Review of the Creation

Praise for the “Creation”! This was an experience of the how Namibia struggled to gain independence through the medium of musical theatre. But this was unlike any old musical, mere a play with singing and dancing. This was an amalgamation of dances, songs, multimedia and dialogue between a young girl and young woman. Songs from the protests against the regime and church hymns sung in our languages were woven together with poetry and dance to evoke the past. My only criticism is that there was no program, which was a shame, because the artists responsible for the Creation deserve recognition.

Having given it praise, now I want to give an appraisal of the parts of the Creation that I found most meaningful. The entire piece had a dramatic arc to it and it was principally driven by movement which defies typical conception of dance. At the start, we observe a dimly lit stage with two figures moving in the shadows. A narrator reads the poem of Andimba Toivo ya Toivo, the one he gave beginning with “we are Namibians and not South Africans” back in the Pretoria court in 1968. Suddenly, people rushed from all corners of the stage, against the black and white images of combatants shooting, helicopters falling and the like. They are dashing about, searching, fleeing, falling to the ground sequentially. Their bodies come to a clump where some jolt up with their limbs leaving the ground, before they slowly come down again. Killed or defeated, these people seem to be at the start of the Creation.

The end of Creation contrasts the beginning, as those once defeated march forward in the steady step-forward-step-back dance, jiving with glee. In the fore of the stage, two men play the common Oshiwambo dance or jumping over each other. One leaps up over the other who just ducks his head before the roles are switched. They also join the marching ensemble and sing the quintessential song of going into exile “Kana ka meme, owumbo o lo lo”. “Owumbo, Owumbo, o lo lo…” they belt out fiercely with their fists reaching up to the heavens in a pose reminiscent of victory (and the SWAPO man) at the edge of the stage. What a powerful closing!

Yes, the power of the ensemble was prominent in the dance creating that sense of a united armed struggle. But there was also a precious solo moment. A young woman danced while another young woman recited the poem beginning with “when I come back from exile, I want someone to touch me” written by the poet Mvula ya Nangolo more than thirty years ago. The recitation was rhythmical, like that of beat generation in New York City of 1960s. The dancer looked around her, her head swiftly moving about vigilantly. Her legs created a world of lines that either jutted up to the heavens or curved quickly through the space as she revolved through the air to land and turn once more on the ground before standing up. At times I though she was acting out the “touch” of the poem, by putting her hand on her heart, but I was mesmerized by the how she moved slowly and quickly around her own circumference that what the poem said did not matter. Indeed, this was a performance of an independent dance in communion with a poem.

Though I could not possibly do justice to “Creation” in just one review, I want to relate this experience to you. Whether you experienced the performance or not, you should know that the creation of our nation was and is still happening through the creation of art.

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Autoethnography

Today is the anniversary of Namibia's independence! Hurray I went to the stadium, there was a free lunch as well! Yesterday I wrote this reflection

Owa za peni?
Where are you from is the question – posed in Oshiwambo. Except no one has ever asked it to me in Oshiwambo – that language of my father and African ancestors – it is always in English. Even if I strike up the conversation in Oshiwambo, my interlocutor, man or woman, boy or girl, usually smiles in delight (or amusement) at my greeting and proceeds in English “Where are you from?”

She asked me this – the waitress at the restaurant – one day. I was not at a table but I was organizing a table, a language table where people can meet and talk that language, just like we had at Princeton. I told them about my idea to have this Spanish language table to help the students learn to speak the language. After all was said and done the question came “Where are from”. I answered Namibia, as usual, but of course I could not get away with that. I explained how I was Bulgarian and Oshiwambo, how I wanted to learn my fathers language.

The waitress told me what I was bluntly “you are Bulgarian.” I asked why, in shock, pondering whether my rudimentary Oshiwambo precluded me from being Oshiwambo. But then I found out that was not what she had in mind “Your mother carried you in her arms and she Bulgarian, so you are Bulgarian. I am Herero and Owambo, but since my mother is Herero I cannot consider myself to be a Owambo.” I understood. Identity was matrilineal and so I was the tribe of my mother.

It is so interesting that I am now learning Oshiwambo, the Oshindonga dialect to be precise, using the manual meant for American (Peace Corps) volunteer teachers in Namibia. In it the grammar is systematized and the language taught in the context of an outsider. There are pedagogic dialogues between “Zach” (a run of the mill Zach) and a Saima (a common girl’s name in Oshiwambo). It is as if I have to appropriate my own culture through the eyes of a foreigner. I am not American – though people often ask if I am here – but I probably know more about their mass produced digital culture than my own. That’s why the Oshiwambo I can sing the song “Imbilo yaayiyambi” meant for US volunteer teachers, written in my book, because I know the tune of “Oh my Darling Clementine”. All the same I do know the tunes of some Oshiwambo songs – partisan songs – but those are fewer than the traditional – quintessential – American songs I know. This style of the writing in this blog post is also imbued in this Princeton, college educated, self reflective, attention grabbing way of writing.

I guess I must be at the leading edge of globalization, such that I have been able to receive Americanism (through the media) and participate in American ways of life – notably learning, that idea of deep learning called paideia by the Greeks, which Cornel West and other professors propagate at Princeton.

Owa za peni?

Onda za ko Namibia no Bulgaria (I am from Namibia and Bulgaria).

Posting of WEEK OF March 14th

This is all you will hear of this blog for sometime. Future posts will be irregular. I have to write more med anthro stuff! As I am going to write more now of what is in line with research. Here is a pic of me in the Kitchen in a dance vest

This is an image from my birthday on Feb 25th. I have to go now, to talk with my grandparents via skype - it is amaizing how technology is effectively bridging distances.

Friday

I was a writer. That is how I introduced myself at the registration desk at the conference of the HIV clinicians society and the Medical Association of Namibia. “So did you already pay,” was the query from the lady who gave me to sign on the registration sheet. “What payment? I did not know about any payment, I just spoke to Elizabeth.” I said flustered and honestly. “Elizabeth, he says he is a write do you know him?” asked my interrogator and Elizabeth replied affirmatively. Yes she did know and I am a writer. I was thought and the conference was awesome. Thanks to the New Era newspaper for publishing my first work on “Bread and Health” the day after my birthday.

After the conference, I was not sure where I would go back to the youth group where I used to go. Thoughts of what transpired the week before kept me indecisive. What do I do there? They have issues with my unashamed homosexuality, I have issues, we differ and so forth and so on. Then I realized I could just give in. I could give in and imagine that nothing happened. I would just walk in and be how I was before this whole discussion we had last week there. But I was still ambivalent and so I just walked home, past the church, after shopping at the store across from the place of worship. On the way I met Geneva. A woman , young like, but in youth ministry unlike me. I walked back with her. She was warm, the fact that I was asked to stop speaking about my homosexuality did not come up. We were just friends and we walked. There was no tense, subdued air, it was all cool and it moved swiftly between us when I decided to run uphill to the church, so that my hamstrings would be warm by the time I reached there and I could stretch in the church (as I have before, many times before). Then a car honked at me and I turn to look as I run “Its Patrick Sam! A guy that went to the United World College in the US and a Fulbright candidate who I helped with the GRE Math Section, in his van, the one he uses to go the afterschoo mentoring program that he runs. “No Patrick I am fine,” I said wagging my head from side to side as I caught my breath.

When I got to the Church I was out of breath and I entered panting. “Do you know where is the restroom?” I asked breathing heavily to Ester who was seating next to pastor John in tranquility. Just over there she said and Pastor John moved to stand up and greet me. He shook my hand with an ecstatic smile, the type you give to a mentally unstable person, so that you put them at ease and don’t do anything crazy, but that type that betrays your unease. “You like making jokes huh, you like being funny? You have been to the youth so many times and yet you don’t know where the restroom is?” He said in his firm handshake. At first I denied it “No I am not trying to be funny, I need the toilet,” then I realized that indeed, I did want to be funny and I said “yes sometimes It try to be funny, because humor is good.” And he let go of his grip on my hand I went to the toilet, to which I recall I had been before. I went to stretch in the classroom (this church has one attached) just across from the toilets. I felt I did not want to draw to much attention to my awkward position, body strewn on the floor, with one foot in the hand, close to the head. It was great! I was happy, I was stretching and I was grateful to the Lord!

I want to write about the discussion we had later in the youth group, about sexual purity and how an American lady on the National level of the Highlands Assemblies of God Church (which is part of the international Assemblies of God Pentacostal Churches) said that one can sublimate sexual feelings and if one claims it is not possible, then one is not sowing the right seeds and how I did not really agree, because the way I saw, masturbation means to “till the land” and so I was sowing seeds, but I will leave that out.

Thursday

The hanging cross of Jesus against the white buglar bar of my window draws my eyes to it. That Jesus I know, nailed to a tree, “Oh were you there when they crucified my Lord? Where you there when they nailed him to a tree?” This maybe a Negro spiritual, but we have sung here at our Church in Namibia, though not for a while.

I was singing this song to myself on Wednesday morning. I just did sang to remember that I could and that perhaps I should. “Oh it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble” comes to me know the chorus. I know that tremble from the dance the Ovahimba in which I partook almost two years ago. The whole body trembling as we stood sparsely near the trees and the barrel drum was beating. “Mooi” was Vemui the head of the village-family told me, meaning beautiful in Afrikaans.

I was not strong enough to overcome mis deseos. It is lent, a time to repent, but only after I felt the orgasmic tremble of my body, lying on my back with my member in my hand. The cross of St Benedict at the window, with Jesus hanging, just looked on. Finding a new way to abstain, I guess I need that.

Wednesday

I went to Spanish lessons. I guess this was the high point of my day. I sit next to a man called Hoy, ( I doubt that is how his name is spelt, but I did not ask him ?cómo se escribe?, perhaps I should. ) We were supposed to ask ourselves the questions we had heard on a tape, where a woman in Spain was being surveyed. I memorized the opening lines in addition the questions. I had to! I am into the language and plus I worked for the health facility census last year and I learnt a lot about surveys and the demographic and health survey, I should download CSPro, the software used to collect and do some basic…Alright enough! Back to my point. So I being

¿Buenos días señor estamos haciendo una encuesta sobre la familia española, puedo hacerte algunas preguntas?

“Um what?” he says, clealry he did not understand that so I just go in straight for the questions?

“ ¿Cuantos años tienes?, ¿ A qué te dedicas? ¿Tienes hijos, hermanos? ¿Y tus padres qué hacen? He answered me to best of his ability and when it was his turn, he initialy spoke to me as if he was speaking to himself, with the wrong conjugations. I corrected him when I could, but I could not help noticing how different we were. He is from Korea, I am from Namibia. He finds Spanish difficult, speaking like a fish out of water, while for me it comes almost naturally. He works for the UN while I am an unemployed and I want to work for the UN. (I hope you chuckled at that last one). Indeed, I waited for my application, where I would even be shortlisted. Alas, me handing in a cover letter in English and in French was not enough to receive a callback for an administrative position that I could contribute towards to as a passionate person about the prevention , treatment and care about HIV in prisons while throwing an anthropological, molecular biological eye on the whole HIV thing. Well it’/s understandable, I applied and so did every cutesy twenty something year old professional secretary in Windhoek. Which one do you think they picked?

Activism and GSIE

“When did you think you would come over to speak with us?” polite was the question and the voice carried the message that my visit to them – the office of the African Rehabilitation Institute Conference was long over due. “Oh did I speak with you over there?” I said not remembering whether I met this lady sitting across the table before.

“No, but I saw you there when you were trying to speak with people.” I had been, I had spoke to two of the delegates outside, because I wanted them know about my agenda, children with disabilities and inclusive education. “Is Mrs Kambo or Katjuongua here?” I queried to see if I could get hold of these two ladies. “No but there is someone here from the Ministry of Health that can help you,” she replied as she turned to look across the long table. In this office, a small room with printers and a computer I knew there could be a way for me to bring across the “Global Strategy for Inclusive Education.”

I met with Shumba first, a pleasant looking black man and he seemed very interesting. After I gave my nearly rehearsed speech about how this Strategy was developed by someone who is from Namibia and South Africa – with a double culture – and who had gone to mainstream schools while being wheelchair bound, being disabled yet normal, he replied that in Namibia there is now a policy of inclusive education. I spoke in somewhat anthropological terms, how the trajectory of an individual can inform policies that are often backed by quantitative, statistical figures, that call for institutional changes. Then I met David Hughes who was looking at me, in my black pants and shirts complete with a grey zebra tie, while I and Shumba spoke. “I was just overhearing, sorry” he said when my eyes met his “No please I actually want people to overhear.” This was coming from the guy that just a few minutes earlier introduced himself as “I am Pancho and I am an activist.”

When I met David, my prejudices immediately detected his American accent and somehow I felt reassured that he would help, being white and American. I studied in a place with lots of white Americans and perhaps that’s the reason for this subconscious prejudice. He asked me about the school of Edward Ndopu – the one who came up with the GSIE, and I said it was “African Leadership Institute funded by the US embassy.” In the end I conceded I did not know what the exact name was, nor whether it was funded by the Embassy or some US agency “there are so many of them.” Indeed, the whole time today, I was reiterating the main points in the policy letter prepared by the GSIE founders that I had given to them and my own knowledge of Edward, of the boy I know as Junior. I realize know that speaking as an activist requires one to think of things on the spur of the moment, but then also deep reflection on what one needs to say. For instance, I had not fully formulated what I wanted to say about Junior having gone to mainstream schools. I though of saying that “ there is no reason physically disabled children should be kept outside of mainstream schools,” when in fact I should say “Edward’s example proves that physically disabled people can go to mainstream schools and I don’t believe his experience is unique or a fluke, with the same support from school, family and community all children could attend mainstream schools.”

“What’s his disability?” asked David during the course of my discussion. “A motor neuron degenerative disorder,” I said vaguely remembering what his mother told me once. I could have had the exact name, but I guess it sounded scientific enough and hey, I studied Molecular Biology, so I know how to give it a ring of authenticity. Nonetheless, I made sure I said that he had survived and continues to survive against the odds.

David told me that Edwards experience is not unique and he mentioned a boy in the South of Namibia called Bernie that had gone to mainstream schools. “His classmates carried him up the stairs on their shoulders, because there was no way for his wheelchair to get upstairs. Schools in Namibia are horribly inaccessible.” I remembered this fact as I thought back to every school I had been to and how none of them had lifts for students in wheelchairs to get up the stairs except maybe Emma Hoogenhout Primary School, but I had never seen that lift in use, did it even work?

I really enjoyed speaking with David Hughes. As we spoke Shumba and the young lady would also contribute, their interjections made a really stimulating conversation, where we touched on the lack of synergy between the Ministry of Health and Social Services and the Ministry of Education in terms of inclusive education. The young lady though (I always forget the names of women more easily, I don’t know why though, maybe I am just sexist) said the Ministries would be working together to implement this National policy that is moving forward at real snails pace. There are children with disabilities that just do not go to school in Namibia, which seemed to concur with the startling figure of 98% of children with disabilities do not attend school (in developing countries) that opens the GSIE letter. The whole discussion was like a precept, I remember from University. At one point I saw that the young lady was holding a stack of printed copies of GSIE letter – double sided- for all the delegates! It was surreal, the message was going to be imparted to them, to people such as Mr Dube from the African Decade for People with Disabilities in Cape Town to the man from Senegal with whom I spoke to earlier; a big shot a the conference.

The best part of all was the David Hughes told me how he felt there was a lack of leadership in the field of inclusive education in Namibia. Now I’ll tell you in a moment how this sad fact was the best part – it was because I immediately pointed out, well here is Edward who took a leadership role and his example is a model for the rest of Namibia.

I was about to leave, sensing that I better return home to do all the other things I want to do. I did not get away without them saying something to the effect of “Thank you for doing this, people like you will make change happen!” I felt weird, because I am not sure how much more I can do, given the other things I want to do. I will though meet with Dr Kakwata who is “driving” inclusive education in Namibia, because I was told I would enjoy talking to her.

Hairspray!

Oh yes! Hairspray is outrageous. “You can’t stop the beat!” they sing at the end in a large group of people dancing. Heels snapping back and forth, bodies turning on both feet like spinning tops, arms in the air, from one hit here to a full swing of the elbow, there was so much variety! Then they formed that semi circle while still stepping and one by one people enter. It reminds me of its African origins, where people enter into a semi circle and dance. Much like what I experienced with the Ovahimba in 2008.

Queen Latifa sure can shake it and so can another white mama. I call her mama because she jiggled she shook her bust and her booty, the arms, all unbridled and uninhibited. Indeed, its about “you can’t stop the beat”

It became more outrageous as people jumped high, even with the bent leg in the air behind the back – the attitude, or with both legs to swing back bending at the knees, ankles to buttocks. It was outrageous, but co-ordinated as it moved through space.

That is dance that draws you in especially since the song tells it to you, “you just can’t stop the beat.” That was the intent. So that is the piece, where people were invited from the audience to dance and they just let loose.

Oh kay

I am fine people. These posts may seem kinda of looney but I am fine.
I am at home. We had a great lunch, me and my mom. My bro is out.
I applied to the UNODC (United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime) recently, to do work that will benefit prisonsers!
I also applied to I-TECH, an NGO that does public health stuff, mostly training and research, HIV related.
Hope to be called for interviews.
yEAH, IN Namiba, the HIV/AIDS pandemic gave rose to an industry of agencies working to fight it, or just mitigate it enough so these organisations exist?
Take care
Pancho

Friday 26th a week before "on the precipice of faithlessness"

I’m not Christian. I say this not because I do not love Jesus. I say it because I do not believe in the dogmas and concepts that are associated with Christians. The end days and the last judgment – Armageddon – it seems like a sordid way for God to show his power and glory to us. The idea of people being either “sheep or goats” as Jesus said in the gospel, whereby the sheep will be separated from the goats and the latter will be damned to hell. Roasted goat meat tasty! I can imagine the “enemy” feasting on it. Most of all, the idea of good and evil people, saved and condemned, I reject because I understand it to be relative to each person’s situation. The pastor David Kim who was head of the “Manna Christian fellowship” at Princeton claimed that suicide is a disease, like cancer, in an effort to account for what happened to those souls of people (such as teenage girls) who took their own lives. This erodes the concept of good people and evil people, I figured it out using induction and I leave it as an exercise for the reader. We are all just people infected with physical and psychological or spiritual diseases.

I am in love with Jesus – there is the agape love we hear about. This type of love we show to our fellow man and to God. Then there is eros – the fire. The Holy Spirit sets souls on fire and mine is one fire for Christ. Eros is passion; it is desire, wanting the Lords presence in your room at night, wanting him badly (is this a paradox, wanting the Good Lord badly, much like the trinity?) Agape and Eros working together that I am content to just have him lie next to me and we just look at each other and caress like lovers do. He is the lover of my body and soul.

I would like to write about the trips the Holy Sprit has taken me on and I bet they beat any drug. However, what happens (sometimes) in between the sheets, under the covers, with me and Him is easy to understand, so I will leave that out.

I was running and it hit me. I am not a Christian, not one that belongs to any church. I am Roman Catholic and I go to a pentacostal youth group, but something constrains. I cannot accept the writings of that person in Hebrews 12 that uses scare tactics to let people keep their faith. That we will be on a hill and God’s judgment will consume those who are not faithful. I read this in a Christian meeting “small group” at Princeton. Then I wanted to bail, I wanted to run out. I just could not accept such extortion. I just feel it is not fair and I also reject viewpoints that suggest that me wanting to run, to leave, could be a sign of demonic possession, that now Satan is rejoicing in me leaving the fold. This reasoning is a like a never ending “loop” in computer code, you doubt then realize that its normal, its temptation and that you must adhere again to the teachings, only to doubt again.

My doubts were many. I just had to resign myself to loving Jesus and letting him “figure” out what made no sense. So on those issues that I could not understand, I chose to be dumb. Questions of salvation and redemption left me at a loss for words; it was as if I could not even articulate the problem. But I can and I know my position.

The Church is an institution that supposedly strengthens the faith. But it actually reinforces hegemonic interpretations of the Holy Bible and behavior that is deemed proper. I found this out, again, during an all night pray session. I was shaking, my whole body trembling, with my eyes closed while I was holding onto a friend I met here at this youth group – Chris. I wanted to find again that feeling I had while singing at Manna large group, the day after I believe I lost my faith. It was in that trembling, the gyrating movement I had done with the Himba a few months earlier in that year of 2008, that I felt touched by the Holy Spirit and all my doubts and concerns melted away. I was Christian because I loved. This time, I was taken to a back room, just next to hall where people were singing, talking in tongues and dancing – dancing, but just with moves of the torso, arms, legs, alternating, regular beats – not my rapid and uncontrolled way. Edith was not happy with what I was doing. She is a lady that is on crutches, probably around thirty or so, and she said “Sit him down” as Tapiwa led me to this back classroom of the Highlands Assembly of God School and Church. I was seated there and Tapiwa stood. It was the second time that evening I was in this position. Earlier Geneva told me “now Pancho we are about to start and people want to know whether you will go on with your stretching and movements because the worship will begin now.” I said I would stop and sit and listen to the preaching, but when the dancing started, I joined in. Edith felt I was out of order. She told me “in the house of God there is order, there is nothing but order – it says so in the Bible, so please when we get back in there, I want you to stay at your seat, you can sing, but don’t wander around, don’t do any of those movements, because it is a distraction.”

I am not surprised that this would distract, given that the people are not used to it. This church is pentacostal with movement and dance but it is predicated, there is the permissible and impermissible. As Tapiwa told me “you cannot just come here and do whatever, you must look at what the people are doing, because what you were doing is destructive to the worship.”

During this pep talk, I felt injured, like I was being constrained. I obliged them, especially since I do not go to their church service, I just attend the youth. But the fascination I had with what just happened, how I had uncovered the boundaries, the moors of this church was stimulating intellectually. It was an anthropological experience and it was happening to me!

Even today at my Catholic parish, when I went up to stand in a row of people slated to receive birthday blessings, I stretched my back up looking to heavens and I got a smile from the priest and a chastising look from Casius, who does the announcements from the dais.

I need more freedom of course. Therefore I will go to another youth group and another until I find one that allows me to be. Just like Manna was. It allowed me to be who I want to be.

There is a God, I believe there is. But whether he is just the best idea there ever was or really something beyond all that is beyond, I cannot definitively say. Does it mean I am agnostic? Not at all, I love Jesus and he is real to me. Therefore he must exist, as the anthropologists believe, if something is real to you, well then it exists. Have I watered down my whole belief system? Yes. However, I believe in Jesus. I am convinced of the fact that I love him.

Now that I am not Christian I can explore other ways of worship, other religions. I think I want to leave the Abrahamic religions for a while and explore others. At the same time, I want to read the Bible even more, to read that which I did not read before and understand where it comes from. It is similar to me studying Spanish, but also studying Oshiwambo, my father’s language, my language. My Jesus, my savior. So then I can also learn about other faiths while I keep him mine, just like I am learning two new languages.

I rarely blog about such things, but now, a few days after turning 24, I realize that an overhall of what I believe is overdue. When I was just becoming a teen, I decided to take up the Christian faith and religion. Now it seems, I am losing, quoting the cliché “loosing my religion”. But how can this be, because I still love Jesus?

The circumstances I find myself in thus reveal a qualified loss of religion, one where the core – Jesus – remains untouched.

I have to go do Spanish homework and then Oshiwambo. I want to rally the Catholic Youth behind the cause of the Baby Haven transitional home for orphans and vulnerable children. I want to volunteer with “Clinic clowns project” which secular in practice, but is predicated on a Christian ethos.

So this is it. Though I am doubtful of the church, I also find love amongst its members. Manna Christian fellowship members definitely formed some of my best friends at Princeton! And other Christians too, all over my lifespace. So please stay in touch, I expect some of you will want to reach out to me especially now. I admire you, I adore you, I love you. Take care and the Lord bless.

Love in Christ.

On the precipice of faithlessness

On the precipice of faithlessness

I remember last night and five years ago. Five years ago my friend Lorena from the United World College of the Adriatic took to the low rock wall overlooking the Adriatic Sea and we sat to eat lunch. “Pancho have you have liked someone of the same sex, I want to know, because I have.” She wanted to know about me, she was curious about my sexuality from what she heard, seen, felt. Last night, a similar question came, but this was in the upper room of the Highlands assembly of God Church. The sea and its calming waves were far away and it came. “Pancho..” Cynthia started as she smiled warmly at me. “I would to find out from you if you are gay, because I had heard it from Geneva, but I just wanted to know for myself.” Cynthia and Geneva are two young women in my age group. They are youth leaders of the Highlands Assembly of God Youth, a place where young people come to worship in an evangelical setting – with songs very similar or identical to those sang at Mana, at PEF, at PFA or any other youth group of that kind. ”Yes I am gay and I say gay because I do align myself with the movement that believes homosexuality is not a pathology…” I explained “A what?” they asked, “A pathology, a disease” I clarified. Then after I had explained that, Ester, another youth leader and mate of mine (as in friend, not girlfriend of course) asked me, “So then how you reconcile your sexuality with your Christian faith?” She was curious, they were interested in knowing about my faith. I related to them what I had told many people before, including other youth member during that half hour of chatting before the actual proceedings of the youth. I spoke of Romans of lust and love, of my love for Jesus, my struggle to accept the idea of in and out, goat and sheep, saved and damned. The conversation was stimulating my intellect and at one point Ester asked “Well why do you have to rationalize everything?” “I have a rational mind, and I believe God gave it to me to be used and I love thinking.” I said something to that effect proudly.

However this was no mere discussion on my faith and stance towards my sexuality. There was intent behind it and I should have seen it coming. Zay was the only man there, apart from the three women. He was listening and even praised my knowledge of the Bible. His point, though, was to tell me that I should know where their Church stood with the Bible and that I should “not promote homosexuality in any form” during the youth. Preposterous, I was banned from talking freely! And also “we would prefer if you did not hug the guys” added Geneva. Some of the young men, people I consider my brothers in Christ, were uncomfortable with me hugging them. Why did they not come to me and tell me! I do not take offense if someone does not want to hug me. I never got mad at Jae Han for that at Princeton’s Manna Christian fellowship. Geneva understood that I desired frankness and so she paraphrased what I was saying towards the end of the discussion when it was flaming and I was adamant and not changing any of my behavior, unless someone points out to me, in whatever way, that I should not hug him: “He is just saying that he prefers to talk to the group in persona and tell them ‘ hey if you don’t want to hug me, I won’t be offended, just tell me. That’s all”. There was something temperate and understanding about Geneva. Zay, however, being the man he is told me “ We at this Church don’t support homosexuality, we believe a man should be a man and women should be women.” I barely recall how I reacted. My heart was racing at this point, my head tilting in the axis of disagreement, I was smiling and chuckling at what it had come to. The thought of this talk in that yellow walled office carried over to when I was later in my room. And I was pissed. I replayed the scene in my head and wished that I had barked saying “well you can take that idea of manhood and womanhood and shove it where the sun don’t shine and I hope you like the felling and the fact you like it scares you!” I even contemplated screaming it out load “I’m gay!” at home, at the church, everywhere.

The little voice in my head turned out to be a sham. “So you are not sure if God speaks to you or whether it is yourself,” was the summary of my argument Cynthia gave as looked at me with a puzzling look on her face? “Yes, actually I am not even sure what I mean, but it is that I think God speaks to me through my thoughts and not through some supernatural voice in my head.” Now in my room I knew that voice was just me. I was about to ignite that prayer light and my voice of plea, of supplication for help in this time of anger. But there was nothing to ignite, it was out, and the room stayed dark, like the dark outside my window, just beyond the hanging silver Jesus on the cross of my rosary. I realized I was entering a brave new world. One without God. I found out I lost my health insurance earlier that day, as I was purchasing my drugs at the pharmacy. Now I became aware of the abyss, unintelligent vastness of the cosmos with no divine voice. So I did not read my Bible, I did not pray (though that voice tried to, like the jerking movements of a corpse in rigormortis).

But this faith was not dead. I had put here in the body bag, dropped her off at the morge of the living dead (which is what I will become being “not Christian”), but she refuses to die! I woke up and I felt it breathe. Why should I loose my faith? Surely this is just a reaction to what happened? I wish, though, that it was the end of faith that I could just shout “Oh how vile and idol proves this god” as Antonio did when Sebastian claims to not know him in Twelfth Night. Antonio loved Sebastian, on a deep level. I love Jesus, “there is both Agape and Eros” I told Cynthia, Ester, Geneva and Laz as I spoke about my love for Jesus. Now should I lose this love because they define the terms under which one is Christian? It is clear that I crossed the line. By talking to people about my gayness and not being ashamed of it, in spite of Judeo-Christian and traditional moors that do not sanction the behavior associated with it. This threatens to tear asunder the world of universal heterosexuality and homosexuality as just something carnal and lustful. It did not appear that they were engaged with what I was advancing that gay is something different to just the sex that is described in the Bible and that this sex is always wrong. Zay explained that when St Paul wrote about men being filled with each other, he was speaking not only about his own times – of orgies and wine – but of today. I don’t know that is the only manifestation of same sex love possible and is it always wrong.

I can throw in the towel. Most of the gay people I know have done so already. Andy and Aayanda, both former Christians have left it. No wonder. I was about to as well. Then I realized that what I had experienced is trivial compared to what others have been through, especially in the US where people believe “God hates fags”.

I was defiant and I said I will not change who I am, even though Zay told me that they “were not asking me but telling me,” as members of the youth. Theirs is an institution with norms. As Ester put it “for example you think that you like murder and you can do that, but it is illegal, also in our church some things are not accepted.”

I am thinking of going back there and being funny, joking about the whole manly man and womanly woman thing. I want to play the macho man and the elegant woman, much like Ester when she did her dancing in that white dress with her chin tilted towards the heavens and her arms gracefully arcing through the space as she stepped meditatively, slowly, like a Queen. I wanted to just experience this like an anthropologist, to study it from the outside, but I put myself into the subject matter. I failed to distance myself and my comments profoundly influence the way events unfolded.

I feel better now writing this post. The anger has cooled. I want to pray the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy now, because I love its message “For the sake of His Sorrowful passion, Have Mercy on Us and the Whole World!”

Indeed, Lord have mercy on us, we need to move out of love and not fear or anger.

Now that this is done, I can chill with friends, study probability, just live.