“For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” Luke 19 v 10

The ideal of having children and a conventional family life is still a key to gaining respect. Even in modern societies. It  also comes through strongly in biblical writings about how  having  children wins respectability for men.

The question is, how do you then  gain respect from your peers if  the whole concept of being gay is seen as something sweet or charming at best but not necessarily respectable?

How do you  gain respect without selling yourself out by playing straight? Is it possible? Or is it best to simply try to blend in?

There are no easy answers, I guess. Suffice to say that perhaps it is best to rather change  one’s focus and choose to believe that we have constant acceptance from a source that is greater than ourselves and greater than societal conventions.

Simply being here and alive is scientific evidence that we are accepted by whatever laws govern the universe.  Our task, I think, is often to assert our right to be here. To insist on our own value. To become more aware that we are deserving and worthy to be here.  That no one holds the right to say or think otherwise. This  has been  quite difficult for me, because I have heard anti-gay rhetoric so many times, I have found myself many times beginning to question whether I truly deserve to be here and fit in. Many times I have found myself being afraid to let it show that I am ‘different’. Even as an adult.  I need help, right? I am a complete mess at times.

My love for the teachings of  Christ – and not necessarily of the church – leads me to take comfort in the teaching of Christ : That in him, I am not ‘lost’. And I take that  word ‘lost’ to be quite a powerful way of expressing how it feels being a gay man in a ‘hetero-normative’ world. I take it to refer to being perceived as being  without direction, without purpose, without meaning or inner guidance. This is the impression thatstill holds in many places about what it means to be gay. And people act accordingly in how they treat us, often. Even some of th emore liberal friends that I have still do not quite  take the whole gay ‘thing’ as a fully respectable state of being.

Well, the comfort I am learning to take is that in Christ there are no ‘lost’ sheep. We are ‘found’ – accepted, loved not simply tolerated.

Yes, I often catch myself  feeling lost but I  am learning to  focus on reminding myself that even if some people believe that  I do not belong, that I am lost  my existence its testament to being fully accepted and valuable. The comfort of knowing that there is a Christ who seeks and saves the lost  – the out-of-place, the noncomformists, the misfits, those not readily accepted into society – is even more comforting. Finding respect and respectabiiity, I am learning , quite late in life, emerges from myself before  I can expect it from anyone else.