Epiphany August 20, 2008
Posted by Justin Farr in The Journey.trackback
I want to leave the Church (essentially, though I cannot technically leave something that I am not in) for love. Right? I want to leave the Church for the one thing I want more than anything.
And I have come to the realization that even outside of the Church, I cannot have it. I cannot have the simple, normal, conservative, monogamous homosexual relationship I want. It’s pretty much unheard of in the gay world. I’ve now realized this.
The following three pictures are examples of what I want that I cannot never never ever have:
But if I get what I want, if I get that, the one thing I want more than anything, the one thing I cry myself to sleep at night over… there’s nothing to prohibit this:
Everything comes unglued. The lines of acceptability become invisible. Everything becomes permissible.
If I say that my fallen desires are permissible, there is nothing to prohibit the fallen desires of others from being acceptable. Everything just…. isn’t right… outside of the Church. There is no life outside of God. There are no relative truths. There is one Truth. I’ve decided to continue seeking the Church, to continue craving love, to continue my unhappiness, to continue failing to smother my desires to love, to continue the pillow cries, to continue with the hurt. Why? Because, dammit, I know it’s right. And coming to this realization is something that’s a whole hell of a lot to swallow. But, my God, the first two pictures hurt me so much. I desire that so bad. I want to be in that love and grow old with the love of my life.
But I’m going to try to struggle against that.
God help me.
Dear Justin,
I just came across your blog…I was googling images of monastics. Please forgive me if I presume to give anything that might be construed as counsel.
No doubt you have been presented with readings from numerous books of Orthodox teaching or accounts of saint’s lives. Possibly among them you have been pointed to the witness of Fr. Seraphim Rose who shared similar struggles as you have mentioned that you do. I daresay that you have a very long struggle ahead, perhaps until your dying breath, and you would not have been the first nor will you be the last.
It is understandable that you not want to be forever “alone”, that the prospect never being able to legitimately and fruitfully know that closeness fills you at times with great sadness…even perhaps moments of regret. But I think you are already beginning to realize that even if you abandon the Church to follow those desires…even you could find someone likeminded…it is not likely that it would, and the potential for you to grow bored and restless with each other is very high. And if perchance you found some relationship that did last, that parts that would matter most over time would not be what you do with your bodies…indeed that would somehow diminish to the good that remained. And then there is the question of God and the Church…and still the sadness that what you want, or think you want, cannot in the long run bring you happiness, joy, or fulfillment and can only damage those who enter into it with you is more sadness yet.
If I am not mistaken the Fathers’ teach us that our disordered passions…our disordered appetites are all meant to be satisfied ultimately in God. So if you dig down into this particular disordered appetite I think you will discover at the bottom what it is your soul is hungry for that is trying to fulfill in this way and in that you can find a path to bring it back to God. Personally I think one of the driving aspects of it is a desire for communion…to be known by another to your depths…dark corners and all and still be loved wholly and unconditionally. You want to find your face in the face of another as you dream it might be….you loved and loving in turn….a kind of theosis in a sense…to be found and transformed in love.
Here’s the thing…you can have that communion in Orthodoxy. You can have that love. The Scriptures teach that we are members of one another, and that it is not good (though not forbidden) for man to dwell alone. What you cannot have is the debased counterfeit of that love that joins bodies outside the unions they were designed for. That temptation must go to the cross…and that cross must be clung to and treasured and not resented, and you will discover in time…that decision to love your neighbor by not luring him or joining with him in what is sin will ultimately be transformative in any number of ways.
Will it bring you suffering. Without doubt, but Christ was crucified from before the foundations of the world. The Cross lies at the heart of the very mystery of our God. The secret of the cross is this…no one can crucify himself…even another nailed Christ our God to the tree. When we deny ourselves for Christ sake, when we justify God and not ourselves…when we accept the nails into our hands and feet we have partakers in some measure of a great and holy mystery.
St. Silouan was taught by Christ to keep his mind in hell but not to despair. To do that literally is beyond most of us…but we can all benefit and apply it’s core principle in a measure appropriate to us.
Make a gift of your sadness, of your war in your members to cleave to abstinence for Christ’s sake. Every one you are not “with” in that way, whose temptation you turn from even if it was just in a passing fancy, those are all gifts of love to them, a wordless prayer that God preserve them blameless.
Don’t expect not to suffer…until the wound is drained and cauterized it will fever and ache, and even when largely healed, perhaps years from now, you will still feel the scar of it tighten and burn from time to time. It is that way with every deeply entrenched sin. It hurts us to leave it off. It hurts us to starve it…to hear its loud protest…it frantic pleadings…its litany of small compromises that could be made if we would just let it live.
But we cannot love it and love God and in HIm love His creatures our fellow men at the same time. Outside of God…that lustful appetite is a consumption not a communion. Trust God. Embrace the cross…don’t flee from it’s for it is there to kill you, no doubt. It will be a true death for you, but as Christ said we should not fear, for He has overcome the world. As the paschal hymn says He trampled down death by death. Our death then in Christ has become the very vestibule of life….our dying is the event horizon of life out of death. The broken earthly “love” that is misattached to a perishing blush of beauty will be clothed in true beauty and overflow with dispassionate love that can take joy in every soul and pity and pray for the soul of the most cruel oppressor.
You have a hard journey, and a long one, many battles, and it is a path that may in time take you to a monastery for life, or it may not. In your life, like Christ you may not have that close confidant, that one who really understands you in the moment…that may be a cross you share with Him as a gift in this life…a place for you to especially be united to Christ…in any case it will be a cross to bear…but dare to look and see how beautiful, and how powerful that Christ has made His cross…how much grace has been spread abroad because He did not refuse the cup in Gethsemene.
But if you do this…if you are willing to accept and give thanks for the cross you have been given, in time it will bring you joy and gladness, and the love and the communion that you mourn now can never be yours.
Justify God, not yourself, fight the good fight…make war with yourself to own and preserve your faith…you will see. Just don’t don’t try to do it all at once…win the war an inch at a time…not miles.
If I’m not mistaken when Elder Porphyrios was very old and near his death his disciples and spiritual children asked him he should say to Christ when asked if should go to heaven or hell. The holy elder replied, “I shall say, wherever Thy love places me O Lord, only do not separate me from Thy love.”
It is this that preserves the mind and heart in its suffering…even if reaches to the limits of the suffering of Hell. The heart though it judges itself harshly does not despair of Christ’s love and mercy…rather knowing itself and deepness of its wounds it is bound… rapt in wonder at the love of Christ condescending to us.
As we say shortly before we receive the Holy Mysteries we pray, “Like the thief I will confess thee, remember me O Lord in Thy Kingdom”.
May the Lord remember you in the Kingdom and further you in all your good intentions.
Forgive me for my presumption.
the unworthy seraphim
Here comes another Seraphim!
We don’t know each other particularly well, but I’ve seen your struggles on TAW and on DC. Do not take my word on this, but with a grain of salt… you are blessed to struggle like this. My life philosophy, right or wrong, is that people who suffer are far closer to God than those who live comfortable, “happy” lives. What is that comfort and happiness, anyway? I say it’s delusion.
I don’t have any clue what it’s like to be in your shoes, probably no more than you know what it’s like to be in mine, but we both have struggle in common. I believe the struggles we have been given are blessings, and it is up to us to recognize them for what they are and to take advantage of them. You have said that there is no life outside of God and that there is one Truth. Do you know how many people, in their supposed happiness and comfort, cannot say that? Who then is really in the better place?
Ask for the prayers of Bl. Seraphim and of the Mother of God — remember how much our Lady suffered in her lifetime, but then, remember her glory. If we were meant for true happiness in this life, we’d have no need for the Kingdom. Not to rain on your parade, but marriage is just another aspect of the holy struggle that God grants to some people. It is not a guarantee of bliss; those who think that it is are in for a big shock.
I could be very wrong, so don’t take what I say to heart without talking to your SF, who undoubtedly knows you far better than I do.
Dear Justin,
What I am going to say, is probably stupid, but I feel the need to communicate these things with you.
I have been reading your posts with interest. Your pain, the pain you describe in your posts, gives me great sadness.
By no means all Orthodox feel same-sex relationships are sinful, or that sex between members of the same sex is sinful and shameful.
If homosexuality (and gay sex) is a sinful passion, then the Holy Spirit will deal with it, as a fruit of your relationship with Jesus Christ. The Comforter will give you the power to live without having that passion saddening you.
If it’s not a sinful passion, then the Holy Spirit will guide your steps carefully so that you find a person of His liking to be with.
In any case, a solution is to come from the relationship of love and commitment with Jesus Christ.
In my view, and I may be totally wrong here, there is something that prevents you from entering into a deep relationship with Christ. I don’t know what is it that prevents man from throwing himself into the bosom of Christ. Whatever it is (IT’S NOT being gay), that’s what you need to deal with. Find Christ, and you will find the joy and peace and power to live the way you want.
I’m speaking as a fellow struggler. I might not be struggling with homosexuality, but I am struggling nevertheless. It’s not supposed to be about struggling. Christ is supposed to bring inner joy and peace, rather than pain of heart and depression.
Where depression is, Christ is not. When Christ becomes present, depression is not.
I don’t know if any of this is meaningful, or if I’m supposed to speak like that, but try to find out what’s keeping you from His bosom. Jesus Christ is meek, and humble in heart, and His yoke is light. Try to see Him as He is.
I will be keeping you in my prayers. There is no human solution to your problem (other than not getting involved with the church, that is), because the answer is Christ’s sweet and gentle Presence, that changes the world for our shake.
The replies here have gone beyond merely helpful. Thank you all so very much for such kindness, useful information, and for giving me strength to carry on through Christ our God.