Last Straws...

I have no excuse for being deliriously tired right now at 10 am after a full night's sleep, but I am. Some of my thoughts are half-baked, but I will attempt to share.

I am realizing that my faith, maybe it is more appropriate to say that my religion, is reaching its final days. I am not willing to let go of so much, but everything in me is ready to say goodbye and pull the plug. I am so tired of trying to make myself and my deepest rawest parts fit into a place where they just won't go.

When I moved to Austin, I thought that this is my last big push to reconcile God and my faith, my spiritual life. If I don't find a place where there are people that love me as I am, embrace the way that God made each of us, then I am done and I don't really know what that means.

As Regina Spektor says, "but God can be funny". Since moving to Austin, I have moved in with two wonderful women who are in different and beautiful stages of their faith and are very open to asking questions, listening and struggling. I have met a new friend that has a beautiful understanding of his faith and sexuality and is very open to discussing it.

I still feel that there is death that is imminent, but I do not think it is a bad thing. In a conversation with my roommate, she asked if I was angry at God for being gay, for the way that the church has become exclusive and claimed the right to deny people that are different entrance into their community and worship circles. I answered immediately, "no, I am not angry at God, I am angry at people. I have been very hurt by people, ignorance and a lack of compassion."

There is death in the air, but it is the death of trying to fit where I don't. It is the death of my lies to myself and of the attempt to fit into the religion of my youth that bound me so long from truth, freedom and God.

I am moving forward with faith that fits better, more comfortably, more realistically. Words, especially at 10 am, don't come near explaining what I intend them to. but that is alright. All that I am trying to say is that there is birth and new life coming from the casting off of my old skin which no longer seems to do anything but weigh me down.