Who Says ...? OR Standing Up for Sexuality

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R._N._Taber

Here’s a new poem today if on a familiar theme.  Readers often get in touch to say they agonise about wanting to be open about their sexuality and thereby risking rejection by their religion. The main thrust of a conversation I had years ago during a serious crisis in my life springs to mind.

FRIEND: 'My faith in God has seen me through every crisis in my life, and it can do the same for you.'

ME:  'I have tried, but cannot relate to God or religion, maybe because I am gay and the religion in which I was raised has no time for gay people.'

FRIEND: 'I said faith, not religion. Religion is one way to help some people feel close to God, but it isn’t the only way. We van feel close to God in many ways. You say you feel close to nature. Who’s to say that you feel any less close to God than anyone else?'

ME: 'I can’t believe in God as religion says I should.'

FRIEND: 'All the more reason to trust your feelings. God is all things to all people. Just because we cannot bring an image of God to mind doesn’t mean there is no God. Religion does not have the right to suggest otherwise.'  

'Who’s to say your feelings for nature are not faith in a God you seem to reject?  Reject Him as you will, He will never reject you, and never let anyone tell you differently, whatever their religion or feelings about a person’s sexuality.'  

'God is not constricted by temporal criteria. Call the spirituality you take from nature simply a feeling for nature, nothing else, and God won’t mind.  As for religion, it can provide an important support network and help you feel closer to people as well as to God, but  it has no right to dictate how we  feel about God or whether or not we should choose to access that feeling through religion.'

'Faith is a passion, not just a word. Rejecting the word along with other religious ritual and rhetoric does not mean you have no faith.'  

'Trust your feelings, and that goes for your sexuality as well. Those who insist religion and homosexuality are incompatible may know the ins and outs of their religion, but they have no real feeling for God; they are just homophobes. however much they may protest to the contrary. Look at me. I'm a priest, and my feeling for people has never excluded or been any less warm towards gay people than towards anyone else, whether they can identify with God or not.' 

'God is no dictator and wouldn't have it any other way.' 

This poem is a villanelle.

WHO SAYS...? or STANDING UP FOR SEXUALITY

Who says we’re damned eternally

if to our birth selves we stay true

by standing up for our sexuality?

Even the wind keeps asking me, 

earth and sea, heavens too,

who says we’re damned eternally?

Let’s not be bullied into hypocrisy

(if beaten black and blue)

by standing up for our sexuality

The cleric offers deals on spirituality

(all this and Heaven too?)

who says we’re damned eternally

Hear them swear by all things holy

we embrace an ungodly taboo

by standing up for our sexuality

This huffing and puffing sickens me

(scares me sometimes too);

Who says we’re damned eternally

by standing up for our sexuality?

Copyright R. N. Taber 2012