While I often write in the first person, it is neither necessarily autobiographical nor simply to invest a poem with a sense of directness, but also to draw the reader into a ‘felt’ experience; one that I may not have shared at first-hand, but to which, in one way or another, I can relate. I guess the jury is still out on whether or not my approach works for them.
Recently, I received an email from a Catholic man who was finally persuaded to be openly gay during a holiday in Rome. He writes, ‘…for the first time in my life, I met someone who doesn’t see being gay and Catholic as a contradiction.’ He adds, ‘Nor does my friend think this way for his own convenience, but genuinely believes - as I do now - that whoever we are, and however we choose to imagine God, no concept of God can truly exist in a discriminatory context against anyone or the very principles of religion, love and peace, start to fall apart at the seams…’
I could not agree more, and although I do not subscribe to any religion myself, I applaud any gay (or straight) person who arrives at an understanding - however long it takes - that a sense of spirituality and an LGBT lifestyle are NOT mutually exclusive, except perhaps in the hearts and minds of those who choose to insist differently for their convenience.
Years ago, I knew a Christian man who confided that, while he agreed me ‘in principle’ about not discriminating against anyone because of their sexuality, he would never say so openly because he could not bring himself not to fear what he called 'God’s response'. He readily conceded that the New Testament effectively refutes interpretations of God in the Old Testament as a one quick to anger and effect reprisals. In its place, yes, we find a God of love and understanding. At the same time, my Christian friend was unwilling to put that belief to the test by openly disputing that God’s love cannot be assumed to extend to gay people. (It is all very well for an Archbishop of Canterbury, for example, to say he has no problem with gay people, even clerics, so long as they are not practising sex, but sex is a natural human urge. How can a religion preaching that God created all humanity deny its being invested likewise with a sexuality of one persuasion or another?
OPENING CLOSED DOORS
It was at the heart of Rome,
a lonely heart caught
its first shy glimpse of a place
to (finally) call home
Oblivious to tourist crowds,
I confronted my self
in a fountain as honest with me
as passing clouds
A sad face, etched with pain,
accused me of all sorts
for deceiving my friends, family,
and (worse) religion
Another face looked in at me
through this window
on a so-beleaguered conscience
addressing sexuality
I couldn’t prevent an intrusion
into this dialogue
with feelings I’d nursed for years
and kept well hidden
Not a word passed between us
as kindred spirits
engaged freely in open mind-speak,
spreading like ripples
Coin faces applauding us pair,
encouraged me
to look up and smile if tremulously
at the person there…
He grinned, and said ‘Hello’
(I was lost for words)
and then walked away, glanced back
to see if I’d follow
Yes, follow I did, a free mind,
body and spirit
for sensing St Peter’s natural affinity
with all humankind
Copyright R. N. Taber 2016
