How I Lost My Faith . XXII - You cannot run from yourself.

In 1989, after being diagnosed with AIDS and losing my job at 7-Eleven, I moved into a Veterans Affairs/Section 8-approved building for seniors and those with disabilities. That September, I adopted a kitten I named Niche (pronounced “nich”). She was destined to be one of only three things that kept me from taking my own life over the years — the other two being the effect it would have on Jehovah God and my Witness friends, and what it would do to my mom. Those things alone are really why I’m still here.

There were already several AIDS-diagnosed gay men in the complex, one of whom was the spitting image of Country Music star Tim McGraw. We all became good friends — until the Pendulum once again swung to the right and I had to return to “the Truth.” This happened repeatedly, back and forth; living that close to other gay men made it extremely difficult to keep my mind focused on spiritual things, but a chance meeting in 1993 would make it virtually impossible.

Earlier that spring, I’d been going to meetings at the local Kingdom Hall and was doing well...until one evening in late April when I was completely overcome with the desire for physical contact. I couldn’t stand it, and, almost against my will, I found myself there, around my “own kind.” I debated with myself all the way to the bus-stop, up until the bus actually came and I boarded it. Had I just turned around and walked back the two blocks to my apartment, I could get through the evening with a clean conscience. I failed miserably.

I met a young man that night, MJ. I gave him my phone number, with the full knowledge that “I’m about to fuck up everything...if he calls me...what have I just done??” He did call and we began hanging out together, a lot. He and I eventually developed an emotional connection that even God, it seemed (after a while), could not break. 

 The very first thing I told him was that I had AIDS; it was a confession that he remembers to this day (I’d reached the point where I could not be intimate with someone without telling him that part upfront; I did not want to the one to blame should he get sick). That year, we took a road trip and I finally got to see the Pacific Ocean. Turns out, our timing was perfect; just a month or so later, Malibu was hit with fires and devastating mudslides!

In the fall of 1993, I worked part-time at one of the local bathhouses for a couple of months...then something clicked and my thoughts again began returning to “the Truth” and the Witnesses, and how to extricate myself from this mess I’d created — the Great Pendulum was about to swing again, only this time the repercussions would be much more far-reaching than I could have imagined. I didn’t say anything at first to my friend, but I know he could sense that something was wrong. During the last week of that year, I began planning for January 1, 1994, as the day I would quit smoking and doing drugs, distance myself from the gay community and my gay friends — including MJ.

On New Years Day, 1994, I resolutely informed him of my decision: “I have to try again. I have to return to the Truth, which means we can’t hang out together anymore,” “You can’t smoke in here any more” — all physical contact and all drug and alcohol use was terminated as of the 1st of January. I basically threw him by the wayside, as I had done previously with Jed back east. My pronouncement stunned him; he’d assumed that my library of bound volumes of The Watchtower and Awake!, dictionaries and lexicons, and numerous Bible translations were connected to something I’d left behind in my past, not something related to an ongoing, massive struggle for my identity.

I could tell I’d hurt him, but I had to do what I felt was the right — the moral — thing to do, and I could not present myself to Jehovah God as clean and upright with MJ in my life, and he would never learn “the Truth” as I had if I continued to perpetuate a doomed friendship/relationship. So I pushed him out of my life.

That summer I took a trip to Oklahoma to visit Mom and while there, I decided that the best way for me to be faithful to Jehovah was to physically remove myself from the situation in Denver, so I made plans to be with Mom when I died. Remember, I had no time left; I’d been told five years earlier that I had only two years to live, three at most; I was way past my “expiration date” and was expected to get sick and ‘kick the bucket’ “any day now”. 

 

I’d already watched several friends die from AIDS-related conditions and knew exactly what I was in for, and the most noble thing I could think of to do was be with Mom when it happened, so she would be comforted in knowing that at least we got to say goodbye face-to-face. In order to make me feel comfortable, she didn’t object when I smoked pot in the house. I was very naïve when it came to the smell, as I had none. I thought I was being clever by hiding the joint or pipe, or pretending to be smoking a cigarette, but I have no sense of smell, and never stopped to think that I was stinking up the whole house.

But Mom didn’t mind. In fact, the only truly-unconditional love that I have ever received in my 49½ years on this earth came from her; I am largely the person I am today because of her.

Spiritually, I had absolutely no time to mess around, and the distractions in Denver were destroying whatever chance I may have had at finally becoming one of Jehovah’s Witnesses. It was, once again, all or nothing; pass...or fail, as I’d always done, which of course I did, within three months of moving in with Mom. I called MJ and re-established our connection; he came to visit several times over the next two years, but only when the Pendulum swung back in his direction; the rest of the time was spent studying the Bible and attending meetings at the local Kingdom Hall.

Back and forth, back and forth. It was enough to drive most men mad, but I was determined to succeed in my efforts to overcome the evil, unnatural inclinations toward my own sex if it was the last thing I did. Against all odds, I would prove that even someone as inherently wicked as myself could take a stand for Jehovah God against Satan the Devil himself, and the neutralization of my sexual orientation would be a shout of praise to God unlike any other. This is no exaggeration; I genuinely believed that I was fighting for my life, and I refused to give up, at one time vowing to Jehovah, “I will never stop trying, no matter what it takes, until the day I expire!” That vow gave me the strength, on numerous occasions, to return to God and the Witnesses; I had to keep trying, fighting “the fine fight of the faith” (1 Timothy 6:12). 

I felt I had no other choice; I took everything my teachers taught me as THE TRUTH, the only Truth — everything was shown to me straight from the Bible, so how could I not accept it? — and my life literally depended on winning this battle between good and evil that never stopped raging inside me. It would not go away, and I interpreted that as Jehovah continuously trying to guide me in the right direction, drawing me back from the pit over and over. I was taught that my willingness to pick myself up and try again, as many times as it took, was a clear sign of humility, a willingness to sacrifice for Jehovah, and that He could only bless such spirit. It never got any easier, no matter how much I wanted it to, but I refused to admit defeat.

That’s the answer to an as-yet-unasked question: Why was I still trying? Why, after so many failed attempts at trying to overcome my nature, had I not lost my faith already?

I believed that it was me, that I was weak, that I wasn’t praying enough or living piously enough, and every time I fell back into “the world,” I proved it all over again. But I refused to accept that I was hopeless, would not “go out” with a mere whimper, and so would inevitably crawl back to the Kingdom Hall and try again...and again...and again... My life was on the line, and I would neither quit nor rest until the day I finally “got it right” and could serve Jehovah God with a clean conscience.

That day never came.

It turns out that moving to Oklahoma accomplished absolutely nothing, other than the time I got to spend with Mom. The Pendulum never stopped swinging, and I found myself facing the exact same struggles within the first six months of living there. I spent two years waiting to die, but fighting back, nonetheless, by working out and walking everywhere --- mainly to impress MJ the next time he took a road trip to Oklahoma.

Then, in 1996, rumors began circulating about new HIV medications, “protease inhibitors” that were making people feel better for a change. Unfortunately, they were not yet available  in Oklahoma; there was actually a waiting list, and there was no telling how long the wait would be...so, in September that year, I moved back to Denver, where the new “miracle drugs” were readily available.

Over those two years spent with Mom, I learned the hard way that you cannot run from yourself. I moved 600 miles for a fresh start, only to find the same old demons waiting there for me. I learned that change must come from the inside; no amount of distance can separate you from yourself. Even years later, another similar move 200 miles away would ultimately prove to be just as fruitless.

Maybe I’m finally learning...

How I Lost My Faith . XXI – Who or what the hell am I???

    Since the spring of 1985 I’d been driving myself crazy trying to become one of Jehovah’s Witness, only to repeatedly fail miserably, embracing an openly-gay lifestyle. The two were mutually exclusive; I could not be both people at the same time, living a double life. To do so would be to live a lie, to play the hypocrite and I simply could not do that; to this day I abhor hypocrisy. 

    It was if I were becoming two completely different people, and every six to twelve months one or the other would come to the fore. Mine became a life of extremes; it was all or nothing, black or white—any kind of grey area simply did not exist for me.

    The swinging of the Great Pendulum of my life began to cause some Witnesses to feel that I was just “playing with the Truth,” not taking it seriously. What they never understood is that I took serving Jehovah far more seriously than any of them could imagine. That’s why, when I would succumb to the desires of the flesh and find myself at an adult bookstore or a gay bar, I went all out; I’d already sinned and broken my vow to stay “clean before God” by simply walking into the place, so why the hell not? I’d never be able to get baptized, not at this rate, so why even try? I began referring to those periods as “relapses.” 

    Before my AIDS diagnosis in 1989, I’d never done drugs, with the exception of alcohol and a little marijuana once or twice back east in Virginia, but I’d never smoked cigarettes or done anything else until 1988/89, when Richard moved back to Denver and introduced me to cigarettes (I nearly coughed up a lung the first time...but the high, though short-lived, was amazing—and that’s what eventually got me addicted to tobacco). So my relapses up to the late 80s had nothing to do with drugs or tobacco; it was alcohol and sex, plain and simple. I knew I was gay, but I still held out hope that I could overcome it; who knows, maybe I’d actually get married someday. I figured, as long as I was completely open and honest with my potential mate about my past, we could work together to put it behind me and have a loving, productive relationship, and maybe a child. 

    Once I learned I had AIDS, however, that idea flew straight out the window. It was one thing to tell a prospective mate, “I lived as a homosexual in the past, but my heart’s desire is to serve Jehovah God, possibly as a Bethelite or missionary...” To tell her, “By the way, I used to be gay, and now I have AIDS. What do you think; still interested?” was completely out of the question; I was now destined to be alone for what time I had left of my life. The only hope I could reasonably hold out for myself was the hope of Paradise, where I would be cured of AIDS—and homosexuality.

    Regarding the latter, of the time when “I would be cured of … homosexuality,” I eventually reached a compromise of sorts: Perhaps it is genetic, not because of God intentionally making me gay, but as a result of the original sin of disobedience on the part of Adam and Eve. Their act of rebellion against God in the Garden of Eden led to imperfection, which was then passed on to their children, and hence to all mankind. I determined that, if I were genetically predisposed to homosexuality, it was little more than a genetic mutation resulting from millennia of accumulated mutations that would be corrected by Jehovah after Armageddon, when all surviving mankind (and those resurrected from the dead), would be cured of all ailments and eventually reach the level of perfection originally enjoyed by our first parents.

     This was the best solution I could come up with. I had not chosen to be gay, and God had not made me that way—but a genetic mutation caused by generation upon generation of passed-down sin and corruption was something I could grasp; it’s like making a copy of a copy of a copy, until the original, pure copy becomes all-but-unreadable. That became my lifeline, my hope—God knew my weaknesses and struggles to do what He wanted, and would ultimately forgive me for something that was beyond my control and would cure me of these “unnatural” tendencies, but only after Armageddon. That became my position for the next ten years; it gave me hope that, though I might be pathetically weak and inherently wicked, Jehovah would cut me a break and show me mercy at the end and let me live. The best I could do was adopt a life of celibacy; that didn’t change my sexual orientation, but it gave me something to hang onto, at least for a time.

    I never believed that Jehovah could produce a person inherently spiritual and God-fearing, but also inclined to live a life diametrically opposed to everything for which He stands. I refused to accept that, so I set out to prove that this lifestyle could be overcome, even by someone with my track record, only now with AIDS. I put forth all my effort to use what little time I had left to make a difference by being the best Jehovah’s Witness I could possibly be, and for a while I succeeded, but eventually I found myself once again in the cesspool of sin and despair; now there was no hope for me, so this time I went further, and that’s when my drug use began, first with pot, then cocaine and crystal meth. By 1990, I was living in downtown Denver at a Section-8-approved apartment building, just a few blocks from several bars where these drugs were readily available. For months, I was lost in that quagmire and figured, “I’m about to die anyway from this disease, and I have no time left to make things right with God, so what the hell?”

     But then the Great Pendulum began to swing back the other way and my conscience started telling me, “You don’t belong here, hanging out in gay bars and doing unspeakable things that have surely offended Jehovah,” and I put all my hope and faith in the possibility that He would forgive me, take me back into His fold and let me try again. After all, Armageddon hadn’t come yet, so from that standpoint I still had time, and as long as I was trying to do what was right, He would grant me amnesty should His “Day of Wrath” come before I got baptized. So again I would humble myself and return to the Kingdom Hall, devoted every waking moment to Bible reading, study and prayer—for a while, before the Pendulum swung back the other way. 

    In my mind, each act of transgression, each relapse, was tantamount to treason against God Himself, as I had sworn I would “never do this again”. Every six to eight months (occasionally longer) the Great Pendulum would swing in the opposite direction, and I had absolutely no control over when it would happen. When it’d swing left, I’d inevitably find myself at the bars; when it swung right, it was like flipping a switch; anything and everything “gay” had to go, including magazines, movies, “toys,” even boyfriends—you name it; it all went by the wayside. I’m sure I’ve disposed of several thousands of dollars worth of porn and related items over the years, as well as broken many hearts. I would begin drawing close to someone, thinking, “This time I’m staying right here, and I’m going to have a life with a man who loves me and that’s that, damn it!!” But inevitably, my conscience led me to abandon him for the “high road” of “the Truth.” 

    Each time it happened, not only did I cause that person tremendous pain, my heart was also shattered into a million pieces. It got to a point where I was convinced that my fate in this life was to do little more than cause people pain; if I were living as a gay man, I’d hurt my Witness friends. When I returned to “the Truth” I would devastate my gay partner(s) and friends. Eventually, I refused to get involved in any serious relationship because I knew the Pendulum would again swing the other way and I refused to commit to one person only to hurt them...again and again.

     Now that I had AIDS, though, I’d developed a growing feeling, fed by countless relapses into sin, that I would never actually see the paradisaic New World to come after Armageddon. How could God possibly truly forgive me for my sins now that I have in my body a disease I contracted by being utterly disobedient to His commandments? My attitude toward that hope and my efforts to become a Jehovah’s Witness took on a very different nature: “I will never see Paradise, but I can help you get there. Here’s the path; take it and enjoy everlasting life!”, as I would never see it. I never told any with whom I shared “the Truth” that I felt this way, and it would be much later when I would confide such in Witness friends. It would be suggested at meetings and conventions that we strive to ‘see ourselves there in that New System, in Paradise; make it real!” Over time, such a thing became virtually impossible for me to envision, so I simply stopped trying.

     In 1993, this swinging of the Pendulum led to what would result in one of the most critical choices of my life since returning to “the Truth” in 1985...and would confound my efforts to get baptized on a scale I’d not experienced before—a chance encounter that would nearly prove to be my undoing.