Fear

As I believe I've previously mentioned I was in the closet throughout my collegiate career because I felt I had to be in order to get the references I needed to move on with my life (i.e. seminary). Initially I was okay not talking about it, but as time passed I became increasingly frustrated that I had to talk out of the side of my mouth for the sake of self-preservation within a community that claimed to want to discuss the “big issues” of our day - although only if you played for team hetero.

Don’t get me wrong - I love and respect many people from that time, but unfortunately the bitterness of loneliness colors the way I remember my last four years.

I've gone through plenty of unfortunate events in my life, however coming out and wrestling with that by myself stands as an exceptionally painful moment.

Several weeks ago I was talking about Things and Feelings at lunch in the Duke Divinity lounge. The woman I was conversing with had just been “evangelized to” outside of the Brian Center, and apparently in this exchange the person trying to recruit her to Team Jesus asked what she thought about Teh Gays.

I took this opportunity to mention my own gay-ness and how exhausting it had been to be semi-honest and fearful, an experience which motivated me to choose Duke. I praised Duke Div's ability to be orthodox and inclusive (although I don't really know how the two can ever be divorced), and I expressed my gratefulness for a community of people who I felt safe to be myself around.

Although I'm sure it appears otherwise from my posts on BDU, I actually don't (explicitly, at least) inject my sexuality into everything I do. I can and do talk about other things quite regularly. I have a variety of interests, and ladies are just one of them.

_{Y’know? Y’know?}

(However I suppose my faux hawk makes everything I do implicitly gay...)

I don’t need to talk about My People and Their Rights all the time. I know gay people who do that and it’s like. Get a hobby please.

That being said, though, I want to feel safe being honest in the event that gay-related things do come up. Sexuality came up on the regular in college and I couldn’t actually contribute my view(s) because it would have been incriminating and destructive to the world I had so carefully constructed. Feeling obligated to be less-than-honest for the sake of everyone else's comfort (and to ensure my academic reputation) was painful, to say the least.

In this Christmas season, when Jesus came into the world in all kinds of compromising and socially unacceptable/unexpected ways, I am infinitely thankful to be a part of a people who, even if they don't agree with me, don't dismiss me automatically for loving who I love and being who I am. I am thankful I don't need to cloak the "real me" for the sake of academic preservation, and furthermore for the opportunity to talk about my Things and Feelings on the BDU blog.

Theological Thanksgiving

I regularly find the time when one is expected to share what they are thankful for more than a little stilted. Oftentimes (I find this especially true in Christian households) it turns into a competition of theological one-upmanship, seeing who can most creatively be most thankful for Jesus this year.

With this in mind, this year I am without a doubt thankful for love.

I know, I know, you’re already having PTSD flashbacks to the lame Christian Thanksgiving, but hear me out; I’m desperately trying to avoid that.

In particular I am thankful for the love of a specific woman who, while making me remarkably happy, has also revolutionized the way I view God. As a wanna-be Christian theologian love is a profoundly and unavoidably theological concept, and it is unsurprising that I strain life-altering events (such as falling in love) through this Christocentric way of seeing.

I get it now.
This whole “Jesus loves me thing.”
It makes sense.

All of a sudden crucifixion for the sake of another’s wholeness doesn’t seem ridiculous because I’d do the same thing in a heartbeat.

God’s love is radical and irrational; it gives everything up and asks for nothing in return just because. God ceaselessly and recklessly chases after the ones He loves, destroying human conceptions of what “reasonable limits” mean in the pursuit of reconciliation and unity with His beloved.

I get it now.
I get it because it is my life.

It pains me that there are churches which believe this kind of love is destructive, sinful behavior. It pains me to think that this firsthand lesson in love, which I believe is educating me about theology and pastoral care more than any seminary course possibly could, automatically disqualifies me from pursuing ordination in a host of Christian denominations with whom I find a lot of theological accord … minus the gay thing.

Nonetheless I am thankful for the beautiful woman I get to wake up next to, who holds me when I weep and who thinks I am a culinary genius when I make spaghetti. God loves her more and more perfectly than I ever could, and realizing that has made my appreciation for His great love only increase. Recognizing His overwhelming, passionate, jealous love for us colors the way I view everything, including theological realities – e.g. the incarnation, the cross, the resurrection – which have taken on a meaning I could not have imagined prior to this soul-consuming adoration for a woman.

I get it now.
I am thankful for love.

Gay at the Div School

[Editor's note: Please welcome our first graduate school writer to the blog!]

My name is Kate Dembinski and I am a first year Master of Divinity student at Duke Divinity School.

I grew up in small town Iowa and graduated from a public high school with 35 others. I promptly went eight hours away to Hillsdale, Michigan, where I spent the next four years studying religion (i.e. Christianity, let's be honest) and classics. I learned Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. I became a pacifist.

I discovered I was gay.

Following Christmas break of my sophomore year I began practicing an intense Sabbath. I fasted for 30 hours a week from food, technology, and school work. I truly fell in love with Jesus for the first time in my life, and as a result of intentionally carving out time to listen to God’s voice I began to hear some disruptive things.

“You’re gay,” for example.

I considered myself a fairly staunch conservative at the point of this realization, and naturally I felt as though I was trapped. I had constructed a community of like-minded folks who would not have responded warmly to the news that I counted myself a member of the full-blown homosexual ranks.

But, as Hillsdale College's motto says, virtus tentamine gaudet, strength rejoices in the challenge.

I came out to one person at Hillsdale during my time in college. My motivation for silence was selfish: I was in a conservative department within a conservative school and I needed references in order to move on with my life. In searching for seminaries I desired a place that was orthodox and that would, at the very least, not openly despise me for being who I am.

I have only felt completely validated thus far. I know I am in the right place, surrounded by the right people, learning the things I love in a place that will challenge and support me academically, spiritually, and communally.

I cannot say that Duke Divinity is correct for all gay people, just as I cannot say that Hillsdale College is right for all conservative folks. For me, though, I am infinitely thankful (and dare I say blessed) to be at Duke. I've gotten to meet some wonderful people through the LGBT center, local churches, and (naturally) the divinity school.

Thank you for this opportunity, BDU. Y'all are lovely. (See, us northerners can appreciate the you plural also.)

/k