Every letter I wrote in
Dear Universe
has a story behind it. Some of those stories are funny. Some of those
stories are heartbreaking. And some of those stories enrage me. So much
that every time I open the book to read them, I remember the pain and
hurt that lead to their creation...
"Dear Universe, Today I ask that you help me to remember: God does not favor people..."
This is the beginning of a letter that angers me every time I read
it. A young black gay man inspired it. No, wait, that's not true --
a lot
of young black gay men inspired it. It was written in response to the
things I have heard loving and supporting black gay men throughout my
life.
One of the events that inspired this letter happened on a Sunday
afternoon at Piedmont Park in Atlanta. In case you don't know, Sundays
at Piedmont are a time when many black gay men gather, cruise and
flirt. It is also a place where I have had many life-changing
conversations on spirituality and love. It was in one of those
conversations that a young black gay man, who I only knew in passing,
once shared this:
"I have had a lot of stuff happen to me in my life. And I know other folks have too. But I watch folks around me get things. Get better.
Have people, family... and even when I try it never works for me.
Never. My pastor says that you know when you are in God's favor... and I
just... I've just come to understand that God does not favor me. That's
the only explanation I can find for why things always seem to be so
hard, why my family isn't here for me, why things are always taken
away."
When I tell this story, people assume my first response to his story was
sadness. But it was not. And thankfully, my mind did not move toward
pity either.
No, in that moment, I was
furious. I wanted to storm into
every church that had dared to teach a person "God had special people"
or "favored certain folks" and rip the fans from the ceilings and throw
them through the slimy stained glass windows.
Why the rage, you ask? I mean, surely as a black gay person, who at
that time lived in the South, I must have been accustomed to this kind
of doctrine, right? Well, not exactly. First off, I didn't grow up
going to church. And while I did grow up in the South, where
Christianity was omnipresent, the experience of being invested in church
culture -- or having church culture invested in you -- is not one that I
know. So there are many things that black gay men who grew up in the
church believe, or have experienced, that seem foreign to me... and in
many ways, unfathomable.
Make the jump here to red the full article at HuffingtonPost