by
Martina Downey

_____ When I was growing up as a young Catholic, a priest said to me "you know it's not the fact that you are a homosexual that is the problem" but rather "It's the homosexual acts." I frowned and thought to myself. Just what the hell are homosexual acts. Are they an unpublished book from some Satanic bible? I think not. What does a homosexual do that is so different than a heterosexual. Technically speaking, we both really do the same sort of things..
_____I was seventeen then and I was rebellious, determined and questioning authority. It was also the bottom of the seventies and I was escaping off to college. Back then I went to Mass every Sunday, worked on the church council on my spare time and kept good grades in high school. I was for all practical purposes, a good catholic. Seventeen marked the beginning of many internal battles with the church and coming out ranked top of the list. When I came out, I went from being a church innee to a church outee over night. If nothing else, there was fame in being notorious but it wasn't about being famous or notorious. For me it was about learning to be myself, my whole self..
_____When I arrived at college, I kept up the practice of going to church regularly. We had a small chapel on campus and somewhat queer chaplain with curly hair. My Sunday evenings was spent on the telephone giving my mother briefings on sermons. It was her way of ensuring that I was faithful. College gave me the space and the freedom to come out (and coming out for me meant nothing more than being myself) As I began to come out, I grew ever so distant with Church and then one day I stopped going altogether..
_____Though the campus chaplain never addressed the issue of homosexuality, my then church pastor at home always spoke out harshly against gay people and their sinful ways. This irritated the hell out of me and made me hate the church and organized religion altogether. The church was my only avenue towards spirituality and the church at the time, although religious was completely void of spirituality. I was hungry for spirituality, but still didn't know it at the time. Guilt turned into anger and that part of my life ended in 1982. I found the usual substitutes, you know like pills, alcohol, sex and pot but none of them worked either..
_____By the time I had reached twenty-one, I was starting to put my life together. Becoming an adult and moving on was priority. I was beginning to work on myself and put things into perspective. Spirituality, however was still left untouched. After all, I had no clue what spirituality was about anyway. As a catholic in those days, it was more about religion and being religious.
_____In 1989 I discovered Lavender Light Gospel Choir. I spent five years there. I was interested in singing with a group and that was the sole connection to me. It didn't really matter what we were singing about. It just mattered that we were singing positive messages to the listener and that it helped heal somebody. There is nothing like watching the smile on a sick person's face when the music inspires someone to lift themselves from the wheelchair. The magic in that is breathtaking and very spiritual. There were hundreds at the concerts in those early days. And for some, it was their only place where they could celebrate their sexuality and their spirituality. We had lots of fun together. I believe we helped heal a lot of people, more than we could ever really imagine.
_____My experience in Lavender Light lead me to the Unity Fellowship Church Movement in 1992 where I was welcomed into a positive and loving spiritual environment. It was the first time in a decade that I had found an out community that I could fellowship with. Spirituality for me is a very personal experience, one that is neither static or passive. It is constantly evolving and involves much work. It has to because the universe itself is in motion. For me organized religion is not enough to say that I have done my share of spiritual work. Spirituality affects all areas of my life and involves my whole experience as a human being.
_____I have come to the understanding that I am a traveler and that no one church is going to fulfill all of my spiritual needs. My needs have again changed and I no longer need a church leader to show me the light and figure out things for me. I think that would be too co-dependent and it often does encouragement spiritual laziness, co-dependency if not spiritual mismanagement. I am the curious. I am the explorer and I do like to go boldly where no one has gone before. I continue and enjoy singing gospel music. It's all about doing the spiritual work for myself. I believe there can be no substitutes.
_____When the whip comes down, no pastor can own the ability to step out on faith. People can support and love me (and God knows we need people) but I must take the first step. The word pastor or pastoral has to do with "shepherds or their work" according to the New World Dictionary. From what little I remember about the old Catholic church, there were always parables about shepherds and their flock of obedient sheep. Spirituality need not be about obedience but more about self discipline.
_____"Make it so," were always the famous words of Star Trek's Captain Jean Luc Picard. The road towards a healthy spirituality is just that, a road that is turning in different directions. The first leg of that journey can be described as coming to turns with myself being an out Black lesbian and a spiritual person. I am on the second leg of that journey, that challenges me to continue working on the path of self love, rededicating myself to my creative/artistic self and having the faith that I can succeed. Like Captain Picard, I already know that I am one with my Creator, but it's now my current task to take it to the next level by making it really happen.



Copyright © 1999. Used by permission of author. All Rights Reserved.