Categories: uncategorized
Date: 08 September 2007 11:09:22
Last night I wandered into London to go to Courage. Courage is a group for lesbian and gay Christians, and increasingly their friends and families and I have been involved with them for about 11 years, on and off. On a regular basis new people to the group will ask me how I got involved with Courage, and my response is that I met a guy called Simon when I was about 18 that I thought I might marry, until he told me he was gay. Simon was attending Courage and he put me in touch with Jeremy who led the group and somehow (and I still can't quite remember how it all panned out!) I ended up attending the group. The group served a huge purpose for me when I was younger in enabling me to have a safe space to work out my own identity, and very often the issues that the guys were dealing with, those of isolation, not fitting into a church environment, pressure from family etc. were those that as a single, unmarried and childless woman I was also dealing with. Over the 11 years I have been involved I have seen Courage change from being an ex-gay movement, encouraging people to live celibate lives or pursuing heterosexuality, to being a very pro-gay organisation.
Last night I saw people that I have know for 11 years, including Simon as we are still great friends, those who are more recent friends, but also people I haven't seen for a long time but who have recently come out. Last nights meeting was about our Spiritual Journey and the impact that events in our lives can have on our journey. I was very struck that leaving my church nearly two years ago has had such a major impact on my life. I am now starting to see that that whole experience was tantamount to spiritual abuse and that when I left the church I was starting to feel like a survivor. I now feel that experience has encouraged me to try and pursue “authentic Christian living” and to be as congruent in all areas of my life as possible. I find it fairly easy to be authentic with my friends and at work but i find it much more difficult to be so “real” with my family. I guess I feel the weight of their expectations very heavily, but I am trying very hard to continue to be honest about my life, experiences, thoughts, hopes and dreams. I know that isn't always seen to be acceptable, but I just want them to accept who I am, in the same way that my good friends accept and love me in my entirety.
Life definitely is a journey, sometimes it feels like plain sailing, but most of the time the water is just rather choppy!