So I bet you thought I was straight

(Quick note:  With the help of dear friends and family, I've been in pretty intentional discernment about doing what I'm doing right now - that is, coming out of the closet - for about six months; and I've been in "passive" discernment about it for much longer.  So the timing of this has almost nothing to do with the fact that Dan Savage called out people like me on his podcast this week.  But in any event:  there you go, Dan.  One formerly closeted bi guy, joining the fight.)

Unless you have specific reason to think otherwise, I'm guessing this post's title is fairly accurate.  Further, I imagine that's true if you've known me for years and years, or if we're just acquaintances, or if I'm only somebody you decided to follow on a social network.  Why?  Because we're culturally conditioned to assume that everyone is straight, cisgender, and mono, unless we have serious reason to believe otherwise.

Which is pretty much the reason I'm telling you otherwise.  (Well, that, and because the cultural assumptions of "normal" - and the bullying that helps to enforce those assumptions - sometimes provoke kids to kill themselves.)

So here are the facts, at a certain level of detail:

I've been married to an amazing woman for 17 1/2 years.  (I've been diagnosed with bipolar disorder for 11 1/2 of those, which is proof enough of "amazing", I think.)  Our married relationship has always been monogamous, and I've been faithful to her throughout our marriage.  Also, on the very rare occasions that the subject has come up, I've generally not corrected anyone's assumption that I identify as straight.

If you know me well enough to know all (or much) of this, I certainly don't blame you for thinking I'm straight.

More facts:  before I was married, I didn't have a whole lot of sexual experience.  However, I did have sex with more than one person, and not exclusively with women.

Let's take a break to review some helpful tools:

- The sex researcher Alfred Kinsey first published the Kinsey Scale in the 1940's.  It's limited, but it's a useful shorthand.  It rates sexual orientation on a scale from 0 (100% heterosexual) through 3 (50/50 bisexual) to 6 (exclusively homosexual).

- Fritz Klein added some nuance to Kinsey with the Klein Grid, which rates 7 categories related to sexual orientation on a scale of 1 to 7 (roughly corresponding to Kinsey's 0 to 6).  It also takes into account change over time.

So, the scoop?  The common assumption, based on my long-term, monogamous marriage and the general cultural default, would be that I am a 0 on the Kinsey Scale (exclusively hetero).  If fact, I am a 1 - 2.  Taking into account the Klein Grid categories, my responses vary a bit in the different categories, and they are definitely weighted toward women, but I am not exclusively hetero in any of those various dimensions.

The final row on the Klein Grid is self-identification.  (So here's what I came to say.)  I've spent most of my life failing to correct the default assumption that I am 100% hetero.  It's easier that way, for sure.  Being married to a woman, I can easily pass as straight.

But I don't want to do that anymore.  I want to stop doing it for the sake of my own authenticity.  And I want to stop doing it in some small hope of helping other folks - especially young folks who also don't conform to the cultural assumptions regarding sexual orientation - to feel authentic and valid in their own skin.

So for the record, here's how I would prefer to identify, in regard to sexual orientation.  I'll give you several options, in order of preference.

1) Pansexual.  This is the most accurate and authentic label to describe my sexual orientation.  Essentially, it means that my potential ability to find someone sexually, physically, personally, and emotionally attractive is not automatically limited by their biological sex, gender expression, or gender identity.  (Please refer to the Genderbread Person if a reminder of what these terms mean would be helpful.)  My attraction is weighted toward women, similar to the way in which some people might be especially attracted to redheads, or to tall people, or to extraverts, without that preference in any way ruling out their attraction to folks with different characteristics.

2) Bisexual.  You can call me bi.  It's totally OK.  The distinction that's made between pansexuality and bisexuality is that "bisexual" implies that gender/sex is binary, while in fact there are lots of possibilities in between and perpendicular to "male" and "female", including genderqueer, intersex, and much more.  That said, the vast majority of folks who identify as bi are absolutely not trying to say that there's no way they could be attracted to someone who isn't 100% unambiguously male or female, as sometimes seems to be implied by writings on pansexuality.  So you can call me bi.

3) Queer.  Don't think I'm listing "queer" third because I don't like it.  If you call me queer, I'll take it as a compliment (unless it's not one).  It's an appropriate label.  The only reason it's my third preference is that it's so general.  It doesn't convey much information.  I can be more specific, and that seems helpful, so I will.  That's all.

4) Straight.  Most people who don't read this will probably continue to presume that I'm straight.  That's OK.  I rightly pass for straight, and have done for most of my life.  In the future, if someone explicitly mentions making this assumption, I'll correct them.  But it's not as if I find the label inauthentic, inappropriate, or offensive.  It's reasonably accurate for me.  It's not like I'm a 6 on the Kinsey Scale, or a 4, or even a 3.  However, if you have read all this and are having trouble dealing with it and would just prefer to think of me as straight, my request to you is this: If I am someone who is important to you, please try to grapple with this part of my identity.  I would be grateful.

So, um, that's it.  I'm not as straight as you probably thought I was.  My hope is that, by rejecting that assumption (and continuing to do so going forward), just one other person - possibly a young person - who is also outside the sexual "norm" will feel just a little more OK with who God made them to be.  And in any case, this means that I'm just a little bit more transparently who I am.  I feel as if that's worth something.

My new tat

Hey y'all - check out my gawjus new tattoo (above).

See the chalice in the middle?  See what it's sitting on?  You know what that is?  That's a Common Table, yo.  :-)

Here's a pic of my amazing tattoo artist, Amy X (aka Ax), working her magic:

If you live in the DC area and are thinking of getting some ink, you'd be a damn fool not to talk to Amy.

Photo credits go to my tat buddy, the lovely and labyrinthine Maranda Tennyson.

And a big hat tip to our extraordinary friend Amy the Moffitt, who introduced Maranda and me to Ax!

Why I don't need a tablet

Just to annoy people, and also to prove (to any who still had doubts) that I ain't the sharpest tool in the shed (given that I'm paid to code apps for tablet computers), I made the following Venn diagram to explain why I don't need a tablet, and why I remain skeptical that anyone else really needs one either. I'm pretty well convinced that Apple and Amazon (because I feel exactly the same about e-readers like Kindle) created a brand new market out of nothing but thin air and gee-wiz-wowee-cool-factor. I suspect that the only folks who really "need" a tablet are those for whom it's really the only computer they need - very light users who pretty much just do web browsing, reading, and quick emails (and Skype with the grandkids). Alls the rest of y'all, lugging around your iPad or Nook along with your laptop in your bag and your iPhone or Android phone in your pocket - well, it sure does look cool, I'll give you that.

Anyway, here's my diagram. I'm sure you'll agree that that's settled, now. Carry on.

God is like music

Since my nine-month depression last year, I've been struggling with belief. I've pretty much always been a theist - even when I was a Buddhist; it just seemed natural to me. But since last year, I've been wavering between atheism, agnosticism, and a rather vague theism. This has been a bit distressing, given that the Church is so central to my life.

For the last few weeks, since they've resumed publication, I've been listening to the podcasts of the 2009 Emergent Village Theological Conversation with the great Jürgen Moltmann, while running on the indoor track at the Y. (Go away, winter. You bother me. I want to run outside instead.)

I've been ruminating about something Moltmann said in the bit I listened to the other evening. He was asked to comment on the New Atheists, and he said something about how, sure, people can live without God. People can live without music, too....

So on the drive in this morning, suddenly I really wanted to hear the song "Popular", sing by the great (in a different way then Moltmann) Kristen Chenoweth in the Broadway musical Wicked. (Yes, as a matter of fact I do believe that my sexual identity is more secure than my theological identity at the moment...but why do you ask?)

And while listening to Chenoweth's soaring vocals and thinking about Moltmann's well-grounded theology, I had one of those moments of (what felt like) clarity that immediately had me sobbing and almost needing to to pull over: God is like music.

Think about it.

The atheists are right. We can be said to have invented God...just as we can be said to have invented music. (It wouldn't exist on earth if we hadn't invented it...shut up, whales; you're not important right now.)

The agnostics are right...even though they don't really claim anything. (They're always right.)

Any given believer is not wrong, just as any given composer is not "wrong". But music is not arbitrary, and is not simply a matter of taste. Though we may be said to have invented it, at the same time it seems, in some sense, to be built into the fabric of the universe. There's a difference between music and noise. We don't know everything about that difference, and opinions will differ about what's good vs. bad music, and people are always inventing (or discovering?) surprising and unprecedented facets of music...but in a very real sense, music exists. "Music" is real; "musical" and "unmusical" are real; and all of this is not entirely up to us.

Maybe it's just me, but suddenly this seems like a profound metaphor for understanding God, who (I'm given to understand) is Love.

The major difference, it seems to me, is in consequences. Ideas about God (good and bad), it seems, are much more likely to cause people to love or hurt other people, and to change their lives for the better or for the worse, than are ideas about music. (Though of course music is hardly without power in these regards.) I'm not going to quibble about whether consequences are eternal or temporal - our lives go on for as long as they do, and we either turn them toward love, forgiveness, and grace, or we don't. All of our choices affect us for the rest of our lives, or until we choose differently...whichever comes first.

But anyway, thanks are in order to the professor and the prima donna, for giving me something to chew on.

image by Michael Yarish, AP/Fox

Dude-fanciers and chick-fanciers

I'm convinced that if we weren't so concerned, as a culture, with making sure we can stigmatize The Gays, we would be looking at a rectification of our language around sexual orientation. A word like "homosexual" is great for building a linguistic fence around a group of people and defining them as "the other", but for practical purposes it's shit. So someone is "homosexual"; therefore they are attracted to people who share their gender. And which gender would that be? See, it doesn't provide you with enough information to actually tell you squat. You also need to find out their own gender before you know what the word "homosexual" is trying, and failing, to tell you: that is, what gender they might be attracted to. A word like "lesbian", chock full of both gender and sexual orientation data, is more useful, but it's also rather limited by the fact that most people are not attracted exclusively to only one gender. So is this so-called "lesbian" a 6 on the Kinsey Scale, or a 4? Or perhaps even a 1 who's currently in a (theoretically atypical) relationship with a woman?

Another problem with "homosexual": it lumps together people who have very little in common apart from a shared history of oppression. I'm not trying to minimize that - that shared history (which is still here in the present) is HUGE - and of course lesbians and gay men should band together to resist that oppression - along with folks who identify as bisexual, transsexual, intersex folk, queer, questioning, allies - heck, anybody who wants to join the struggle. But when you think about it, if you could somehow magically remove that shared history of oppression, a lesbian would have a lot more in common with a straight woman (female gender and its cultural accompaniments) or a straight man (attraction to women) than she does with a gay man with whom she shares neither gender nor sexual orientation. So what use is a term like "homosexual", really?

What would really be useful, from the standpoint of linguistic practicality, are words that describe the group of people who are typically attracted to men, and the group of people who are typically attracted to women. You know, "dude-fanciers" and "chick-fanciers". So, for example, "chick-fanciers" would include heterosexual men, bisexual men, bisexual women, and lesbians. Instead of the rather inaccurate, "Oh Patrick, you look scrumptious in that leisure suit - you'll drive the ladies wild!" we'd have a truer alternative. I say inaccurate, of course, because while some "ladies" might indeed find Patrick irresistible in his leisure suit, it's unlikely that many lesbians (at least those of the Kinsey Scale 6 variety) will be swooning over him. On the other hand, it's entirely possible that Patrick will turn the head of a gay man or two. Saying that he will impress "dude-fanciers" covers all the appropriate bases without overstepping. (Of course, real human behavior is still not that simple: an individual straight woman or gay man might find Patrick an insufferable bore despite his spiffy duds; an individual lesbian or straight man may well be moved to reward his hotness with a wolf whistle. But that's not important right now.)

Who cares if someone is attracted to members of their own gender or members of the opposite gender? Those categories were interesting from a clinical point of view back when homosexuality was labeled as a pathology by the medical community. Those days are long behind us (thank God!) and a label like "homosexual", it seems to me, is chiefly useful nowadays if you're interested in perpetuating the bigotry that led to that clinical diagnosis. But it is useful in everyday speech to talk about whether somebody (of whatever gender) digs lads and/or lasses. Especially if they're single, and you're an aspiring matchmaker. (Probably it would be handy to have a term for folks near the middle of the Kinsey Scale. "Equal-opportunity-fancier"?)

You may not like my choice of labels (me neither), but you've got to agree that words like this would be more practically useful than words like "homosexual", if we weren't so keen to delineate "homosexuals" as deviant. Well, OK, you don't have to agree, and if you think I'm full of crap, that's what the comment box is for. :-)

Karaoke at the office holiday party

Here are two videos of me singing (in the first, I'm trying not to make my co-worker, Ramya, look bad) at the office holiday party. Another co-worker decided to use the occasion to test our video partner company's iPhone video upload app, and still another co-worker sent us the embed code, so why not. (Alas, Ramya's near-perfect rendition of "My Heart Will Go On" was not captured.) :-(

Anyway, here we are, singing:

A Whole New World



La Bamba

Regrets

I found out this morning that a friend of mine died last week, apparently of natural causes. He was my age. We had fallen out of touch in recent years, despite that we lived near each other, because we had become frustrated with one another, and I was all too willing to comply with his stated desire to be left alone. In the years since then, I've thought about reaching out to him, but I never did. He could have done the same, of course, but might very well have refrained from doing so for no other reason than that he thought I was still mad at him. (I wasn't.) For my part, the reason I didn't reach out was simply that I sometimes found him frustrating, and therefore I didn't really want to.

"There will always be time for reconciliation later" is one of those lies that we tell ourselves, which I think we know very well are lies, even as we are comforted by them. I wish I had not been so hard-hearted and lazy, but there's fuckall I can do about it now.

Grateful for my Dad

My Dad passed away two years ago today.

I miss him terribly. At the same time, right now, I'm feeling very strongly how much he's really, truly not gone. It's cliche. It's not a thing that would have comforted me when grief was newer. But right now, it feels true: there's a very real sense in which Dad lives on in me, in Sean, in Mom, and in all of us whom he loved so well. Like I said in my eulogy for him, so much of what's good and lovable in me comes from Tom Croghan.

I'm grateful for you today, Dad. Thank you.

All my love,

Mike

New Year's Eve partay!

Hey kids! Check out the awesome video Tim made of our Sesame-Street-themed New Year's party! That's my celestial wife Tina and our otherworldly friend Amy rawkin' out in the Yip Yip Martian costumes. :-)

NYE Party '09-'10 from Tim Snyder on Vimeo.

More pics are here.

Lately...

...I haven't been myself, sometimes. I've been struggling, for the first time in a decade, with my bipolar disorder. So I've had a couple of bouts of being not quite myself. In fact, I've been an asshole, and hurt people I love.

I don't have much more to say about that, except that I'm truly sorry.

What I did want to say is: I'm ending this year feeling like me (if a rather subdued and humbled version of me), and with a real sense of hope for the new one that's beginning.

So happy New Year, everybody. God bless.

image by Georgie Sharp (rights)

iPhone Terzanelle

Giving in to only a little mild goading (I'm easy to goad), I went ahead and did a silly one. It's a JOKE, 'k?

iPhone Terzanelle

I think, in truth, that I shall never see
a pocket-filling block to rival this.
Could better friend than thou, o iPhone, be?

Except for fear of moisture, I would kiss
your clean-lined form, and know I’ll never own
a pocket-filling block to rival this.

Your screen so touchable, as smooth as bone,
Your compass...gyro...hidden deep within
your clean-lined form. And no, I’ll never own

A tiny fraction of your offered apps.
Some use your GPS, while others need
your compass...gyro...hidden deep within.

With you I never may miss tweet nor feed.
The people ‘round me...happy with their phone?
Some use your GPS, while others...need....

Apart from you, my most beloved one
I think, in truth, that I shall never see
People ‘round me happy with their phone.
Could better friend than thou, o iPhone, be?

image derived from Heart of flowers by zakwitnij (rights)

What I want (social media consumption edition)

I'm just sort of thinking out loud here. Different forms of communication, right? Too freakin' many. Currently, I consume the following forms of electronic communication:

PUSH:

• Phone calls (cell, Tina's cell [= home], work)
• SMS messages
• Email (Gmail, work)
• IM (AIM, Gtalk, Facebook; maybe Yahoo, MSwhatever, ICQ if anybody else cared)
• Facebook notifications
• Twitter (DM's, @mentions)
• LinkedIn notifications
• Notifications from various Nings
  
• Yammer (could change to Pull if volume increased)

PULL:

• RSS feeds
• Facebook news feed
• Twitter stream(s)
• Non-Push activity on various other social nets, like LinkedIn and Nings
  

Then there are communications from myself - Calendar events, Evernote and reQall items, etc., - which could be lumped in above - but those aren't really my problem. Communication with other people is my problem.

So here's what I want:

• For the Push items, I want to be alerted when they come in. I want alerts on both my laptop and my iPhone. I want each type of alert to sound different from the other kinds, and include a popup with some useful info and the ability to jump to the appropriate app for more info/response. I want to be able to easily turn off or snooze these alerts, and put them in silent mode.
  
• For the Pull items, I don't want to be alerted when new ones come in, but it would be groovy if something (on both my desktop and iPhone) would count them up for me, and let me know how many are waiting for me at any given time, without me having to ask it to check.
• For the Pull items, I would pay money - srsly - for something which would detect cross-posting and show me items only once, even if they were posted to both Twitter and FB, or both FB and RSS, f'rinstance. And, ideally, this would allow me to easily respond to a cross-posted item on the platform of my choosing (i.e., if it was posted on both Twitter and FB, I should be able to jump to either one to reply/comment).

That stuff would make me (a little) healthier, wealthier, and wiser when it comes to my info overload and Chronic Partial Attention syndrome, I think. I'm edging ever closer to it, by screwing around with a wide variety of notification apps, etc., for both platforms I use (PC and iPhone). But I'm still a ways away, especially on that third bullet on consolidating cross-posts. If y'all run across tools that make this stuff easier, let me know? Thanks!

image by Saumya Agarwal (rights)

Two-pronged enmity

Reflecting on a the horns of a dilemma, or something. Two syndromes:

1) The good is the enemy of the great:

Person A: "You know what? It would take a lot of focus and effort and teamwork, but we could go for this Big, Hairy, Audacious Goal!"

Person B: "Really? But why...? These small, hairless, inoffensive occupations that we're currently busy with are getting us by just fine."

2) The great is the enemy of the good:

Person A: "Hey! Look at this cool thing I accomplished!"

Person B: "What?? Why did you waste time doing that? We TOTALLY could have accomplished a MIND-BENDINGLY AWESOME version of that!!!!!"

Person A: "Oh. But, we weren't. And we haven't. And I did this. And it's pretty cool."

[Six months later....]

Person A: "Hmm. Glad I didn't wait around for B's MIND-BENDINGLY AWESOME version, or we'd still have nuttin' at all...."

I wonder:

It seems to me that good and great are both pretty nifty. And initiative trumps nay-saying almost every time. So can't we all just get along? (Probably not.)

image by Tony the Misfit (rights)

Armchair Lifehacker, Tip #2: Use Outlook like Gmail

So I had intended to make this "Armchair Lifehacker" thing a bit of a series, but then I forgot about it. Oh well, here's #2.

Perhaps, like me, you have no choice but to use Outlook for your work email communication. And perhaps, like me, you've been using Gmail for too long to go back to those old, clunky, self-defeating ways of filing and finding your email messages, like folder hierarchies.

So here's what I do: In Outlook, apart from the built-in ones (Inbox, Sent Mail, etc.), I have exactly one folder. I call it "Archive". (Yes, this is a bit confusing, becuase Outlook has its own, very different idea of "archive". So you might want to call it something else. "All Mail" would be a very Gmail-like choice.)

I practice, more or less, "Inbox Zero". I've been doing it for years, since long before it had a well-known name. So when I'm done with an email, I simply move it to my Archive folder, just like Gmail. Actually, before I do that, I might tag it with one or more Categories, which can be used in Outlook much like Labels in Gmail.

Then, when I want to find something, I never grope around in folders. Instead, I either look for it by Category (Outlook makes it easy to create Search Folders for Categories), or I use Google Desktop Search to find it instantly by typing in search terms. (I'm pretty sure that Windows Live Search, or whatever it's called, would suffice for this as well, but I've been using Google Desktop since long before MS came out with that, and haven't seen reason to switch. The built-in Outlook search capability is not useful, as anyone who's attempted to use it will attest.)

So anyway, that's my tip. Working this way makes me happy, and efficient. Possibly you'd like it too. Possibly not.

Now if only I had a way of getting the thing to properly thread conversations....

image by justingaynor (rights)

For the record

I figured I should do at least one blog post in July. Twitter is indeed seductive: you can satisfy your need for ego-stroking broadcast of your brilliant thoughts, yet you've only got to come up with 140 characters.

But anyway - as of today:

• I'm 38 years old. I can no longer say, with the peasant from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, "I'm 37! I'm not old!" I'm 38. I'm old.
• That said, I'm running 5Ks pretty routinely these days, and have lost over 25 pounds since the first of the year. So yay!
• My wife is awesome. This is not new, but it is notable.
• Our 19-year-old kitty, Krishna, who's been with us about half our lives, may die today. We'll miss her terribly when she goes.
• For those who were interested in my "little hopeful project", we've made contact. Not much so far, and maybe not ever. But the strand of connection exists, and I'm happy about that.
• I'm deeply grateful for my friends and family. It never ceases to amaze me how blessed I am. It should humble me way more than it does.
• On my day job, I'm trying to push the idea that we need to take risks and have Big, Hairy, Audacious Goals (aka BHAGs; HT: Mike for the terminology, Dee for the concept) if we're going to survive and not just slide into oblivion along with a lot of other newspapers. Wish me luck.
• I think we maybe need a BHAG or two at church, too.

There you go. State of the Croghan. Peace!

image by ccontill (rights)

Julienning my inner couch potato FTW

Active lifestyle update for the past 7 days:

Wednesday: Ran 5K before work
Thursday: Ran 5K before work
Friday: Afternoon of kayaking on the Potomac
Saturday: Hiked Little Devil's Stairs (7+ miles) (gorgeous!!)
Sunday: Climbed Old Rag (8+ miles) (wicked fun and challenging boulder scrambles)
Monday: On the sixth day, Croghan rested
Tuesday: Ran 5K after work

This may not seem very impressive to you, or perhaps it sounds like bragging. But to me, the fat kid with bad eyesight who always got picked last for every team in gym class and who (barring a little occasional hiking, biking, and skiing) never did much of anything remotely athletic until about five years ago - I've come a long way, baby. A frakking hard-fought, slogging-but-ultimately-rewarding long way. So maybe I am bragging. So what? Brag brag brag. I feel good.

This past week is also the week I've officially lost 20 pounds since January 1st. And falling!

Our next (that is, second ever) "official" 5K race is this one on 6 June:

A Day at the Races Cross Country 5K

If you'll be in the area and want to join Tina and me, y'all come!

Image by euqus (rights)

Remembering my Dad

My Dad, Tom Croghan, passed away one year ago today.

I'm deeply, deeply grateful to have been raised in the love and wisdom and care and example of this remarkable, constantly generous, selflessly powerful man.

Here's what I said about him last year.

Thank you, Dad. I love you and miss you.

Little Hopeful Project

(HT to Moff for the title - she officially named this endeavor in an IM conversation recently.)

So I've been playing amateur PI lately (you know, like Magnum, only with far less successful facial hair), searching the interwebs for the trail of my biological father and his family.

The relationship between my Mom and my biological father, so I gather, was not really going to be a thing, so they parted ways amiably before I was born. (I've never laid eyes on the man.) My Mom and Dad (my real Dad, I mean) met several years later, and they married when I was about 6. (I was their ring bearer.) Dad adopted me, and they even changed my birth certificate. (Weird, huh?) And, quite honestly, this whole thing is something that I've thought about only rarely, my entire life. I know who my parents are, they've always been awesome, and this has not really been a source of ambiguity, doubt, longing, or even curiosity for me.

As for biodad, I've always known his name, and for many years I've known his address and phone number. He married, had kids, and settled down not far from where I grew up - and has lived in the same place for decades. About ten years ago, when Tina and I were trying to have kids, I sent him a letter, hoping to get some family medical history. He didn't reply, but it turned out to be a moot point when I found out shortly after that I can't conceive.

Until recently, though, I knew very little about him: his name, address, and phone number (which were in the phone book), and his wife's name and the fact that he'd had other kids (because Mom mentioned those facts). Mom didn't know anything else about his kids.

Then, last year, Mom's brother Roger, who had been missing for 26 years with zero contact with anybody in the family, found my Mom online and "plunk!" reappeared (albeit in a very minor way) in our lives. And this got me thinking about the siblings I've never met. I've never felt any need for biodad to be a part of my life, and I still don't - and by the same token, there is no lack in my life that I'm looking for these siblings to fill. But still - they're my family. I'd like to know who they are, and vice-versa. So I decided to do some digging. And I found out: I do, apparently, have a sister and two brothers!

So I emailed biodad, told him what I'm hoping for, and asked him to get back to me - and also said that if I didn't hear back and he didn't ask me not to, I'd try other methods of contacting his kids.

It didn't bounce. I wonder what will happen next? I'm really not expecting much, but I'm probably hopeful enough to set myself up for some disappointment.

Oh well. Little hopeful project. :-)

Photo by Litandmore (rights)

Faith, relationship, betrayal

"The opposite of faith is not doubt, it’s certainty." - Anne Lamott

Lately, I've been having some conversations with friends and loved ones on the subject of relationships. (Close friendships, romantic relationships, marriages, etc.) Are they worth the risk? Do they inevitably contain the seeds of deep disappointment, and even betrayal? Surely there are some relationships which can be counted on for life? Or at least ones that we will look back upon, in our old age, as being rock solid?

So I've been thinking about that, and here's a thought I have.

All close relationships - from a friendship to a business partnership to a marriage - are built on faith and trust. And as St. Anne says in the quote above (which might not be original to her), certainty is the opposite of faith. I think any faith-based relationship (the only other kind being a shallow, faith-free relationship) has risk built in, right from the get-go. There is no certainty in relationships. That's not possible, given that the other party is a person of free will, and always fundamentally a mystery to you (and, probably, to herself as well). Every relationship contains the seeds of deep disappointment, pain, and (if the relationship is close and long-lasting), probably full-blown betrayal. This is what I think.

Further, I think this applies even to our relationship with God. Before I defend that statement, let me make a claim about the nature of disappointment and betrayal. In my opinion, the only meaningful standard for disappointment/betrayal is the subjective opinion of the wounded party. In other words, if you feel that I have disappointed or betrayed you, then this is in fact the case, no matter the intent behind my actions. What other standard is possible? If you feel betrayed by my action, is that betrayal made untrue if I was "doing my best" or "had your best interest at heart"? Does that change the emotional impact of betrayal (at least initially)? Are those things even possible to determine coherently? What exactly does "doing one's best" mean, anyway? I could always have tried harder, been more thoughtful, listened more carefully to you.

So if you grant me that betrayal is determined in the heart of the betrayed, then maybe you'll see where I'm coming from when I say that we will all, certainly, be betrayed by God. No matter how humble we are, no matter how spiritual, how pious, no matter how healthy our prayer life, there will come a day when a prayer we prayed with all the depth of our being goes unanswered - at least as far as we can tell. And we will feel betrayed by God. And that betrayal will be, in my opinion, all too real. (There are many well-worn defenses of God in situations like these, and to me they all boil down to, "You know, God must have been doing God's best.")

If anyone reading this cannot recall a time when they've experienced this kind of betrayal by God, I'd be very surprised.

So this (I think) is why our relationship with God, as with others, is characterized by faith - by trust - by confidence - but not by certainty. And faith implies risk. And relationship, I believe, implies betrayal. And it's damn well worth it anyway.

A corollary to this theory goes a long way toward making up for this, if you ask me. It says that we should see every single blessing we receive - from God, from our spouse, from our family, friends, beloved, or a stranger on the street - as a gift of grace.

Loving God, you betraying bastard, please help us to live lives of risk and grace. Amen.

photo of Giotto di Bondone (1267-1337), Life of Christ: Kiss of Judas, at the Cappella degli scrovegni a Padova by Carla216 (rights)

Schrödinger's hat

When my brother Sean and I were at our Mom's place in Charlotte over Thanksgiving, Mom brought out a few of Dad's things for us to take home, if we wanted. (Dad passed away this past April.) So I now have a small collection of items whose value is undoubtedly only sentimental - one of Dad's badges from work; a couple of Roman Catholic devotional medallions that were apparently given to Dad by a (high school?) girlfriend - along with a couple of items which may have monetary value, but which I have no intention of selling - Dad's dress watch; a ring with what might be an aquamarine stone.

But Mom also brought out a simple brown herringbone tweed cap, made in Ireland, which she had bought for Dad within the last few years. Dad really liked the cap. He wore it often, and it suited him - gave him a rather roguish look, actually, with his white goatee and the smartass twinkle in his eye.

So Sean and I had pretty much zero trouble deciding who should take any of the other items, but we both left the cap for last. When we got to it, we each tried it on. It fit us both perfectly. It looked good on each of us. Mom asked, If we had it, would we wear it? We both answered honestly: Yes.

So Mom suggested that we revisit the issue later, and we both agreed, and I didn't think much more of it beyond the ride home after Thanksgiving.

Then, on Christmas day, when all the other gifts had been opened, Mom brought out two identical-size, identically-wrapped boxes. She gave them to Sean and me, and we each opened one at random. Each box contained an identical brown herringbone tweed cap. Mom had bought another one from the same place where she'd gotten the original one for Dad. She'd weathered it using some secret, arcane, Moms-only weathering techniques. And she'd given one cap to each of us - with neither she, nor either of us, nor anyone else knowing which is the "real" one.

I suppose if we were to carefully examine them side-by-side, we might be able to make a strong guess. But we aren't going to do that. Barring that, it's kind of like "Schrödinger's hat": in absence of the paradox-resolving observation, the two mutually exclusive possibilities are both true: Sean has Dad's cap, and I have Dad's cap too.

And I think that's awesome. And I think my Mom so totally rocks. (And when we opened the boxes and I realized what she'd pulled off, I was pretty thoroughly overcome, but I covered it up by giving her a long bear hug and she didn't even know - but I told her later.)

And I really, really like my hat. Thanks, Mom, and thanks, Dad. Love you both.