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. 

Tiger in the Tank

This happened a few weeks ago. I was nearly out of gas, so on my way to do some Saturday errands, I pulled into one of my local gas stations. Immediately this young man caught my eye. Not this photo is not of him. He was maybe about the same age, but much easier on the eyes. Much more relaxed. I fellow who seemed to be calm and happy enough that he might even have been humming to himself.

I swiped my credit card, and took a glance. I started filling up my tank and caught a glance. I began washing my windows and caught so more glances. He was in his early twenties. Had a ring on his ring finger, just like I do. Looked like maybe he was filling up his wife's car. It looked a little too soft for him. Strangely, he seemed to be in no more of a hurry that I was. I kept glancing and he kept washing his windows.

Finally after I'd washed all my windows, I just walked over and started a conversation with him. That's when I saw his eye up close. Big blue eyes. Nice smile. Three or four days of beard. Started talking about the weather, then asked if he was a student. Score! Not only a student, but a student at my alma mater. So we talked about his major, his graduate school plans, his wife. Nice five minute talk about a variety of topics. When it felt like we'd reached an end, I said, "Well, nice to talk with you. Have a good one."

To which he replied, "Thanks" and as I walked away he said, "Can I get you name?" I will repeat that for emphasis. He says to me, "Can I get your name?" I'm sure I had a big smile on my face as I turned around and told him my name and asked his. Oh my gosh, I not only met him, talked with him, enjoyed the easy conversation, but he asked me for my name. I gave it to him. I asked for his. Yes, now have found him on Facebook. More pictures. Same handsome man with the big smile, the blue eyes and the few days of whiskers.

Later that day my wife asked me how the morning had good. Great, I told her. "Got a tank full of gas in the car. I was running on empty. That made me feel a lot better about things." What I didn't tell her was, "Yeah and while I was at the gas station there was this handsome young married fellow and I just couldn't take my eyes off him. So I walked over and stuck up a conversation with him. He's a student of blah blab and he's maybe going to go for a masters in blah blah. I know his name, so maybe I'll find him on Facebook and we'll go to lunch sometime.

OK, Moho friends, tell me what you think of my actions, thoughts, and limited disclosure to my wife.

That You May Find an Eternal Companion

The next time you attend a Mormon baby blessing notice if the language is gender neutral. Seems to me I'm hearing a lot more blessings these days that say "We bless you that you may find an eternal companion" or "a companion you will take to the Temple" or "the love of your life" or "an eternal mate" or "a loving spouse."

Perhaps some of the language is truly inspired, and the words spoken are the will of the Lord. Perhaps some of the children now being blessed as infants will indeed find a companion who just happens to be of the same sex. Perhaps many more "great and important things" will be revealed and the church will embrace the idea expressed in the family proclamation that life "circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation".

Also along these lines, if you have a patriarchal blessing, check the wording there. Does it refer to your marriage or your union. Does it refer to your children or your loved-ones. Even though I have chosen to marry a woman and have children in the traditonal way, if find it fascinating that my own blessing uses such gender neutral references.