Posts (page 2)

What's your "go-to" movie?  The one you watch when you need to just get away from it all?
Submitted by uncagedbird.

That movie would have to be The Princess Bride. " It's a story of fencing, fighting, pirates, revenge, a princess, and true love"  What more could I want?

Second to it would be Always. This is my favorite dead-people movie.  The music is great.  The romance is great (for a dead man) and it "feels" good.

Next, I would choose Somewhere In Time.  It has captured something in me that makes me WANT/DREAM/YEARN to go to Macinac Island and to the Grand Hotel AND to go back in time.  Beautifully filmed!  The music is amazing.  Christopher Reeve never performed better than he did here.

I decided to abandon the thought of some chronological journey through the transformational experiences.  Since there isn't a clear roadmap for anyone to follow, the chronology isn't really important to this exercise. So...

The changepoint I want to share in this post is that of coming clean.  I really only recognize this as a transformational experience in hindsight.  There was not even one thing that told me back then (eighteen years ago) that the cumulative changes would be so radical.  So, when it began to occur to me that I needed to talk about some stuff, I had no idea what ALL I would need to talk about.

I didn't have words to describe it back then.  Today I recognize this "coming clean" as something like a moral inventory.  Or, some might recognize it as steps 4 & 5 in a Twelve Step program.  What I was experiencing was an overwhelming realization of just HOW MUCH and just HOW DEEP my hidden stuff was.  I wasn't trying to draw lines to connect my homosexual inclinations to my history of curious misdeeds as a child or to my isolated explorations of sexuality through explicit novels.  I wasn't trying to define my homosexual "sin" as I wasn't really perceiving it as "sin."  What was happening was an experience within myself where I was, somehow, associating my curiosities, hiddenness and explorations to my current inclinations.  I felt the need to bring out the history.

Before that day, it had never occurred to me that anything of my past experiences had even one thing to do with my current experiences.  I really wasn't THAT self-aware.  I had sectioned off my darker leanings from a very, very religious self.  Prior to that day, I didn't feel guilty when I indulged in the shadow-self.  I did experience long periods of "disconnect" in my religious self.  For that matter, I felt very disconnected in relationships with friends and family. 

As I began to make this inventory, I remember one of the first items on my list: "Took playmate under the bed in my parent's room when I was 4 or 5."  It wasn't the childish play that occurred to me in that notation.  What I suddenly remembered was the manipulation to get my friend in there with me.  Also, I lied to my dad about what we were doing.  It was strange to remember those parts of that childhood experience.  It was like being reminded that I had a conscience and yet chose to ignore it.

Anyway, my list began to take shape in much the same way.  One item after another was added to my inventory and with items were the memories of historical deceptions which were instigated by me (for the most part).  Also on that inventory were a few things my friends did which violated my conscience.  Things like my childhood friend going potty outside and her telling me to not tell my parents made the list.  Minor, I know. It was a hot secret for a little kid to carry.

The list included explicit novels, sensual experiences, manipulations and deceptions which surrounded my private, sexual life up until that day at 28-years old.

The list was absolutely giant.  The hens, so to speak, were coming home to roost.  I was shocked at the cumulative power of my own history.  I concluded to myself that I was what I was.  I simply had no thought that I would ever be anything different that what was revealed on those pages.

A few days later I got with a trusted friend and began to go through this list.  I talked about what I had done AND about any decisions I made to either manipulate or deceive or to ignore my conscience.  This was not an emotional exercise for me.  There weren't tears really.  It felt heavy.  It felt hard.  It felt confusing.  (It was a dreary drudgery for me.)  I didn't feel the immediacy of Christ's presence.  I didn't feel really "connected" to my friend as I shared.  Really, I hated this little exercise I had taken on and couldn't believe it was taking so long.

When I was done (this actually took all night) my friend directed me to God with my list.  All I really remember was telling God something like:  "Well, here it is.  I don't know what to do with it." 

I wish I could tell you that I felt "light-as-a-feather" but I didn't.  I felt dead.

Looking back to that day (those days), I think it was one of the most important exercises of my life.  Very few items have surfaced that somehow were overlooked in my initial list.  What happened is that my conscience began to be sensitive again and I began to live and to feel more clear.  The feeling of death really hung around for a while.  It didn't begin to lift for me until I got into some good counseling and began to talk regularly about my inner world.  Ah, but that is for a different post.

Some of the comments are interesting.  I've said it before and will again that I'm more than a little puzzled at dispute.  Why is it that when a person says they are "gay" it is easily believed; then, if someone says they are "no longer gay" it is disputed?  In each case a person declares himself or herself as one thing or another.  These declarations are not scientifically derived. These statements are not objective.  If folks go to court as gay or straight couples, the legal system does not demand "proofs" that the couple is either gay or straight.  Our self-declarations are enough.

I think that the ex-gay faces such a different scrutiny.  Take one of "them" to the media, for example, and their introductions will say that they "claim" to no longer be gay.  Or (and I think this is worse), they will simply be told that they are wrong about themselves.  YOU, they'll be told, are in denial. 

It is the strangest experience of my life!  What thoughts, behaviors and inclinations use to define my life are no longer the measures of my life and existence.  It has been many years.  More importantly to me is that I was experiencing this internal and external transformation for many years before I entered into a marriage.  The marriage didn't make me MORE changed...but did continue to draw out transformational experiences.

I plan to take this theme from post to post as a personal exercise and plan to share SOME of the transformational experiences I have walked through.  Wish me luck as I plan to keep these posts open to the public.

Pondering...Why is it that I feel unable to drive when my husband is with me?  :)

I was NOT tagged by Danielle a while ago.  Neither was I tagged by Michelle.  Nor was I tagged by Kirk. 

The rules:

1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment on their blog and tell them they’ve been tagged, and to come back and read your blog for the whole story.

My Random Eight:
1. My idea of a great vacation is spending time with friends in a cabin, by a river, near some trees in cool weather.
2. I am capable of playing a single computer game over and over for an entire day/weekend.
3. I sometimes wonder about my childhood friend, Dewley Barlow, and whether his kids have a jungle gym like he did?
4. My perfect summer food is tomato sandwiches which are made from fresh-picked tomato, white bread and homemade mayo and with salt and pepper.
5. I don't live alone very well.  Hopefully, I will not have to live alone for a long time.
6. I secretly hate technology.
7. If I could purge myself of any character weakness, I would purge myself of lack of follow-through first!
8. I could eventually be content with no television, no computer and no cell phone.

My best friend has decided she needs to move closer to her parents.  I'd love to be the supportive friend but I feel very selfish about it.  She is the closest girlfriend I have.  ALL of my relationships have undergone tremendous change over the last few years.  She is the close one.  What will it be like to have her move out of town? 

Handsome has offered some suggestions.  We will see how things pan out. 

I should be able to retain a best friend once she is out of town.  MY problem with it is that I never have before. 

Are you planning on doing any spring cleaning this year? If so, please share a cleaning tip you swear by.

Well, I have and I will.

We mowed the yard and raked up the last of the autumn leaves.
We cleaned the house.
We took all the hazardous waste to the hazardous waste center.
We've cleaned one car.  There is another to go.
We're already transitioning to a veggie diet.
I need to clean the grill so I can cook on it.
I need to buy new bedding material for the front bed.

Well, here is a fancy but abbreviated expression of my story and the stories of Dennis Jernigan and Stephen Black.  Please watch it when you have a chance.  Clicking on the link will take you to First Stone Ministries' website and begin video play immediately.

Freedom Video

Well, that is how the reports are being given.  Gasp!  It's amazing!  A MAN is pregnant!

Except...

He isn't/wasn't a man. 

Well, he's been reassigned.  It is a legal issue.  He is legally a man.

Boing Boing's account

And such is the rhythm of our days.  He is a man because he says he is a man. 

But, he is a WOMB-man.  He has a womb.  He was born with it and elected to keep his internal female anatomy when he elected to have all the rest removed.  By "all the rest" I mean to say that he had his female chest removed and took testosterone therapy and grew facial hair.  He probably didn't elect to buy a penis.  It wasn't mentioned.

What an amazing thing. 

Fox News' better account  This account reports HER as a transsexual woman.

I think it is irresponsible to say that a MAN is pregnant.  There is no miracle here.

Well, pregnancy and birth is a miracle but THIS slant on it is NOT a miracle. 

If I consider the article posted the The Advocate, these folks are, in fact, a lesbian couple.  They are buying donor sperm. He/she went off the testosterone treatments and has temporarily embraced his/HER ability to carry a child.  The Advocate called it a "labor of love."  OH!  For crying out loud!

Since they brought it up, I have to question the idea of reassignment surgery for them because it has psychological implications too.  Didn't HE divorce himself for his identity as a woman?  Isn't this a situation of side-stepping what he says he has embraced?  He called himself his own surrogate!  Yikes!

Somebody help me.  I thought Dr. Alex Hesse was the first man...as played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the 1994 movie, "Junior."

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.  It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.  The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."  ~ C.S. Lewis from God In The Dock: Essays In Theology and Ethics

This quote did not come from a commentary on spiritual abuse but from an essay on the Humanitarian Theory of Punishment.  This is conjuring images of the benevolent abusers.  I am thinking about closed systems of households, churches and even many bloggers from many backgrounds as I consider this quotation.  I feel it is important to recognize the shaming component I am capable of hefting out on the heads of those I love and want to protect.  It is powerful to consider that it really might be better to be under the greedy tyrant than under the religious tyrant, for example.

As I consider the other belief systems of other bloggers who don't agree with me in the least, I am challenged to consider that their moral mountaintop may not be any less abusive than a religious tyrant's .  I am considering a challenge that is being sent around by Dr.Warren Throckmorton to live the golden rule.  That one rule might change my life.  The truth is, I do live it pretty decisively but I could use better adherence. 

I probably have a lot to say here but I want to post so that my blog doesn't get any more cold than it already is.  I want to affirm that true things apply to us all.  I really hate being called naive or bigoted or hate-mongering or homophobic simply because I am a living testimony that homosexual leanings and attractions are, indeed, redeemable and changeable.  Lots of people really are finding real freedom. 

Thanks for visiting my loose thoughts.

"Do to others as you would have them do to you."  Luke 6:31