also awoke from a very life like dream in which I was back in a place I haven't been back to in real life, in any meaningful way, in nearly 30 years.
In the dream I was back at the Catholic college seminary I attended from ages 18 - 22. I was my present age--50-- but had come back to continue my study for the Roman Catholic priesthood. Many of the priests, brothers and seminarians I had known there 29 years ago made appearances and cameos in the dream, even some I know have made their transition. The most interesting thing to me is that I was happy to be back. I was enthusiastic about being back in that place and I distinctly remember feeling in the dream, like I had come home.
The dream primarily had a happy reunion feel to it. The bulk of the dream had me simply reconnecting with folks and us re-telling old stories from decades ago---with joy and warmth. This however, was not exactly reflective of my actual experience of attending that particular institution of religious and higher learning. Or was it?
I woke up from the dream, found myself in my 2011 reality, in bed with my partner in Tuscon, Arizona reflecting on the life I've led in the ensuing nearly three decades since graduating from that place. I started to cry spontaneously. And I had this curious thought enter my consciousness, "My time in the seminary and monastery, studying for the priesthood, was the pinnacle of my life here on earth. Everything that has occurred since has been a representation of my life being in decline...everything"
I looked over at my handsome and sleeping partner next to me whom I absolutely know, absolutely adores me. How many people, I wondered, have a partner who truly and absolutely adores them?
I smiled.
There were a few less tears.
That thought that my life has been in decline since my seminary days was experienced by me as an extremely shocking one and then very quickly as terrifying and then ultimately as an extremely sad thought. I lay in bed with the eerie calm that exists at 4 am and quietly asked myself, "Is that true?" "Do I really believe my life while studying for the priesthood was the height of my purposefulness in this life? Is that even possible?" "What is going on here?"
I am a black, same gender loving American. I am a deeply spiritual, compassionate, emotionally centered and empathic man. I have given my entire life over to the service of others both in my personal and professional life. I have relatively little by way of "The American Dream" type of things to show for this. I both think that is OK and I don't exactly think that it's OK as well. It's odd.
I have hurt people both intentionally and unintentionally. I have flaws. I know I am both perfect and imperfect in simultaneous never ending co-arising.
I have many scars that are invisible to most and that are an homage to living my entire life in a world full of racism, homophobia, heterosexism, selfishness and greed. I am a black man whom many other black men reject because I am also a gay man. I am a gay man who has been rejected by specific white men, both gay and straight identified and specifically because I am a black man. I have had to suffer through several Republican presidential administrations in my life. I have had to live through a lifetime of crazed homophobic, heterosexist rhetoric from the seemingly ubiquitous "Black Church" in America. I have had to painfully witness the insane hypocrisy of black men like Colin Powell, who while speaking as a black man who broke barriers and also faced race based oppression supported something as bigoted as "Don't Ask, Don't Tell." (We all make mistakes. He's since changed his tune on this. Still, there are consequences for our past bigotry, no matter what). And I have had to do all of that while trying to be a man working tirelessly for the liberation of The Sacred Masculine in a climate where it seems many men only want to kill one another, enslave one another, tear down each other, challenge each other, argue with one another and attempt to emasculate one another while obtaining virtual graduate degrees in one-up-man-ship.
And I have lived in a world where various men and women, black and white alike have the audacity to use phrases like "man up" in public as if it is an elegant, legitimate and righteous term of ahimsa. My God. It's enough to make a brother wanna holla.
The seminary was far from perfect. The monastery was far from perfect. Both had their own name brand of insanity. At the same time they each contained a fraternity of men who at least earnestly attempted to genuinely love one another and for the most part, genuinely respect one another as well.
There is a reason so many gay men flock to the seminary. That reason, contrary to some degree of popular belief and myth, is not to have a constant supply of other men to have sex with. It is because by and large the seminary and ultimately, if one is studying for a religious order as I was---the religious community of priests and brothers tend to be places where there is a collection of gentle gay, straight and bisexual men who get to live their lives with other gentle gay, straight and bisexual men bound by a spiritual quest to continually strive to fall in love, over and over again, with their god. I miss that. I miss that very, very much. I mourn the loss of that in my life. Nothing in my life has come close to replacing that particular expression of beauty I have had the great joy of experiencing in this life. What has replaced it is a life where men are consistently and deliberately cruel to one another, cruel to me, cruel to everyone; a corporate state made up of walking zombies with seemingly no soul nor compassion to speak of--I understand the reasons for all of that and have great compassion myself for it and have dedicated my life to transforming it--that however, does not lessen the power of the sting of the experience...
To be young, gifted and black, Oh what a lovely precious dream. To be young, gifted and black, Open your heart to what I mean...
I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix...
The expression of the face balks account, But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists, It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees, dress does not hide him,The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth, To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side...
Does my haughtiness offend you? Don't you take it awful hard 'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines Diggin' in my own back yard. You may shoot me with your words,You may cut me with your eyes,You may kill me with your hatefulness, But still, like air, I'll rise...
My country, 'tis of thee, Sweet land of liberty, Of thee I sing; Land where my fathers died, Land of the pilgrims' pride, From every mountainside Let freedom ring...
Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?
1. Nina Simone, Lyrics, "To Be Young, Gifted and Black." Lyrics by Weldon Irvine. Music by Nina Simone. Black Gold. 1970
2. Allen Ginsberg, Howl. Howl and other Poems. 1955
3. Walt Whitman, "I Sing The Body Electric." Leaves of Grass. 1855
4. Maya Angelou, "Still I Rise." Still I Rise.
5. Samuel Francis Smith. Lyrics "America/ My Country 'Tis of Thee." 1831.
6. Matthew 27:46. New American Standard Bible. The last words of Jesus on the cross
1 comment:
And may the Church say...AMEN!
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