Out of the Silent Planet

I am a systematic thinker. 
As chaotic a strand you might find any thought that comes from my hands or mouth, I promise you: it is tied off at (at least) two ends. Along with systems, I also think in images and basic formulae. 

That is, I am often solving for x. Whether I am given a shape, a line of thought, a school of thought, or a bundle of emotions to consider, the input is usually received as something like:
(x+7)+(h-2r)+(how she feels about abx^2)-(who God is-x% of myself)*(trinitarian considerations of x within a compound of bxr)+what I ate for dinner = y.
Solve for x. 

Working through this list of variables, narrative, and mysteries, I end up asking a lot of questions about the nature of y, and mostly a lot of "why" itself. As a kid, I was (fondly?) known as Mr. What-If to my parents, always exploring what-if case scenarios, ad infinitum (that is, I still do, therefore I have no proof of this phenomenon's end).

These analytic characteristics are only worth mentioning because I am going to wield them in a new arena: an analysis of my sexuality. For the first time in the digital public realm, I want to discuss one more variable in my equation, one more thing to consider as you view the y that I am. Consider: my same-sex attraction. Furthermore consider: my acceptance of it. I am embracing my queerness, and I want to take you along on this odyssey, not because I would make a good captain or that I know any more than anyone else, but just the opposite. I need a crew that understands what ship we are flying as we soar through the space of eternity on the sacred vessel of Humanity, and I want people asking questions about why it flies as it does, how we can fix it when it is broken, and how we can learn to cope with its eccentricities.

So, I must apologize for the misleading priming I've utilized to get attention back on my blog, alas, the following three posts, while superficially referential to C. S. Lewis' Space Trilogy, have very little to do with Lewis and his inviting fantasies. Rather, they will have everything to do with my reality as a queer-identifying person, my fanatic pursuit of a romantic, yet flirtatiously elusive God, my upbringing within a Christian context, and my future striving as a peacemaker in a world at war in which two of my Selves appear to be stationed at opposite poles. This is my meager epic. This is my Queer Place Trilogy. In Book 1, I will talk more about why I am "coming out". In Book 2, I will explore the land I am coming from. And in Book 3, I will look at what frontiers may lay ahead. All aboard?

Book 1: Out of the Silent Planet

When I landed in Evanston, IL two years ago, something about the person I was had been was left like a heavy cloak back in the realm from which I hailed. Enthusiastically, I entered into a community of fellow Believers in Christ as an apprentice with Reba Place Fellowship, one known village born from a diasporatic idea(l) known as "the new monasticism" - the new old way to live in proximity with other spiritual seekers in order to construct community for intentionally living out "shalom". Shalom - the peace-cycle of time's narrative in which all things are made new, bright, and glorious for God's sake, just as they began - was an idea that I had encountered during my studies and extracurriculars. I had had some occasional conversations with fellow seekers about the application of this alien concept to my everyday life, but while under the not-so-light burden of scholarship, this idea could only be pondered within the semi-controlled conversational labs of small groups of fellow radicals who were similarly slowed by the typical nemeses of lack of time, imposed constructs of Western thought, and a materialistic culture's induced ethical ennui. Unsatisfied with mere conjecture, I decided it was time for the science of shalom to escape the lab and discover its true nature in the light of other suns - for me, under the open skies of community life.

Shalom's greatest promise is that, in my encounter with the full depths of reality, I could and I would find peace. However, shalom's potential caveat was that in the long, sweeping arc of my narrative, I could and would fight the most violent of wars, feel the most searing of losses, and experience the emptiest of hungers. But, I would be fulfilled, in time.

Roman Cauliflower, an example of a naturally-occurring
fractal: a geometric or physical structure exhibiting a
repetitive, self-same pattern at all scales of analysis.
See also above: Nesser River in Egypt.

As a fractal (see left), I see this spiral of shalom in every narrative of life observed, and in the invisible metanarrative of all Life created by Love. Life from death, growth from loss, ecstasy from the abyss. So, while I burned with an infernal intrigue for the consummation of shalom, I set out knowing that I was chasing an ideal end whose means would not be idyllic. But, like a redeemed Prometheus, Lady Wisdom and Her torch bearers have passed Her heavy torch by exhortation: seek the truth at all costs. Lest She be bait for the ravens, I will carry it on.

Truth, it turns out, is a means that demands itself as payment. But even before that investment can be made, transparency must be practiced, which is a phenomenon that generally only occurs in a space of trust. Furthermore, spaces of trust are established by nurturing a sense of belonging, a capacity made capable by an acknowledgement of identity. So, let's work that forward: Acknowledged identity leads to a sense of belonging, which encourages the establishment of spaces of trust, in which transparency can be practiced, so that truth can be facilitated as a means of participating in shalom. It is by this convoluted due process that we can see the many available pitfalls obstructing our access to the high arc of shalom, with particular complications caused by the fact that we are given many things with which to identify (e.g. sexuality/gender, job/career, spirituality, political philosophy, nationality, etc.). Even within these identifiers, we have a galaxy of many planets from which to hail.

So it is in an effort to foster shalom that I offer you my exit from the Silent Planet. Just as I mentioned with shalom, it is important for a science for it to leave its laboratory; an animal is best observed in nature, politics are best observed among the people, economics in the agora. Sexuality, as one of many identifiers, is perhaps best observed in that liminal space between desire and touch, speech and proposal, want and need, temporal and eternal. However in the majority of sexuality discourse of this planet (for the sake of the metaphor, let's limit my "planet" to Western Christianity in an American context), this liminal, eclipsed space is often disregarded or unregarded as null, nothing, nonexistant. Silent. You are either (hetero)sexually active or you are not doing life right - hold the nuances. This platitude very efficiently colludes with various other flat binaries such as male-female, child-adult, Christian-heathen, violent or weak (victor/loser), hot-or-not, "straight" or sinner.

While these binaries are efficient, they are not entirely effective, as they are most certainly not comprehensive. In fact, my quotidian activities often collapse the common binaries. I am a man who spends most of his social time among women. I am a 20-something who occasionally has the attitude of a moody 4-year-old, yet is the benefactor of ancient and contemporary wisdom handed down by those much older than me. I am a Western Protestant Christian bent on mysticism and the chase of Christ-consciousness. I am a third-way pacifist who believes history's last violent victory was Christ's slaying of Death on the cross. I am a decent looking face when my acne decides to leave me alone for a week. And I am mostly attracted to men, and even more so attracted to not "obtaining" a partner - I am mostly happily celibate, but I might also be a good flirt. Thus, when I found myself planted on a planet meant to grow "masculine" men who are submissive to older men but hubristically flaunting to peers, trained to dominate women as lessers, given Salvation as means to judge and slay another (with abs glistening in the Hollywood sun), all so that with their "manly" braun they'd be able to place the foundation for the next Tower of Babel....I decided it was time for me to depart. Because with so strong a mythology as what has been fed to the majority of men (and women) on this planet, my narrative and the narrative of like-humans before me has oft been doomed to silence, shrugged off as impossible, or shunted and shot upon its refusal to stay in line.

Unsettled, the first step of me becoming at home with my queer identity was realizing that I was where I did not belong. I realized that I was wearing a space-suit in the place that should be my home planet, worn to protect what couldn't survive there. But, after a few attempts at shedding elements of the complex creation that was keeping me alive, after trying to minimize and delete parts of myself, I decided I had been given this space-suit for a reason. Within this strange craft, and a little divine inspiration, I was free. Free to explore worlds unlike that into which I was born, to meander the mysteries of the universe, to rend dark matter, to unite the galaxies, to find our place in the Cosmic Christ. Furthermore, it was my joy to discover that this is the power of the Queer.

Queer folks have the gift of being the inhabitants of Space. No, not that we are alien and should not belong, and not that we are higher, lower, or incongruent with inhabiting this planet, but rather for now we are inhabitants of Space. We are the explorers of first and final frontiers. We are those that can be the go-betweens, the liaisons, the interpreters for those who choose to live in the binary world. We are the static between radio stations, the gap between constellations, the weirdness to keep "normal" evolving, the sunsets and the moonrises. Though we are often unseen, we are continually becoming more-seen, and the benefit to us all is that reality is being revealed. And it is good.

Remember, all this is about bringing shalom, the peace-end, into greater light, one star-torch at a time. For a systematic thinker like me, my endeavor is making known the unknown, clarifying the remaining variables, looking for solutions to our "why"s. So indulge me a little further, as I humor the other visual learners out there with a little show-and-tell. Think of these as a couple of meteorites I have gathered while floating around Space. Or, just look at is for what it is: I want to break shalom down into a couple of processes I see going on (and then we'll wrap up).

The Integral Identity Process

Our identities are ever in formation. Like I mentioned, I see my sexuality as merely one element of my identity - though not necessarily the "most important" part. I also identify as male, Christian, spiritual-seeker, reader, writer, sculptor...the list goes on. While here I've been metaphorizing the exploration of my sexuality as a movement into outer space, I believe each of our identity nodes go through a similar process. This I call the Integral Identity Process.

It is, as most things in nature, cyclical. To keep with the current discussion, I will utilize sexuality as the identity node under analysis (i.e. queerness as space-suit).

The first step is recognition of your given place. What is the planet (read: culture) where you are saying about what you have been told you about the person you should be? Who should you be? What do you identify with here? For me, I was born male, and I am content in my male body. However, I am not content being told that I must "obtain a wife" - for many reasons, but we'll leave that there for now.

The second step is the acceptance and rejection of elements of your place and your given identity/story. As a Western Christian male, I was told the end of my sexual narrative as an unwarranted spoiler: I was to marry a woman and have children. I do not reject that as an end, but I reject that I am given my end by those who do not write my story, namely I do not accept society, but God as author. Thus in this step I add and subtract elements of my identity (or tools and functions to my space-suit, per se).

The third step is jettisoning myself into Space. It is time for trial and error. What parts are necessary for my space-suit to have so that I can stay alive? What are the necessary tools for communicating back home? Do I have what I need to move forward? I might move back and forth to the second step in order to prepare for further exploration. To be fair, I revisit these phases frequently.

The fourth step is the establishment or re-establishment of Place, integration of questioned identity. After exploring the Space you've been given (be it queerness, alternative career, unexpected loss, crisis of faith/existence), and you have discovered the tools and resources you need to keep you alive, you establish yourself at Home in your new identity, and hopefully on some fertile planet of community.

But, remember, this is cyclical. This will happen somewhat endlessly, refining your identity in the furnace of time, per the nature of dynamic and perpetual shalom. So, let's take a look at one more level out:

The Progress of Accord and Actualization

Shalom is often spoken of having four directions: towards Self, toward Others, toward Creation, toward God. In more detail, shalom pursues the reckoning of assumed self to the True Self, the equalizing of the Self with the rest of Humankind (Others), the revisioning of Humankind as humble caretakers within Creation and the role of Self within it, and the reconciliation of Humankind to Creator. These four arenas are interconnected and invisibly convoluted, but if we consider each arena as fostering its own Integral Identity Process, and the development of identity discussed above, we can eek out some kind of system for actualizing shalom.

Earlier, I established that identity must be acknowledged before belonging is felt, belonging leads to trust, trust allows transparency, and transparency facilitates truth. Truth, furthermore is one manifestation of shalom. Thus, with this theoretical process in place, one arc of the spiral of shalom could be represented as follows:

This is a "scale up" from the Integral Identity Process (IIP) as the IIP occurs between each of the steps of actualization (see lower section of diagram). The IIP happens in accordance with the arenas of shalom (Self, Other, Creation, Creator). Essentially, we have a formational Integral Identity Process in accord with Self, with Others, with Nature/Creation, and with God/Creator to facilitate outward development of the identifier until we actualize a state of shalom - peaceful acceptance of the identity. This means that I do not just say, "Hey, I'm queer", but that I have reconciled within my Self the identifier of queerness, established belonging that I might identify among Others that I am queer, so that I might recognize a greater Nature of "queerness" within cosmic Creation, allowing transparency of this identity into new realms, so that ultimately, in my identification with God as first and final Love, I can pursue and perceive Truth as a fruit of the perpetual shalom. Ultimately, we have an elaborate scheme for keeping our identities in accountability of all Natures (Self, Other, Creation, Creator) with the Godself, as the metanarrative, the bending arc of redemptive shalom, is revealed.

***

Alright, so why subject you to this process? Because this is how I went about feeling Home in my Queerness. I did not necessarily have names for each of these stages through the years, nor a Virgil to guide me through these spheres, but, by God's grace, I've come to this place of peace in relatively few pieces. This convoluted process (be it invisible and merely theoretical) could be easier - it should be easier - however it will always be there. Along the way, this space-suit - as powerful as it may be - gets heavy, and we space travelers need to know that we have places of solace where we can shed our woes and get some fresh air - space stations in the abyss, oases of hope (too far?).

Space-suits aside, I implore you to facilitate this process of finding a Place in the Space that we inhabit by lubricating this manic machine of identity analysis with Love - the essence of God, first and final author of shalom. In all that you do, love. For, in all that you do, you are amidst this process of forming a world in which billions of others are seeking Home as they cycle through deciding what parts of their identities fit. Whatever we've got under our helmet or below the belt, we belong in God. Christ came, holy and absurd, that we might rest well in the bowed arches of shalom, finding all that we need to be in Truth - borne with love - and the eternal outpouring of peace beyond comparison.

With that I end this first book of my Queer Place Trilogy, brothers, sisters, and all those in between. You're likely to see elements of what we discussed come up again, so no worries if you haven't come to any conclusions. After all, life's not so much about conclusions as it is about asking better questions.

As a final note: thank you dear friends who have given me the Space in which to explore these ideas. I offer this now to a wider circle of brothers and sisters so that better, more truthful conversations can take place with me and with folks like me. I am on a continual search for the meaning of Home, but I offer this and coming chapters as notes from the odyssey thus far. Thank your for your patience, prayers, and play. Tune in next time for Preludria: From Whence He Flew for some thoughts on my youth, early tinkerings with the Space-suit, and the preference of "queer" as identifier.

Go now with peace to love and serve God.

Yours,
Jason