Kelsey’s Story – Busy Surviving

Last updated on: May 16, 2013 at 11:21 am by Susan Cottrell

Kelsey’s Story – Busy Surviving 2013-05-16T11:21:02-05:00 Susan Cottrell

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My friend’s daughter Kelsey posted on Facebook the following discourse on the LGBTQ issue. It represents years thought and struggle around this issue. I repost with her permission for any Christian dealing with this issue with family, church, or self.

Discourse, by Kelsey

People must ignore certain things in order to survive. This is true especially for those who believe in Christianity. Depending on their level of commitment, they will frequently be made aware of their shortcomings. Americans who do not believe exist in an environment ripe with moral quantifications (=a country with strongly religious (=Protestant) roots), and they will either agree to some degree and know they fall short, or they will disagree and be made to believe they are different (=outside of the mainstream). Yet every day, when people wake up and go to work, they are forced to forget these matters, at least partially, and go on about their day, to whatever extent accepting who they are. Christians with an inordinate amount of pride are forced to take their focus off of their flaw in order to focus on their day: choosing an outfit for the day, processing paperwork, conversing with people, the billions of minute decisions that we each make every day, and the most prominent distraction, SLEEP. When we go to bed at night, we must accept that the sun has risen and fallen on our imperfections (flaws, weaknesses, sins…..whatever the terminology) and that it was out of our control to perfect them during the time the sun was up and we were awake.

I have spent many nights without sleep. I have spent many days too distracted by these issues to get out of bed and fulfill my myriad responsibilities, often opting to take the day off than finish my work and go to class. I have spent most of that time trying to fix things, trying to think through what was wrong in my life (and in me) and what I could do to make it right. And these were not peaceful hours, spent in thoughtful contemplation and the feeling of progress deep in my soul. They were often too chaotic to process coherently, or rather void of any clear feeling. Numb and anxious, rest did not come easily, and meeting my responsibilities could only come at the price of forgetting what I had spent years fighting to hold on to.

Only after years of sweating it off was I able to get a decent job, do decent work for that job, maintain a steady relationship, and maintain the acceptable level of hygiene and bodily care. Do I miss the days of lazy wandering and the nights of insanity – spent either agonizing over existence or totally wasted in some stranger’s apartment? No, I don’t. It was not the Ke$ha song most people believe it to be. I was never cool enough to make my antics look like a dope gangsta film, and my flaws followed me everywhere. I was free and flew fast, like anything anytime. But where was I flying? Nothing led anywhere, in fact nothing was connected at all, and the situation was comparable in my mind and in my heart. I ended up the way I started…completely numb and confused.

I have since given up on trying to solve my problems. The past, the present and the future are still there to demand my attention. I will continue looking, but no longer with the expectation of finding. The point is to look and to be responsible to what I see; that’s all one can do.

With all that said, I must make my point.

When we get to talking about homosexuality – whether it’s right or wrong, whether we should talk to our gay friends about it or not, and whether or not our Christian brothers and sisters who cannot reconcile their orientation with their faith can change or should change – a few questions should be asked:

1) You ignore flawed traits in yourself every day in order to survive. If you ask a gay person to change (whether or not that task is possible), you might be asking him to make his flawed trait an obsession for the rest of his life. Are you willing to do this yourself?

2) Perhaps you know what that task will entail, perhaps you don’t. Which means: you should think a little bit about the consequences of this idea (that his orientation is wrong) before you incept it in his consciousness. Do you know what he will have to do?

3) If you ask him to be slave to this idea, you should know that he will either spend his every waking hour alone, or in agony with himself in a heterosexual marriage, and that it could affect all of his other relationships. What would you do with a life lived this way?

If one or more answer to these questions is no, or if you are not sure and are not willing to find the answer, please refrain from speaking about this topic with authority…..or, better yet, refrain altogether. There are more important things for you to spend your time doing.

I, for one, am busy surviving.

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