PRIDE

June 1

STONEWALL RIOTS -- GAY PRIDE MONTH

            In June, we celebrate Gay Pride Month commemorating the Stonewall riots.  On a steamy night in June, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn, a tawdry, Greenwich Village bar, drag queens, butch lesbians, the outcasts of the outcast said no to the oppression of Gay people. 

            These gender misfits, about to endure another round of routine police harassment and arrest -- did the unthinkable.  They fought back!  Judy Garland, the icon of these tattered souls, had just died.  Laced with alcohol and anger, these unlikely gender variants raged at the police, sparking the beginning of Gay rights and the birth of a people.  Several days of violence and rioting erupted.

            Unthinkable laws tyrannized Gays.  It was illegal to gather together.  Organized crime ran the bars and paid off police, who raided them anyway.  If we were caught speaking to each other in this public setting, we could be arrested for lewd and lascivious conduct.  Gays lurked in a Self-esteem crushing demimonde of illegality and violence.  If we got caught being ourselves, we could be arrested, fired from our jobs and publicly humiliated with our names in the newspaper.   This was an appalling side of America, the land of the free. 

            Desperate drag queens, surviving on the fringe, shunned by Gay men who could “pass”, were the ones with the courage to fight the unspoken holocaust that had brutalized Gays for generations.  That night, they unleashed a torrent of rage, dammed up for decades, as they locked the police in the bar, and threatened to torch it.  New life was being born, out of righteous anger and ugly violence.

            Stonewall was a breaking point -- and a beginning.  Our darkest hour was God's opportunity.  Drag queens, out-casts in high heels, were God inspired, as they stood toe to toe against brutal cops and society’s disdain.  A new time had begun – the Gay community was painfully born.  On June 28, 1969, Gay pride and our rights and dignity as a people began.

Affirm:  Like my Gay forbearers, I confront oppression and Self-esteem begins.

PRIDE

June 2

BIRTH OF A NATION

            That night in June, 1969, a nation was born.  Gays became a people, an ethnicity.  We had always been there, a gestating reality, quaking in the shadows of society, and an embarrassment in the psyches of everyone -- but we had not emerged.  Our time had not come.  

            In the 1960’s, we watched the civil rights movement for blacks, the liberation movement for women, and the resistance to the war in Vietnam.  Would our turn for liberation ever come?  Even to think the question was revolutionary, we thought so little of our value. 

            We were splintered by oppression and plagued with Self-loathing.  It had been illegal to gather in groups -- illegal just to be.   We were not a people -- as individuals, we scarcely had an identity.  Some of us hardly knew if other Gays existed. 

            Our Self-esteem had been maimed by a culture that said we were degenerates and sadly, and most painfully, our families went along with this assessment, for there was little, more enlightened information available.  We became invisible to survive.  We disappeared, which was devastating to any sense of Self or soul.

            Until Stonewall.  That night, our anger at injustice reached critical mass and erupted into historic riots.  The oppressor’s yoke, which we had woefully accepted, was broken.  What the drag queens sparked that night was a miracle.  Our minds had changed and the world shifted.  There would be work to do and hurt to heal, for the carnage of hatred had crippled our spirit.  But when the dust settled after that volcanic night, we had become a people.

Affirm:  The violence of Stonewall was the trauma of creation.  When the dust settled, a nation was born, an ethnicity with faces – your face and mine for all to see.

PRIDE

June 3

THE CHOSEN PEOPLE

            Are Gays God’s Chosen people?  Yes -- just like everyone else.  God chooses everybody all the time.  We are all God's favorites. 

            Yet at times in human history, a person or a people may lead the way in spiritual evolution.  A true Chosen People uses their unique gifts to facilitate the growth and unity of all people.  As we Gays awaken to our call, and our unique gifts, we can serve as a Chosen People of our time.  

            Gay people are a unique minority since our members come from every group -- every race, nation, and religion.  Our members represent all the disparate parts of the human family, and can serve as a bridge connecting everyone.

When we come out, we brake from the confines of our parochial backgrounds in the name of love and passion for life, and join a new ethnicity out of all ethnicities.  Gays transcend the definitions of clan and family, and become a universal people, able to see the common threads in all humanity.  Even though we are rooted in the particulars of our families and culture of origin, we transcend them.  We become the "United Nations of Love" showing the way out of narrow, clan identification to a view that honors all people.  This is the true role of the Chosen.             

            If we Gays use our gifts simply to serve of our own needs as a minority, protecting our turf and embellishing our ghetto, we are no longer a Chosen People, but a parochial tribe seeking to further our own limited ends.

            Only a group that unifies all people as members of God’s family deserves the honored title of Chosen.  

Affirm:  When I love across the barriers of race, religion, nationality, and the taboos of family, I serve as a Chosen Person, leading humanity to universal understanding and acceptance of all its members.

PRIDE

June 4

COURAGE TO BE GAY

            It takes courage to be Gay -- it takes courage to be different.  In a conforming world, to be the exception to the rule requires great strength, for to differ from the norm, one is suspect, feared, even rejected.             

            God's creative impulses and diversity baffles our ordinary human understanding and threatens our sense of security.  Our simplistic understanding of the rules of the universe and of our own humanity wants neat answers and fears anyone who strays from the norm and is different from us.  We fear the exception to the rule -- we fear the exceptional. 

            Being Gay takes courage.  Many of us Gay people are just average folks wanting the same things that most people want.  The good life, a good job, a sense of belonging, a stable family life, a pleasant home, the right to the pursuit of happiness.    

            But God calls Gay people, even those of us who are quite average, to be more, to be different -- to be extra-ordinary.  To be Gay, honest, and your Self demands great personal courage.  To stand apart from the family and its normative values and be different is the most difficult and dangerous task a person can face.  Don't underestimate your assignment.      

            It takes great courage for any one, Gay or Straight, man or woman, bisexual, trans-sexual, transgender to delve within, separate from the voices of Mother and Father and be authentic.  We applaud anyone for being real in a conforming world, but today we especially applaud Gay men, for our courage to simply be our Selves.

Affirm:  I am courageous being my Self -- to be ordinary and Gay is to be extraordinary.

PRIDE

June 5

THE TURMOIL IN KIP

            In June, l969, while enrolled in summer school, Kip felt deeply unsettled.  As he watched other students walk hand in hand to the lake, he felt cut-off, unreal -- and didn’t know why.  The turmoil in Kip was excruciating.  At times, he couldn’t see color.  He dropped out of school and went home.  He'd sit at the dinner table with his parents and break down crying -- they said nothing.         

            Kip’s brother Doug skipped stones across a placid lake, while Kip tried to make light of his emotional instability.  Then he’d start crying again.  His aunt saw his distress and said he could live with her, but Kip couldn’t tell her what was happening -- for he didn’t know himself.

            Kip disintegrating feelings were terrifying for there was no one to talk to.  He needed to get away.  He'd meet his brother in Southern Maryland, where Doug was a Vista Volunteer, helping poor farmers form a credit union, an alternative to the draft.  Kip would then go to Canada and see about expatriating, for knew he’d die in Vietnam if he went.

            At Doug’s farm, Kip walked the tobacco fields trying to connect to the earth and to himself, but remained unsettled.  Then he left, hitching-hiking north.  He passed through New York City, not knowing that the Stonewall Riots had recently scorched the streets, not unlike the smoldering in his own being.  

            In Montreal, Kip met a young fellow, hitching to Quebec.  Kip said, “Do you want to hitch with those girls up ahead?”   The Canadian said, “No, just us.”  That night over looking the city from a high hill, Kip realized he wanted to kiss this handsome young man -- and the fellow would let him.  That's all that happened.           

            The whirling chaos that had been sending Kip into convulsions crashed into place.  In that quiet moment -- Kip had come out.  “If loving a beautiful man means I’m Gay, then I‘m Gay and relieved.”  That evening, Kip’s heart found peace and a promise that would last him a life-time.

Affirm:  While the Stonewall riots were convulsing a wounded minority into a people, one young man was convulsing himself into a person.

PRIDE

June 6

RIPPLE EFFECT OF STONEWALL

            When Kip returned to school after the summer of Stonewall, there appeared something that had never been on campus before -- an openly Gay support group.           

            That summer, the world had shifted.  Like a stone thrown in a pond, ripples spread at the speed of light.  Gay groups sprang up on university campuses and in cities all across the country and the world.      

            What was astounding to Kip was that he was oblivious to Stonewall and the shift happening that summer.  Kip only knew his personal anguish of coming out and felt very alone – but he wasn't.      

            As Kip hitch-hiked through New York City, he actually lingered blocks away from the epicenter of Gay liberation, unconscious at the time of what had happened and its impact on him.  When Kip came-out on a hill over-looking Quebec, the resonance of Stonewall held him in its care as an emerging Gay soul.  And it cared for him as he returned to school that fall as a newly out Gay man, able to have the support of a Gay organization.  It was as if God were watching out for this new Gay child, a grateful child of Gay liberation.  

            We are all connected in consciousness.  When enough people change their minds about an injustice, it can no longer stand. The wall in Berlin fell because people, not governments, were fed up with it.  The same with Stonewall when the power of misfits fed up with Gay oppression sparked a riot that opened the way for Gay people, for all of us, around the world.           

            The ripple effect is also personal and powerful.  When we heal our own wounds and liberate parts of our own psyches that have been oppressed, our healing affects the world around me.  It isn't only me that I am healing, but the impact of my personal salvation shifts the community as well.  My healing may be just the needed boost for someone else’s lonely quest for identity and Self.

Affirm:  People paved the way for me.  Let me know that my own healing has a ripple effect that helps heal the world.

PRIDE

June 7

WHY ARE WE GAY?

            Arguments fly back and forth why we are Gay.  Is it nature or nurture? -- pathology or perfection?  Part of the natural order -- or a disorder, caused by the impact of an imperfect world, especially negative influences of Mother and Father? 

Gay depth, intuition, and experience say:  Homosexuality is intentional and part of Nature’s and God’s plan; both Nature and God seek to ensure the survival of the species, and also seek ways to evolve life into consciousness, wholeness, and enlightenment.  Homosexuality serves both these purposes of evolution:  survival and enlightenment.  And ironically, Nature, God, and life, through Straight people, keep reproducing homosexuals cross-culturally at a fairly steady rate to continue life’s development to enlightenment.

Without mutants, who deviate from the norm, life could never evolve to its next level awareness.  God, Nature, life wants to evolve, to know its Self, and become conscious in order to survive.  Life needs a new kind of people with a new vision of reality in order to progress.  Those who only worship the family, tradition, and the status quo will never lead life to a new level of consciousness.  Only the mutant, the deviant, the maverick can do this arduous work of leaving the norm, invested in the past – to envision the promise of a transformed future.

            If we are to survive, we must evolve into new ways of living together on our small planet home.  If we insist on old ways of exploiting resources and others, our continued existence is tenuous.  Gay people offer a new way of being, leading lives other than simple reproduction of children and replication of values.  We can lead lives that are reflective, for survival of the species demands thoughtful living.

            If life’s purpose is to become conscious, then unconscious living is antithetical to life.  Mindless living, simply following what has been, will not enlighten anyone.  Gay people can lead the way.  As we Gays explore the depth of our identities apart from the criticism of the mainstream, and apart form our own wounded behavior and attitudes, we can begin to comprehend the mystery that we are and further life’s deepest purpose – to evolve consciousness – and become enlightened.

Affirm:  Being Gay is not a mistake, but part of life’s survival and evolution into consciousness.

PRIDE

June 8

WHAT IS A HOMOSEXUAL?

            On the surface, homosexuality is same-sex desire -- two men kissing, being in love, making love, holding each other in fundamental care and partnership.  But why is this sexual variation such a seismic rumble for society and our families, causing rejection, even violent resistance?   What does being Gay imply to cause such negative reactions?

The deeper definition and implication of being Gay refers to a person whose sexual orientation allows him to deviate from the norm, from the rules of the family.  This deviation forces the Gay to question basic assumptions about identity, the roles defined by the family and society, and even the purpose of life.

            Everyone has a true Self – an identity uniquely his or her own, that is a conduit for truth.  Yet this true identity is often usurped by familial pressure to conform to its values and roles that become the social order.  The pressures the child feels to conform to the family’s values and emotional tone are overwhelming.  The child feels great terror in the face of this pressure and knows that to assert his true Self would be life-threatening.  His physical and emotional survival is at stack.  To deviate from the norm, to come-out, is done at great risk. 

When we come-out, we violate the emotional limits, gender definitions, and religious beliefs of the family and begin to stand alone and authentic – and with God.  Our parents and siblings, who have surrendered their lives to belong to this system of emotional and spiritual constriction, hate us for daring to be free and real.  They have paid the ultimate price to belong with their spirit, and they resent those who refuse to pay – but would live apart and vibrantly instead.

            The purpose of life is to evolve into consciousness.  Away from the constrictions of the family, Gays are at liberty to explore life’s purpose freely.  Anyone outside of the cultural definitions of identity and gender can become a genuine seeker and find the pearl of great value – the true Self, a channel for wisdom and truth.

Affirm:  Ideally, I use my homosexuality to live authentically, beyond familial and cultural definitions, to listen to the whisperings of God.

PRIDE

June 9

WHY HOMOPHOBIA?

            Gay men are feared because we live outside the prescribed roles and definitions of the family.  The greatest fear of the norm, the conventional majority, is chaos -- life beyond its control and definitions.  The family, society’s building block, answers chaos with conformity, and fears any who differ and question the family’s routine reproduction of itself and its values. 

            Gay identity is antithetical to the family’s religion of conformity, and its limited definitions of life and meaning.  Homosexuality exists beyond the family’s suffocating safety and roles.  Worst of all, Gays, do not marry, nor do we have children, society’s unfailing way to forestall reflection, and the creative, disruptive implications of Self-knowing.  Having children ensures that the values of the status quo, and the secrets of the family, will remain unquestioned and engendered in the next generation. 

            When we come-out, we leave the family and live outside the walls of the conventional.  Being “out” is a golden opportunity to see the limits of our background and create a new way of being.  By remaining single, and childless, our progeny are not babies, but creativity, innovation, originality and spirituality -- emanating directly from our Source, our true Self.  Of course the family resists, fears, and hates this transforming potential -- original thinking and new ways of being threaten the family’s stability, authority, and investment in psychic sleep.

            Any person, gay or straight, who does not perpetuate family tradition through marriage and children has a greater chance to know himself and to know the truth -- and will be feared by those whose identity is linked to the family and its conformity.  The prophets of innovation, creativity and truth, will always live apart and be suspect and feared by the family.

            Authenticity is terrifying to the norm, and its investment in collective safety and psychic sleep.  Any who live beyond the family’s prescribed definitions is feared and this fear has generated the destructive phenomena of homophobia.  Straight people who embrace an authentic identity, apart from the collective mask, are also victims of this fear. 

Affirm:  As a prophet of innovation, creativity and truth, I live apart and am feared by the family and the majority.

PRIDE

June 10

A DEEPER LOOK AT HOMOPHOBIA

            As out-casts of the family, gay men can see the emotional discrepancies of the family system and tell the truth.  This potential for emotional honesty is the deepest source of fear of homosexuals -- not variation in sexual practice.

            The family represses authenticity in order to maintain its stability and authority.  As outcasts, gay men do not have to obey the family’s rules that would thwart original thinking, honest feeling, and authenticity.  Gays, or any person whose originality makes him an outcast, can know the truth of the family’s dysfunction -- and tell it!  Hence, gays are feared.  We are in a position to reveal the family’s secrets, emotional deception, and cruelty.

            Gay men also violate the cardinal rule of the family:  You must marry and have babies.  Marriage with children perpetuates the family's values, for better and worse, and sadly, its ignorance, and ensures that a person will never reflect on, but merely replicate, that which has gone before.  A few adjustments are made over the generations, as couples vow in one way or another to do better than their parents, but essentially, the family remains as asleep as it ever was -- and new parents inflict this dysfunction upon another generation.

            Marriage and child-rearing seal one’s right to belong to the family -- and one’s fate.  What’s lost in belonging to the family system is individuality, the opportunity for reflection, and Self-knowing.  Individuation, separation from the family, and its values, and authentic listening to one’s truth, is almost impossible with spouses and children demanding and diverting our attention.  There is a relief in all this distraction for family members fear introspective honesty and its painful journey to Self.  The pain inherent in family secrets and the emotional abuse of generations remain buried.  There are skeletons in the closet, not just latent homosexuals -- and these family secrets should remain in the closet, especially the crimes of the parents against their children.

            When a gay man comes-out, he not only accepts his sexual orientation, but he steps outside the family system, and its obligation to deny the truth, a pact which is sealed with the emotional demands and distractions of marriage with children.  Out of the family, a gay man can know and tell the truth about himself and about family secrets. 

            Family members pay a high price, with their authenticity and their souls, to belong to the clan -- and deeply resent any who are audacious enough to live freely beyond their authority – and fear and seek to destroy any who might tell the truth.

Affirm:  The deepest fear of my homosexuality is that I, outside of the family system, can see and tell the truth.

PRIDE

June 11

WHY GAYS ARE HATED

            If Gay men are feared because we have a perspective on the family and can know and tell the truth -- we are hated because we don’t.

            This irony may shock us.  Our straight families and society are quick to sense the danger inherent in homosexuality.  Our ability, as outsiders, to see the truth about the family system is threatening -- and they fear us.  Yet an unconscious reason society and our families hate gays is our failure to take the opportunity as outsider seriously.  We do not fight for the right to tell the truth, but squander our lives instead in dissipating addictions, or in conforming depression.

            At an intuitive, unconscious level, straight society realizes the transforming potency in homosexuality -- otherwise, why would they fear us so?  Yet few gays grasp this potent capacity or we fear it ourselves.   We fail to use our freedom in a disciplined, constructive manner, and this disappoints the straight world, strapped to its conforming roles of producing children and replicating values.   The norm fears our transforming potential – yet hates us for dissipating ourselves and missing the stunning opportunity our freedom and difference from the family affords:  We can be authentic seekers of truth and wisdom that could regenerate the family, our brothers, sisters, and society itself that tends toward stagnation.

            In fairness, we gay men are psychically brutalized by the family’s rejection.  This is not easily over-come.  We can’t underestimate this trauma and its profound affect on us.  The traumas of our past explain why we act-out in so many Self-destructive ways for to know the pain of the past and integrate its torture is not for the faint of heart.  Yet, not to get beyond our pain and simply act-out our traumas or sink into conformity and depression destroys our gift as truth seekers.  We are hated for this misuse of freedom.  We deceive ourselves when we call criticism of our bad behavior homophobia.  It is time to heal and give our gift.

            From what is best, honest and intuitively humble in our straight families, they hope we will do what they can’t -- heal the family wounds that entangle them.  As we Gay men heal and find our authenticity, we can bring our discoveries of truth home to the family, who are psychically paralyzed in a deadening system of denial and lies.

Affirm:  I use my freedom wisely to seek the truth – and transform the norm.

.

PRIDE

June 12

PASSING JUDGEMENT

            Not all criticism of homosexuality or of ourselves is homophobia or unfounded -- sometimes we’re wrong and behave badly.  Our existence as gay men is never wrong -- but we can make mistakes.

            We gays have been misjudged by society and our families for so long, we may feel that any judgment of our behavior is abusive.  Refusing to assess our misbehavior, we feel entitled to act however we please and we can suffer from our own, self-inflicted amorality.

            Good judgment is a gift.  We assess a situation to discern an appropriate response for our personal safety and moral integrity depends on good judgment.  Is this person safe to come out to?  Do I respect this man’s values and do I want to date him again?  Would I be his friend or am I simply sexually attracted to him?  Am I hiding in this relationship?  Did he and I reveal our health status -- physical and emotional?  Am I faithful to myself and values?  Why am I drinking when I seek sobriety?  Do I like myself in this environment or am I simply acting out childhood trauma?  Is my inner child safe in this setting?  Am I safe to reveal my inner life to these people?  Is this job consonant with my values?  Can I be vulnerable with this therapist?  Does this religion support my value?   We assess all the time.  We need to make good judgments to maintain our moral, mental and physical health. 

            If we perceive toxicity in ourselves, in another, in the gay community, or in the world around us, we would be foolish not to notice.  We must assess what's happening in our lives, and make judgments as responsible adults.  Our ethical choices give our lives integrity and meaning. 

            To understand why someone is behaving inappropriately, we draw on personal experience to gain insight.  We understand -- we've been there, too.   Compassionate understanding keeps our judgment from becoming judgmental -- and it also keeps us out of trouble.

Affirm:  Good judgment allows me the benefits of moral and ethical living.

PRIDE

June 13

FATHER’S DAY

In June, we celebrate Father’s Day.  For gay men, this may be a painful day for our memories of our fathers may be more filled with regret than gratitude.                                                        

Fathers, living in a homophobic world, do not delight in their son’s homosexuality.  More often, when confronted with a gay son, fathers feel uncomfortable and ashamed.  Even if unspoken, the message is clear, why couldn’t I have a straight son?  Gay boys feel disappointment oozing out of their fathers.

Growing up, gay boys feel confused by their homosexuality as well.  Sensing we are different from the males around us, we need support, understanding, and reassurance from our fathers.  Instead we are rebuffed.  We think it is our fault, for no one, especially our fathers, tells us otherwise.

This is a painful and damaging dilemma for a gay boy, not to have his father see, understand, and appreciate him for his unique value.  This lack of witness creates a deep wound in the child.  It can send the boy, as an adult, on a distorted quest for approval from inappropriate father substitutes, including other wounded gay men and lovers.  This misplaced quest can last a life-time, seeking the love, missed from father, in all the wrong places and people.      

Distorted dynamics generated by the father wound include: exhibitionism, hoping to be seen and appreciated at last; obsession, futile seeking for lost love of father; and addiction, blurring this painful, primal rejection from the male parent with substances.  Other men or substances will never make up for not having been seen, appreciated and loved by our fathers when we needed it the most -- when we were boys.  We are wounded gay sons.                                                                                                                                 

Until we grieve the profound loss of our father’s witness, we will continue in futile attempts in adulthood to recover what we never got -- our father’s love.  Until conscious, we will ache with a vague, unexplained emptiness for the appreciation of this most important male figure -- our father.

Affirm:  We were not cherished as gay boys by our straight fathers.  We must grieve this primal loss of father.

PRIDE

June 14

DESPERATELY SEEKING DAD

            Richard related an incident during Pride week.  He walked by a gay bar several times -- it was mobbed.   He was unable to go in, his stomach tied in knots, since he thought Jeff, the man he had been unsuccessfully dating, might be inside.  Later, Richard realized that it wasn't Jeff he was looking for that night -- but his father.         

            Richard always felt uncomfortable in bars.  When he drank he got drunk and felt depressed.  When he didn't drink, he remained out of the anesthetized "party" and was bored.  He also knew the atmosphere was not geared for intimacy.  The blaring music made it difficult to talk.  The alcohol altered moods and made sober talk impossible.  Sexual posturing replaced authenticity.  Richard didn't like the atmosphere of bars.           

            Yet he seemed to date guys who went to bars and felt left out.  Left out of the world of men.  At least that's how he perceived it.   

            With a therapeutic guide, Richard was able to re-evaluate this pattern at a deeper level.   Sitting with his pain, he got an insight.  The feelings were old and familiar.  He was seeking not only his unresponsive boy-friend, Jeff -- but his father.  Even though his father wasn't an alcoholic, he had been a work-aholic and absent emotionally in his addiction when Richard was growing up. 

            Always at the office, father was in a world Richard could not enter, a world where a gay boys' feelings and needs were ignored -- not so different from the bar.  Richard waited for, longed for his dad, just as he was waiting for, longing for Jeff.  The feelings were the same.   Richard had recreated a dynamic from his boyhood.       

            With this insight, Richard walked away from the gay bar, heart heavy -- but free.  He realized that his father or anyone else would never show up to console his little boy -- he must show up for himself.  And to love himself, he needn't wait another minute.

Affirm:  As an adult, I become conscious of my father wound and no longer need to act-out this neglect with other men.  For that, I am proud.

PRIDE

June 15

THE FATHER PRINCIPLE – A PARENTING ISSUE

            The Father Principle, usually embodied by the male parent, teaches us how to leave home and succeed in the world.  Assured of our worth, we are confident of our right to exist and of our ability to explore the adventure of life.  Our exchanges have integrity, for nothing less would reflect our sense of honor, taught by the father ideal.

We can not live successfully without being emotionally fathered.  If our fathers could not give us this exacting form of guidance in childhood, we must be fathered by other adults and by ourselves.  Then we begin to embody the Father Principle at last.                                         

If we fail to heal from father neglect and do not get emotionally fathered in a safe, therapy setting or from our own depth, we will seek fathering inappropriately from lovers, employers, or from other authority figures, political or religious.   When these inadequate father substitutes fail us, we may feel contempt for these surrogates and a deep despair.  

Until we resolve our lack of fathering, we will put men or other authority figures on pedestals hoping some of their power will brush off on us, hoping to be fathered at last.  Conversely, our anger at father and his neglect may cause us to dismiss and distrust any connection to helpful fathering figures, male or female, and their healing instruction since our resentment of father is deep and debilitating.  Unfortunately, either of these approaches to fathering figures, idealizing them falsely or rejecting categorically, will not satisfy our need to learn the ways of father and to embody our own power and confidence to move in the world.  

Until we take steps to heal our father wound, we will always be drawn to men, even women, who replicate our wounding fathers -- people incapable of helping us find our power, and emotionally unable guide us in the ways of masculine integrity. 

            We must find an enlightened guide (male or female) who can instruct us in the ways of the Father Principle, the ways of responsible power.  Beyond that, we must father ourselves for the true Father resides within us and waits to connect us to our implicit value and power.   By aligning with the Father within, we embody integrity of action.  We don’t need to get power from another -- our power is inherent, it only needs to be developed.      

Affirm:  I acknowledge my father wound and begin to father my Self. 

PRIDE

June 16

GAY SONS -- STRAIGHT FATHERS

Straight fathers must honor their gay sons.  The commandment says, “Children must honor their parents”, but this dictum needs to be reversed.  Parents must honor the child, who is developing and vulnerable.  The developing identity of the gay child needs special attention, since he varies from the cultural norm and from other children. 

Not being appreciated by father is devastating for any child -- but for gay boys, this wound has a special crippling twist.  Since we are different from other boys, we need reassurance that our difference is not an abnormality.  We need to be told that who we are is not bad -- but good, a powerful variation of the human spirit.   And we need to be told by our fathers to be convinced. 

Maturity is required of men who father gay sons.  Gay boys need to be held physically in their father’s arms and psychically in their father’s care. 

If a straight father can not abide a gender variation in his son, the son doubts his worth in a primary way, and his identity is profoundly undermined.  With good fathers, gay boys mature, leave the family, and enter the world with a sense of Self and value, and a better chance at being unshaken by the storms of life, even the storms of the world’s misunderstanding of gays.   

            The idea of straight fathers nurturing gay sons may seem far-fetched, but that doesn’t change the actual needs of the gay boy to be cherished by his straight father and guided into the value and beauty of his unique identity.       

Affirm:  Good fathering produces good sons -- including good gay sons, who grow into healthy, emotionally integrated, and spiritually alive gay men.        

PRIDE

June 17

WOUNDED FATHERS

Men, who were poorly fathered, are in a painful dilemma when confronted with the emotional demands of a child.  This new father experiences a distinctive anguish, for his lack of emotional skill is laid bare.  His own childhood experiences surface and he remembers not being respected by his father and mother for his unique value.     

The new father desires to parent properly, yet he feels a deep inadequacy when facing the child before him.  The child’s needs echo his own needs not accommodated by his parents, and especially by father, the role he now plays. 

The neglect of his past shames the new father and inhibits his responses.   Feelings of warmth and tenderness, associated with femininity must be squashed.  The son’s need for nurture is an embarrassment.  An affectionate response between males must be repressed, for this is his training.  The father may resent the child’s demands for masculine bonding and adventure as well, since this need was never met in his own past with his father.

The wounded father is out of his league as he realizes the emotional fullness child rearing requires.  The painful truth reveals how little he got and how little he can give.  The child begins to absorb this lack immediately, and begins accommodating the parent.  But this is a distortion for a child is incapable of parenting an adult.

A gay son is in a particular dilemma with a wounded father since this man can not generate nuanced, emotional responses.  With a gay son, this father can not even rely on socially prescribed roles for male bonding.  When so little was fostered in him, how can this wounded man hold his new son, with the additional complexity of homosexuality, in mature care and affection?   Sadly he can not, and a deep wound is inflicted on the gay boy.

The demands of the child may bring up such pain in the emotionally crippled father that his frustration may erupt in violence, overtly physical, or covertly emotional through ridicule or shame.   Or, the overwhelmed father may simply disappear as a defense, retreating into the world of male activities, work or play, diverting his energies outside the home, leaving the child behind.                                                                                                                                                        

Affirm:  My wounded father did what was done to him – he wounds his children, and in particular way, me, his gay son.  Only stark honesty can break this tragic cycle.

PRIDE

June 18

GENERATIONS OF FATHERS TO FORGIVE

            John grew up on a farm during the Great Depression. The family struggled to survive.  After haying in heat and dust all morning, the crews broke for lunch.  John and his brother starting playing catch with a baseball.  When their father saw them playing, he angrily said they should rest, and save their energy for work.  This snap-shot of John’s punitive father, a 19th Century immigrant from Germany, showed how John had been harshly fathered.  

            John went on to be a lawyer, successful and hard working – in fact, too hard working.   He could not be physically or emotionally present for his sons.  Though a sensitive man, John passed on what he had internalized from his own father’s emotional brutality and was an emotionally absent father.

            One of John’s sons, David, took his father’s absence personally, thinking it had something to do with his being gay.  These misinterpretations of a lonely child with an absent father were deeply wounding.  In later years, this neglect forced David to seek out a therapeutic guide for healing, since his lack of fathering drew him into abusive relationships with men.

            David’s straight brother, Greg, also felt their father’s absence and during his marriage, numbed his pain with alcohol.  He neglected his children.  One of Greg’s sons became a drug addict, in and out of jail for drug dealing, the wound of the father passed on to another generation.

            It is painful to witness destructive patterns permeate a family through generations stretching into the past and into the future.  Unless someone in the family breaks the cycle, this heart-break will be passed on to the next generation.

            Often the gay son seeks therapeutic healing since his outcast status allows him the freedom to question his pain.  The gay son begins to father himself, healing generations of poor fathering.  The gay son offers to the family an example of the healthy Father Principle, even without children of his own.

Affirm:  In a family system with father neglect, let me father my Self and pass on this gift to the next generation.

PRIDE

June 19

THE GIFT OF THE GAY SON

When a Gay son is born into an average family, he is a gift.  Yet there may be more concern than appreciation.  What does this variation mean?, the family asks.  Have we done something wrong?  Is this a reflection of our own pathology (even though the family denies having any)?

Straight parents and fathers in particular may be threatened by their gay son.  He is different.  He varies from the prescribed gender role for males.  The family may reject the boy like a body rejects a foreign object, banishing him, if not physically, then emotionally with the weapons of shame and disappointment.  

How could this strange boy be a gift?  It may be hard for the family to accept a gay child as a gift.  Yet perceived properly, he is just that, for he can liberate the family from its constricting roles and rules, its repressed feelings, and its resistance to grow beyond its walled-in definitions.  The gay child’s very existence invites the family to question its assumptions, especially the narrow view that life’s sole purpose is the family reproducing itself and its values.  The gay child is a doorway out of this closed system, and invites family members to move into a bigger world.  The gay child can stretch the family’s limits that kill vitality and open their minds to curiosity.                 

Fathers, inured in the male posture of the culture, may find it impossible to relate to a gay son.  Standard male bonding through prescribed social roles fails in this father/son relationship.  To defend his emotional deficiencies, the father may reject the boy, protecting his limited understanding of identity and gender, even protecting buried and confused feelings about himself.

Whatever storms the gay child endures and hopefully survives in the family, he eventually leaves to find his own way in life.  Through a healing process, he can reclaim the vitality of his true Self.   Once healed, the gay son has an enormous gift to give his family and in particular his father.  The authenticity of the healed gay child can lead the family to an honest approach to feelings and a genuine involvement in life itself.  When the gay son returns with Self-respect for a spine, the family can not deny who they see, and, if open, can learn from this liberating way of being.  The message of an integrated, up-right gay man is hard to mistake or ignore. 

Affirm:  I return to the family, a wholesome, gay son with the gift of authenticity. 

PRIDE

June 20

MASCULINITY, FEMININITY & GENDER

            What is a real man?  What is a real woman?   Truth is we are all blends of masculine/feminine energy along the continuum of gender.

Simply defined, the Masculine Principle is integrity of action, the just use of power, the ethical manner in which we move “out” into life, embodied in both men and women.  The Feminine Principle is our honesty of feeling, how we use love to surrender “in” to our depth to find wisdom.  Both are primal forces on the sacred journey of life and must be honored to live fully.  Whether male or female, we are all blends of these primal principles.

If a Father is comfortable with his identify, his own unique blend of masculine and feminine energies, he lives with both integrity of action and depth of feeling.  He teaches these principles to his children by word and deed.  He is not threatened by the gender variation in his Gay son for this Father is secure within himself and his own blend of gender.  The healthy Father recognizes his Gay son as part of the landscape of human possibility.  He is not afraid of what life brings into being.  Integrity and depth honors life in all its aspects and does not demonize, or pathologize those who are different.                                        

If a Father is not comfortable with his own identity, if his masculinity is not tempered by femininity, he lives a masculine or macho posture.  This mask hides buried fear that would destroy any who would question or threaten its sham authority (violence against Gays are extreme examples).   Macho posturing in Gay men is as destructive as it is in Straight men.  When a false Self uses the Masculine Principle, it wields great power for dubious purposes. 

True masculine power honors the feminine; with unparalleled beauty, honest masculinity protects life and honors depth.  That Gay men are seduced by the counterfeits in macho posturing reflects our own confused and compromised gender identities, learned from a gender-phobic culture; we fear the feminine in men, yet fail to embody an authentic masculinity.  Macho posturing or helpless femininity, in males, like any sham, will never substitute for true masculine power balanced by feminine depth.  Authentic living, out of a true Self, insures integrity of action guided by depth of feeling -- and the complexity of gender is honored. 

Affirm:  Masculine power, feminine depth -- I honor the blend of gender that is me.

PRIDE

June 21

THE SUMMER SOLSTICE

            Today is the longest day of the year.  There is a fullness of light that wakes us early and lingers into the late evening.  Perhaps darkness is gone forever.  We delight in summer.  Things are growing and blooming -- and so are we. 

            The culmination of the long, dark months of winter, and the gradual unfolding of spring into this beautiful summer day flooded with light, remind us of our own struggles with darkness, of being Gay in a not always friendly world. 

            Now, we have reached the apex of sunlight and we pause to reflect on the natural wonder of the day and of our own existence as Gay men.   We are grateful for the progress of Gay liberation, and our own personal progress that allows us more Self-love and acceptance -- more living in the light.

            We also know that every height is followed by a decent.  Whatever height we have achieved in our own growth will be followed by a need to go deeper into our story, into the remaining, dark recesses of our pain.  We may become discouraged thinking that this high point of light will be followed by more darkness, and that more work needs to be done to develop the fullness of who we are.     

            Yet we should not despair.  If we only accept the light and deny the dark, our sunny disposition will always seem unreal, light weight, and one-dimensional.  When we admit, and integrate our shadow, those dark, difficult, split-off parts that are hard to own and painful to know, we become real.  With shadow and light together, we, like a beautiful painting, have dimension and depth.  With the integration of light and shadow, we grow into wisdom. 

Affirm:  I learn from the cycles of nature.  Through time, I integrate the dark and light part of me into enlightenment.

PRIDE

June 22

THE FIRST PRIDE PARADES

            The early Gay Pride parades in New York City were ragtag affairs.  Barely legal, throngs of us gathered in Greenwich Village and like the ancient Hebrews, joyfully made our exodus out of our ghetto and headed uptown.        

            Like a ground swell of water that had saturated the earth (and our closets), the time had come to form a river.  In fact, it was a flood.  And neither the law, nor the police, nor the hatred we'd endured, even internalized, could stop us now.  Heading out without a parade permit, the cops nervously watching, we chanted to our brothers and sisters, "Off the sidewalks and into the streets."  A community had been born.             

            There was little organization.  No groups, no lesbian lawyers from Hackensack or Gay Librarians from Westchester.  No bi-sexual joggers or sympathetic politicians.  No elaborate bar floats or stars from Broadway.  We were simply a newly released and realized throng of Gay people, just so glad to be out and free at last.  Tough lesbians monitored the march keeping us out of the intersections and moving along.  Traffic at times swirled around us dangerously, but we kept going forward, as if a holy tide swept us into a new time, a new place -- a new people.    

            We had tipped the balance and it seemed our journey ahead would be simple.  A huge shift in consciousness had occurred.  We had defied our oppressors and were heady with our newly found power.  Look at all of us together!  We were claiming our rights -- dancing in the streets.  Luckily, we didn't realize the years of struggle that would be our future.  We'd fight for civil rights.  We'd endure a health crisis.  We’d confront our families’ rejection and our own Self-hatred.  We'd explore the mystery of our identity.  We'd even claim our unique and profound spirituality.

            The joy in the early marches was tangible, and the profound energy that surged through us then would carry us through the wilderness ahead.  And the promised land for Gay people?  We can smell the Jordan River!

Affirm:  As I remember the struggles of my Gay ancestors, I draw strength to continue the struggle of my own liberation, wherever it leads.

PRIDE

June 23

DRAG IN A CONVERTIBLE FOR THE PRIDE PARADE

            The vintage, powder-blue convertible was chock-full of drag queens.  I was late and last to pile in.  At first there was a bit of resistance, but I assured them I had a gown tucked under my T-shirt and Bermuda shorts.  They wrapped me in their capes as the black sheath unfurled as promised.  I pulled on elbow-length, hot-pink gloves, donned a sunbonnet, unfolded dramatic dark glasses for make-up, and we pulled onto 5th Ave.   All six of us sitting around the rim of the back seat, turning on the magic, waving, and emoting.  Two more beauties on roller skates were towed behind with water-ski ropes.         

            The crowd went wild, as we blew kisses to them over the blaring disco music -- a car full of drag queens, sending out love to the receptive throng of up-town tourists and children. The sign on our car said "So(ber) Gay!"  It was especially fun to see the kids' faces light up.      

            As we passed St. Patrick's Cathedral, hate groups jeered from across the street.  We shouted, "Keep coming back, it gets better."  The cathedral itself had tightly closed doors.  The towering edifice with soaring spires loomed behind a fence of police barricades, exuding icy dignity and ignoble bigotry.

            Moving on, into the predominately Gay Chelsea neighborhood, the muscle

boys were pretty to look at, but would not wave back.  No matter how many kisses we threw, they would not respond, locked behind a macho posture.  But didn't drag queens start Gay liberation?  

            Further downtown, churches had volunteers running cups of water to all of us and things got friendlier and wetter.  As we rolled past Washington Square Arch and into the narrow streets of Greenwich Village, the crowds became dense and pressed closer to the car.  Butch, femme, Gay men, lesbians, Straights, tourists, foreigners, white, black, young, old, drunk, sober -- all of us.  Humanity so close that we could look them directly in the eye and say "Happy Pride" -- one on one, face to face and mean it personally.          

            At which point, my friend Denny, in a stunning black gown, standing on the hood of the slow moving car, looked back and shouted through the chaos, "You look beautiful!"  His words hit me like a bolt of light.  I knew it wasn't just my outfit that was beautiful, but there was "something beautiful" shining though me and all of us on that blessed day.

Affirm:  I let my light shine.

PRIDE

June 24

A MOMENT OF SILENCE

            The raucous Gay Pride parade stopped.  I stood in the uneasy throng, quieting to honor the dead.  A moment ago, we were raunchy, rowdy, sensuous, outrageous, silly, angry – the surface parts of being Gay.  Now we were frozen in time, asked by the quiet to approach a more difficult part of our humanity -- our depth, catalyzed by a health crisis.  Here we stood, alive, so many survivors, clinging to an ephemeral lavender spine of life, a line, painted the night before down the middle of Fifth Avenue.            

            The gray summer day hung in stillness.  The festive spirit drained into something too bleak to say.  A moment of silence for all those who died of AIDS, or broken hearts or love letters unanswered.  A moment to remember our families, our Mothers and Fathers, who turned their backs on us, the church that called us sinners, the police who chased our ancestors to throw them in prison, or concentration camps -- and in certain places, would still do the same to us, just because we exist.

            We stood and grieved the betrayals of a people in silence.  So many of the abused, so many of the dead, were my friends.  And my own abuse?  How had I survived?  My shaken, confused prayers were absorbed as quickly into the grey nothingness of an endless moment of silence.       

            Over head, one lone cloud broke open and light broke through.  The warmth was real.  The dank air ebbed quickly down some gutter.  I stared into the searing sun, blinded.    One effortless plea formed on my lips. "Help us heal."  I was alive, and a survivor of things I'd rather not recall, but needed to, if I were to not only survive, but thrive in my life.             

            The moment ended.  The parade released into time.  Thousands of balloons disappeared into the blank sky.  A roar from depths unknowable filled our throats and the urban canyon.  The slow, mass of humanity resumed its inevitable, fateful journey down the avenue.  I had prayed with lips that would taste more life -- and with a mind resolved to know its Self.

Affirm:  When death surrounds me and grief seems endless, I stop, reach stillness, and pray -- and the mysterious pathway of life opens before me once again.

PRIDE

June 25

AN ANGRY DRAG QUEEN

            The Pride march finished and we settled into a rally in Washington Square Park.  Bette Midler sang “You Gotta Have Friends."  I thought she was singing to me.  It was the early 70's -- we were making Gay history.           

            We listened to a white, male speaker with a short haircut, wearing a white T-shirt and tight blue jeans.  Our new role model was a regular guy.  Suddenly, appearing like a Fury out of hell, a fierce Hispanic drag queen, a torrent of energy with a bad gown, bad hair, and a drug habit, stormed on to the stage and grabbed the mike.   It was Sylvia Rivera who had fought at Stonewall that fateful night just a few years before.          

            "You all want to be men -- but don't forget, it was the drag queens that started Gay liberation!"  Her voice was raspy, hoarse and pleading.  Too much screaming, too much beer -- too much pain and rejection over a lifetime.  She was wrestled off the stage   

            Silvia Rivera, a savage caricature of a woman, was right.  It was her, and the likes of her, that finally had the courage to fight the police and a system of cruelty that had crushed Gays for millennia.  Now, we were ready to shove her and her kind into the background as an embarrassment, a painful reminder of our own troubled past.  Now “real men” were going to take over Gay liberation.  If we would be accepted by society, or by ourselves, we would have presentable white guys lead us.   

            At the time, I didn't understand the implication of a raging, side-show freak -- nor did I realize the truth she spoke.  In her own ragged style, she was a seer who foretold the dangers of repressing authenticity and conforming to an acceptable image.  Some of us would soon become clones, assuming a macho posture, and ignoring more nuanced identities.  Honest gender, a blend of masculine and feminine energy, could only be known through the pain of integrating our own troubled, ridiculed past that Sylvia Rivera represented. 

            A hurt, ferocious drag queen was our conscience.  As she was forcibly hauled off the stage by several “men”, I thought she was simply a street-crazy.  Yet her raw message stuck with me and became more meaningful over the years.   We can play it safe in conformity, and its deadening consequences, or we can let our raw authenticity lead the way to liberation and to our true Selves – following in the rough, yet revolutionary steps of Sylvia Rivera. 

Affirm:  The comforts of conformity may tempt me, but the wilds of authenticity free my spirit.

PRIDE

June 26

PROPHETS

            A prophet is a voice ahead of his time.  A prophet tells the truth when the world around him would deny it.  A prophet is a visionary, one who sees beyond the ordinary to a new, more meaningful way.  A prophet is a conscience in a world that would forget its Self.  A prophet speaks the words of God through a human voice, and a human life.       

            Some Gays are called to be prophets, called to speak the truth in the clamor of conformity.  Our prophetic ability is one reason we are feared by the norm.  Our difference confronts people and challenges them to think, rethink, and question basic assumptions about identity, the family, and the purpose of being.  If we accept homosexuality as a valid variation, and not pathology, we may even question the nature of God and the meaning of creation – we are not here to simply and unconsciously replicate ourselves, but to seek enlightenment.          

            As Gay people come-out and claim our authentic Selves, we break from collective thought and are free to think originally, listening closely to the messages of our being.  Our unique perspective on love and life speaks a disturbing truth that is not easily decipherable to the narrow minded, especially those espousing deadening conformity and blind obedience to the dysfunction of the family.  Yet, if we dare to listen honestly, the message of authenticity always leads to God and vitality, increased consciousness and freedom for all concerned. 

            Our unique lives crack open the status quo and God breaks through.  In fact, our very existence brings into question many of the limited assumptions, and narrow-minded beliefs that seem to make the world go around -- and go amuck in warfare and exploitation of other people and resources. 

Gay love challenges assumptions that squeeze a loving God into a closet.  The degree that Gays are hated is a barometer of our disturbing prophetic power and the fear the norm has of the transforming power of the truth. 

Affirm:  As an out-cast from the mainstream, I am free to be a prophet, a voice crying in the wilderness, speaking the truth.

PRIDE

JUNE 27

THE LUNATIC FRINGE

            The lunatic fringe of yesterday informs the mainstream of today.

            We owe a debt of gratitude to gender variants, our mad, drag-queen brothers and butch lesbian sisters who stood up to the cops at Stonewall.  It took these outrageous, out-cast people who lived beyond the limits of social convention, and even the boundaries of the Gay conformity of the time, to stand up to social injustice.  It took a drag queen to look hatred in the eye and say:  Enough!       

            While other Gays were trying to fit in, or disappear, a necessary and understandable survival strategy in a dangerous world, these social misfits couldn’t hide, and out of frustration, anger, and nothing-to-lose, they fought the forces of oppression.     

            God bless the lunatic fringe who are not suppressed by a conforming world and its henchmen.   By living their originality, they extend the definitions of our humanity and soul.  They give us all more room to breath, and grow, in a constricting world.  

            Is it madness or is it genius?  New creation has a bit of both.  Then a few years down-the-road, people begin to recognize this hard won wilderness as truth.  "Of course, Gays deserve rights and dignity," we now say.  But it took a social misfit, a drag queen, to say it first, while others hid frightened in the shadows.      

            When the rules are insane and every one is complying out of fear, it may take a mad queen, or any creative, misfit genius, to break through the complacency and scream, “Stop!  This is hateful, unjust and wrong!  You can’t do this to me!”    

            The banner of truth, justice and human progress is often carried by the misfit.  It took a drag queen look a cop in the face and scream, “NO!” to start the Gay liberation movement.  This revolt has healing implications for all of humanity -- when one is freed, all benefit.

Affirm:   Thanks to the lunatic fringe of yesterday, I'm freer today.  I do not devalue my own "mad-cap" ideas.  They may liberate the world.

PRIDE

June 28

ON THE ANNIVERSARY OF STONEWALL -- WHAT IS PRIDE?

            Pride is Self-respect, Self-love, and Self-esteem.  Pride comes from living an honest life, consonant our identity.  When we live out of our authentic Self, we have a passion for life and our spirit is free.  When we are true to our Selves, we are not swayed by the pressures of the world to conform to patterns of living that would violate our identity or our values.  Instead, we live with pride.

            Pride comes in two ways:  Civil rights and personal dignity.

            By fighting for our civil rights, we claim our rightful place as citizens of the world and members of the human family.  We are not second class -- we are first class just like everyone else.  As equal members, we receive the benefits and protection of society and can prosper materially and flourish spiritually.  We develop our gifts and skills, which we return to society.  Our pride is bolstered by fighting for and receiving our civil rights.

            The personal quest for dignity is more difficult.   Claiming our innate worth is a painful, personal journey through our wounded history, arriving, at last, at our innocent and power-filled center, our true Self.  To get to this core of truth, we must wrestle with the voices of the past that would cause us to doubt our worth.  In particular, we must confront the negative voices of our parents; these are the hardest to overcome.  Our parents are our first loves and they may have been the first to tell us that who we are -- is shameful. 

            Undoing the tyranny and tenacity of these spirit crushing voices is the work of the hero, rescuing the child from his abusers.  Reclaiming our innate dignity is the courageous work of pride.

            Until we do this most difficult, meaningful work of claiming our true Selves, we will always be susceptible to crippling opinions from the outside, and to acting-out in ways that are Self-demeaning, having nothing to do with Pride at all.  The heritage of Stonewall allows us to fight for our civil rights and our personal dignity.

Affirm:  Today, I have pride in my Self -- and gratitude for Stonewall that opened the way.

PRIDE

June 29

HAVE VALUES TO BE VALUED

            The Gay community has not been valued by the rest of the community, or by the family.  We have internalized this negativity and have not valued our Selves.  We have lost our value and our values.

            The task of claiming personal value is the work of pride.  For a Gay man, this is painful work.   When so many of the messages we have received for generations are negative, damaging and devaluing, it is difficult to overcome the effect of this undermining onslaught.  It is easy to say the words, I am worthy, but to feel and believe them is difficult -- yet possible, necessary, and the truth.  We are worthy, as created, and deeply loveable.       

            The key to personal power and a definition of maturity is to claim one's own value, one’s true Self, regardless of other people's opinion.  Especially when the opinion is wrong, and especially when the opinion comes from those who should have loved us the most, our families, our parents.       

            Unfortunately, we Gays have not always had the maturity to heal the traumatic messages from the past and value our Selves or each other.  At times, because of our devalued state, Gay men have set up impossible external standards of beauty, body, or wealth hoping "perfect" externals will compensate for low Self-esteem. At the same time, we disclaim our inner values, those of personal integrity, and Self-respect -- the values that will bring us peace.             

            Our real value comes from God, who loves and cherishes his Gay creation.  As we claim our value as our true inheritance from God, we can value our lives and the lives of our Gay brothers -- in fact, of all humanity.  As we mature and recognize our value, those who have devalued us, including our families, will have to take a second look and re-evaluate this mistaken opinion. 

Affirm:  As I value my Self, I will be valued.

PRIDE

June 30

GAY PRIDE -- A WAY OF LIFE

            Gay Pride is not only a day, a week, or a month, but most importantly a state of being -- a way of life.

            On Gay Pride Day in New York City, it seems the whole world has become Gay.  As the parade follows the lavender line down Fifth Avenue, cheering throngs line the sidewalks -- people hang from windows in towering buildings waving us on.  It seems we’re home at last, accepted, celebrated, and integrated into a very Gay friendly world. 

            Look at all of us, thousands out in the open.  We no longer feel alone or invisible.  There's strength and safety in numbers.  We're taking over the streets of New York City, San Francisco, Dublin, Cleveland ... the whole world is ours! 

            Then Monday morning hits.  Maybe there’s a blurb somewhere in the newspaper, but it seems as if Pride had never happened.  We return to our daily routine, as rush hour traffic swarms over the lavender line that just yesterday guided a forsaken people out of oppression and into the promised, cheering land of Greenwich Village.  All the open friendliness seems to have ebbed away into a forgotten closet.  It’s the day after, and we sink into the world of discrete homosexuality.  What happened to Gay Pride?

            The real work of Pride begins on these ordinary Mondays, as we carry Pride with us into our daily lives.  After all the balloons are popped and the lavender line fades, Pride must reside where it matters most -- in our hearts, minds and souls. 

            The real battles of Pride are fought in our daily struggles with our families and friends, our bosses and co-workers, our clergy, landlords and mayors -- and most deeply, within our Selves.   On ordinary days, when the world would belittle our homosexual gift, and we love our Selves instead -- Pride is alive.

            Pride does not happen in a day, but through the course of many days, a life-time really, of choosing the next esteem-filled action and attitude.

Affirm:  Gay Pride occurs in our daily living and loving, a shining example for all to see.