Holy Friendships, Batman

I have lived a very interesting, adventuresome and highly diverse life and both my actual and facebook friendships reflect all of that. There was high school where I first made lasting friendships and then the seminary and the monastery. Then after I left the monastery I entered the workaday world. I then went to graduate school. I then re-entered the workaday world but now as a white collar "professional" in the psychotherapeutic/university research/social science non-profit realms. I worked in those areas professionally in both Lexington, Kentucky and San Francisco, California.

Outside of work I have also had a very interesting and diverse life and developed friendships from each of the realms I entered. I have at one time or continue to be a member of a long list of communities.

There is the general LGBT community, the Same Gender Loving (SGL) Community, The Radical Faeries, The BEAR community, The BDSM/Leather/Fetish communities, The Biker/Biker Club/Harley Davidson communities, The Writing/Blogging communities, The HIV/AIDS activists communities, The Marriage Equality activist community, The very large and extremely diverse New Age Spirituality community, The Buddhist/Religious Science/Thich Nhat Hanh students family/Mindfulness/Zen/Unitarian Universalist faith and practice communities. I have also traveled quite a bit and have made friends in every place I've spent more than a week in. I have lived in four intentional communities thus far and have maintained friendships from every single one of those communities.

Now, facebook friendships may not be an indication of much for some. However, I have facebook friendships from almost every single area of my life including family members who are conservative christian believers who don't take too kindly to what they view as my gay "lifestyle." But we're cool. Live and let live is our motto. I have friends who are conservative Republicans. I even have a few friends who are dedicated Tea Party members. Yes! I also even have a couple of facebook friends who at one time were affiliated with white supremacist groups before they woke up and saw the light. I am telling the truth here or I will shame the devil him (or herself) If I'm not. I have drug dealer friends and friends who have done hard time. I have friends who will sell you their azzes for little more than a dime (if you know what I mean). Okay!

Now, I said I have facebook friendships from almost every single area of my life. The reality is there is only one area of my life that is not represented by my facebook friendships. What is that area? I have no facebook friends from the period of my life when I studied for the Roman Catholic priesthood. And that was a very significant time and portion of my life. Now, I use to have several friends from that time in my life. Then I decided I wanted to let them know about all of my life so I sent them each a link to my blog. Within 120 hours of that action every single one of my friends from this time of/in my life defreinded me on facebook and I have not heard from any of them since. None offered any explanation. I can only surmise it was because my blog contains pictures they all must have considered offensive. There is also a blog entry by a friend that discusses the possibility of Jesus being a symbolically female motherly figure . I am imagining the offending pictures are on a Holy Week photo essay in which I depict people from the final days of Jesus' life, including Jesus, as handsome, well built, buff modern day men, none however, exposing flesh below the navel. Oh, and there are several trans-positive posts on the blog as well.

This all got me to thinking. I have self described "red neck," "blue collar," far right Republican, Tea Party members and beer guzzling, trash talkin' hard core biker dudes--members of infamous/famous outlaw biker clubs for Pete's sake who have been to my blog and did not see fit to defriend me nor even complain about anything they viewed there. Yet members of the rank of Melchizedek of the Holy Roman Catholic Church or some who are Deacons or simply believers now needed to sever our friendship because of what they viewed on my blog. Lord Have Mercy. And I do mean Lord Have Mercy!