new video: invisible but not alone

my nearly 60 year journey in about six minutes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrPDwyU5ZbI&feature=plcp

a man and amen

I was just re-reading a blog post I made two Decembers ago. I'm going to repost it here and add in my current thoughts:


Dear Heavenly Parents,


Thank you for sending me the man of my dreams. I loved him when I first saw him and I still love him today more than a decade later. This summer it will be 12 years, wow! Sometimes I feel frustrated that he doesn't love me the way I love him, but in my saner moments I realize there is wisdom in pairing me, a bisexual man who is a married father, with another married father who is straight. He is also kind and his kindness shines through in so many ways the longer I know him.

Yes, I sometimes wonder what our lives would be like if both of our wives died or divorced us, but I strongly suspect that my man would soon find himself dating women and would soon find himself in love with one and remarried. The same could happen with me I suppose, although maybe you've got another man of my dreams in store for me somewhere in the future and maybe this one is gay, or at least bisexual. As time passes though, I think I've become more realistic. It is a blessing to be married, and it is a blessing to have a such a good married friend. When he says, "I'd like to do that, but I can't this time because I promised my wife I'd..." we both understand we have other priorities, which also makes the time we are together memorable. 

But maybe this is as good as it gets and if that's the case, that's OK. Not just OK but great, really. I waited more than 40 years for you to place this jewel along my path and I realize that this may be it. Thank you for our many days and years together. He is so much more than an amethyst remembrance. He is real. He is alive. I stood by his side and enjoyed his laughter this very day and the day I'm writing the addendum as well. You've also given me the opportunity to be married to a wonderful woman and for us to be parents of wonderful children. She is alive. She is real. She is only a few yards away, resting her mind and her bones after a busy Monday at work. She's been out of town for a few days as I add these thoughts and I'm so glad to be with her again, so glad she's returned safely to our home. She is my friend, confidant, wife, mother of our children. I would not be the man I am, if she were not in my life. I love her as much as a man in my situation could love his wife and I know she loves me to the best of her ability given our circumstances.

You've blessed me so abundantly with the ability to love both men and women, to find some of my brothers and sisters here intriguing, mysterious and beautiful. You've blessed me with so much more, with wonderful teachers, neighbors, friends and extended family. I'm also grateful for the ability to find beauty in small things, like a smile, a "thank you", a "please", a Facebook "like", and the comments on this blog. 

You've blessed me with good health, with strength, with the ability to endure uncertainty. You've blessed me with a love of music, nature, art, food, sunshine and snow, darkness and light, fireworks, fireflies and fire itself. You blessed me to be able to notice and appreciate nature and human nature, the cold and the warmth, the extremes of summer and winter and the perfect days of transition in spring and fall. 

I've had a good life full of challenges and rewards. Certainly there is more good ahead, but sometimes on a cold winter night like tonight, I'd be just fine if I didn't wake up. Isn't that crazy? I know it is. It's irrational but understandable. I think I've grown a little more patient with myself since I wrote this. A little more tolerant of my changing moods. A little more aware that if I'm discouraged, encouragement is just around the corner, and vice versa. 
I have more to do. Children to be married. Grandchildren to be spoiled, to read with, to laugh with, to sing with, to color with, two swing with, to put on my shoulders, to run through the sprinklers in the summer, and zip into a winter coat when it's snowing, to lift in and out of high chairs, to buckle into a car seat and kiss on the forehead. To realize how much capacity I have to love and how I must have been loved as child and grandchild. I have a tender, strong, dear, intelligent, kind, loving, independent, talented, giving, patient wife to grow old with. 

And a married friend who I miss when I haven't seen him for three days. Someone who makes me smile just by thinking about him. Someone I probably stand too close to sometimes. Someone I bump into when we're walking together and when our hands touch just for a fraction of second, I know and wonder if he does too. Someone who is married to a woman he loves. But someone who enjoys his brothers, his buddies, his independence. Someone who is so comfortable in his own skin, that when I'm with him I'm somehow comfortable in mine. All just as true now as it was when I first wrote it. 

Why should I need someone else to feel this way? Because I'm human. We are social animals. Or as Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote (and Neal Maxwell quoted) "We are not human beings having a spiritual experience but spiritual beings having a human experience." I shouldn't. And I don't always. But when I'm with my man, this magic just happens. It's as natural as sunshine. The magic remains as does the warmth. It's human, it's spiritual, it's almost as tangible as a warm shower or a favorite sweat shirt just out of the dryer, and I know I'm alive when I feel it.

I'm glad that somehow we crossed paths (probably part of some great plan you two cooked up, eh?) and that our friendship has endured. I'm glad I came across that great quote from Albert Camus, "In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer." I'm glad I still know that, and that I know it even more deeply now. Thank you for all these blessings and others I can't even imagine. 

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. 

the illusive third way

Congratulations to Beck who has been out to his wife seven years and recently had a Capraesque moment with his wife. It certainly is relevant to those in mixed orientation marriages and helps put my couple of decades of being out to my wife in perspective. 

My three decade marriage to the female love of my life is wonderful and difficult. My decade of friendship with the male love of my life is also filled with wonder and challenge. 

I have sought an illusive third way as I know Beck and many others have. Perhaps we find it without knowing it, by keeping covenants yet seeking to embrace our full identity as same gender loving men married to remarkable women, as fathers, sons, brothers and friends, as men of faith and doubt.

Not hungry? Just wait a while.

Beck jolted me out of my silence with his entry the Hunger that never goes away, and his question "Will it ever?" All of which prompted this reply:


Beck, my dear friend, do other hungers really ever go away?

You eat a Thanksgiving Feast and a few hours later, what do you want? More food. Another piece of pie. Maybe a cold turkey sandwich. (pun intended)

You attend the symphony or an engaging play or a great ball game. And what happens a few days or weeks or months later? You want more music, more drama, more sports.

You buy a fast new computer, or a new car, or a new suit. It's wonderful at first. Then in a while the computer doesn't seem all that fast any more. The car loses the new car smell. The new suit becomes just a suit. And eventually you hunger again for new technology or attire.

At least I do. So...

Just when I think I've accepted my MOM relationship, I find there's some new wrinkle, or some old one that returns.

Just when I think, I've got it pretty good, something comes along to show me that while I am blessed, I am also greatly challenged.

Just when I think I can swim fluently, I don't breathe right on a flip turn and a little water goes up my nose.

So yes, I relate to your hunger that never goes away. I feel it too. I do an innocent online chat with an old buddy, and pretty soon all I can think about is being in his arms.

But I also realize that most everything in life ebbs and flows. The rain--I hope, I pray, I imagine--will eventually give way to sunshine. Hey I live in Salt Lake not Seattle. And then after a while it will be too hot and I'll long for cool rainy days like today.

I have no answers. But I'm grateful for the way you pose questions. And I'm grateful for your friendship. Maybe our satisfaction in life relates more to the challenge of asking unanswerable questions rather than ease of finding questionable answers.

What do you think, Beck?

Monday Morning Moho Prayer

Dear Father in Heaven, I'm grateful for this day, another day to breathe, walk, smile, work, eat, and interact with my family, associates and friends. Thank you for granting me, and so many others on this small planet another day of life. Please bless us all. The nearly seven billion of us now on the planet. Please bless my loved ones, known and unknown. My future sons-in-law and grandchildren. My wife, my children, my grandchild, my sister, and those on the other side of the veil, my mother, my father, my grandparents. Bless and help me to bless the men and women I will meet. The men and women I know now. Please bless my wonderful moho brothers and sisters. Bless us that we might feel loved and loving. That we might reach out to those we know and don't know. That the light we sometimes see in each other's eyes, will been seen in our eyes by someone who needs to see that light this day. And bless us that we might also be warmed and illuminated as we do. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Seeking Warmth in Winter

I shoveled the first big snow of winter this morning. Later as I swapped my cold boots for dry shoes, I looked at my unmade bed and thought about how nice it would be to snuggle with a loved-one on a wintry day like today. I thought first of my wife but then remembered how my occasional attempts at seduction have been rebuffed for years now.

Being bisexual in my attractions, a few other women then crossed my mind--warm, wonderful, funny, beautiful women I know. They're not alike in shape, age, hair color, eye color or personality, but they are all friendly, perhaps even a slight bit flirtatious. But they're off limits. All of them are married.

But in the realm of fantasy I can also think of men I would like to snuggle with and here's where my Kinsey 4-5 scores are evident. Whereas I think of a few women I know who I'd like to spend a snowy day indoors with, I can easily recall a dozen men throughout my life who would make fine snuggle partners, in my dreams anyway.

1. Junior High Crush #1 - I've seen and talked with him as an older man, and there's still some fire there. He's no longer tall and lean and his brown eyes are obscured by thick bi-focal glasses now, but they still twinkle.

2. High School Crush #1 -  I still think of him, too. Not as he is now, but as I remember him walking the halls or studying in the library almost four decades ago. When I hear the Carpenters sing Superstar I can still see this handsome young friend as he was in his prime.

3. High School Crush #2 - We still do lunch sometimes. He's bigger, kinder and every bit as appealing now as he was when we were teens. Maybe even more so because he's a better listener.

4. My Summer Job Crush - He was a blue-eyed, freckled redhead. We never really talked much, but we both said hello to each other almost everyday for a whole summer. I wish I'd struck up a conversation and I would today if he crossed my path. I wonder if the thick red hair has faded to white by now.

5. College Crush - We studied, talked, ate and volunteered together. I attended his missionary farewell and his wedding reception. I haven't seen him in decades but every once in a while I'll notice some one's shoulders  or their mischievous smile and think of him. 

6. Early Career Crush - He lives out-of-state now, but he's still a pleasant memory of my younger days. His thick silver hair, and clean-shaven face in online photos are not quite as appealing as the thick brown hair and full beard I admired in person, but his dark brown eyes appear unchanged.

6. My Mid Thirties Crush - Because we were in group therapy together, he knew some of my issues and I knew some of his. He knew I liked him, and I knew he didn't like me as much, we both knew it. We had lunch a few years ago. Whereas I've become more liberal and accepting he seems more conservative and excluding. 

7. My Late Thirties Crush - Every once in a while I'll search online for this man with the piercing blue eyes and the boyish enthusiasm for life. I wonder what's become of him. I wonder if he's maintained his idealism.

8. My Early Forties Crush - I've already written on this blog about the handsome curly blond with slate blue eyes. I thought I was totally over him until I found him on FaceBook and felt a thrill when he confirmed my invitation as an online friend.

9. My Late Forties Crush - Perhaps I'll write of this another time, but not now.

10. My early Fifties Crush #1- see #9.

11. My Mid Fifties Crush #1- see #9.

12. My Mid Fifties Crush #2- see #9.

So there you go. When the weather gets cold outside, I think of my good wife and the physical intimacy we once shared, but I also think of these other women and men. If any of them were available and willing, I'd welcome them into my bed, that is if I was also available. Even with all these qualifications and perhaps because of them, I'm not likely to abandon these memories and longings--just like Lancelot could not imagine a season to let go of his love.

If ever I would leave you
It wouldn't be in summer.
Seeing you in summer I never would go.
Your hair streaked with sun-light,
Your lips red as flame,
Your face with a lustre
that puts gold to shame!

But if I'd ever leave you,
It couldn't be in autumn.
How I'd leave in autumn I never will know.
I've seen how you sparkle
When fall nips the air.
I know you in autumn
And I must be there.

And could I leave you
running merrily through the snow?
Or on a wintry evening
when you catch the fire's glow?

If ever I would leave you,
How could it be in spring-time?
Knowing how in spring I'm bewitched by you so?
Oh, no! not in spring-time!
Summer, winter or fall!
No, never could I leave you at all!

(Lyrics by Alan Jay Lerner) 

A great time to come out?

It's a great time to come out, right? After all, church members are being urged like never before to be kind and loving to gays and lesbians. How can my fellow brothers and sisters know that I need their love and support as I deal with SGA while sustaining my MOM relationship--oops--if I'm going to come out, I guess I'll also have to try to stop talking in code. I'll have to say I'm dealing with same gender attraction while sustaining my mixed-orientation marriage, but even then, I'll probably get unknowing stares as people ask themselves "What on earth is he talking about? Is this more of this gay lingo? It used to be out in the world, not it's right here in our neighborhood."

What will coming out do to my affectionate relationships with the guys in my High Priests Group? I like the idea that they're talking with me and even occasionally putting a hand on my shoulder or squeezing my knee just because we're brothers and we feel comfortable touching each other. Would I want them to touch me and talk with me to show me increased love and acceptance because I'm struggling with this "terrible burden of being gay" and Mormon? Hmmm, maybe not so much.

How would I feel if I knew that in Ward Council the Relief Society president was saying, "We've got to reach out to Ned and his wife, especially his wife. Think of what she's be going through all those years being married to a gay man, uh, a SSA man, oh no, SGA, that's what we call it right? We need to be sure she gets visiting taught every month, and what are you High Priests going to do with Ned?"

To which the HP group leader confesses, "Well, I'm sorry to say this but some of our older High Priests feel that Ned's really betrayed them. He's always been so kind and sometimes openly affectionate, but now they think he's been coming on to them all these years. When we thought of Ned as straight, of course we accepted him as one of the group, but now that we know that he's turned gay, uh, or he now thinks that he's SSA or SGA, whatever you want to call it, these guys feel like he's been lying to them about who he really is. They don't trust him. To be honest, I don't think we can keep him as an instructor."

To which the Bishop says, "Well maybe we could lovingly call him to coordinate the Saturday morning cleaning of the building. No, that's not going to work, people aren't going to want to be alone in the church with him. We can put him on the prayer rolls of the Temple and we'll pray about calling another instructor so we can release him. He's a great teacher, but this whole gay thing is really making people uncomfortable. If only Ned had kept this to himself, we wouldn't have to be dealing with all this contention."

What do you think? Am I being too cynical? Or am I just facing the reality that older members of the church, and those who have become leaders because of their orthodox views, aren't really going to be on board with really loving and accepting gays and lesbians?

Glad you asked, Abe

Abe is challenging us to blog about our journey. Thanks Abe, glad you asked!

How did you get to where you are today?

I've been blessed with good genes and wonderful family and friends. I was born out of the love, passion and patience of a beautiful, talented woman and a handsome, gentle father. Whether my bisexuality is due to genetics or the environment of my mother's womb or other causes, I no longer view it as a curse. I have come to see it as gift, an integral part of who I am. I agree that, "Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose." (Hinckley: 1995) But I also wonder if gender identity isn't also such an essential characteristic.

I am here because of the love and service of many people, including those who have pioneered and built communities and institutions that nurture and challenge me today. I am here because of parents and siblings, counselors and doctors, teachers and leaders, neighbors and strangers, and many I do not know who have created environments in which I have been able to prosper.

Are you happy with where you are? why or why not?

I am generally happy and optimistic, healthy and strong. Of course there are times of sadness, cynicism and sickness, and many forms of weakness, but overall I'm a happy fellow. One source of my happiness is improved mental health. I have suffered from long term anxiety and low grade depression. A few years ago I endured a major depressive episode during which I seriously considered suicide. For a time I sought a permanent solution to a temporary problem. I'm so glad I didn't take that step. One of the reasons I am happy is because I have gained perspective from being so ill. I'm grateful that I was again able to feel hope, to regain my appetite, to again feel loved, to be able to laugh and feel pleasure. I no longer take my mental and physical well being for granted.

Where do you see yourself in the future?

I agree with the idea that it is never too late to have a happy childhood, I also believe it is never too late to have a happy adulthood. My wife and I have a largely functional marriage which I hope will continue to thrive until I predecease her. Should she predecease me, I can imagine dating women or men since I see myself as bisexual. Whether I remain married or become a widower, I believe my well being is largely determined by the choices I make to stay healthy and live a balanced life. I am not out to all my children. I hope that will eventually change. When it does I hope we can all benefit from more candor and openness. Several of my coming out experiences have not been positive, so this is an area of the future that concerns me.

I hope my future will include rejoicing as LDS church continues to refine its attitudes about sexuality. The Family: A Proclamation to the World includes this highly significant sentence: "Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation." I find hope in the idea that the church, like individuals, may find it necessary to adapt. One of my greatest sources of hope is the 9th Article of Faith: "We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal and we beleive he will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God." Meanwhile I am grateful to feel love and acceptance from both sides of the veil. I am also grateful that I have the capacity to accept and love others.

What roadblocks do you have and/or have overcome?

I am a survivor of childhood asthma and if my parents had not lived next door to a physician I may not have lived to see my fifth birthday. I reached adulthood before the 1978 revelation that all worthy men could receive the priesthood. The church's former racist policy and teachings were a roadblock to my fully accepting Mormonism. The fact that that roadblock fell is a source of hope that other much-needed changes should and can be made. My mixed orientation marriage (MOM) has survived my coming out and several bouts of unemployment, depression and anxiety. We have been greatly blessed with children, extended family, friends, neighbors and associates.

What advice do you have for others following a similar path that you have?

Ok, I see this as an invitation to stand on a soap box, so here goes: Seek to keep yourself physically, spiritually, mentally, intellectually, socially, educationally, profesionally and financially healthy and strong. Be a lifelong learner and contributor to those causes you value.

Seek mentors and friends you can draw strength from. Seek to be a mentor to others and to encourage and strenthen them. Reach out to others in friendship and be sensitive to those who may be reaching out to you. Don't underestimate the value of a smile, laughter, a handshake, an arm around a shoulder, a clap on the back, an embrace. Celebrate and nurture the good you find in others.

Seek and find outlets for your creative gifts. Write, compose, construct, consult, counsel, draw, photograph, design, play, compete, paint, contribute, teach, instruct, lead, learn, follow, organize, produce, bake, make, craft, install, improve, perform, collaborate and direct. Believe that you have many things to contribute to your world and to this planet. Discover and do them.

Be generous with your time and means. If you don't want to pay tithing, pay fast offerings and make donations you do feel inspired to make. If you choose to enter into a marriage with a woman, fully disclose your situation to your prospective wife so she can make a fully informed decision.

What advice do you have for family and friends?

If you ask a friend or family member how they're doing, listen to the tone of their voice and notice their facial expressions as you hear their words. Remember this lyric from Lord I Would Follow Thee: "In the quiet heart is hidden sorrow that the eye can't see." I have been so grateful when family and friends have spent time with me, have touched me, or have embraced me. My advice is that we strive to love one another without condition as our Heavenly Parents and our Savior love us. This love can be expressed in many ways: in the gifts of time, listening, companionship, service and touch.

Hinckley, G.B. (1995, September 23). The Family: A Proclamation to the World. Retrieved from http://www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,161-1-11-1,00.html

Marriage and Patience

I took this photo last year. I discovered the quotation a couple of weeks ago. Marrying them only occurred to me a few days ago. Sometimes I have to wait a long time for things to fall together. I'd like to think I'm becoming more patient. Some days are better than others. I'm grateful this night for those who love me and those I love. I'm grateful for our creator who loves us unconditionally and urges us to do the same. I'm grateful for love unfeigned. I also grateful for love that requires cultivation and husbandry. I love both wildflowers and planted gardens.

Public Displays of Affection

Tonight following a weekend of news about the kissing arrests on the Main Street Plaza near Temple Square and today's Kiss-In protest, I'm feeling the unwelcome presence of my old friend HP (aka Homophobia).

HP and I go way back. I knew him long before I knew his name or what he was about. He showed up in kindergarten when I found out that telling the truth about bullies made me a tattle tale. He later taunted me on the playground of my elementary school, but where I really got to know him was in my junior high gym class. He was the loud mouth in the locker room who threatened "You're gonna die a long slow death if I ever catch you looking at my ass that way again you little fag."

I tried to make peace with him and by the time I got in high school I thought of him as my friend. In exchange for averting my eyes and trying to be more manly in my walk and talk, I thought he was protecting me from the other bullies. HP's not so bad, I thought. If I follow his rules, I'll be safe. More people will like me. I might not be one of the jocks, but at least they'll talk to me. 

In college I tried to lose HP, but by then I'd pretty much accepted that he'd always be hanging around. To be fair, he's probably one of the reasons I dated women, fell in love, got married and had children. I guess I owe him thanks for helping out on that.

During the AIDS crisis of the early eighties, I again thought of him as a friend. Without him I imagined that I could have done things that would have caused a real-life version of that long, slow death he'd threatened back in junior high. He's a jerk, but I guess he helped save my life, I had to admit.

But by now, three decades later, I really thought I'd put the whole HP friendship issue in the lock box of the past. He was someone who used to be in my life. Someone I got over. Someone not worth the effort to even think about. 

But I got a strong dose of reality this weekend. I see the truth is that he's been a very busy and successful power broker. He hangs out with everyone from presidents and religious leaders to security guards. He's got a condo in Sacramento and access to a beautiful home in a gated community in Texas.

Even so, I have a feeling he's not forgotten me. I wonder if he saw me Thursday after lunch when I hugged a friend. I wonder if he saw me with my friends on Friday night when I put my arms around them both for a picture. 

I wonder if he's been taking his own pictures of me. I wonder if I'm going to get a email, or worse yet, he's going to be in the garage again some day, like he was years ago when he whispered, "If you just leave the engine running, the world will be a better place in just a few minutes." I feel like screaming the old Dylan song, "You've got a lot of nerve to say you are my friend." But the truth is I'm still afraid of him. 

Anyone else here know this guy? And have you got any advice for me on how to get rid of him once and for all or is he something I've just got to endure to the end?