Why Trust is Still Difficult.
“I don’t trust words, I even question actions, but I never doubt patterns.” ~Unknown
My senior year in college, I wrote an article about my sexual orientation and how it had affected my faith for our school’s magazine. Upon reading it the other day, I realized that most of it still applies today, and the patterns of mistrust continue to this day as well.
I still find that every few months as I meet new people and allow myself to be vulnerable (because I believe I can trust them), it all gets defenestrated. I am following through with my promise that I will be more vulnerable and less transparent (see my blog Mistaking Transparency as Vulnerability). I do have perhaps a handful of people that have yet to break this trust. I try to view this a good thing, a sign of hope and goodness in people. I even reframe this to say, “I have perhaps a handful of people that I can trust,” but this too futile. I try to perceive it as a sign that I can indeed trust them, but I just cannot seem to shake the hesitation to trust, especially as this reality lingers today.
Anyway, the article explains where this mistrust ultimately stems from. I hate that I talk about this all the time, and I am self-conscious about it too. However, it has been a huge part of my short 24-year long life. Plus, if I’m transparent from the beginning it cannot be used against me, right? And people cannot be mad when I hold back, right? …Yea, I don’t really think so either. What I do know though is that I deserve better.
So, here’s the article with a few tweaks here and there to make it relevant to today- 2 ½ years later.
**Note: The faith & God aspects nowadays refer to the idea of a greater power, and not necessarily the Christian God or religion.
***
“No one has ever looked at a sunset or sunrise, and said, ‘Wow that is a great example of the fall’” (unknown).
I grew up believing homosexuality was a sin, and therefore the entire LGBTQ+ community was as well. My parents never believed this, and my high school advocated for LGBTQ+ rights and equality. Thus, leaving me to conclude that the only place that could’ve taught me this was my church.
I love my old church. We played the most unusual games and embarrassed ourselves on video while achieving chaotic and ridiculous tasks just to have the pride of being champions. We wrapped people in tape and stuck paper to them. We shot foam bullets and hid in vents. Our highlight videos never disappointed.
When it came time to get serious and to worship, we were just as engaged. My small group made bracelets to remind ourselves not to judge. We put pebbles in our shoes to remember to pray. We edified each other often, and shared testimony almost always. My church helped me earn my Gold Award (the highest honor in Girl Scouts). I lead youth group twice, and no one was hesitant for me to do so, or to have me speak up and share.
My youth pastor never judged and always let us speak and work things out ourselves, but he would come in when appropriate and as needed. He knew exactly who to call on if a discussion was not going as planned or when the awkward silence just became a silence and the discussion needed to continue. He knew what and whose buttons to push and when. Above all, my youth pastor made a point to have a personal relationship with each and every one of us and to guide us in the process of letting our faith shape and form us to who we would become. Even though the job does call for it, acting on faith was not part of the job description for him; that is just who he is.
He was the only person I ever trusted completely. I told him everything and anything. I talked about my struggles with lust, drinking, drugs, and self-harm. I told him as things happened, not after it was sorted out like I did with everyone else. It was through youth group, and through his preaching that I decided to follow Jesus, and turned my life around.
So, when I tell people my youth pastor outed me, and is a reason why my employers needed to “discuss my position,” it is more than just a youth pastor that was kind and guided me to my faith that did so. It was a youth pastor that knew all my shame; he knew me deeper than my parents, my best friends, and even myself that did so. I had not gotten the courage to come out to him yet when all this happened. I had believed I was sinning, and was going to hell, and could not break this news to him.
I have worked through this betrayal of trust throughout the past five years, and frankly I still need to at times (hence this blog). I find myself continually forgiving and pushing aside my own biases; except I do not simply do this for the reconciliation and healing of our relationship. I do it nearly every waking moment, especially in church settings. When I was in college, every chapel and chapel team meeting I would hear comments that target the LGBTQ+ community or ignore us- and those who have survived sexual violence. Every week I would have to reframe those words and ignore my own experiences and hurts simply to get at the central message or idea of what is being said or preached. It was and is exhausting! And is also the reason why had ceased attending church on Sundays. To this day, even at my 100% affirming church, I still find myself sifting through rhetoric and not taking communion.
In my senior year at North Park, the Reformation Project came to Chicago. (They are an organization that uses a bible-based, gospel-centered approach to LGBTQ+ inclusion.) For the first time in four years, I felt 100% safe and welcomed at a church. I could actually worship, and I could actually hear the word of God without having to sift through the poor rhetoric, ignorance, and my own hurt. It was so easy to find fellow queer Christians there. It was freeing and empowering, and I felt the Spirit and felt connected to Christ. I wasn’t bitter or mad; I smiled authentically for the first time in a long time in a place of worship, and I wanted to be there for as long as I possibly could.
The church doesn’t know how to deal with us or handle us. The reality is though we do not need to be dealt with or handled. We are not a deck of cards or piece of meat for you to cut and hand out for your enjoyment. Last time I checked I had skin, eyes, a skeleton, lips, a sex drive, fingers and toes, thoughts and feelings, pride and selfishness, and am a “sinner” akin to everyone else. Making me and my fellow queers human akin to everyone else.
When I met with my youth pastor, he told me he still loved me and always would, and that he’d always be my pastor. Thank you, but no thanks. I want a pastor who will love me. Period. Not despite the fact that I am attracted to more than one gender as he had implied. That summer, and the following years, I could not enter a Christian space without feeling and seeing eyes on me, people wanting to know my opinion, and how I was doing. I was not a friend or a sister in Christ; I was a project, I was people’s ministry.
To this day, some of my best friends believe I am “engaging in a sinful life,” and those that do not are atheists or barely Christian. I have a support system, but I do not have one person who can support me for all of me. This is not me calling for you to drop or ignore your convictions. No, I’d be a hypocrite and coward if I asked for that. This is me saying that good relationships, care, and love are possible despite theological and political differences. My best and strongest friendships lie here. We offend one another and admit it. We apologize for when we are incorrect and when we wrong each other because doing otherwise is not the gospel, and we love and follow Christian morals- or more simply (less religiously) put are morally and ethically good people.
God has allowed for evil to persist in this world, but there is not simply good and evil. Most of the people that have sexually assaulted or raped me are good and well-intentioned people. I see God and goodness in them. Some would claim that they are evil, some that they are good, and some that satan (or an evil entity) got ahold of them for a little while. Any of these may be true or all of them or something else entirely. In any case and for whatever reason, I was taken advantage of, and good and evil can exist in one place, at one time, and even in one person.
Through this experience, I have learned that I need to look at situations and people from different angles and perspectives. Whenever I misplace something, I hop on a chair or lay down to look for it from a different angle or perspective. Whenever I do, I almost always find what I was looking for. Similarly, we all need to look at life and people from different angles and perspectives. I consistently find something helpful when I do so. Usually it is what I was looking for and needed, and fortunately I find something more. Something that I wasn’t looking for, and I open myself up to learn and grow.
At the Reformation Project, Austen Hartke (one the speakers) framed the creation text as the ends of several spectrums. God created dusk and dawn, they created birds of the air and fish of the sea, and God created human, male and female. Dusk and dawn- two ends of a spectrum. Birds and fish- two ends of a spectrum. Male and female… two ends of a spectrum. And guess what, “no one has ever looked at a sunset or sunrise, and said, ‘Wow that is a great example of the fall.’”
Love and Faith,
Melanie J. Lofgren