall now attempt to do with every fiber of my being.  When I was a young Baptist boy in high school I had a very conflicted experience relating to the teachings of my Sunday school instruction and my pastor.  The sermons and lessons about God’s love were always a blessing and left my soul feeling expanded out into the universe.  There were, however, other sermons that troubled me greatly.  The discussion about condemning gays always left me feeling internally violated somehow, like some great evil was trying to invade me, posing as a great truth.  I read the Old Testament six times through and the New Testament seven times through, trying to make sense of many conflicting passages.  It was then that I realized that all of the words were starting to look empty and familiar and I asked the Holy Spirit to be my teacher.

The Spirit showed me (and no, it’s not a psychotic episode or the hearing of disembodied voices.  It’s like connecting to God’s Internet and getting one’s question answered with a view from His side of existence, which is more commonly called enlightenment) how people were trained, whether they realized it or not, to think of everything in the Bible as being presented in a chronological order, just like our lives play out.  People don’t ponder how the Old Testament relates to the New Testament because subconsciously they think that everything in the New Testament came after, and is thus subservient, to the words of the Old Testament.

In the case of judging and killing gay people, this is not the case.

Leviticus 20:13 is the greatest pop quiz that the world has ever FAILED!  What God is saying with this passage (which was NOT written by Him but which He allows into His Bible to serve a definite purpose) is “Do you understand what my Son taught you in the New Testament?”

Leviticus tells us to judge, reject and kill.  I hope that it’s not necessary here to list each and every instance where Jesus taught us NOT to judge, reject and kill.  Jesus taught us to Love, and THAT’S the message of the New Testament.

John 13:34

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one to another.

I hate to break it to the world but there is no such thing as a crime of LOVE!  Sin is selfishness, and transgression is selfishness that negatively affects another person’s life, and so many Christian churches sin and transgress against others in ignorance, having failed God’s pop quiz of Leviticus.  Our souls are glowing balls of God’s energy about the size of a large marble and Loving relationships between equal and consenting adults is NOT a sin.  In a further effort to expand the consciousness of the universe, I would like to suggest to the reader that JESUS the Christ is a mal-adjusted perspective because it should be Jesus THE CHRIST (where the word Christ is revealed to be the word for the incarnation of God’s Love, and that definition I got directly from the Holy Spirit, just in case you were wondering).  If Jesus and Love are interchangeable words, then when Jesus says…

John 14:6

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

… he is actually NOT saying that everyone has to be a Christian in order to get to heaven.  What he’s saying is that all those who have Love in their souls and hearts (the Christ energy of which he is the incarnated essence) are going to heaven.  If you doubt my assertion, I suggest that you read 1 John 4:7-21, where it is explained in no uncertain terms.

1 John 4:7

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.

But if we are judged by the amount of Love (Christ energy [Jesus]) within our soul, no matter the specific religion the we feel comfortable with, that would mean that spiritual salvation was always a plan that God had made equally accessible to EVERY soul on the planet, no matter their age or their location in time, which would help to explain how people who lived before Jesus was born had a chance to get back to heaven.

The Buddha wandered his world, searching for answers and enlightenment.  When he felt that he had exhausted all possibilities for achieving enlightenment and failed, he sat down under a tree and asked God for ONE thing – to be filled with His Love.

Buddhism is his way of trying to turn a selfish, ego-centric mind around to recognize the importance of committing to Love!

And what will happen now?

Perhaps this essay will only be read by gay students who will receive some comfort from the insights and only good will come of it.

What are the chances of that?  When was the last time a person came out of the closet to the world and only good came from the sharing?

Ah well, I can always hope.  If this sharing proves to be a major life mistake, God, you and I are going to have a LONG talk when I get back home!