Several of our featured authors watched the film, Boy Erased. It's based on the real-life story of Garrard Conley who wrote a memoir of the same name. Boy Erased follows a young man's journey through reparative or conversion therapy, and it's also a story of a mother's and father's relationships with their gay son. It's a heavy film, and we debriefed it together in this extensive conversation.
I'm a sensitive man who feels things, feels things all the time, and no amount of oversleeping or overdrinking or pornography or promiscuity will turn me off.
I didn't realize it at the time, but I'd made brotherhood my idol. Looking back, I see it so clearly now. So madly obvious. I made this pursuit of brotherhood and even ministry my idol. And I got the wind knocked out of me on the asinine climb.
Have you ever tried to "pray the gay away"? God's way of doing things often — nearly always — involves an exorbitant amount of waiting, process, and journey. It's a brand new MANLY MONDAY, featuring Simeon's story from Luke 2, the concept of Jesus coming to earth as a baby rather than a man, and my bangs.
It felt good to be close to another man. And yet, was it right (healthy, faithful, acceptable) to like this? Is this what acceptance in a physical sense felt like?
I didn't want to lose my best friend to this soon-to-be relationship. I already knew what it felt like to be left alone, tossed away like an old rag doll by a straight relationship, forgotten. I don't know how many times this had happened to me, and I wasn't ready to go through it again. Especially by someone I thought would be my best friend for a long time.
I knew I needed a miracle even to get out there, and now this triggering text message was stuck in my brain as I got ready. I packed my clothes for the weekend but needed to get some food in my stomach before the semi-long trip.
I've often felt great shame over being so highly sensitive. I thought I was the only guy who cried or got his feelings hurt so easily while the other men took life's unpleasantness in masculine stride.
We finished the day by taking silhouette pictures with the blazing orange-and-pink sky as our backdrop. My siblings lovingly kissed their spouses and lifted them up in the air as some of the most romantic and precious images I'd ever witnessed. I stayed to watch for a little while, knowing that no one would ask me if I wanted any pictures by myself. That would have been absurd, right? It didn't take long for me to reach the end of what I could handle with my family. So, I ran away.
How does a middle-aged, single, Christian guy dealing with same-sex attraction (SSA) embark upon and survive a midlife crisis? It was clear that I was selfishly living an easy life that didn't help anyone else and did little or no eternal good.