Category: The Spiritual Side Of Sexuality

I have an elderly neighbor who lives a few streets away, that I see from time to time on my one-mile walks that I take occasionally whenever I’m feeling up to it. Over the past few years, I’ve gotten to know him pretty well, as he tends to always be sitting on his porch either reading or smoking a cigar whenever I pass on by his home. If there’s one thing I’ve learned about him over time, it’s how deep his belief in Christ is and how much he places his faith in the Bible being the absolute word and truth of God.

For the most part, I’ve truly enjoyed each of our conversations and from what he told me just recently, so has he. He even went so far as to say how much it’s been positively affecting his life and helping him to see God in new and different ways. Why I say “for the most part” though, is because of his stance on one subject and that’s homosexuality. While we haven’t talked more than a couple times about it, I’ve come to learn how strongly he believes homosexuality is a sin, like so many others who believe what the Bible says is 100% the truth.

Knowing someone who feels this way is nothing new to my life, as I know of plenty of people who feel as he does about homosexuality. The challenge I have with this man though is that he has no idea that I’m gay and thinks I’m actually in a relationship with a woman. Because of that, every time I talk to him, I feel like I’m living a lie and have begun to wonder if God wants me to tell him the truth.

I’ve faced this situation so many times in my life, with people who were benefiting from the insight I had from my own spiritual journey with God, people who were feeling blessed by the spiritual connections I made with them. That is, until I would tell them I was gay, which would most frequently lead to me getting either Biblically lectured or them rapidly disappearing from my life or both.

Honestly, it makes me sad that I’m afraid to be 100% truthful with this man. Because I’m pretty sure if I am, he’ll no longer be receptive to anything I have to say about spirituality and faith from that point forward. I have a pretty good idea how he’ll actually react because he told me how one his family members confronted him on this very subject and they no longer speak to each other. He also has claimed that he is very close-minded when it comes to a few hot topics such as homosexuality. I know there is no real reason why I need to tell this man that he’s talking to a gay individual. Yet, at the same time, I don’t feel like I’m being my true self with him either.

Truthfully, it sucks I live in a world where Paul’s words from the New Testament are interpreted today as sexuality immorality means homosexuality is a sin. It sucks that Jesus never spoke on this subject in the Bible ever. It sucks that most people disregard all the crazy laws of the Old Testament, except for the ones that talk about sexual immorality. And it royally sucks that friendships and families are regularly becoming divided these days, all because of some guy trying to love another guy or some girl trying to love another girl.

Nevertheless, I’m pretty sure that if I tell my neighbor that I’m gay, that positive feeling he’s been having with our conversations will quickly evaporate and any good I’ve been doing to help him to see greater Light through my own spiritual journey will suddenly be erased. That’s the sad state of homosexuality and Christianity nowadays. Two words that even in 2019 are still such strong antonyms to each other.

Regardless, Christ says to love my neighbor as myself, and for that, even knowing my staunch Christian neighbor’s beliefs, I continue to practice unconditionally loving this individual, which somehow continues to help him on his own spiritual journey. Why God is using me, a gay male, to slightly expand a very reserved Christian’s beliefs I don’t know, but I often wonder if a day will come when my neighbor actually asks me about my own personal beliefs with homosexuality.

Should I tell him I’m gay?

Or do I simply state my deepest belief that whomever one loves, that God asks us to do it with all our heart, mind, and soul and that everything else on the subject doesn’t matter.

I don’t know what I’ll say if that was to happen, but for now, I just wanted to share what it’s like being gay in a very Christian world, that still has yet to see someone like me as a loving child of God and not a sinner…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

I’m not a church goer anymore, yet I promised myself I’d attend a Christmas Eve service at my sister’s church to support her and my nephews during my visit to them over the holidays. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize how difficult that decision would end up being for me.

Let me begin by saying that there was a time when I really did love going to church every Sunday. That started well over two decades ago now when I found a very lively church in Washington D.C. to attend called The Metropolitan Community Church (MCC). There, my Spirit moved every Sunday and I always looked forward to attending the services there. Yes, I was one of those who would raise my hands and praise the Lord, and no, it wasn’t a fake thing, as I truly felt that much joy in my life in serving God. Frankly, it was such a major shift from the previous church I had belonged to, that being one of those revival churches with a live band and a projector on a big screen, as they had rejected me when I came out of the closet and told me I was a sinner. Nevertheless, I spent the better part of a decade affiliated with MCC and even became a deacon during my years of membership there. After a period of a few years where I moved to the middle of nowhere and wasn’t able to find a church to be a part of, I came to the Boston area to be closer to my sister and attempted for the next several years to find a new church home. Sadly, I’d experience three separate rejections in the process, each because of my sexuality, and each being one of those revival types of churches. While there were a few churches I attended that did accept me for who I was, I didn’t feel my spirit leap at any of them. Regardless, I became fed up with all of it and began to forge my own path of hope, faith, and spirituality with God, one that didn’t involve being a member of any physical church.

So, in light of all that, when my sister asked if I wanted to attend a Christmas Eve service at her church during my visit there, I said yes, only because it had been so long since I’d been to any service and also in that I wanted to support my youngest nephew who really wanted to spend as much time with me as he could. As I sat there in the service with him and the rest of my sister’s family, as well as my partner, I watched a number of people raise their hands and praise the Lord just like I used to do. I wish I could have felt what they were feeling and boy, did I try to feel some of that. All I could feel though was sadness. Sadness for all the people who have been rejected by so many churches that have looked and felt just like this one. Sadness for all the health issues I continue to face and the silence I continue to feel from God about it. And sadness for feeling so darn alone inside, even in the midst of all that joy.

I wasn’t present during this service at all really, and found myself jotting down my thoughts on their bulletin while there, which led to me writing these very words here. About the only time I was present was when they asked if anyone wanted to come up during the service and be prayed over. I waited and waited and waited while that part of the service was going on, yet kept feeling a desire within me to go up. I honestly had a battle in myself during that time and eventually found the courage to walk up. I don’t remember what was said during the prayer that this 20-something guy said as he embraced me, but what I do remember was the tears flowing from my eyes, tears that yearn for a closer presence from God, tears for all the people who have felt rejected from God because of conservative religious people, and tears for all the pain I still have to live within this body.

When the service ended shortly thereafter, I have to say I was very much relieved and was glad to head back to my sister’s home. While I would love to be a part of a church again, especially one where my spirit moved with upbeat music and plenty of fellowship, I truly struggled to feel much of that there. Whether that was because of my past or present circumstances I don’t know. What I do know though is that I hope to one day be a part of some church again that practices the unconditional love of Christ, one that doesn’t look at things like homosexuality as a sin, and one where all are welcomed no matter what. But, for now, I know God knows I tried my best to be present at my sister’s church, and hopefully one day I will find a congregation again I can call home…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Anthony Rapp, a notable actor, recently came forward and claimed Kevin Spacey, another notable actor, sexually coerced him at the age of 14 when Spacey was 26. Unfortunately, Spacey sidestepped the allegation by seizing the moment to come out of the closet. This in turn has caused people to raise forth a long-standing judgment and stereotype that all homosexuals are nothing more than pedophiles and child molesters.

But for those who might not know, this assumption isn’t based upon any factual or statistical evidence. Ironically, I found it to be just the opposite through a little research I made on the Internet. In one specific study in fact, I discovered that 95 percent of convicted offenders labeled themselves as heterosexual, with the majority of them also being married. Yet somehow gay men get labeled far too often as pedophiles or child molesters anyway.

This ultimately is disheartening and one of the very reasons why I continue to struggle identifying myself openly as gay, even though I’ve accepted it’s who I was some two decades ago. And personally, having been molested by a heterosexual man myself when I was 12 years old, it sickens me with the thought of ever bringing harm like that to a child or teenager, or anyone for that matter really.

I spent much of my early adulthood going through hours of counseling to work through being molested and have now pledged to speak openly in my life about what I went through, to hopefully bring healing to those who too were molested, but never found that themselves. Because of this work, especially in the past year, I’ve met a few other gay men that were molested even more viciously during their childhood than I ever was. In their cases, the offenders were heterosexual and married men as well and they too are disgusted at the thought of ever bringing harm like that to any type of child.

But somehow, we as gay men continue to be labeled by far too many people as pedophiles or molesters of children, when indeed the majority of us would never, ever, do such a thing, and are horrified by the very thought of it.

And just so know, in my case, I’m rarely attracted to anyone younger than I, or even close to my age for that matter. As far back as I can remember, even in my own pre-pubescent years and before I was ever molested, I was constantly admiring men far older than I, which is the very thing my molester preyed upon when he saw me doing just that from a distance, long before I even knew what I was doing or knew what having an attraction even meant.

Nevertheless, because of Spacey’s comments about being gay arriving at the very moment he was accused of being a pedophile and child molester, it now pours a ton more fuel onto a fire that has been stoking for years by far too many racist people. And that is why I will continue to have to deal with this issue in my world, even though it’s something that isn’t true, not for me, and not for the majority of those who are gay either.

So, while I am extremely saddened at the thought of what happened to Anthony Rapp during his youth, I am just as dismayed at how someone I’ve often admired because of his acting skillset has now caused me and plenty of others even greater hardship, as we continue to battle the demons of prejudice, stereotypes, and judgments that unfortunately still exist against gay people in this world, and will keep on existing the more things like this happen.

Yet I have hope that one day, people will finally realize that not only are pedophiles and child molesters mostly heterosexual individuals who are very sick and needing treatment, but that homosexuals aren’t an evil on this planet that need to be purged and indeed are a part of God, just like I believe every single one of us are, no matter what our sexuality is…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson