Fatal Questions and the Smut Psalm
Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time!
February 9, 2025
"Christian/Catholic Workers Gone Bad!..
"Fatal Questions and the Smut Psalm!
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??? Our president says there are only two sexes and sex outside of a man and woman is a "sin". ????The reality is that not much has changed any way in most churches and schools. In particular churches that are "Open and Affirming" on Pride Day in June, fly the Rainbow flag, afterward put it away. There are few youth groups that are "Open and? Affirming", and sex is on the back burner.
??? "Seth", 16, came into my life in front of one of the bars where he was hustling in early 1995. He was flirty, cute, with dirty blond hair, 5'10, and a beautiful smile, with much charm.
??? Through the next three years he would say I was the only person over 21 he could trust, "they all want my d-ck, .
??? He shared his story of living in a small town in the south, going to church every Sunday, with loving parents.
??? "Seth" had a secret that burned in his soul. He struggled with liking guys. He loved fooling around with his friends, since they were straight, but thought it was fun to "whack off" with a friend.
??? One night two of his friends were caught "fooling around". In church the following Sunday their pastor outed them, prayed for them, and publicly chastised both. Seth became terrified, for his friends were rejected throughout that small town, one committed suicide.
??? Some time later "Seth" was caught "masturbating"? with another friend by his dad. His father went into a rage, a really hot rage, and? told him to leave, he was no longer his son, and so Seth simply ran away to San Francisco.
??? Seth was a Christian, and after all that he became so screwed up, believed he was going to hell, scared to death. And so began months of us talking about faith, and the liberating words of Jesus, not being judged, we are called to love God and one another, that is all.
????The ultimate betrayer of human life created in the image of God, is the destruction of that which makes us all persons, our liberty of of being who we are.. We do that in many ways, but for Seth it was the denial of his sexual orientation. One night I received a phone call and Seth had committed suicide by hanging himself from a tree in a churches yard.?
(The cross above illustrates Seth's pain in the painting about the struggle with his faith.)
????And at his memorial service I committed him to the hands of God, and see him now in the great Cloud of Witnesses cheering me on until we meet again.
????There is much pain, and in this poem from "Smut Psalm", by Josh Tvrdy,? one can see the continued struggles of young men in the church:
" I have a friend who carved a hole
in the end of a thick cucumber, then hollowed
it all the way through with a spoon.
Gentle scraping. Yes.
he f.ck the hole he made.
He was a closet -Christian, and nothing
says closet Christian like creative-masturbation.
Or masturbation with creation. Creation
being the juiciest produce Safeway had to offer.
He didn't tell me this, but I imagine him lifting
that delicate thing to his eye
and looking through his window at the world
tunneled--dolloped sky, scoop
of his neighbor's lemon tree. I made this, he thinks, a little ashamed, a little amazed,
which is maybe what we'll always feel
possessed by desire. I made this--
his d--ck soft now, sticky, flecked with seeds.
????This is the shame that is engendered by churches, groups, and people who can not be open, to others, and talk about sexuality in a positive way. This lack of openness killed Seth!
??? My journey has been like Seth's struggling with the Church that has condemned me, and one that supposedly is open and will not talk about sexuality. In many ways our "open and affirming churches" are two gendered.
??? Through out this journey Jesus has been "The Hound of Heaven, within whom I have found my way:
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.
领英推荐
All which thy child’s mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
Rise, clasp My hand, and come!’
Halts by me that footfall:
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
‘Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.’
— Francis Thompson (1859–1907)
??? When we are set free by God, to love, care, and care for each other without judgment, seeing all--LGBTQ, all races, religions and creeds, as simply different expressions of our uniqueness, everything will be as it should have been from the beginning. Everything will be straightened out. Justice will be at last established.. .God's justice that creates well-being and puts an end to injustice. And all this will happen not as a culmination that quickly collapses again, not as an episode, not as an interlude, but as "eternal joy". The thirty fifth chapter? of the book of Isaiah--what a text:
"The burning sand will become a pool, the parched ground springs of water; where jackals once lived and sprawled out, there will be grass with reeds and rushes. A highway will be there, and it will be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean will not travel on it, but it will be for God's people; no traveler, not even fools, shall go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there." Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God!
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Put me in jail, then. Throw me behind your religious bars since you have dubbed me a breaker of your law. I live my days in the courtroom of your criticism. I move unbothered under the gaze of your gavel. I have no interest in defending myself before your bench. Go on, clench your fists, raise your voice to make your point. Type the rebuke that you must make on my page. Who asked you to come through anyway? Is this rage your duty? We operate under a different set of obligations and get worked up to frustration for different reasons, even though we both claim fidelity to God. If you were interested, which I doubt, here is where my passion lies: feed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick, defend the rights of the orphan, plead the widow’s cause, and woe to you who unjustly enforce God’s Law. Why spend your energy policing me when that same energy could be used to love, fiercely? Justice, mercy, and humility. Go learn what this means. Drew Jackson
Deo Gratias! Thanks be to God!
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Temenos Catholic Worker
P.O. Box 642656
San Francisco, CA 94164
Dr. River Damien Carlos Sims, D.Min, D.S.T.
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“People ask me why do you write about food,
and eating and drinking. Why don’t you write
about the struggle for power and security and
about love, the way others do? The easiest answer
is to say that, like most other humans I am hungry (M.F. Fisher!”
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Psychiatrist
2 周Keep following your rare, dangerous and wonderful pathway.