Happy and Dark Thoughts

I responded to a Facebook post this morning with this statement: "Sorry to hear you've been feeling lonely and longing for a relationship. Totally agree that it is no fun...Here's something you can try that might open up your thinking. Write the letters A-Z down the left hand side of sheet of paper. Fold it in half. Label the first column happy thoughts and the 2nd column gloomy thoughts. Then try to come up with a word or phrase or even sentence starting with each letter. It's just a way of affirming what you like or long for and also getting the dark stuff out on paper. It's helped me many times. Of course your mileage may vary. But if you give it a try let us know what you think. Hugs and good luck."

Then I decided to take my own advice and here's the list:

a - awesome / awful
b - beauty / bad breath
c - companionship / craziness
d - dependability / discrimination
e - elegance / extreme disorganization
f - funny, fun-loving people / frustration
g - green grass, freshly cut / gangrene, needing amputation
h - hello, people who say hello to you / hell, when it's a hell of a day
i - innovation, cool new stuff / insincerity, fake stuff
j - jelly, jam and buttered toast / junk that's just clutter
k - kin who are kind / kin that don't accept you
l - love, especially the unconditional kind  / leaders who are abusive
m - men who are kind and caring / men who are jerks
n - nature that nurtures, a sunny day / nature that kills, a tornado
o - opportunities that lift / oppression that crushes
p - pretty stuff, see beauty above / petty people who piss you off
q - quality that counts / quality that's just an empty word
r - recreation with loved ones and friends / rejection
s - security / stupidity
t - trust and trees / too tired, the state of being
u - understanding / underfunding
v - victory, when you get a great win / valentines, never received
w - wonderful moments, fresh and remembered / wonderbread, stale
x - marking the spot of a treasure / when you didn't want it to end
y - you make me feel so young, Sinatra / yikes, Scoobee-Doo
z - zoos and z's, snoozing / z's not enough, as in sleep deprivation

Do I feel better? Somewhat. I thought of some positives I wouldn't have otherwise. But the same is true of the negatives. On balance, though, a good exercise in counting blessings and exploring reality. I guess another things that works about this for me is finding connections. It's easy to be black and white and just find opposites. There's a place for that. But it's also great just to riff and have fun with it.

A Thank You to the Reader I Don't Know

I want you to know how grateful I am for you in my life. We’ve had some great times together on this little planet. I haven't met you yet, and you've only met me here and perhaps through Facebook, but still we are here on the same planet at the same time and that's something to celebrate. It is amazing to me that although I don't know you, you can read what I've written here. What remarkable thing. It certainly wouldn't be a likely without technology. Yes I could put a note in a bottle and toss in the Great Salt Lake, I suppose. But even the note in a bottle takes the technology of writing and bottle making. And the risk of writing and being read. 


Thanks for our remarkable friendship. One that exists only here and in that mysterious space of not quite real but more real the more I think about it. Someday, if we do meet, things will probably be different. I will instantly be more than the writer of words and you will instantly be more than the reader of them. We will connect, perhaps only for a moment. And you or I will say, or perhaps we will both say, "not what I had in mind" and then we will continue on our separate paths. But what if it's not like that? What if I say wow and what if you say wow. What if we conclude that there is more that we're interested in. Even though it may be unlikely, what if it is a mutual wow?


Then what do we do? Since it is not likely to happen I'm not going to worry about it. But by telling myself that I'm just trying to buy myself some peace. Because the truth is that if at this time in my life if I found someone I really liked and had the potential of loving and if that person really liked and saw a potential to love me, too, it would be both wonderful and terrible. Wonderful that such a thing not only could but did happen. Terrible that if such a thing did happen, I would have to leave a zone I've felt comfortable in for many years. But then again I've not been entirely comfortable or I wouldn't be writing this. Well, there you go. Probably one of my stranger entries on this blog, but good to say nonetheless. Thanks for reading. Even by not commenting, you've giving me the potential for peace. I hope I can take advantage of that gift and I thank you for giving it, whether or not you intended to do so.

Moho Limericks - Give it Try

I'm a somewhat straight fellow and gay
And I'm happily married this day
Sometimes my wife sighs
She knows I like guys
But pair bonded to her I will stay

- - -

I just know you, my few but dedicated readers, can have some great fun with this format. I invite you to add your own Moho limerick as a comment to this post. Happy soon-approaching St. Patrick's day.

Lead with Love - on radio at 11:00 a.m.

This sounds promising...

maybe some of us should call in ;)

1/17/11: Lead With Love

Doug Fabrizio (2011-01-17)

SALT LAKE CITY, UTAH (KUER) - Monday, Doug sits down with University of Utah psychologist David Huebner and filmmaker Jenny Mackenzie to talk about a new documentary they've created for parents of gay and lesbian children. Huebner's research has found that when parents reject their children, those kids are more likely to be depressed and to take drugs. They are also eight times more likely to attempt suicide. The film gives practical advice to parents about what they can do to make a difference. It's called "Lead With Love."

11:00 a.m. MST on KUER and XM public radio. You can also listen live from anywhere via their website which will also offer the show as a podcast later at kuer.org.

Both of us cried, when I told my Bishop

Click image to see original
Steve Walker painting.

The latest blog from Invictus inspired me to write about my experience coming out to my Bishop, my former Bishop that is. He’s served his time and we now have a new young pup learning the ropes. Do puppies learn ropes? Oh the problems of mixed metaphors. Maybe I will also tell the pup someday, but right now I kind of doubt it. (The other week when he told me with a twinkle in his eye that I looked very handsome and happy, I thought for just a moment he could be a member of the fam. Wishful thinking, I guess, but that's the subject of a different post.)

The Bishop I did tell immediately treated me differently after our first of many discussions. He had always been kind, but his kindness increased. He went out of his way to ask me how I was doing. As one of his clerks, if he knew I was in the building, he would ask me to join the Bishopric for an opening or closing prayer. Many times, but not always, he would ask me to say the prayer. In so many ways he said to me, not in words, but in his actions, “I respect you. I love you as a brother and friend and as your bishop.”

I’ve read here of other experiences with Bishops that were not as positive. With 28,424 wards and branches throughout the world, there are bound to be many differing approaches of Bishops and Branch Presidents. In a worldwide religion with 13,824,854 members there are 138,245 of us personally dealing with homosexuality given a very conservative 1% “gay rate”. I would like to hear the stories of others who have had positive and not-so-positive dealings with their Bishops and other leaders.

Darkness and dawn

Am I broken, discouraged and sick or just tired?

Have I failed, fallen and crashed or just paused?

Will I ever again feel hope, happiness and love, or just numbness?

Can I hold on, hold out and hold fast, or just let go?

Does this darkness give way to dawn, or only grow darker?

Am I destined to learn, grow and change, or I am damned?

Have I given up, given in and given out, or am I still gaining?

Will this winter give way to spring and summer, or will this month be my last?

Can I make it through this hour, this night, the day ahead, or just stop trying?

Does prayer still calm my heart and mind, or are my words empty?

Am I strong, healthy and sure, or weak, ill and unsteady?

Have I been blessed by adversity or have I become damaged goods?

Will I allow peace into my heart, or is it so broken that it won't hold anything?

Can the warmth of a remembered embrace nurture me still?

Do I doubt my beliefs and believe my doubts?

Or do I know beyond belief that there is purpose and redemption?

That I can follow, forgive and be forgiven?

That my heart still beats, that my breath still brings oxygen to brain and muscle.

That my fingers still move and e ven witgh eyes closed they can find the keys. That words will fall from my hands as easily as prayers ascend to heaven. That my ears can still hear. I can hear the clock in the kitchen, the murmur of television down the hallway and around the corner. I know that these words could be published in seconds or minutes or not at all. The choice is mine. I still know that my life means something, that I make a difference and that I am not finished. That dawn follows the darkness, that long winter nights have already given way to longer days. That I am no longer greeted by darkness as I leave work. That there was some sunshine and blue sky today. That today I did go to work and even got a few things done. That I have smiled and laughed with loved ones this very hour, this day, over the weekend and every day I can remember for a long, long time. It is winter. But hey, the furnace just started. The thermostat sensed that it was time for that system in the basement to get to work.