For Every Mormon

To my heterosexual, actively practicing Latter-Day Saint friends and family,

There have been many recent teen suicides in northern UT, with at least three happening within the last three weeks in Ogden and Davis County. Some of the teens who have taken their lives within the past school year are known to be LDS and LGBTQ/gay. Many of the teens who have taken their lives have confronted bullying in their schools, their churches, and their homes because they have either come out or assumptions made by bullies about perceived sexual orientation.

Being a gay Latter-Day Saint is challenging enough for an adult, let alone a young person who is trying to navigate the myriad of feelings and the many turns a teen's life takes while they mature. It's a challenging time when you are really figuring out who you are and how you wish to live your life. Add to the usual mix of teen angst and emotion and push-and-pull the weight of recognizing you're gay. It can be confusing and scary, full of questions. What do I do now? Am I the only one? Do other people know? Will I be targeted by violence? Add to those kinds of vexing questions the kinds of anxiety-ridden questions that come to gay members of the LDS church. Does Heavenly Father love me? Why would He do this to me? How will I ever fit into the Plan of Salvation? How will I ever be able to live with my family in the Celestial Kingdom? How can I serve a mission and spend every single day for two years with companion? If I don't serve a mission, how can I hold my head up at church? What will people say about me? What will people say about my family? How can I marry and have my own family? Should I come out to my family? Am I an abomination? Am I better off dead? Will it be easier for my family to deal with a gay son or a son who took his life?

I'm not asking for a dispensation from Salt Lake to change doctrines. My question to all faithful members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, whether you're active or inactive or membered or exed or voluntarliy removed, is this: How do we apply the MINISTRY of the Gospel in such a way that these kids (and adults) feel they can continue to breathe under the crushing millstone of weight that is figuring out how to be a happy, healthy gay Mormon? How do we light a fire so bright it will inspire mothers and local stake and ward Priesthood leaders who carry current temple recommends to speak up and save our kids without fearing they'll lose temple recommends or arouse church discipline? Active LDS members, we need you to feel safe that our camp is yours, that your firesides are ours. We want you to ride in our wagons, we want to pull your handcarts. We want to find this-is-the-place where there is no "ours" or "yours."

I imagine, brothers and sisters, that you have understandable fears for yourselves and for your families if you answer this kind of call. It's is terrifying to "come out." Don't we who have come out as LGBTQ know it?! ;)

If you are afraid, let me be a bridge. Let me help you understand. You don't need to come out as gay, but please, if you feel so moved, come out as an active Mormon ally. There are queer people in your wards and in your stakes. They need to know they have a friend who will only love. No judgement and no doctrine outside this: God is love. We are His children. We are called to love one another. Love is the most powerful force for progression in all creation. And give them hugs.

If you want to know more about how to become an ally, please meet with us on May 17th at the Ogden Maine Library at 7:15.

I come to you with great love and a humble heart. We are a people with a heritage of faith that shows us miracles. We celebrate a heritage of pioneers who pressed forward and found a place where life could be lived in unity and peace. We are all brothers and sisters, Children of God. Let's build His kingdom together.

http://www.facebook.com/events/208452002606371/

Fragments from a Day

Today was one of those lonely, gray-dripping spring days where taciturn clouds lay like bruises on the belly-tight sky. The promise of rain flirted and teased, but it never fell. All week long, I've needed that place where rain is kept, held, carried: a kind of womb inside the clouds. I could hide my Home-sick-for-whatever-is-more-than-mortal soul in there and feel relieved.


I taught a few tired lessons to some precocious and talented little piano students who require much more energy and direction than I was willing to give. 


I met up with my life-long friends (at least those of us still in UT -- a few are on the east coast) to celebrate our Julyn's graduation from college. We sat around her mother's kitchen table whose patina shines with fourteen-year's-worth of our smiles and our tears, our readings of obituaries and mission calls and wedding announcements, our celebrations of babies born and hearts uncloseted; its history is full of our fingerprints and prayers. We've written sonnets to that table, but they're really sonnets to each other. 


I stopped by my brother's house for a short visit. My darling nieces, Pretty Girl and Sweet Pea, were just rising from naps, poking tousled heads and rumpled shirts around the corner of the stair, making sure it was me who was walking in the door before they yelled UNCLE NIC!!! and jumped into my smiling arms. They told me quick stories about Beauty and the Beast and the white blossoms on the trees outside and riding on the lawnmower with daddy and napping after because it is hard work to tidy up a back yard. Their beautiful mother cut slices of angel food cake, drizzled with fresh strawberries, and we licked our fingers.


I refueled my car. I looked out from the station and surveyed the view. New-green willow trees and weed-draped fencelines and the sky-swept Wellsville mountain peaks-- 

We crave certain places and people and things because they're where our spirits recognize themselves. 

Isn't it nice to be (at least) home -- if not Home -- on a gray-cloud day?

The Harmony of Souls

Universal Unitarian Church of Ogden

Sunday, March 25, 2012

10:30 AM

 “I was born with music inside me.

“Music was one of my parts. Like my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart.  Like my blood.  It was a force already within me when I arrived on the scene. It was a necessity for me—

like food

or water.”

I read these words and I know exactly what Mr. Ray Charles was talking about.  I’ve always believed that music was an inborn part of me, something that has been singing from within me since the time before my birth.  I imagine myself in my mother’s womb, curling up into the duple rhythm of breathing lungs, letting the pulse of in out, in out breathe a soft berceuse as my cells split and divided.  I see my fetal self taking nourishment from the rhythmic thump-thumping of my first drum, her beating heart.  My mother was a pianist and taught music lessons to neighborhood kids while she was pregnant with me.  I imagine her sitting beside her young students, her belly big and full of me inside, drinking up the sound of hammers hitting strings.  My love affair with the keys must have its roots planted deeply somewhere in that image.

I know what those words mean, but my understanding of those words about the necessity of music isn’t special.  Anyone can hear them and know exactly what it is Ray Charles is saying.   From the time a person is born to the time a person dies, music accompanies every human life, as vital a part of living as air and food and water.  Whether it’s thumping from the subwoofers in the souped up SUV pulling next to you at the stop light, or it’s the chant and steady thwack of brightly garbed Nigerian women pounding Manioc roots into flour, music is just there.  I’ve never questioned the fact that song is an integral part of our existence.  My question has been the “Why” of music’s essential and enduring nature.  Why does music exist in every culture throughout history?  Why does song play such an integral role in childhood and early development?  Why does music cause such emotional and spiritual responses in us?  Why is music a necessary element of human life?  I think my answers have really only led me to more questions, but that’s the cadence of joy.  My hope is to share with you a few of the little discoveries music has granted me.

Today’s beautiful reading was inspired by a Brian Andreas quote I have loved for quite some time:  “If there is any secret to this I life I live, this is it: the sound of what cannot be seen sings within everything that can.  And there is nothing more to it than that.”

Think about that for a minute.

“The sound of what cannot be seen sings within everything that can.” 

Mr. Andreas suggests that sound is a bridge, a connection, a ribbon that ties the invisible to the visible.  Music is the glue holds stuff together.   I really like that. 

Thousands of years ago, Pythagorus discussed what he called Musica Universalis, or the Harmony of the Spheres.  He postulated that “there is geometry in the humming of the strings…there is music in the spacing of the spheres.”  In other words, if a vibrating string emits a tone, a vibrating planet will also emit a tone.   If many strings, working in harmony, create pleasant chords, so too will the planets create a sort of cosmic harmony.  According to Pythagorus, the universe is singing.  Are you listening?  (Pause) Take some time.  Listen to all that is singing outside of you for just a moment. 

What do you hear?  How do you hear?  Think of your ears, those wondrous whorls of flesh.  Imagine all this sound, swirling down your auditory canal.  Unless we are song-writers or composers, we tend to think we experience musical sensation from the outside in.  Sound has quite a path to travel before we can make sense of it.  The auditory system contains over ten structures through which a sound vibration must travel before the brain can create any sort of response.   Scientific research has verified what our own experience shows:  we have deep, physiological and emotional reactions to sound.  A sharp, short, loud sound will create a startle response.  A soft, low, soothing sound will help to calm us.  A melody can give us goosebumps, reveal a signal, resonate with the vibrations—the very music—singing inside us, and lead us on to uncover great truths.

The Aboriginal people of Australia understand the way music leads.  Traditionally, they believed in Songlines, or Dreaming Tracks, paths across the land and sky which mark the route followed by sacred beings during the time of creation.  By singing certain songs in the appropriate sequence, Indigenous people could navigate vast distances.  Again, all that is unseen sings within that which is seen.  Perhaps music hasn’t helped me in travelling physical distances (except, of course, on long summer road trips), but it has helped me map my heart.  

As most of us did, I sang before I could speak.  I was mimicking melodies my mom sang to me.  I would hum along with the radio.  I think, even as infants, singing is a way of trying to connect the songs inside us with the songs outside us.  It makes sense, right?  We sing to the world, and the world finds a way of singing back.  Maybe it’s how the world teaches us lessons. 

I was blessed to be surrounded by music.  My dad listened to the country radio station, so I grew up with three chords and the truth.  My mother practiced Chopin and Debussy, so I grew up with clarity and form.  My Grandma Maughan loved the opera, so I learned about patience and drama.  My Grandma Buck sang hymns and primary songs, and I took to heart their messages of love, kindness, and sharing good things.  By the time I was five, I had an entire set list memorized.   Ever the performer, I loved singing Phantom’s “Think of Me”, An American Tail’s “Somewhere Out There”, Reba’s “Fancy Was My Name” and (my favorite) “I Am a Child of God.”  I’d sing for anybody who’d listen, but the real magic, for me, was wrapped up in a hankering for the piano.

As soon as I could walk, I was heading for the keys.  Something about the piano captivated me, and my mother began teaching me when I was five.  I felt such joy sitting on the bench.  I knew that was right where I needed to be.  It just felt right.  It was resonant.  I won’t go into great detail, but as most of you know, I’ve had a long and healthy relationship with that instrument over there.  Music has taught me discipline and empathy.  It’s taught me the dissonance gives way to consonance.  It’s enriched my life with people I can’t imagine living without.  Music has comforted me, inspired me and plagued me. 

I’ve studied music as a pianist for about 22 years now.  Part of my study has included learning about the creation and the mechanics of music.  Part of my study has taught me about the creation and mechanics of myself.  I’ve looked at the way music has been used to shock or uplift.   Music has opened my ears and my eyes and my heart in ways nothing.  Sometimes it feels like I’ve used music for so many reasons, it’s become a limp, tired, grey thing; however, like hope, it always finds a second wind.

So, why music?  Because it is the hymn of truth ringing to hail a new creation.  Because it is my ribs, my kidneys, my liver, my heart.  It is my blood.  It is the womb in which I grow, the pair of lungs breathing above me and the heart beating before me and the Songline leading me forward.  It tells me where I need to be and how I need to get there.  Why do I want to share music?  Because it is also your ribs, your kidneys, your heart and your blood.  Music is in you, too!  Whether you sing, or play an instrument, or not, you are the greatest kinds of musicians with the truest songs singing inside you.   I’m telling you, there is a harmony in your souls that is so much more beautiful than anything I could create with black and white blocks and bunch of wood and wire.

Listen!  Study this harmony in your souls.  Do you hear it?  What do you hear?  Listen!  There is something unseen, singing inside you, wanting so desperately join the choir of the universe.  It’s the secret of your life, connecting invisible with visible.  (Isn’t it exciting?!)  It tells you what you need to do, where you need to be.  Some people call it a Songline or a Dreaming Track.  Some people call it the still small voice.  Others call it an interconnected web.  Today, I’m calling it the interconnected chord of life.  I don’t care what you call it, just listen!

Listen!  Here is Peggy!  Here is David!  Here is Gabriel!  And here is Theresa and Evelyn and everyone.   This is what makes the music of community so rich and full and sound.  We need every note, every person, every song from inside singing outside and out loud.  Yes.  Come, sing a song with me.

If there’s any secret to this life I live, it is this:  the sound of what cannot be seen sings within everything that is.  So, you listen.  And then you sing.  Share the harmony of your soul.  May you always find truth and make such glorious music.  Blessed be.

From a Status Update, Earlier Today

Dear Friendly Facebook Friends:

Due to some very recent misconstrued readings of last night's posts about my solitary midnight run to Beto's for food (not sex), I wish to offer a disclaimer:

I recognize and make no apology for stating my political leanings. Yes, I am all for marriage equality, because I feel it is the right thing to do, and have felt that way for quite some time. I believe you must be the change you wish to see in the world, and voices raised are powerful vehicles for change.

I recognize and make no apology for stating my spiritual beliefs, discussing my religious doubts, and offering truth as I see it.

I recognize and ask for no apology from anyone for the fact that we all have varied and diverse belief systems, faith traditions, political feelings, and styles of living. This diversity of thought and action is something I have always been taught to celebrate (different from is not inferior to). I thank God for the blessing of diversity within humanity, and count that diversity a credit to God's ultimate creativity.

I will continue to add my voice to the events, activities, policies, practices, and acceptance of acceptance I believe in. If my posts and writings challenge you in ways you find uncomfortable, please let me know, and I will add you to a "Do Not Share" list. If my posts and writings challenge you in ways which resonate, please, read away.

Rest assured, I will NEVER, NEVER, NEVER share in anyway, shape, or form details of a deeply personal, intimate nature (read: IF, how, when, where, and with whom I share sexual relationships are not business I wish to share) in such a public forum as Facebook, Twitter, or any other type or system of so-called social media. At my core, I have never been the type of person to smear myself, or any other being, with public or private immorality, nor will I ever be.

I will always honor what I have consistently believed throughout my life: God is love. Love is the most powerful force for progression in the universe. Love thy neighbor. Treat others the way you want to be treated. Live your life and let others do the same. Learn how to be happy, and then share your happiness with others.

Thank you, and End of Rant.

Yes, Right In Here!

I have beautiful nieces.  I call them Pretty Girl and Sweet Pea.  They are happy, confident, inquisitive, kind little girls.  They are creative and intelligent. They love to sing.  They like to wrestle with their daddy and their uncles.  They love good treats and they just can't dance enough!

I love Sundays when we gather together at my Mom and Dad's house.  We usually have a great big roast beef dinner with mashed potates and gravy, freshly baked rolls, vegetables from the summer's bounty (fresh or frozen, depending on the season), and, always, splendid and decadent desserts.

So, yesterday, after we cleaned the table of dirty dishes and put left-over food in the fridge, my little girls decided we needed to have a dance party.  I was happy to oblige, even though I've been very sick with some long and heavy lung affliction.  Needing an explosive opening for our dance-fest, we, of course, YouTubed our theme song, Katy Perry's "Firework."  A niece in each of my arms, we three gyrated round the living room, singing "Baby, you're a firework! Come on, show'em what your worth!" at the top of our lungs, the girls throwing their heads back with smiles of glee.  We danced and danced and danced.  I called for anything that had a great groove (MIKA and Billy Joel and Shakira and Ricky Martin and Maroon 5), but the girls always wanted to go back to Firework.  There's just something about it being our song, I guess.

Well, Uncle Nic eventually got pretty sweaty and pretty tired.  I drank something like three glasses of water and the girls sat in front of the computer watching this:



I think Sweet Pea was quite surprised to see actual fireworks spurting from the chests of the people in the video.  She just turned two years old, and symbolism is a bridge she has yet to cross.  "Why are they doing that?" she asked.

"Well," I said, "that's kind of like the love in their hearts.  It's a way they can show how much they love themselves and their friends and families."

"Like mine firework?" she gestured toward her own chest.

"Do you have a firework in there?"  I bent down and also pointed to her chest.

My little Sweet Pea smiled and gestured again, "Yes, right in here.  It's peeple (purple) firework.  See it?"

"Yeah.  I see it, Honey Girl," I replied.

Pretty Girl was up and dancing again and Sweet Pea decided to join her.  I had to smile as I watched these two little, absolutely beautiful people spinning and dancing and laughing and singing with sheer joy to each other, "Make'em go-oh 'Oh! Oh! Oh!' as you shoot across the sky sky sky!"  I taught them the song because it was a catchy tune, but it was really wonderful to see them learning some of the lessons the song teaches:  Know where your heart is.  Find things that bring you joy.  Trust your light.  Share the love you feel.  Brighten the sky.

How I love me some Sweet Pea and Pretty Girl!

The Sea

The Sea from Letters to Distant Cities from New Amsterdam Records on Vimeo.

Invisible

Invisible from Letters to Distant Cities from New Amsterdam Records on Vimeo.