Welcome to yet another Grateful Heart Monday, where gratitude always starts my week off on a positive note, which for today is for the time I got to spend with my best friend from Massachusetts on his annual visit here just recently.
For those who have been following along, this friend I’m speaking of is the very one who just over seven months ago or so decided that even though he’s gay, he can no longer engage in a homosexual lifestyle because he feels it’s going against the will of God and ultimately a sin.
Leading up to his annual visit here, I must say I had a lot of worry. Would he and I still have a good time like we always have with each other’s company? Would he be uncomfortable around me now, especially because he’d be staying in a house with a gay couple? And would he start throwing religion around like so many other conservative Christians have with me over the years? Thankfully, by the end of his visit, none of those worries came to fruition and that was pretty apparent from the onset after picking him up at the airport, as we were already laughing and joking from the moment he got into my car.
Although there were some heavy discussions from time to time during his visit surrounding the new religious path he has been embarking upon, I feel the unconditional love we share for each other and the good times we had far outweighed any of that heaviness. From seeing X-Men Dark Phoenix and Men In Black International at the theater, to taking a walk at Maumee Bay State Park, to a night drive in my old sports car jamming to some dance music, to a full day trip to Frankenmuth, Michigan that was filled with mini golf, great food, sights, a ferry ride, and scrumptious desserts, to nursery shopping for some new annuals for my garden that he helped me to plant, to plenty of Starbucks and other coffee house visits, to watching time travel movies at home late at night, to an afternoon trip to my favorite diner that has the best burgers, friends and pies around in a town called Archibold, to a day trip to Uniontown where we got to play my favorite miniature golf course in the state of Ohio, to our final day together spent at my partner’s company’s annual picnic and a visit to a truly beautiful state park named Lake St. Clair in Michigan, I truly have some great memories that can be added to the many others we have shared for over 22 years now.
While I may fear what the future holds for he and I, especially in light of how different of spiritual belief systems are from each other at the present time, I’m left filled with plenty of gratitude for all the time we got together during his ten day stay, as God showed that even through those spiritual differences, the unconditional love we have for each other and the laugher we always seem to share when together would still prevail…and probably always will…
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson
It doesn’t seem like you have much peace in your life, it doesn’t seem like you love your self very much, it doesn’t seem like you see the light all around you, and it doesn’t seem like you can enjoy the world because your gay. It’s like you wear the fact that your gay like a chip on your shoulder and you dare the world, and everyone in it to knock it off. Your answers and joy, and peace don’t come from a belief system, or a book, or a Bishop, they come from you. Don’t worry about what the world or any one in it thinks of you, the poor, poor, pitiful me, I’m gay crap won’t get you very far. Love for the day, live for yourself, screw what the world thinks.
Scott, I honor your honesty and opinion. Peace is hard to come by when the world inside me is riddled with chronic pain every day with nothing to relieve it. As for being gay, I have acceptance around it. The struggle is accepting the world and their Biblical opinions of it. Such as when a religious person infers the pain and suffering in my body is a punishment for being gay or for some other sin. I’ve also learned in my life that any perception I ever have of someone else is usually way off because I’m not in their shoes. We all have our crosses to bear and no one can truly understand them because they aren’t in our shoes. Think the book of Job and the struggles he faced. His own best friends couldn’t understand either. ❤️