A brief religious history of Woo

I realize the statement of not wanting to be ‘loved’ by ‘these people’ might have appeared a bit harsh. So here goes….

A brief religious history of Woo (btw, my life is much richer and waaaaay happier than this account would leave you to believe, but I warned anyone stumbling on this site of 'shitty first drafts' fairly early on)

1958 – Birth! I’m # 3 of 5 this order - Sister, Brother, Me, Brother, Sister.

1962 – After Birth of # 5, Dad disappears. My mother never remarries. We are raised by a single mom and her parents (my grandparents) who live next door. All of our meals are eaten at our Grandmother’s house. I remember her coming into our house only once in my entire life.

1963 – I remember my mom telling me that the president had been killed. It’s the first I know of death. At this time we attend a Methodist church where my mother is the organist/choirmaster. I have a vague recollection of the pipe organ there… a musty, wheezy thing.

1964 – I’m reading by now, the Laundromat we use has a sign that says ‘White Customers Only’.

1965 – We begin attending a Presbyterian church where my mother has a new job. I begin singing with the adult choir at 7 years old.

1968 – My first kiss with a girl named Crystal Barwick beside the honeysuckle vines
outside our 4th grade class. I had heard this was supposed to be a big deal. Eh. Most of the other boys are playing with the other boys, I like playing with the girls.

1969 – I find out the teenager who lived up the street, Michael Christmas, died in Vietnam.

1970 – I attend the Columbus Boychoir School in the summer (later renamed the American Boychoir school).

1971 – I begin piano lessons. I’ve taught myself for two years and my mother’s old college professor takes me on.

1972 – Late in my 14th year, puberty. Finally. Now I want to play with the boys. Well ain’t that fucking great. 9th grade gym class is pure torture. I come to believe that if I knew how to fight like the guy on Kung Fu, everything would be okay.

1973 – I start martial arts classes. I still want to play with the boys. I see my dad for 2 hours one Sunday. He’s just passing through.

1974 – I have a crush on Taylor Wells. I learn to play basketball so I can be around him. I can’t play basketball worth a shit. I hate myself for having sexual feelings for Taylor. He never knows.

1975 – At a church outing, I smoke my first joint. I suppress any notion that I might be gay within myself. I don’t share myself with anyone because I’m so afraid of what they might find out. A fag is something that you definitely don’t want to be. At summer camp that year I run into a completely different kind of religious person. A group of teenagers and their adult overseers introduce me to Jesus. I pray the sinner’s prayer and receive salvation. The remainder of the summer is a desperate, feverish study of the bible with the promise that since God can do all things, and since all I had to do was ask, that God would free me from homosexuality.

1976 – Freshman year of college and continual thoughts of suicide. Everybody has fucking girlfriends. I finally go to see a psychologist, Ken Caroll. He recommends a program of techniques for which they’ve had good success at conversion. At least I don’t want to kill myself when I think I could be straight. Ken probably still counts me as a success story. I lie to him because telling the truth would mean the Devil and his demons had won.

1977 – my first rock n roll concert ever. The Grateful Dead. 5/18/77. That’s a religious experience. Later that summer, as a camp counselor at the Christian camp where I was saved, I’m baptized in the holy ghost. Talking in tongues, healing services, church services where ladies spontaneously burst into tongues and someone else interprets, dancing in the aisles. I have the demons of homosexuality cast out when a young fellow named Shannon Smith lays on hands. It’s the beginning of two years of spiritual warfare. Me against the demons. Ever cute guy’s butt I see is the work of a demon at battle for my soul.

1978 – Horrible year. Constant prayer and bible study and guilt. Desperate for friends.

1979 – I venture out on a street known for gay men and go home with a complete stranger. I pray extra hard for weeks afterwards.

1980 – I pray for grades but do not study. The results are predictable.

1981 – My first boyfriend. 2 months. I flunk out of college.

1982 – I earn my black belt in Shaolin martial arts. I’m the senior student.

1983 – My mother loses her church job when it is discovered she had a man spend the night. Fucking Presbyterians. My martial arts instructor tells me not to come back. He doesn’t want a fag in class.

1992 – Fast forward! I’ve moved to KY, re-enrolled in college and graduated with a degree in piano (magna cum laude) and direct music for a Presbyterian Church. Oh yeah, I have a son now too. Evidently my penis works. I still think I can be straight. I still desperately want to be straight. Life would be easier, I think. (silly, eh?)

1993 – I’ve accepted a position with a Methodist Church. I’ve been coaxed back into a religious relationship with Jesus through the Emmaeus movement. Life is good. I’m in the closet but barely. I feel safe at any rate.

1994 - I’ve been asked to do the music for a Chrysallis gathering, the youth equivalent of the Emmaeus movement. A father of one of the participants ‘outs me’ to the church board and I’m summarily dismissed within two days, one week before my 36th birthday. He didn’t want someone with homosexual tendencies around kids, especially his kids, he says. An old friend, a wise man, my first boyfriend (the two monther), asks me why I continue to try and have relationships with folks who will never truly accept me. He tells me that nature will continue to serve up harsher lessons until I finally ‘get it’. My son’s mother, in the meantime, evil witch that she was (she’s dead now, found dead 3 days after Christmas, 2005 – she was horribly unhealthy) seizes on this moment to cut me off from seeing my son. She claims that I have molested him because I took a bath with him. He’s two months from being three years old. I have to go to court just to be able to visit my son. I fight tooth and nail.* Her lawyer, a Christian man, a deacon in his church, a partner in his prestigious law firm, represents her lying, drug addicted bi-polar alcoholic ass for free while I incur mountains of debt. It’s a surreal time when I actually hear folks calling into the local religious station to pray for me. These are folks who won’t talk to me directly but will air their prayers (and my sexual orientation) for a listener base of 100,000 people. Pray for his deliverance, their fervent pleas go forth. In the meantime, I’m proof positive that agreement in prayer doesn’t work.

*I grew up without a father. There was no fucking way i was going to do that to a child of mine. Unbelievably, one of my gay acquaintences suggested that i walk away from the 'drama'. i walked away from him instead.

1995 – I’ve missed my son’s entire 3rd year of life. It’s been a year that I’ve been severely depressed. Since being dismissed from my church (only two members called to see if I was okay) I go out to work and to the store, but that’s it. I’ve lost my religion, closed the door on a paradigm that will never accept me without violating its handbook. It is the very best decision I’ve ever made with regard to my mental health. Finally in the summer of 1995 I get to see my son. I start attending an Episcopal church here but only because it is ‘expected’ of me as a father.

1996 – I get custody of my son and there’s no way his mentally ill mother can contest it. I stop the ‘Christian’ church charade. Goodbye religious insanity. I wish I had never met you.

So, just in case you consider my request that Christians ‘leave me the fuck alone’ a bit harsh – you now have a little bit of history.