Sunday, December 11, 2011

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.

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

a moho haiku and a question about friendships

I love my buddy
His smile brings me joy
A blessing of male

Throughout much of my life, I've been frustrated by the lack of reciprocity in many of my male relationships. I expected more than most straight men could authentically give and because of my own homophobia I was unwilling to explore opportunities for friendship with gay or bisexual men. Given this background I'm so grateful when there is reciprocity with a male friend.

Just before Thanksgiving, I felt inspired to make a simple thank you card and give it to one of my friends. Yesterday he reciprocated. Not with a card but with an early Christmas present. Maybe that's not reciprocal  but it was a wonderful surprise. Now I'm smiling as I think about some modest but meaning present I can give to him.

I'm curious about the friendships you have with straight males. Do you seek out these friendships? And do you exchange gifts at Christmastime?

Sunday, September 4, 2011

The Newspaper Article that Changed My Life

Thursday, May 3, 1990, Deseret News

Going straight? New therapy may help gay men, women later sexual orientation - but it faces a way of opposition

In the 1970s, when gay men began coming out of their closets, Bill went deeper into his. It was one of those perfectly constructed closets, framed by marriage and children and a profession full of serious men in suits.
   
Way in the back of the closet, though, where nobody could see, he was living another life, sometimes having sex with as many as three men a day.But all that is over now, he says. Thanks to a new therapy, he says, he isn't gay anymore. He calls it ``coming out of homosexuality.''
    `
`It's like Martin Luther King said,'' Bill explains. ``You know, `Free at last! Free at last!' Now I'm able to pass a man on the street and say, `Isn't he a nice-looking man. Good for him.' And keep on walking.''
   
You don't Have to Be Gay,'' says the brochure Bill holds in his hand announcing an upcoming conference at the University of Utah. The conference, ``Developing a Healthy Male Identity,'' is sponsored by a Salt Lake group called the Evergreen Foundation.
   
The theory that you can change your sexual orientation, and that homosexuality is unhealthy, is the cornerstone of Evergreen, whose membership is composed of men and women who classify themselves as ``former'' homosexuals and lesbians.
   
Most have, within the past couple of years, undergone a controversial therapy based on the work of Elizabeth R. Moberly, a British research psychologist who published ``Homosexuality: A New Christian Ethic'' in 1983. Her theory has also given birth to other Evergreen-type groups in California and several other states.
   
It's a theory that touches deep nerves in Utah, where gays and their families struggle to understand sexual yearnings that run against the grain of conservative values.
   
It also touches nerves in Salt Lake City's gay community, which classifies Evergreen and its upcoming conference as misleading, unethical and dangerous.
   
At the heart of the controversy are unresolved questions about the causes _ and the meaning _ of sexual identity.
   
Tom Pritt, a Kaysville psychologist, had been working with homosexuals for years when he came across Elizabeth Moberly's ``Homosexuality: A New Christian Ethic.'' In it he found confirmation of conclusions he had come to during hundreds of hours of therapy sessions.
   
Homosexuality, says Pritt, is not really about sex but about love. It's not about a man's inability to find women appealing but about his inability to form a ``normal'' bond with other men.
   
Most of the men he has treated, says Pritt, had similar backgrounds: fathers who were absent or distant; a feeling of inferiority to male peers; a feeling of being out of sync with typical male interests and abilities. On the one hand they felt a need for male love; on the other hand, afraid of rejection, they distanced themselves from traditional relationships with other men.
   
All men and women, says Pritt, have a need to feel close to and to feel accepted by members of their same sex. When a boy who has not felt that kind of bonding reaches puberty, that same-sex love need can become confused and eroticized. What he really desires is male closeness; what he thinks he wants is sex with another man.
   
Basically what this theory holds is that the whole thing is just a big mistake. A case of mistaken identity, or as Pritt puts it, ``incomplete identity.'' Inside, the theory holds, gay men are really heterosexuals who would be attracted to women if they just finished their emotional development _ by learning how to act in healthy ways around men.
   
Gay men can change through therapy, says Pritt, but not the typical aversion therapy tried in the past. Gay men can change, he says, but not simply by being counseled to get married.
   
Jim used to cruise Sugarhouse Park. Or he would hang around Liberty Park or walk through Crossroads Mall, hoping, with a lingering glance, to make a connection with another man.
   
That was after 18 years of marriage and a divorce, after he had sat in a therapist's office and trembled inside when he was asked to face the fact that three decades of fantasizing about men meant that he was gay.
   
``I didn't want to be gay,'' Jim remembers. ``Because of society, more than anything. And because I had children and I didn't want to explain that to them. And I didn't know how to act in that (gay) world. I hated that swishy style.''
   
Asked to explore his feelings, Jim finally decided that ``if I was gay, I'd be the best darn gay guy there ever was.'' He threw all his energies into finding the perfect man.
   
``At first it's intoxicating. Then it's addicting. . . . But it never was fulfilling,'' he says. ``You can't have fulfillment with another man. But the gay community doesn't want to hear that.''
   
And then, in 1988, someone gave him a copy of what at Evergreen they refer to as ``the gray book'' _ ``You Don't Have to Be Gay,'' by J.A. Konrad, a California man who describes himself as ``an EX-gay.''
   
``I read it in two afternoons,'' says Jim. ``And I knew it was right. Finally someone was saying, `You don't have to be trapped in it.' ''
   
So Jim began the therapy. He avoided his former haunts, although that wasn't easy. ``It took me eight months before I could drive by Sugarhouse Park.''
   
He started making efforts to mingle with every straight man he could find, and he joined Tom Pritt's baseball and basketball program for men who were struggling to change.
   
``I stood on second base and cried,'' Jim remembers. ``I could do it. And I was good, even though I was always told I couldn't be.''
   
Now, after 18 months of non-erotic relationships with other men, he says he notices a difference in himself.
   
``Every gay guy I knew longs for his International Male magazine,'' says Jim. ``When it used to come, I'd be in the middle of business and I'd have to stop and look at it. But last week one came to my office and I didn't have to look at it right away. And when I did, I realized that I was actually looking at the clothes. It's like total liberation.''
   
He says he is starting to feel attracted to women, although there is a tentativeness to his voice when he talks about it. It's a slow process, he says.
   
Those who find fault with the Evergreen approach are quick to point out that it ignores the latest research into the neurobiology of sexual orientation.
   
``The ultimate cause of sexual orientation has never been fully determined,'' notes Salt Lake psychiatrist Jan Stout. ``But most of the top investigators in the field believe that biological factors are extremely important.''
   
Stout, who in the early 1970s believed that homosexuality was a learned behavior that could be treated with therapy, had decided by the mid-1980s that that viewpoint was ``wrong and simplistic.''
   
Homosexuality is a result of a complex combination of environmental and biological causes, says Stout.
   
It is in the uterus, he says, that the brain begins to differentiate between male and female. In the embryo we all start out as female, until the point, in about half of us, when a Y chromosome begins to create male organs. After that, in males, the hormone testosterone creates further changes that will later lead to masculine behavior and sexual feelings.
   
But in some male embryos, less testosterone is produced, possibly because of maternal stress or certain drugs. Although animal studies cannot always be generalized to humans, says Stout, they have confirmed ``the crucial role'' that prenatal hormones play in later sex-role behavior.
    `
`I've treated hundreds of homosexuals,'' notes Stout. ``Some have the pattern of weakened father bonds, but not all by any means. . . . I think it's a case of putting the cart before the horse,'' he says about the theories of male bonding and homosexuality. ``They haven't been able to make good bonds with father because of the way they feel inside. It's the effect of the biology, not the other way around.''
   
A few people can maybe make changes that feel right to them, says Stout, but it's more a question of willpower and behavioral changes, rather than a real shift in sexual orientation. Because of this, he finds the theories potentially dangerous.
   
``You're going to have young people who read anecdotes about people who have changed, and they'll say, `What's wrong with me? I haven't been able to change.' You'll increase their sense of failure. And I think you'll see more suicides. That's my concern here. . . . We should accept people the way they are.''
   
That conflict between ``validating the self-worth of the individual'' vs. encouraging change, says Salt Lake clinical social worker LaDonna Moore, lies behind the decision of the Utah chapter of the National Association of Social Workers not to give continuing education credit for this weekend's conference. 
   
Moore objects to the conference brochure's characterization of homosexuality as a sickness. ``It's sad to see the complexity of human beings' emotional and sexual state reduced to `compulsive behavior.' ''
   
Because the mental-health profession as a whole no longer considers homosexuality a disorder, Moore feels that it is ``unethical'' for local therapists to participate in the Evergreen conference. Five Utah therapists _ four licensed clinical social workers, a psychiatrist and a psychologist _ are among the presenters at the Friday session, which is geared to health professionals. The Saturday session is open to the public.
   
A group of ``concerned citizens'' _ including some mental-health workers and members of the Salt Lake gay community _ will counter the Evergreen claims at a press conference on Friday.
   
Local gay activists find the conference, and the concepts behind it, offensive, says Rocky O'Donovan, director of the Gay and Lesbian Historical Society of Utah.
   
Not all gays want to change, he says, although there was a time, during high school, when he fasted and prayed to do just that. But now he says, ``If you put a pill, with no side effects, here on the table that would make me heterosexual, and next to it you put a $1,000 bill, I'd say, `Absolutely not.' ''
   
The real question, says O'Donovan, is not why some men are gay, or whether they should be, but how to best accept them if they are.
   
Human sexuality has never been as simple as the birds and the bees, and homosexuality is no less perplexing or charged with emotion now, after all the studies and books and talk shows and theories that have tried to understand it.
   
Is it possible to change a person's sexual orientation? The debate continues.
   
In the meantime Jim tells this story: He was jogging down the street not long ago when, all of a sudden, a feeling of ``completeness'' came over him.
  
``I feel now,'' he explains with a look of relief, ``that I have the same parts and the same capabilities that every man has.''
   
-For more information, call the Evergreen Foundation at 535-1658, or the Gay and Lesbian Community Council at 359-5555. The names of Evergreen members used in this article have been changed at their request.

Words: 1856


Saturday, July 16, 2011

sort of a retweet

I'm so glad a friend put a link to this on Facebook,  but if you're not on Facebook, I'm placing this here just for you:



Even though it's been viewed more than 155,000 times, if you haven't seen it I wouldn't want you to miss it. What do I think about it?  Here's what I said on FB: 

"Stunningly portrays the advance and retreat, betrayal and bonding, acceptance and rejection that are so common in the workplace, politics, religion and in our personal relationships..."

Friday, July 15, 2011

He didn't scream at me.

my stepdad didn't scream at me as a teenager
he saved his drunken outbursts for my mom
one night I considered bashing
in his skull with a hammer

I left home after high school
not to go on a mission but to escape him
after I got married, he got in to AA
got his 25 year pin

25 years of sobriety
then 26, 27, 28
I held his hand on his death bed
slowly we'd become friends over the decades

he was a dry drunk for a
long time but eventually mellowed
he even wrote some nice stuff about
me, my wife, our kids

I haven't written about
his abuse until now, but with
your story as a prompt, Chad
today I have started

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

More than Lunch

Old friend calls today
For a walk and talk and lunch
He feeds my soul well

His eyes glow with light
As he asks "howya doin'?
I lie to him "great"

I do not tell him
I love him, his smile, his scent
He might not like that



I love when he calls
For a walk and talk and lunch
He feeds my soul well


Inspired by Chad's missionary poem

Thursday, May 19, 2011

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?

Sunday, April 17, 2011

It's You I Like

Again Vic has inspired me. This time in his Gay Gospel Doctrine Class posting today. His take on God's unconditional love for all of his children reminded me of this Fred Rogers song:

It's you I like.
It's not the things you wear.
It's not the way you do your hair,
but it's you I like.
The way you are right now.
The way down deep inside you.
Not the things that hide you.
Not your toys.
They're just beside you.

But it's you I like.
Every part of you.
Your skin, your eyes, your feelings,
whether old or new.
I hope that you'll remember
even when you're feeling blue,
that it's you I like.
It's you yourself.
It's you.
It's you I like.

So the takeaway for me is that thanks to God's unconditional love for all of us, we all have multiple opportunities--I have multiple opportunities--to feel his love for me and for others. If I know I am fully loved for who I am right now; and if I know that unconditional acceptance and love is in place right now for all of us on this planet; I can feel less critical, I can love myself, others and God with greater depth and understanding.

And if not, I can at least listen to Mr. Rogers and remember that I have felt this love before and it is possible to feel it again. The problem isn't in God's always beaming sunshine, but in my own cloudy days and nights of darkness when I fail to remember that dawn is only a few hours away, that blue skies will eventually prevail. God loves us, no matter what.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Remembering My Mom

Vic wrote about his mother and invited his readers to do the same. I took the bait. Thanks Vic for writing about your mom and for giving me permission to write about and try once again to sort through my mixed feelings for the woman who, along with my father, gave me life.

The woman who fed, loved, clothed, protected, suffocated, enraged, humiliated, funded, manipulated, nurtured, plotted, prodded, pleaded, hushed, screamed, sulked, drank, lied, laughed, washed, ironed, taught, shopped, sewed, painted, baked, welcomed, whispered, invested, persisted, pleased, delighted, dazzled, drugged, entertained, enabled, soothed, comforted, calmed, reassured, remembered, forgot, refined, accepted, congratulated and within the past year showed me one way to die with relative dignity.

In my birth and in her death we were close. There were bleak and dark times in our shared decades, but much illumination too. Well that's about all I can handle now, but it is a start. Thank you for the prompt to remember one of the women I have loved and will always love.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Man Wanted, But Does He Exist?

Man wanted: A mere mortal who is able and agreeable, bright and bold, calm and clean, deft and delightful, enthusiastic and energetic, frugal and friendly, good and gregarious, hopeful and humble, insightful and inspired, jovial and just, keen and ok, loving and lovable, musical and mild, nice and neat, observant and obliged, pure and purposeful, quick and quiet, respectful and real, strong and smart, trustworthy and truthful, understanding and unshakeable, virtuous and victorious, wise and wonderful, yearning and zealous. Does such a person exist, except in my imagination? Or is each of us capable of such ideals, not just all at the same time?

Thursday, March 17, 2011

A 2008 St. Patrick's Day Prayer, and a question

I've got a question about daily prayer: Do you pray every day? Why or why not? Now a confession: My prayers are mostly over meals these days. But I looked back in a journal and found this entry from Monday, March 17, 2008 at 7:05 a.m.:

"Happy St. Patrick’s Day! I slept pretty well last night. Getting to bed a little before midnight, I think. I could remember a couple of dreams. They were dreams about some kind of certification. In one instance I had it and in the other I didn’t. They were about the same on the surface, but the certified route was happier."

Then I had recorded this written prayer:

"Dear Father in Heaven, I’m grateful for a good night’s rest. I’m grateful to be alive and well. I’m grateful for loved-ones, both families and friends. I’m grateful to suspect that I have loved-ones both known and unknown to me. Thanks be to you for all of them. Please bless me this day that I might do some good in the world today, that I might help someone in need, cheer up the sad and make someone feel glad. That I might see a way to lift a burden and do it. That I might wake up to such possibilities. Please help me to be strong and to bless my life and others. Help me in my work, in my thinking and doing and organizing. Bless me in all my relationships. Bless me with thy spirit. May I feel the comforter and take direction from Him, which is of course, taking direction from thee and the Savior. Bless me that I might have revelation to guide and encourage me this day, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

I gotta confess, I don't pray like that these days. Maybe I need to again. What do you think?

Thursday, March 3, 2011

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.

Thursday, February 24, 2011

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.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Blessings of Brotherhood

A couple of weeks ago I had a wonderful experience that I wanted to share with you. I was buying some stuff at a store and noticed that the cashier who was about to ring up my purchases looked like a friend of mine, which gave me warm feelings toward him even though we'd never met. But I decided to treat him as a friend and not a stranger. Our eyes locked as I walked up to the counter and said "How are you?" as if we were old friends.

We both smiled. His facial expression matched my hopes. He looked back into my eyes as if we did know each other.  Debit or credit, he asked. I said debit and, as if I had seen him in a variety of different shirts and ties over the years, I said, "You know that shirt and tie really look great on you. You ought to wear that combination more often." Our eyes again locked and he said, "Well thanks, bud, I will." He handed me my stuff and I said "Have a good one" and he said "You, too." It was probably over in less than a minute, but it was one of those sweet moments I hope I'll always remember.

Today when I saw the real friend that this guy reminded me of, I wanted to give him a big hug and say, "I love you so much." But he doesn't like hugs and I don't usually tell straight guys I love them, so we just talked about our weekends.

Later today I saw another friend. This time he was the one who kept making eye contact. As we talked I noticed his white teeth, his full lips, his neatly trimmed beard, the way his shirt hung on his shoulders, and then right in the middle of the conversation a kind of miracle happened. He put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a little squeeze.  I've always felt affection toward this man--another happily married fellow--but today he was the one who physically touched me. What a blessing.

I'm curious about the experiences you, my moho friends, have with your straight friends. Do you also restrain yourself? Do you also find that sometimes a friend's touch is like a gift from God himself?

Friday, January 28, 2011

Short Friday Morning Prayer

My Dear Father, I'm grateful for a good night's sleep and mindful of those who have worked or worried all night. I'm thankful that Friday is here and that I'll have a day of work today and then a weekend to re-energize, but I'm aware that some do not have jobs and some with work throughout the weekend. I'm grateful for friends and family, but aware that some feel all alone in this world. I'm grateful for the diversity of our Moho community and the support I feel here, but I'm mindful that there are thousands if not ten of thousands of gay Mormons who are suffering in silence and loneliness. Please continue to bless all of us this day, and help us to see opportunities to make a positive difference. And please help us find the courage, energy and creativity to act on those desires. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Thursday Morning Prayer

Dear Father in Heaven, Thank you for the blessings of this day, of this week, of this year and the years preceding it. I'm grateful for the beauty of this week's snowfall, and I'm so thankful that I regained my balance so many times when I slipped and almost fell. Was it me alone? Did I have some steadying help from my guardian angel? Thank you, however you delivered the miracle, that I did not fall. Thank you for our planet, our country, our lives and fortunes. I'm grateful for the moments of optimism I felt as I watched the State of the Union and listened to the State of the State addresses. I'm grateful that I have been able to work, worship, write, read, rest, laugh, eat, sleep, dream, shower, shave, breathe, move, walk, sit, feel, love, mourn, pray and plan this week. I pray that I will continue to live life in thanksgiving. Thank you for the wonderful family, friends, associates, neighbors, citizens, activists, leaders, writers, programmers, singers, musicians, artists, strangers and all of those unseen contributors and laborers who touch my life each day. Please continue to bless them, please continue to bless me that I might not take them for granted. Bless this planet, your planet, our planet this day. Bless all of us here that we may comfort those who die, rejoice for those who are born, and help all of us who live that we might be grateful for our lives, but see beyond ourselves to those we love, those who love us, those we find easy to love and those who are not so easy to love, but need love, need a smile, need a hug, need our blood, our company, our expertise, our substance, our encouragement, our creativity this day. May we contribute what what we can with gratitude for what we have, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Monday, January 24, 2011

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.

Monday, January 17, 2011

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
 (2011-01-17)

 (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.



Sunday, January 9, 2011

Second Blogiversary

My first Moho Five Oh post was January 9, 2009. Although this is not quite a mission, it has some similarities (pause to gain composure) and these have been among the two happiest (sniff, sniff) years of my life--really! Among the reasons are: I've had this opportunity to express myself much more candidly than ever previously, except perhaps in my unpublished journals; I've received tons feedback and more than a little affirmation from you; through this format I've been engaged and often enlightened by reading your ongoing stories; I've felt a sense of community and candor here that I'm not alone and it's OK and expected for me to speak my truths. Thank you!

My Top Ten Most Popular Posts:

Aug 30, 2009, 3 comments
308 Pageviews
Sep 6, 2009, 5 comments
263 Pageviews
Dec 28, 2009
106 Pageviews
Oct 4, 2010, 2 comments
82 Pageviews
Aug 2, 2010, 5 comments
81 Pageviews
Dec 6, 2010, 7 comments
80 Pageviews
Oct 27, 2010, 9 comments
76 Pageviews
Nov 28, 2010, 6 comments
73 Pageviews
Dec 13, 2010, 4 comments
67 Pageviews
Oct 26, 2010, 12 comments

A special thanks to Abelard's mohodirectory, and Beck and Evan Clayson, my Top Three referral sites:
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Thanks much for two great years. Let's celebrate again in January 2012!