Are You Guys Brothers?

     We sang “Happy Birthday” to Lily Tomlin the other night. She just turned 70. That age used to sound really old to me. I’m sure that it still does to people in their teens and twenties. But when you’re 61, it sounds “youngish.” Now, age 90 sounds old to me, but it won’t, I suppose when I’m 80. Nevertheless, can you believe that Edith Ann is 70? And that’s the truth.

     Despite what the culture may tell us, I’ve come to believe that aging has its advantages. If you’re lucky, you get to witness in your lifetime things that you never imagined might happen. For instance, Senator Ted Kennedy, or “Teddy” as we call him in our house, finally received the heartfelt global acclaim his life of great caring and service has long deserved. He had to die of brain cancer at age 77 to get it, but the “hero’s” farewell he received from the nation and the world made me feel vindicated and also proud of planet Earth.

     And did you see that Lt. William Calley has finally apologized for his role in the disgraceful sexual abuse and mutilation of over 400 Vietnamese women and children in My Lai. He did it in whispers to a Kiwanis Club in Columbus, GA, over forty years after his sentence was commuted by Richard Nixon, but his recognition of evil-doing in the name of the United States helped heal the wounds that I and many others carried from our days of opposition to the war in that country.

      The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) finally looks as if it might pass Congress and be signed by the President. As one who was fired 35 years ago for being gay (and still wouldn’t be covered by the legislation because it exempts religious institutions), it is heartening to know that “the love that dare not speak its name” will no longer be legitimate grounds from workplace harassment or discrimination. We’ve worked long and hard for this. It’s a blessing to have lived long enough to see it happen.

     And the United States finally has a black Commander-in-Chief. Many white men and women my age in the United States risked death, jail, beatings, and social alienation just to ensure that black people would be allowed to eat at the same restaurant and to enter common restrooms. Barack Obama represents to us a victory that can never be taken away. We feel rewarded.

     I have lived long enough to see the marriage rights of gay people embraced by the majority of people in the United States, to have openly gay people host the Emmy’s and the Oscars, and to witness major Protestant denominations approve of the ordination of non-celibate gay and lesbian clergy.

     To witness and fully appreciate history being made, you have to have lived long enough to understand the significance of the event. To a black baby living in the Upper East Side of New York, the election of President Obama had no more historic relevance than President Harry Truman’s executive order desegregating the Armed Forces did to me in 1948. Age allows us to understand and savor the meaning of events within the context of our own lives.

     In response to my suggestion that he watch Through My Eyes, a film on being young, gay, and Christian (www.gaychristian.net), a Salvation Army officer friend of mine wrote back that “I wish I could have seen something like this DVD 35 years ago. What a difference it would have made in my life.” In reaction to a fundraising mailing I sent out to friends on a new on-line gay high school (www.glbtqonlinehighschool.com), another friend wrote back to say it brought back memories of the horrors he faced as a gay high school student many years ago. One gift of age is experience and the unique perspective it provides. And that’s the truth.

     On the Monday of Memorial Day weekend, Ray and I hosted a wonderful hot dog cookout for forty members of our family. Though they were all our brothers and our sisters, none of them were our relatives.

     Our friend Johnnetta Cole was the first person in our lives to call us “brother Brian,” and “brother Ray.” This dear, courageous, and dedicated founder of the Global Diversity and Inclusion Institute at Bennett College for Women refers to all men as her “brother” and to all women as her “sister.” When we first heard it associated with our names, the term “brother” immediately created a sense of intimacy with Johnnetta for Ray and me. It has subsequently come to remind us of our shared humanity with all human beings in the world. I’ve learned, for instance, to secretly name the mentally ill, homeless man I pass on the street and the disagreeable checkout person I encounter in the grocery store as members of my family. He is my brother. She is my sister. When I do this while reading reports on victims of natural and man-made disasters across the globe, it makes the loss far more personal to me.

     On our morning walk the other day, Ray and I speculated that people who closely identify with their biological family might find it harder to see all people in their lives and in the world as their brothers and their sisters. Tightly-knit clans might be more inclined to consistently circle the wagons and to see themselves as a unit that is quite separate from all others. An example of this would be the Walker family in the television program Brothers and Sisters. Though we tape every episode of the popular series out of affection for the stars, we generally find ourselves yelling at their characters for consistently choosing to be loyal to their codependent mother and siblings at the cost of their spouses and their own personal health. It is a highly-dysfunctional group of adult men and women whose destinies seem determined more by their bloodline than by their need for personal growth and fulfillment.

     In our own lives, Ray and I each find ourselves consciously making choices to stop romanticizing the concept of “family” and to avoid the dysfunction that can result from investing oneself in family dramas. Yet, he and I both speculated on the same morning walk that as most people age, their blood relatives, like their childhood religious beliefs, seem to take on renewed interest and increased importance. We’ve seen this happen over and over again with friends and relatives. One male friend in his seventies who has always been estranged from his family and his home state is moving back there to be close to his relatives. Other friends, who we admired at one time in their lives for their freedom from compliance to religious doctrine and rituals, have returned to the security of those doctrines and rituals in their senior years.

     What prompts such retreat from experience-based wisdom? We think it is the fear of being alone, of being unloved, and of living an insignificant life that will be judged as meaningless, or worse, be forgotten.

     Does embracing as “brother” and “sister” the unrelated men and women in our lives protect us from those feelings of insecurity? No, on the contrary, we know that our friends will change over the years – that the forty people at this year’s Memorial Day picnic will all move on in their lives, many of them one day seeking solace with their biological families. Ray and I accept that we are alone, that love is conditional, that our lives are ultimately insignificant, and that we will most assuredly be forgotten. We realize that our brothers and sisters of choice are no less dysfunctional than the Walker family on television or the McNaught and Struble clans. But we do our best to hold them loosely, to avoid involving ourselves in their dramas, and to love them without too much expectation.

     One might think that calling all men “brother” and all women “sister” is romanticizing reality, and that it’s simply a means of avoiding the inevitability of our solitary lives, but I would disagree. Seeing all people as family is what every spiritual mentor since the beginning of recorded history has urged us to do. St. Francis of Assisi went so far as to refer to all expressions of life as “brother” and “sister.” Ray and I have found that doing so is very freeing and that it brings great meaning to our lives.

     Starting next week, and for the next three months, I’ll be spending most of my time with brother sea and sister garden. If during that time I have an insight that I feel the need to immediately share with others, I’ll write it down and send it out. Otherwise, my plan is to give sister brain and brother body a good rest.     

LOLFunny687 has made a comment on A gay man and a fundamentalist Christian were on a plane….

Homosexuality is a sin, just as any other sin, we are all sinners, which is why we need Jesus to save us from our wicked ways. homosexuality, drunkeness [sic], lust, murder, coveteousness [sic], greed, list goes on and on they are all sins and we must not partake in it

This comment requires your approval. You can approve or reject it by visiting the comments

page.

     Hmm.  I didn’t really “approve” of the message Laugh Out Loud (LOL) Funny left on YouTube for me after watching a five-minute segment of my two-hour corporate presentation, but I felt that he or she had the right to participate in a dialogue about religion and homosexuality, and perhaps I might have a positive influence on his or her thinking. You never know. It’s happened lots of times in the past. So, I responded by saying, “You are citing a mistranslation of the Bible, a book that has relevance only to those who accept it as the literal word of God. I don’t. I wish happiness to those who do and hope they wish the same to me.”

     LOLFunny responded immediately by saying,

    actually, I am not “citing a mistranslation of the Bible”. have you ever read your Bible? Do you consider yourself a Christian? Do you believe Jesus is your saviour?

     Now, there are really a ton more verses confirming this in the Bible. I suggest you check out a good site detailing this. I would post the link but I cant, so I’ll tell you how to get to it by googling it:

God bless.

     Were we building a dialogue? He or she seemed nice enough. They wished me peace and the blessings of God. So, I responded, “Thank you — as I do you.”

     Regrettably, it didn’t end there. LOLFunny apparently had the same goal of conversion as I had with him or her. He or she next wrote:

From what I can see, you are spending your life trying to gain acceptance from humans rather than acceptance from God. God tells us what happens to those who sell themselves to the devil and seek unholiness rather than righteousness.

Let me give you some scripture to show what God thinks about this sin called homosexuality.

I am going to list New Testament only since you probably are so blind you think that Old Testament has no meaning. I’ll give the summary of what the scriptures say since there are a lot with long passages talking about this.

Romans1:26-32 God adresses [sic] sinners including those who partake in homosexuality and he says he blinds them that are not repentant and have pleasure in it…

Paul states that none who continue to commit the sins listed above “shall inherit the kingdom of God.” These sins need to be repented of and put in the past. And that is what the chosen Few in these Gentiles churches were doing.

     It seemed to me that he or she was getting a little testy and my inclination was to back away, but I thought maybe I could clear up a misunderstanding about the use of the word “homosexual” in the Bible, so I wrote, “The word homosexuality was never used in the Old or New Testament. The term was created in 1869 in Germany and pre-dates the term heterosexuality. I hope that one day Christians who quote the Bible to condemn the behavior of others will come to realize that they give Christ a bad name.”

     I know. I know. That last line was probably unnecessary, but I’ve got feelings too and I get more than a little tired listening to people who think they speak for God using the Bible to justify their biases and to try to force the rest of us to think poorly of ourselves. I just can’t imagine Jesus doing so.

     So, of course, he or she wrote back, but I didn’t publish anything further that they had to say. I felt it was too much for gay visitors to the YouTube site to have to bear, and I’m only allowed 36 comments from viewers and from myself. Then I need to edit. But the person who began his or her correspondence with a “peace be to you,” and a “God bless,” didn’t give up and decided to take a different tack. He or she most recently wrote:

Read 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and think to yourself if what you are doing is right or wrong in God’s eyes.

You are disgustingly blind and perverted trying to make God look like a liar. You can twist scripture all you want. you could make “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” to be anything in your imagination you want it to be. homosexuality is a sin, and you trying to make it right is also a sin. you are calling God a liar.

     Sometimes you have to walk away, which I now have from this person. Ray wants to know why I even bother to engage them in dialogue. “They’re nuts,” he says.

     Some of them are nuts, I suppose, just as there are gay people who are crazy and whose behavior scares me. But I have had far more successes than failures in life in my attempt to establish dialogue with people whose religious perspectives are different from my own. The fundamentalist Christian man on the plane to whom I referred in the video clip that so upset LOLFunny is a wonderful example. When we finished our conversation, he said, as many of you know, “Brian, as sure as I’m sitting in this seat, I know that God had you sit next to me, and I will never think about homosexuality in the same way again.” Now, that was worth the effort.

     As the song says, you’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.    

     A paean is a song of joyful exultation or praise. It’s pronounced like the last two syllables of the word “European.” When a friend used the word “paean” in a recent e-mail to describe my latest book, I had to look it up to see if I was being complimented or criticized. I decided it was a compliment.

     A few days ago, as Ray and I were sitting side by side at the dining table, looking out at Provincetown Harbor, and enjoying a lunch of fresh fruit and low fat cottage cheese, I imagined the gaunt faces and emaciated bodies of starving children sitting in the empty seats around my table. I also imagined each child watching me as I lifted a piece of fruit from my plate to my mouth. I didn’t imagine them hating or resenting me for eating the fruit, only wishing that they could do so too.

     I’m deeply troubled by the horrors of world hunger, so when I’m enjoying the sweetness of a grape or a slice of pear, I feel the need to remind myself that there are millions of children and adults in the world who at that moment would give anything for the temporary pleasure and comfort of eating a small piece of fresh fruit instead of garbage, bugs, or dirt. You may feel that I’m ruining my meal with these mental images, but on the contrary, I find that in reminding myself of what I have, compared to the lives of others, I enhance my meal by accepting the obligation to “be in the moment,” to be thankful, and to savor each precious bite rather than eat quickly while I think about mowing the lawn.  Not to give thanks and enjoy the moment when I’m aware that there are other beings like me who are starving is the epitome of callous indifference.

     My reason for writing here about my awareness of the unfairness of privilege is that I want to pen a paean to spring but in the context of good fortune. I love my life. I love sharing my joy about it with others. It makes me very happy when something I say prompts someone else to think about the joy of his or her life so that they too are moved to write, speak or sing a paean. But I know that not everyone can create a song of joyful exaltation and praise about his or her life. I also know that hunger is not the only obstacle to celebration.

    That being said, spring, especially as I experience it in this small fishing village at the tip of Cape Cod, can feed my soul like no other time of the year. How can my heart not sing when it witnesses the budding of trees in the brilliant, fresh green color that can be seen only at this time of year? How can I not be deeply moved by the sight of life-forms poking their tiny heads through the soil and daily emerging into manifestations of magnificence? Like the whales that we know will return each year to Cape Cod Bay to feed and raise their calves, perennial plants keep coming back to life year after year with an eagerness to live fully. On our long walk through the sand dunes this morning, Ray reminded me that gardening is an important form of my meditation. Creating a palette of living color – this year it is in pinks, purples, and white – is as satisfying to me as writing a good book, speaking effectively to an audience, or decorating a room. 

     Each day for us is an opportunity to experience an extraordinary beauty in nature and to feel a thrill in our lives. The thrill can be as simple as deeply inhaling the incomparable scent of lilac, or as dramatic as taking the boat out and having it be surrounded by scores of dolphins, some leading us, some following, and others seemingly just showing off. A short while later, on the same outing last week, we came within fifty yards of the largest whale in the world, surfacing and diving in its search for food. Besides the Finback, we also saw a Humpback mother whale and its calf and two small Minky whales. How can I not sing a song of joyful exaltation to myself and to our friends after such an experience?

     I give the wrong impression if it appears I think that hungry people can’t express or feel paeans in their hearts. Just as people with everything in life can be incapable of feeling joy or gratitude, it must also be true that the impoverished families throughout the world are fully capable of being grateful for the good experiences of their lives. It’s just that I’m aware that I have a better chance of having a longer list of blessings than they might.

     Once again, this doesn’t stop me from feeling giddy when my attention falls on a manifestation of goodness in my life, or from creating a song of joyful exultation. What it does mean is that I don’t take my life for granted, and besides inviting images of the less fortunate to my table, Ray and I also feel grateful to be able to financially support the efforts of groups such as Doctors Without Borders and the Heifer Foundation. They’re helping others in the world create lives that feel more fully blessed and worthy of song.

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D - My Name is Diversity

     When I was a youngster living in Flint, Michigan, I was very good at jump rope. I was also good at hopscotch, and jacks, but that’s another story. When we played jump rope, my girl friends and I would keep rhythm for ourselves by singing through the alphabet. I would sing, “A - my name is Alan and my wife’s name is Alice. We come from Alabama with a carload of apples. B - my name is Brian and my wife’s name is Betty. We come from Buffalo with a carload of bananas. C - my name….” You get the picture.

     (To finish reading this offering, please go to http://glbtatwork.blog.com or www.brian-mcnaught.com)

     A beautiful bluebird was perched on a limb of our Tamarisk tree the morning of our thirty-third anniversary. Ray and I were both thrilled because Ray had never seen a bluebird and I hadn’t since I was a child. We experienced it as a very special gift from the plump little bird to us on our special day – a much-welcomed and appreciated guest for the briefest moment in our lives.

     More and more, it is apparent to Ray and to me that all things and experiences in our lives are guests and gifts to be welcomed and appreciated. The humpback whale and its calf that make an occasional appearance in the harbor, the yellow finches at the bird feeder and the robin in the bird bath, the trillium that returns to the garden briefly each spring, the red Bartlett pear that is enjoyed at breakfast, the green leather arm chairs in which we read the newspaper, the sand dunes that frame our morning walk, the house to which we return eagerly because it is filled with treasured objects that remind us that we are safe in familiar surroundings, the friends who come over for dinner and cards, the television programs we watch with joy, the good novels we read on our Kindles in bed, and the kiss we share before turning out the lights are all gifts that are temporarily ours to enjoy and to care for, but not to think of as our own. They are all guests which will leave us one day and visit others with the hope of being appreciated.

     We are caretakers of the bluebird, the finch, and the robin. We plant trees in which they might perch, fill the feeders so that they might eat, and refresh the water in the birdbath daily so that they might drink and preen, but we don’t own the birds, and someday, after we’re gone, someone else will trim the trees, fill the feeder, and change the water in the birdbath for them.

     We have purchased our home, renovated it, decorated it, and insured it, but there have been many occupants of the house since it was built in 1850 and there will be many after us who will have the opportunity to enjoy and appreciate it. All of us are caretakers, temporarily responsible for the structure, the artwork, the antiques, and the furniture which may or may not stay together as a unit. For us to think of an oil painting as “ours” is as foolish as us thinking of the bluebird as ours. It’s a guest to be welcomed and appreciated – a gift of this life to be handled with care.

     Though we have been together as a couple for thirty-three years, I don’t own Ray nor does he own me, anymore than we own our friends, or parents own their children. We are gifts to each other to be appreciated. Before we came together as partners, we each had previous lovers, roommates, and friends. Before that, we lived with our parents. Before that, it’s anyone’s guess where we were, if we were. The same is true after we die. Neither of us believes in a tangible afterlife but if there is one, we don’t imagine ourselves roaming eternity together. This union is temporary. We are guests in each other’s lives, like the bluebird.

     Given this understanding, it shocks us both to read of mothers drowning their children, fathers shooting their families, husbands beating their wives, and parents molesting their offspring, as if they owned the other and had full rights to do whatever they wished with them. People who beat their pets must think similarly – “I own you. I’ll damn well do with you what I please.” We may have a bill of sale, just as plantation owners did for the human beings they bought as slaves, but the truth is, the pets and the slaves are really extraordinarily abused guests.

     There’s a local, moneyed, married couple that has the reputation for being great champions of social justice. They rightfully want us all to vigorously protect the lives of other human beings. Yet, they live in one of the most beautiful old Victorian homes in town that is also the one most in need of paint and attention. Their message, I feel, is undermined by the lack of concern they show for the great, old house in which they live. They are poor custodians.

     Environmentalism is a movement that seeks to remind us that we are expected to be good caretakers of the earth on which we have temporary residence. Everything we do to the earth has a consequence. When we plant a tree, turn off the water while shaving or brushing our teeth, throw our litter into a trash can rather than on the ground, recycle our newspapers, bottles and cans, we are showing gratitude for the gift of the space that we are using for the short time we have physical form. When we treat the earth with disdain, as if we owned it, we’re like the person who abuses his or her spouse or who fires a shot at the bluebird perched on the Tamarisk tree.

     Sometimes it takes us a long while to see beyond ourselves and to find our place in the great scheme of things. It is easy to be fearful of insignificance and to want to dominate everything around us. Maybe we need to go through the stage in which we destroy in order to be shamed into awareness of our communion with all things which simply seek to feel safe and valued. One of the gifts of age – another guest to be welcomed – is the joy that comes with understanding that all of life is ours to enjoy as long as we take good care of it.

     Today is my younger brother’s birthday and my gift to him is not to make contact – no call, no card, and no-email message. His birthday will ultimately be far happier as a result, I think. Sometimes, the kindest thing we can do to a person is to leave them alone.

     When my father was alive, my brother Tom and I would often comment on how hard it was to find a Father’s Day card that didn’t express sentiments we didn’t have. Dad could be difficult to like sometimes. Not sending a card to him did not feel like an option. He wouldn’t have understood, and the family drama that would have been sparked would have been far-reaching and long-lasting. A good looking card with a blank space for writing “Happy Father’s Day, Dad, Love Brian and Ray” was sufficient.

     My brother and I are both at the same point in our lives with each other today. Once very close, we are now estranged, and the fear of family drama is no longer sufficient incentive to send a card that expresses a sentiment I don’t feel. In fact, it is the fear of stimulating family drama that prompts me to leave well-enough alone. My brother is happy in his life without a relationship with me. Why remind him, especially on his birthday, with guarded words on a blank card, that we are no longer close friends?

     Loose ends tend to bother me more than they do Ray, which is why I’m even writing about this now. I don’t like unfinished business in my life. I want to feel free to move forward without the thought that there is someone from my life who has been hurt or angry because of our relationship in the past. I tried, for instance, to locate on-line the male freshman from my college days in the late 1960s to apologize for fumbling through our first, and regrettably only, sexual experience. I wanted to make sure that he was not permanently scarred by my confusion, but I can’t find him. I also once wrote a letter to the Episcopal priest who was my first romantic partner. I have wanted assurance that he was okay and had forgiven me for breaking up with him and coming out publicly, thereby alerting his parishioners to Fr. Dan’s sexual orientation. He has never responded.

     But the freshman from Marquette University might now be heterosexually married and not want reminders of his homosexuality. Hearing from me might scar him in a way that I never did in the past. Fr. Dan might well have found a niche for himself that has helped soothe whatever anger he felt in the past. Hearing from me might be irritating, thus having an effect opposite to that intended.

     As I get older, I have learned better how to live with loose ends. I am coming to accept that when I die I might not be on the best possible terms with everyone whom I met in my life. With good input from Ray and from the Tao te Ching, I am learning that sometimes the most loving thing to do for others is to let them be.

     It makes me happy to hear from mutual friends how content my younger brother is with his life. I have never wished him anything but joy. Though we both share warm thoughts about sharing a bedroom and friends throughout our childhood, and though we both, while watching Brothers and Sisters on television, may have romanticized longings for a close family relationship, the truth is we push each other’s buttons, and we’re both far more at peace in our lives apart than we would be if we tried to maintain contact.

     This can be true not only with our family members but also with formerly close friends. The other night as we were walking through Provincetown on our way to dinner with our best friends, Tom and David, we ran into our former best friends. We haven’t seen each other since feelings were hurt on all sides at the time of their wedding a few years ago, and I have dreaded the moment when our paths might cross. I’m still hurt and angry about how I feel Ray and I were treated, and I don’t want to be friends again. But I also hate those loose ends, and I sincerely want them to know how much I enjoyed them and our friendship when it was good. But re-engaging them in a letter or on the street will only, I believe, create more pain, so the loving thing to do for them and for me is to wave, smile, ask how they’re doing, and keep walking.

     We’re all on the same life journey – me, Tom, Ray, my first sex partner, Fr. Dan, and our former best friends — facing the same obstacles to self-realization and actualization. An enormous part of living is negotiating relationships and managing feelings. For me, what seems to work best is to send loving thoughts to everyone, even those whom have hurt me, and especially those who I fear I may have hurt, but to keep walking forward without looking back and without distracting others with my need for closure. Our truth may set us free, but expressing it to others might well have the opposite effect.

     Right now, I hope my brother’s computer is filled with e-mail messages of love, his phone is overflowing with recorded renditions of “Happy Birthday,” and he is surrounded by dear friends who make him feel safe and valued. My gift to him is to think loving thoughts about him and to smile in silence.

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   Things Change, Like It Or Not

     Thirty-some years ago, the comedienne Lily Tomlin had a very popular character named Ernestine who was a bossy, snoopy, disrespectful, and cranky telephone operator. When dealing with unhappy customers, she would snort with derision and remind them that they were dealing with the phone company, an institution that didn’t care about the customer’s complaint because AT&T was “omnipotent.” Though she pops up from time to time in Lily’s work today, Ernestine retired from her switchboard “duty desk,” hopefully before her once powerful employer was no longer considered to be omnipotent. Today, it’s simply not the same AT&T. It’s been broken up, sold, changed, and must now compete with other communication giants. Things change, even those things like AT&T that we believed never would. That has certainly been true in my life.

  (To finish reading this offering, please go to http://glbtatwork.blog.com)

     A young gay man, recently out of college, and a middle-aged gay Catholic priest, both wrote to me in the past couple of weeks asking for guidance on how to find love.

     The young man wrote, “I struggle with feelings that maybe I don’t really want a relationship and that monogamy is not for me.  And I guess I realize that if I spend my whole life trying to attain ‘happiness,’ I will fail to realize the joy I have in the moment.  ugh… So what do I strive for, or, what is a reasonable level of satisfaction with life that I should seek?”

     The priest wrote: “These days, I seem to be living my life by just accepting the fact that this is the way things will be for me. It’s hard for me to understand why I can’t find what I need.” 

     What do you think it is that they really want or need? Are they searching for where to find love or what to look for in love? And when they find it, will it be enough? Is it ever enough?

     In the film Elegy,  a middle-aged professor and a co-ed thirty years his junior initially come together in a blissful relationship that satisfies them both emotionally and sexually. Then it doesn’t and they lose everything. Ben Kingsley portrays a culturally-sophisticated fifty-something divorcee whose sexual needs have been met with bimonthly romps with a friend of 20 years who is equally insistent upon no entanglements. He then spots in his college classroom the stunningly beautiful Penelope Cruz who is as drawn to his wisdom as he is to her youthful grace. They flirt, seduce one another, and joyfully end up in bed. But after a short time, they each want more. He complains to his best friend that he wants his student lover to lust for his body, and to make an exclusive emotional commitment to him. When she makes the commitment and then asks him to meet her family, he panics and pulls back. They break-up, though not without extraordinary pain and regret. They both reluctantly give up what worked well for them but find nothing to replace what they shared.

     If you asked people to name a married couple they felt had everything one could want in a relationship, and offered as an example Mel and Robyn Gibson, the multi-millionaire, handsome, famous, conservatively Catholic pair with a family of seven children and twenty-eight years together, they would have been voted as the ideal by many people. But all of that was not enough for the Gibsons. Robyn filed for divorce after pictures appeared in the press of her 53-year-old husband with his arms around a 24-year-old Russian pop singer. Were Mel and Robyn never in love? No, that’s very unlikely. Did one or the other change his or her mind about what love should look like and feel like? Probably, but we don’t know for sure because we’re not them. Each relationship is unique. But what the make-believe couple in the film Elegy, and the real movie couple, the Gibsons, remind us of is that knowing what you want is more important than knowing where to find it, and also, what you think you want today may change tomorrow.

          It’s not hard for us to advise others where to find potential life mates. The Internet has turned out to be a wonderful means of making connections for many people I know. Ray and I met 33 years ago through Dignity, the gay Catholic organization. Participating in groups in which you’ll find people who share your interests and values is a terrific way to meet a life companion. If you want a spouse and don’t meet him or her in high school or in college, as many people do, there are social events such as cruises, dinner parties, fundraisers, film festivals, wilderness adventures, and similar outings that provide safe environments in which to get to know another person. Bars have been the birthplace of some of the romances with which I’m familiar, but I’m not sure how you have a decent conversation with someone in a dark and noisy place. Yet, it can happen.

     It’s been my experience, though, that many people who hunger for love have too long a list of what it needs to look like and feel like. Perhaps their criteria are based upon a romantic novel they once read, a 1950s television program they watched, or a movie they saw that ends happily ever after.

     Every couple I know, gay and straight, who have successful relationships, have to work really, really hard to keep the love alive, growth inducing, and rewarding. When I say “successful,” I’m not talking about staying together for a long time. Lots of people stay together for a long time out of fear. That’s not love. That’s endurance. No, I’m talking about the incomparable experience of having the sum of the parts be better than the pieces apart, the awareness of symbiotic joy, the acceptance of sacrifice for the sake of what takes you to more emotional and spiritual high mountains than it does to deep valleys of fear and regret.

     The really hard part, for all of us regardless of our sexual orientation, is deciding whether we would rather live alone or with another person. The college graduate and the priest need to ask themselves what and how they really want their love experience to look like and operate. These choices, among other considerations, include monogamy or non-monogamy, living together or living apart, and being sexually attracted or not. Does the other person need to be the same race, hold the same religious beliefs, be in good physical shape, be rich, sober, tobacco-free, nice, communicative, funny, eager to travel, know a second language, and share political views? Do they need to be quiet in the morning, must they allow you to drive, allow you to cook, allow you to have pets, embrace your family, be your same age, be older, be younger, have hair on their head, be well-built, go to the gym, have good taste, dress smartly, be willing to move, be generous, be sexually versatile, or be famous?

     Do we want a sex partner more than we want someone with whom we can go to the movies, or a bridge partner more than someone who will accompany us to church, or a Sugar Daddy more than a traveling companion?

     These questions, and the many more that can impact satisfaction or disappointment in a relationship, aren’t always apparent to us in the initial stages of courtship. Our age, religion, occupation, gender, values, life goals, and hundreds of other factors can impact what we want from another person in relationship. The young college student and the middle-age priest, though they’re both gay men, would probably have very different lists of wants and needs. But to find and maintain love in a relationship, they both must to be aware of what they want and why they want it, and be prepared for that to change not only with themselves but also with their fantasy lover.

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Why We’re All the “Frumpy” Angel’s Biggest Fans

          Why has Susan Boyle, the 47-year-old Scottish lass, so completely captured our attention and our hearts?

(To read more, please go to http://glbtatwork.blog.com)

     As Ray and I excitedly, and a bit sadly, prepare to head back to Provincetown for six months, we begin the process of letting go of the comfortable and getting ready for change. We say “good-bye” to our familiar surroundings and friends in Florida, and think about seeing our home and friends in Massachusetts again. Each time we do so, regardless of the direction in which we’re headed, we verbalize to each other our desire to do things a little differently this time around. Not only do we want to start fresh with the garden and avoid any mistakes we may have made last year, but we also want to start fresh with our relationships, changing or acknowledging our expectations, altering our behavior when possible, and avoiding the same errors in judgment we feel we repeatedly make. (Our friends are probably making the same resolutions.)

     Once I actually arrive in the “other” house, it takes me about two weeks to settle in. There’s an eagerness on both Ray’s and my part to have everything feel secure and comfortably familiar as quickly as possible. In the two-weeks time that is required to do so, regrettably I often forget the resolutions I have made about doing things differently and about engaging with our friends more authentically.

     In an interview with Jane Fonda in the May issue of Vanity Fair, the 62-year-old actress was asked, “On what occasion do you lie?” She responded, “When the truth will serve no purpose and only hurt.” And yet, when asked, “What do you most value in your friends?” she answered, “Honesty.”

     Honesty in a primary love relationship is essential if the partnership has any chance of remaining vital. It breaks my heart to watch couples who withhold information from, or play games with, each other for the sake of peace or of dominance. Honesty is also essential for any friendship that Ray or I enter or maintain with others. As soon as we feel the person is incapable of honesty, we back away. But we also back away from couples whom we feel are mean to each other, and from individuals who are mean to us. Not being completely honest is okay when the absolute truth will serve no purpose and only hurt. But meanness isn’t only a matter of speaking the harsh truth. It’s also a matter of withholding loving truth and kindness.

     Obvious examples of unnecessary honesty between couples might include “I slept with your brother (or sister),” “Your mother is a witch and I hate her,” “I’m embarrassed by your father’s behavior when we’re with others,” “You’re getting really fat,” “You look so old,” and “I’m bored listening to your stories. You tell them over and over again.” Less obvious examples of meanness could be not saying “I hope that you’re as proud of yourself as I am of you,” “I’m happy that you get so much attention from other men (women),” and “Thank you for taking such good care of me. I feel spoiled.”

     Obvious examples of unnecessary honesty between friends might include “I don’t like your spouse/partner,” “Don’t you think it’s time to put your dog (cat, bird, mother) to sleep?” “Are you sure you want to put that much butter on your baked potato?” and “Take a pill. Your depression is really wearing me down.” Less obvious examples of meanness might be not saying “You are so generous and thoughtful. I feel embarrassed by how much you do for me,” “I compete with you and, as a result, am often not very nice to you,” and “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.”

     Life is shorter than we acknowledge and accept it to be. Why not fill the minds and hearts of those we love with kindness rather than assume that sometime in the future we’ll get the opportunity to apologize or tell them how much they mean to us?

     The Desiderata, the much-beloved and quoted (“You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars, you have a right to be here,”) wise reflections on living by Max Ehrmann in the 1920s, advises that we “As far as possible, without surrender, be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and the ignorant; they too have their story. Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexations to the spirit.”

     The Tao te Ching also suggests that we “Express yourself completely, but then keep quiet.”

     Speaking your truth quietly, clearly, and completely doesn’t mean without wisdom or goodness. Listening to others, even the dull and the ignorant, doesn’t mean you have to be friends. Avoiding people who are vexations to the spirit is a sign of wisdom not meanness.

     When asked, “What is it that you most dislike?” Jane Fonda said, “A lack of compassion.”

     To the question, “What is the trait you most deplore in others?” she replied, “Cynicism.”

     When asked “What is your greatest regret?” she answered, “Regrets are a waste of time except as things to learn from.”

     Jane Fonda is not my mentor, but I admire the journey she has made. She seems to be at peace, or at least, far more peace than she has experienced in the past. It’s the result of hard work, tough decisions, and an eagerness to grow. Her motto is “It’s better to be interested than interesting.”

     As Ray and I head back to Provincetown, it is not with regrets about the past. The garden has been beautiful and our relationships with others have been rewarding. But I plan to make the garden a little different and a little more beautiful, and we, hopefully like our friends, plan to make our relationships a little more honest and the sources of a lot more growth and peace.

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  Let Go of the Monkey’s Hand!

     “Monkey Mind” is a term in meditative practice that refers to our tendencies to allow our mind to race from one issue to the next, like a monkey jumping from one tree to another, or from one window in the cage to the many others, getting very excited or agitated by what it sees.

     My Monkey Mind races today from the window in which I see Out magazine’s inane listing of the 50 most powerful gay people in America, including people who refuse to publicly acknowledge that they’re gay, like Barry Diller, Matt Drudge, and Anderson Cooper, and excluding real movers and shakers in my gay life such as …..  

   (To read more of this offering (and you should) please go to http://glbtatwork.blog.com)

     “You wouldn’t believe how many people came in asking for ‘Sarah Palin glasses’,” confided my optician.

     “Women want to look like Sarah Palin?” I asked. “Why?”

     “They lack originality,” she surmised.

     As Ray and I walked past the several five star hotels along the beach that morning, we spotted a man having breakfast at the Ritz Carlton who had a tattoo around his bicep that had what, I believe, is the Greek Key pattern that I see on most men who get tattoos on their arms. Does some famous person have this special artificial marking, or does the tattoo have secret meaning to those who hope to appear “masculine”? Why do men across the country, gay and straight, seem to have the same tattoo? Is it also a matter of lacking originality?

     Our friends all know that Ray and I value originality. We are very disappointed when we see something different that we own show up in their house too. For us, it makes what we searched out and found as a great expression of our life experience feel less meaningful.

     What prompts people to copy other people’s eye glasses, tattoos, haircuts, clothes, lamps, dogs, watches, cars, and verbal expressions? The magazine Entertainment Weekly even has a feature in which, at the request of readers, they track down apparel worn by a television star, such as the fanny pack the character Fiona wears on Burn Notice. They’ll tell you where to find it and how much it costs. One bride-to-be wanted her bridesmaids in the exact same dresses worn by the bridesmaids in the film I Love You, Man. Now they can be.

     Imagine, if you will, how the young man who one day started wearing his pants at mid-ass level felt when he eventually saw all of his friends with their pants hanging at the mid-ass level too. It would make me want to pull my pants up or take them off completely.

      In the book that I’m reading, a main character is said to have the mantra for life – “Loving, Learning, and Legacy.” Those three things guide his day-to-day decisions. Because all three categories can represent very, very different choices of expression, we could all copy his life mantra and have very different life experiences. We know that each of us has different ways of loving and of learning. Some of us love others as we hug others, without much personal contact. For some people, love means having no boundaries at all, like a full body hug. Some of us learn best by reading and others learn best by experience. Like loving and learning, our legacies take very different forms, in fact far more diverse forms than one could come up with for “loving” and for “learning.”

     For some people, their legacy is the family they raised. For others, it might be the book they wrote, the film they made, the invention they patented, the cure they discovered, or the painting they created. Legacies include the influence a teacher had on his or her students, the enlightenment enabled by a mentor, the beauty of the park that was designed or maintained.

     Some legacies are judged as being good, such as the joy we brought through our life to the lives of others. Walt Disney, Pope John XXIII, and Gandhi come to mind here. Some legacies are judged as bad, such as the pain we might have created in the lives of others. Adolph Eichmann, Idi Amin, and Benedict XVI might come to mind here. And some legacies are mixed, such as that of Jesus. His life and teachings have created joy for many people, but the twisting of his life’s message by many of his followers has created great pain for many, many more. We often can’t control the impact of our legacies.     

      I have trouble understanding how someone who wants to look like Sarah Palin by buying her glasses or who wants to look like all other muscle men by buying the same permanent tattoo can expect to leave a legacy that will be original and good. It would seem to me that such people would be too afraid to be different from the crowd to make a positive difference that lasted very long. Daring to make a difference usually requires the courage to step outside the box, to say and do things that are unique and challenging.

     Perhaps it’s worth asking ourselves, “If I were to die today, what would my legacy be?” “What would I like my life’s legacy to be?” and “Do I have the courage and fortitude to make that unique contribution?”

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     Did you hear the one about the Scientologist, the Mormon, and the Pakistani Shia, who stood with their Roman Catholic colleague at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) having “several friendly conversations with un-offended co-workers” regarding their beliefs?

     The Scientologist was explaining his Church’s belief that seventy-five million years ago the galactic ruler Xenu brought billions of people to earth, stacked them around volcanoes and blew them up with hydrogen bombs. He also said that his Church disapproved of homosexuality and has fought gay marriage…

     (To finish reading this offering, please go to http://glbtatwork.blog.com)

      As the credits for the film Sunshine Cleaning began to roll down the old spotted screen in the very musty-smelling but much-beloved Gateway movie theater on Sunrise Blvd. in Ft. Lauderdale, Ray and I excitedly saw the name of our friend Dan Genetti at the top of the list. “Associate Producer …. Dan Genetti” it said before it gave the names of the stars Amy Adams, Emily Blunt, and Alan Arkin. We clapped and looked around at the handful of other mostly gay faces attending the 3:30 matinee. “We know him,” I wanted to say. “He grew up in the house next to my grandmother in Bedford, Massachusetts. I take him water skiing in Provincetown. He’s gay.”

     “It must be fun for Dan,” I thought, as we headed to share delicious Chinese food with our friends Kath and Kim, “to help create a story that potentially will have a positive impact on the lives of some people.” Sunshine Cleaning tells the story of a beautiful former high school cheerleader who raises her eight-year-old son on the small amount of money she makes cleaning houses, and who stumbles into a more lucrative career of cleaning up after crime scenes. Throughout the film, I thought about my younger sister, Maureen, also a high school beauty, a single mom who raised two boys on the money she made cleaning houses and working the late shift in a hotel, and who has just passed her test to drive semi-trucks at age 55 — another good story, and more meaningful to me because it is real. I did think I should suggest that Maureen see the film. Perhaps it would give her comfort or inspire her to hang in there. At the very least, it might remind her that she’s not alone.

     A day or two before we saw wonderful Amy Adams play a struggling but hard working mother so convincingly, Ray and I talked about the influence of fictional and real stories on our lives. During our five mile morning trek down to the beach and back, I brought up the story line of the book I’m currently reading, Cutting for Stone, about identical twins born to a nun, and how from childhood we have either distracted ourselves with, or grown from, other people’s stories. The lives of others fill our brains, whether we’re aware of it or not, as well as dominate our time. And I remember those stories better than I remember the many things I was forced to memorize in school so that I could have a productive life. I’ve forgotten almost everything I learned about geometry and biology, but I can tell you clear details of Hardy Boy adventures, Tom Swift experiments, Three Stooges antics, Popeye and Bluto fights, the convent at which the Flying Nun was stationed, Beaver Cleaver’s best friend, what ailed Grandpa McCoy, why Ben Hur ended up on a slave ship, the letter sent by Jane and Michael Banks in search of a nanny like Mary Poppins, who killed Mitch Rapp’s wife, and how the elephant killed the abusive ringmaster in the recent best seller Water for Elephants.

     From hours of television programs watched every day of my life since I was old enough to change the channel, from all of the movies I have seen (and there have been hundreds), from all of the books I have been required or chosen to read, and from all of the articles in People, The Advocate, and Entertainment Weekly that I have scanned, my life has been filled to the brim with other people’s stories, fiction and fact, and my mind and emotions have been molded by the experiences of others.

    Is it good or is it bad that I have spent so much time in front of a screen or a book? My mother used to interrupt my television viewing by saying “Go outside and get some fresh air. Play with the other kids. You’re watching too much television.” And yet, I learned a lot about right versus wrong, world history and other religions, other families, other cultures, other kids my age, the world outside of Flint, Michigan, and most importantly about other gay people from watching and listening to other people’s stories. Ray thinks we have learned important lessons about how to respond to life from all these dramas, mysteries, horrors, and comedies, not by modeling the behavior of the main characters but by recalling our reactions to the choices they made. I don’t disagree, but as I recline on the sofa each night watching program after program that we have recorded, I wonder if I shouldn’t be off on some adventure of my own, like rebuilding an old home in Italy like the lady in Under the Tuscan Sun, or going to Alaska with my dog (I’ll buy one) like Wendy and Lucy, or maybe going to Ethiopia to work in a mission hospital like the nun who had the twins.

     Are even our fantasies our own? At the end of my life, I wonder, will I reflect with joy on the small delightful details of my journey, as did my friend Kate this week when she reminisced about the fun she had as a child with her family breaking open peanut shells at a baseball game. Or, will I have been unaware of many of those moments because I was preoccupied with how handsome The Mentalist was and whether Dr. Brennan and Special Agent Booth ever get together on Bones.

     Rest assured that I will probably always fill my mind with the details from the stories of others on television, films, and books, but I hope to do so aware that every moment I’m involved in someone else’s drama, I’m missing my own. I loved the story, produced by my friend, of the hardworking former cheerleader who keeps struggling to give her life meaning, but I’m more taken by the plot of my younger sister’s real life adventure.

      The big question, though, is, at the end of my life, when the credits roll, will I be listed at the top as the associate producer?