Being True

Being true to oneself, actually, is the theme of this posting. It is also the over arching theme of this entire blog – View From Here.

I have used the image of journey to describe life. Nowhere better than here is where we discover the roots of that journey. From birth to death is a span of time uncertain, but it is a daily trek through existence, surviving the bad, and sometimes the good, the challenges that test our ability to adapt and adopt and to eventually become the real person we are.

The journey follows a path often not straight. Zigs and zags aplenty! Detours, too! Some of these are long, others short. Each is a test that niggles the real ‘who’ centered in our being. With joy and a leap, the excited who, or ebullient one, emerges. All too often though, the cowardly ‘who’ controls the scene. We shirk full identity. We skirt the truth. We hide in order to get by.

I heard a TED lecture on the internet the other day. The woman presenter was speaking about personal honesty and how that affects the lives of others. Eventually she shared her personal truth of being gay and how hiding that fact had affected her life and those around her. Even further than that, the presenter claims her untruth caused society at large to be untruthful and hurtful.

She wanted to get along with others. She wanted to be respected fully as her whole person. Yet she judged others would not accept her as gay and thus hid that fact from them. Her journey took her to significant friendships including the daughter of a state legislator who, not confronted by gay issues in the past, supported legislation to deny equal access to restaurant services to gay persons. This was a nod to businesses that followed their Christian beliefs and felt serving gays was against their religion.

The legislator might have changed his position on the issue and his vote for hideous legislation had he known gay people and their personal struggles to fit in, as well as the normalness of gay orientation and how it does not deform gay people.

It is hiding the truth that deforms. So our TED presenter acknowledged that she was not truthful, the legislator was truthful to his context but had been denied fuller knowledge because too many gays simply hid who they were – are. How can any of us truly know the world around us if much of its significance is in hiding – whether through politeness, fear or ignorance?

A good question. A very good question.

I was in hiding for decades. At times I hid from myself. It took many years for me to understand I was/am gay. I didn’t want to be gay. There were no role models to guide me along the way. I took that context to mean gay was wrong. Gay was evil and to be shunned. It was not a large leap to deduce that I, therefore, must be evil and shunnable.

Many years of this dark struggle produced a duality in my inner ‘who’. One time I would be the inveterate searcher for facts and knowledge (the inner student), another time I would be the emotionally questioning child, still another time I would be the physically/sexually searching adolescent wondering who he really is.

Not confident enough to ask the right questions, I got by on half truths and half answers.

Decades later I know it is not the answers that matter. It is the questions we ask that matter most. Asking the question, indeed defining the question to be asked, is the hard work that requires honesty and courage. As those questions are formed and asked, we learn more and more who the real ‘who’ is.

I am gay. Reluctantly so given the context of my life. But truly, this reluctance has made me an unreliable truth giver at critical times of my life. Dating women, falling in love, getting married, having children, counseling young people, being a role model (faulty as that has been at times), and finally becoming the whole me. And open to any and all that surrounds me.

Being true to who I am is at the core of a life fully lived. If we have trouble doing that, being that, then we cannot very well expect others to adapt to our unique ‘who’s’ either. It is pretty simple. One becomes knowledgeable and wise by being fully exposed to truth and honest searching for the truth. Hiding any portion of it to anyone keeps them from fully knowing.

So, being gay is not the sin so many assumed it was. Nor is being gay an evil or psychiatric disease. It is a natural sexual orientation present in all of life on the planet from day one. It is not an aberration. It is a statistical fact and very real.

With that statement guiding us, let us be honest with ourselves and each other. And then get on with the work at hand.

There is much to do. It requires honest people in every walk of life to do that work.

I’m gay and can do my share of the work. I’ll even help others do it. Being gay doesn't make me better or different from others. It just is part of me. It ought not have any effect on my value or potential.

So there. Being true is more than being me. It is being us that ultimately matters.

In truth!

February 2, 2015