A long time ago the Apostle Paul wrote, "If anyone is in Christ, they are new creations. Old things have passed away, behold all things are new" (2 Corinthians 5:17). For many years of my life, this Scripture tied my stomach in knots. I took all of the steps necessary to be "born again," hailed by evangelicals as the only way to be a real Christian. I prayed over and over again the Sinner's Prayer, a phrase used by Evangelicals to describe a simple prayer asking Jesus to come into your heart, be your Savior and forgive your sins. Through this prayer a person becomes "born again" or "saved" making them a new person and bound for heaven. According to this line of teaching, these brief two minutes of prayer have momentous and eternal consequences. Each time I tried to make it more sincere. Repentance is apparently verified by the depths of emotion one experiences during the act. Following that action, very little has yet to be done, at least in principle. The work remaining is merely incarnating the victory of that new nature; a "name it, claim it" process. After all, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation.

New creation, old creation. Sinner, saint. New nature, old nature. Unclean, pure. New self, old self. Sinful, holy. These bipolars are often used by those who rebel against the Creation to splinter and destroy it. Misused, they create a culture of anxiety by leaving no room for middle ground, for compromise, for grey areas, or for a courageous exploration of the gift of Life. If indeed it is an "all or nothing" world, then fear of error governs our entire existence. Doubts and worries result from questions like: Am I either sinful or saintly, with no shades of grey? If I'm not completely Christ-like, am I completely evil? Is there merely a cut and dried line that separates good from bad, new from old, good from evil?

According to all I had been taught, I was a born-again Christian. But wasn't it a light switch effect, either "on" or "off?" No dimmer switches allowed. "If anyone is in Christ...old things have passed away." Why was I still sexually and emotionally attracted to other men? Apparently I wasn't a very good Christian, if one at all. Maybe I wasn't sincere enough when I prayed the Sinner's Prayer and I was disqualified? God must have made me wrong, the result of a fallen world, and thus all the usual promises of God didn't really apply to me.

As I view my faith today at age 38, I recognize the difficult, subtle, and beautiful work that God is accomplishing in my soul. God has started me on a journey that will (hopefully) lead to the successful integration of my sexual orientation with my faith and Life. Today, I believe that being gay is not an aberration, a sin, or a perversion of God's creation. Nor is it a discrete section of a person's existence, isolated and compartmentalized under a category labeled "sex". I, gayness and all, am part of the good and unified creation.

A unified creation? As an artist, I recognize the importance of unity in creativity. A Mozart symphony is beautiful, in large part, due to what he and his father called il filo, the thread. By this they indicated the unifying devices used in composition, both on a conscious and subconscious level, which allowed the listener to recognize coherence. A Delacroix painting uses color, atmospheric effects, line and shape among other devices to bind a composition together. Plato talked about "abstracts," ideas or essences that exist outside of our reality but are dimly reflected in our physical existence. In his discussion of Beauty, he identified unity as a vital component. We are God's creation and have been pronounced good, dare I add "beautiful," by God Himself in the Genesis account. As such, God's good and beautiful creation is wholly integrated, perhaps as a reflection of His/Her nature ("you believe that God is One, you do well" James 2:19 ) and as manifest in the Trinity (Three in One). Our own existence bears this out. Our bodies, minds, and emotions are all affected one by the other. We are a wondrous and baffling mixture of interdependent components. One way in which Evil (the antitheses of Good) and Ugliness (the antithesis of Beauty) overtake the creation is when our God-ordained unity shatters, splinters, is smashed by an imperfect world.

With this world-view and "God-view," it becomes almost impossible in this introductory writing to discuss specific issues surrounding religion, faith and sexual orientation. The social and religious constructs of our culture don't allow for simplification. Even more, it is simplification to the exclusion of Truth's multidimensionality that has proven so disastrous to our relationship with God. So the reader will have to excuse me for continuing this writing in such an abstract and macrocosmic view, but I know no other way. I think that if I boiled down my complex and precarious journey, what would remain is how I've come to know Truth, an issue that of course permeates all of our existence not merely our sexual orientation.

Western thought often divides human existence into four parts: mind, body, heart, and soul or in other words, the intellectual, physical, emotional, and spiritual. We learn through each of these aspects, sometimes correctly and sometimes erroneously. Each of these "epistemologies" must be held in balance. Deception comes when unity is disrupted and one of these methods is used to the exclusion of the others. The Scriptures teach, "The Lord says, 'Come, let us reason together'" (Isaiah 1:18), an invitation to use our intellects with God. For example, many mainline churches feature the sermon as the dominant component in their services. These sermons are careful and meticulous word-by-word, verse-by-verse examinations of Biblical passages; an attempt to "reason together". My religious upbringing was in such a church and for various reasons, I grasped onto the intellectual pursuit of Truth. It firmly grounded me in the Scriptures but it also seriously wounded me. Well into adulthood, I believed that the strength of my Faith depended on how well I had constructed an intellectual understanding of doctrine and Scripture. For example, did I correctly fit together all the teachings of the New Testament to prove the Protestant mantra "saved by grace through faith and not a result of works" (Ephesians 2:8)? In like manner, some spend their entire lives studying the debate over evolution and creationism (another bipolar opposite with no apparent grey area) working with all their intellectual power to keep their belief system intact. In this environment of unchecked rationality, how could I see homosexuality as anything but unhealthy and sinful? From this viewpoint, both the Old and New Testament seemingly condemn "homosexuality" (although exegetical studies dispel this superficial interpretation). God does invite us to reason together, but God also says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean NOT on your own understanding" (Proverbs 3:5). Pursuing Truth through the intellect works, but not in isolation.

Emotions are core to the Scriptures, to the personality of God, and to our existence. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like unto it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:27). Many churches emphasize emotions as an important way to know Truth. The churches, which for want of a better term many call "charismatic," can be seen as such with their focus on extemporaneous speaking in tongues and emotionally charged healing services. These are gifts of the Holy Spirit but the Scriptures also show us they can be misused as in the church at Corinth. We all have images of evangelical preachers on TV singing praise choruses, tears streaming down their faces, leading a full auditorium of people with uplifted faces and closed eyes carried away in adoration of God. For me, emotions are not the strength of my personality. In fact, they've been the bane of my existence. Did I feel saved? Did I feel sorry and now do I feel forgiven? Do I really feel love for God? What should that feel like? I had sexual thoughts about men. I felt guilty. That emotion is a telltale sign of sin, isn't it? I could never answer these questions based on emotion alone. However, to many people God has given the gift of emotional intelligence through which God makes Himself/Herself known. I would defer to those with that gift to comment more fully. Pursuing Truth through emotion works, but not in isolation.

The physical world also contains and conveys Truth. Analogy is one conduit. The Apostle Paul helps us to understand the unity of Christ's church through a discussion of the unity of the human body. All the parts are different, all are essential, some are more prominent, some are less glamorous, but all are unified into One. "Natural law," the concept of discerning the mind of God through the creation, is another example. This concept can lead to statements like "Homosexuality is a sin because God made us male and female. The make up of our sexual organs make it 'natural' for men to have sex with women and not men with men or women with women." But where is the line here? What about the following use of natural law? Some Christians will say, "Yes, my child is sick and dying. Medicine could heal her. But God has made our bodies so that they can fight infection and sickness. If I believe this 'natural law' my child will be healed by herself." But once again the Scriptures encourage balance saying, "Do not be taken captive through empty deception...according to the elementary principles of this world" (Colossians 2:8). Pursuing Truth through the physical world works, but not in isolation.

Learning Truth through one's spirit is the least practiced in our modern, scientific society. The great mystics practiced this method. They came to know God through meditation, contemplative prayer, the Eucharist and other spiritual disciplines in a way that is inexpressible by any other means. They experienced great frustration in the inability to communicate to others that which could only be communicated One-on-one, Spirit to spirit, God to created being. As in all of the other components, when they focus on spiritual means to the exclusion of all others, they fell into deception. But the Scriptures encourage these practices. God commands it saying, "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 37:7; Psalm 46:10). Lectio divina is the practice of memorizing, meditating on and deeply listening to specific passages of Scripture allowing the Scripture to become a means of union with God. During this activity a person speaks the words over and over again admiring their beauty and allowing their Inspiration to speak to the person. The Psalms exhort us to spend time in meditation (Psalm 1:2 Psalm 4:4, Psalm 27:4, Psalm 63:6, Psalm 119:27). I practice this through memory of Scriptures that teach me about the character of God. Through this particular practice, God has helped me to-at least in a mirror dimly-partially understand God as Love, as Mercy, as Faithful, as Good, as Omnipresent, and so forth. My spiritual practices help me to base my faith on knowing God, not on merely my familiarity with the Scriptures. It seems that some Christians don't believe in the Holy Trinity, but rather the Holy Quadruple—Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and Holy Scripture. They rely more on their own interpretation of Scripture than on God's revelation of Himself/Herself. Scripture becomes a greater authority than does the nature of the Almighty. Pursuing Truth through the spiritual works, but not in isolation.

Unity is essential for Beauty, for the Body of Christ, for the wholeness and health of any individual. It is no less essential for discerning Truth. Discernment, balance, and God's leading in mind, heart, body and soul are vital. Let us now return to our starting point. "If anyone is in Christ, they are new creations. Old things have passed away, behold all things are new." Through the years, God has revealed Truth to me in this passage through all the paths we've just discussed. Intellectually I learned that the more correct interpretation of this verse from the original Greek is "old things are continually and in the current state of passing away and new things are continually and in the current state of taking their place." No light switch needed. No phenomenon of one minute old and the next minute brand new. What a relief! Emotionally I learned that acceptance of others through love-as perfectly exemplified in God's love for us-doesn't depend on the proper mixture of old and new things. At my best, I love someone because of the goodness of their soul regardless of the trappings of their current existence. God surely does no less but exceedingly, abundantly more. Physically, through analogies drawn between Reality and this present corporeal world, I understand that pure black and pure white really don't exist. There are thousands of colors, thousands of aspects to God, to behold, to adore and to reflect. And there are thousands of people, never completely old or completely new, completely black or completely white, but diverse, beautiful, and blessed as such. Spiritually, I learned that God chooses when and where and what to change in me. In the midst of silence, God's Spirit touches my spirit in direct, immediate and imminent contact. In this time, it is communicated to me that God is Sovereign and that God's acceptance and love for me is complete and immutable, regardless of the percentage of old things or new things that exist presently in my "self."

Sexual orientation? Falling in love and expressing love to someone that is my same gender? Prolonged, direct and immediate interaction with Truth lays waste to all the fear, all of the programming, all the condemnation, and all the hatred that this world can spew out about being gay. Truth decimates these anxieties through a gradual yet cataclysmic change in perspective. There is God, there is me, and there is my ability, in blessed imitation of the Almighty's nature, to love fiercely, steadily, and unconditionally whomever God and I chose for me to love.

Could I be wrong? Is God still working in me to bring me to the realization that homosexuality is a sin? Indeed, this could be the case. I am human; a near synonym for fallible. And even if this is the case and I am wrong, I will seek Truth regardless of any consequence. My mother is concerned that I might go to Hell. One day I said to her, "Mom, the Bible teaches you that women should never go to church without wearing a covering on their heads. It says that distinctly and clearly; as plain as day. Why don't you do that?" She said that she believed that was a cultural instruction and was more about the state of the church in Corinth at that time and not meant for all people in all times. I said, "Mom, what if you are wrong? What if when you get before the judgment seat of Christ, He looks down and says, 'Betty, why did you not listen to Me? I said it so plainly and yet for all those many years of your life you ignored My commandment and sinned each time you entered My house.' Mom, what are you going to do if you are wrong and that happens?" My mother, with great confidence in her God, said, "I'll tell Him that I did my best for Him, loving Him with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. And then I'll trust in His great love for me and in His amazing grace." I looked at her and said, "Ditto."