Bible College

My Mother is Irrepressible

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Irrepressible
This post is not about my mother, although to be honest, she is a little irrepressible. When I was a freshman at Bible college, my favorite class was (no surprise here) English Comp. It was taught by a woman who was effortlessly chic, no small feat for a professor at a small Midwestern Bible college campus. I remember writing my first paper hoping, praying that I would impress her with my writing. This post isn’t about her, either.

I remember the first day that that professor stood in front of us with graded papers in hand. She told us that she was going to read the best paper from that particular assignment, the best out of all of her classes. She told us the name of the student, a girl who was in a different class, a girl named Katie Bunton. She wrote a paper entitled “My Mother is Irrepressible.” Mrs. Stark raved about how well-crafted it was, how she’d she started with the line, my mother is irrepressible and then told story after story about this woman, ending each story with that same refrain.

I remember listening to Mrs. Stark read the essay, thinking, argh! I wish I’d written something as good as that. I didn’t even use words like irrepressible. I can tell you now, I was a little jealous of this Katie Bunton and I did seek her out to tell her about the way Jackina Stark raved about her composition. I don’t remember what I wrote about, but I do remember “My Mother is Irrepressible.” You might be surprised by how many times that phrase has popped into my head in the last 25 years, partly because I aspire to be irrepressible. Most days, I am about the most repressible person you will find.

This Katie Bunton went on to marry a guy who is now the president of my Bible college, Matt Proctor. They have six (SIX!) kids and I’m sure it’s tricky juggling motherhood and a fairly high-profile ministry. If you are reading this and you have ties to Ozark, you might know that the last few months have had the added chaos of dealing with a rare and aggressive form of cancer. Not long ago, she posted something on the OCC Facebook wall about how they’d nicknamed her cancer Jezebel. Of course, I thought about that essay from all those years ago, the musings of a 19-year-old girl talking about her mother, who was probably roughly the age that we are now.

I doubt that Katie Bunton will ever read my blog. To say that our lives have taken wildly divergent paths is an understatement. Sometimes, when life presents challenges, we harken back to the simpler times in our life when what grade we got on an English composition was our most pressing worry. Well, Katie, if you read this, I know you’re still that irrepressible girl who wrote about her irrepressible mother. I know that irrepressibility has served you and continues to serve you. And yes, vainglorious fool that I am, I still wish I’d been as smart as to write something as indelible as “My Mother is Irrepressible.”

Guest Blogger, Ab Kastl: Plan B

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 A couple of weeks ago, I asked my Bible college roommate, Ab, if he would like to write a guest blog.  I don’t usually “assign” topics, but I asked him if he would be willing to write about something that I think about and write about frequently, the relationship between the conservative Christian community and the gay community.  Clearly, there are things we disagree about (I LOVE RUPAUL!!), but I think there are many more areas where we see eye to eye.  Not the least of which, those college years were among the years I laughed the hardest, too, and you should know, Ab Kastl was responsible for many of those laughs.  

Plan B

Hey Everybody! I was Ray’s college roommate for a few years back in the late 80s.  Those are the years I laughed the hardest in my life.  

                       

I am one scatter brained individual.  I am sure you probably struggle with being distracted every now and then.   I am so scatter brained I am thinking about 3 other things right now (food, the news, what I have to do tomorrow) while I should be focused on this blog. I am always thinking “I could be doing something else and maybe that would be better”. What could be my plan B? 

We all decide what we will invest our brain power in.  I am guilty of often focusing on the negative.  I have perfected the art of remembering every nit-picky thing someone has ever done.  If I focus on the negative in others, it justifies in my mind whenever I want to blow them off.

I am a conservative Christian minister….did I lose ya?  Did you just think of three reasons to blow off anything else I say from here on out? Did images of Pat Robertson and Jimmy Swaggart creep into your mind? If not, yea!! If so, you are normal.  

It is easy to highlight the negative in some ministers, Christians or churches so we don’t have to invest much in what they are about.

I read the huffingtonpost.com everyday, so I often hear the negative about what people are saying about ministers and churches.  

I think all of us have trained our minds to jump to certain images of certain groups because we don’t want to invest our time in what they offer. It would be foolish if I compared all gay people to RuPaul or the most flamboyant group from a gay pride day float. That would be like lumping all Christians with what Pat Robertson says or what the Westburo Baptist Church says.  Pat_Robertson

westboro-church

 I have been a minister for 25 years involved with conservative churches in the Midwest and Southern California and I have never heard of anyone from any church ever reading, quoting or teaching from anything Pat Robertson has ever said. Obviously he has some niche out there, but I am sure they are a hospice away from the afterlife. 

And regarding the Westburo Baptist Church, I have not hung out there in years….I kid, I kid.. I was testing to see if I lost ya or not.   They are a twelve member family cult of hate that has nothing to do with real Christianity or the bible.
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2364680621_058246f136All of us are working on things in our life.  We all have things from our past that have thrown us off in life.  My big challenge growing up was coming from a family of a nasty divorce, feeling insecure, and dealing with being molested.  

I was molested as a child by a neighbor and family friend. If I judged all neighbors and family friends by the acts of this one, would that be right? If you judge all Christians by the acts of some, would that be right?

 I have never had food poisoning from a restaurant, but if I did it would be silly for me to say “I AM NEVER EATING AT ANY RESTAURANT EVER AGAIN!”.  I think the same can apply to churches.  If you get burned at one, don’t use that as ammo for the rest of your life to never get involved and get nourishment from another.  We all need food and we all crave to fill that spiritual hole in our heart. I did not have much real peace or joy in my life until I invested my life in the love of God through the church.  

I can honestly say many churches have realized they have failed in bridging a connection to the gay community and they are trying to improve.  They know they got caught up in quickly cutting them off instead of reaching out to all people as God’s children made in His image.  Many churches and leaders are investing time in books like “Unchristian” and “When Christians Get it Wrong” which tackle how Christians need to overcome this gap and be more consistent with loving all people. More and more churches are letting their members know they are a place of love and Jesus was inclusive and they must be also.   

I work with an average bible believing church here in Southern California (not far from Orange County).  A few years back a couple of guys showed up every Sunday. I was guessing they were a gay couple. They brought two young kids to Sunday School and then sat together in church.  They were welcomed with love and joy. They got more and more involved. Everyone loved them.  Come to find out they were father and son but they looked about the same age. I was curious if others thought they were a gay couple. When I asked around, everyone I talked to assumed they were a gay couple but no one said anything negative or demanded a meeting to run them off.  They were loved and accepted as is and stayed until they moved out of the area.  I was proud of our church that no one skipped a beat. 

More recently, a couple of divorced ladies in our church developed a friendship that has evolved into more than a friendship.  No one has shunned them, made them feel unaccepted or demand they “turn or burn”.  They have been deeply involved in church and everyone loves them. Somewhere out there is a church that you can serve, learn, love and grow closer to God. 

I guess the dominate point of this is to pep talk us all to stay focused on what we can do.  I am challenging myself to focus on all people being God’s creation loved by Him and treat them as God would and to speak up when I others do not treat them properly. I challenge you to focus on God and His plan for your life through involvement in a church.  If you are involved in a church, that is great, get in there and serve God and others with all your heart.   If you have not even thought about investing any time in a church, maybe give it a second to look into why God set up such a gathering.  It has taken some time, but things are moving towards lots of love for all God’s children. 

Just like anything, you have to go shopping and searching to find out if it is a good match for you…. for a job, for a car, for a church.  If you visit a church and it is not a good match, go check out another until you come to one that is full of love and celebrates His plan for your life.  

Most of the time dealing with people can be difficult.  Sometimes as a minister, I fantasize about flipping burgers instead of dealing with some people and all their drama. With a big grin, in total bliss, my only worry would be to get that patty over at just the right time….ahh, glorious. Life without the church often sounds appealing, but it was through the church God chose to let the world know His plan and see His love. There is no Plan B.   

 

Don’t Try So Hard

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Amy_Grant“It’s the stuff we love when we’re young that sticks with us the most,” said Amy Grant last night while she was in concert at the Greek Theatre in Los Angeles.  I think I had thought that sentiment before, but I’d never verbalized it.  It’s something that I’ve thought about since her concert, which was amazing.  I believe everyone has a singer or music group that resonates for them the way Amy Grant resonates for me.  She is central to my adolescence and college and even early 20’s.  For my entire life, friendships have been built over a shared love of this woman.  

I experienced a wide range of emotions last night.  When she walked out after a cursory introduction and started singing You’re not Alone in this World, I was ebullient to be at an Amy Grant concert again after a 22 year gap.  When she sang, 1974, I remembered being in my Bible college dorm listening to her on my Sony Walkman.  When she sang Hope Set High, I thought about my years as a youth minister and the kids that were in my youth group and how for years after leaving the ministry, I felt like I’d let them down.  When she sang Sing Your Praise to the Lord, I thought about its songwriter, Rich Mullins, who sang at nearly every Christ in Youth conference I ever attended.  When she sang a cover of Put a Little Love in Your Heart for her encore, I thought it was a perfect choice because, in my mind, Amy Grant has always been about love.  

The crowd was very electic last night.  My friend Richard and I were sandwiched between straight couples in their fifties.  There were also young straight couples, girls night out groups, and of course, several members of the GLBT community.  Richard and I became friends when we met through mutual friends at a Happy Hour in a Mexican restaurant in Silver Lake and one of us mentioned Amy Grant.  I actually think that I gravitated to Amy Grant as a boy because I was gay. She’s Christian music’s Cher.

There was a lesbian couple sitting in the row in front of us. When Amy Grant started singing one of her new songs, Don’t Try So Hard, I saw them lean in and whisper something to each other. One of them reached out and rubbed the other woman’s back. The lyrics about the gift of God’s grace resonated with them and then I looked around at the audience, many of whom were having an emotional reaction. And I myself, absorbed the lyrics, I remembered my 17 or 18 or 19-year-old self who tried so hard to not be gay. When did I realize or will I ever fully realize that I’m lovely even with my scars?

Lead With Love

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heart-love-ocean-wavesWhen I was in Bible college, there was a song that was popular called You’re the Only Jesus. The idea is that you might be the only Christian a non-Christian will ever encounter and because of that you bear a responsibility. And hopefully, that responsibilty, will affect the way you treat everyone with whom you interact.

Last Friday, I posted a blog stemming from something a childhood friend posted on Facebook. A lot of people read it and many people commented, both here on easilycrestfallen.com, on Facebook and in private messages. Several conjectured what Sarah would say or think if she saw the blog. I wondered about it myself. I wondered if maybe I had shared too much of her personal story. I wondered if I had overreacted to her original post. I want you to know that she did send me a message a couple days ago, apologizing for hurting my feelings and telling me she had a struggle with self-righteousness. If you know me, you know I have my own struggle with self-righteousness, just bring up the subject of people running stop signs and I can rant for an hour. I was moved by her response and I must say, she really did not have to respond at all.

Last week, when I was with my cousins in Vegas, one of my cousins was talking about religion. She was talking about Christians and how hypocritical some of them are and she brought up my parents and said, “But your parents, your parents are true Christians.” I agreed, because I feel in all their interactions, they always lead with love, whether it be with other family members, or co-workers, or church friends. And as a person who has known them for 45 years, I can tell you that’s how they’ve always treated me. When I came out to them over 20 years ago, it was not easy for them, in fact, it broke their hearts, but the first thing they did was remind me that their love for me was unchangeable.

In Friday’s post, I talked about how some friends say I should unfriend the people who post anti-gay things on FB. I said that the reason I stay is because I like hearing about their lives. I think that’s definitely part of it, but there is more. I sometimes wonder if I might be the only gay person, or one of the only gay people, some of these friends might know. Here in LA, I am surrounded by gays, you can’t even turn a corner without bumping into someone who claims to be “Cher’s Biggest Fan,” but I know that other parts of the country are a little different.

I was humbled by Sarah’s response to me, because though I try to lead with love, I often fail. Actually, I fail a lot. It seems I’m often saying or writing something petty or snide or sarcastic, both on the page and in person. What I need to remember, try harder at remembering, is that even though I am no longer that Bible college student, the things I learned at home and church and college, still apply. 1 John 4:7 says, “Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” There aren’t any qualifiers in that Scripture about whether or not the lovers or lovees are straight or gay or something in between. The command is simple and pure: Love.

Blogger Ray Barnhart

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So, something interesting happened after I posted one of my recents blogs, The Truth about Paul which I’d written about an incident that took place while I was in Bible College. I was kind of proud of it and yesterday morning, I thought I would send it to the gay news website, Towleroad.com. I did not have a lot of expectations, I just thought, just send the link, who knows what could happen.

I could lie to you and say that I completely forgot about sending it, but the truth is, all morning, I kept checking the statistics on my blog. If you are a blogger, you know about statistics pages. They tell you how many views you’ve received, which of your posts are getting the most traffic, what countries are viewing you, what links led people to you blog, etc., etc. If you are a blogger, I hope you are a more rational, less obsessive compulsive individual than myself. Because I am obsessed with my stats page.

When I started this blog a few weeks ago, I told myself the blog was for me. I wanted to write about the subjects and post the pictures and videos that appealed to me, what I would want to read if I was reading a blog. That’s what I told myself. And I’ve been pleased with the following my little blog has collected along the way. I’ve received some nice compliments, I’ve interacted with a few members of the wordpress blog community. I’ve also felt a pride that I’ve been writing. I am not the greatest writer and I think of myself as an even worse editor, but I’ve started to see possibilities in my writing that I had not seen previously.

Anyway, getting back to yesterday. At one point in the morning, I checked my stats and I had 115 views, which is good for me. Anything over 100 is always good. I knew that that traffic came from my friend Alan who has 2,373 friends on facebook who had reposted the piece with a kind endorsement. Alan is one of those special people who remembers meeting every person who comes into his path, kind of like Marilu Henner, but likeable. Anyway, at about 11:00 am, I had 115 views and then at 11:15, I checked again and I had 345. Something was up. I went to the Towleroad website and sure enough, they had pasted a link to my blog in an article about Daniel Dobson, the man who was the springboard for my post. : “Daniel Dobson, son of prominent West Michigan minister, talks about being a gay Christian. “It’s morally right for me to do it. I feel I have something good to contribute to the conversation, something positive.” Blogger Ray Barnhart offers a response to Dobson’s disclosure.” ( http://www.towleroad.com/2013/05/news-20.html#ixzz2V10D0hBt) They referred to me as BLOGGER RAY BARNHART!

I was so excited and of course, I spent the rest of the day checking my stats every 6 seconds. It kept ticking up until it petered out this afternoon. In 24 hours, my blog had 1400 views, an easilycrestfallen record. I can now say that someone in Iceland has read my blog. (Þakka þér, nýja vini!) It was exhilerating, then exhausting and then it gave way to depressing. It was this little bright spot in my day, my year actually. And now I feel the way I always felt on the Sunday after my town’s yearly Fall festival, Neewollah ended. The carnival came, we ate the jaffles, we crowned the queen, we listened to the Oak Ridge Boys, and now it’s over. I guess I should be happier, but there are reasons why I call my blog easilycrestfallen.

The Truth About Paul

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sc000bcfb9Today I read an article that a friend posted on Facebook about Daniel Dobson, the son of a prominent evangelical minister coming out as a gay Christian.  The person who posted the article is someone with whom I attended Bible college.  Most of you know that I graduated from Bible college, Ozark Christian College, in Joplin, Missouri, to be specific.  I entered in the fall of 1986 with a prayer that if I went to Bible college, God might help me not be gay.  I spent four years there and even still, I consider that period among the most formative of my lifetime.  There were many things I loved about Bible college.  I loved my friends, we laughed A LOT.  We prayed a lot and the spirit of the campus lent itself naturally to intimate relationships.  I myself have been out of the closet now for over 20 years and I still maintain friendships (thank you, Facebook!) with many of these people.

Reading about this Daniel Dobson made me harken back to my time at Ozark Christian College.  There was an incident that occured in my junior year that I will never forget.  There was a non-traditional student whom I’ll call Paul Fielding who was in his 30’s.  We were not close friends, but I liked him and I thought he was a funny guy.  One day, mid-semester, there was a rumor floating around campus that Paul had cancer and that he’d left immediately to go home to a state that was 1500 miles away from Missouri.  The next day, in several classes, teachers mentioned Paul’s illness and prayers were made.  In chapel (we had chapel services every Tuesday and Thursday) either the president or the dean of students made a special announcement about Paul’s cancer and again, a long prayer was made.  There was much talk of Paul’s illness, asking God for healing.  We never saw Paul again.

A few months later, I asked my friend whom I’ll call Matthew if he had spoken to Paul and if he knew how his cancer treatment was going.  Matthew and Paul had been good friends.  Matthew told me that Paul was doing well.  Then he asked me if I could keep a secret and  I said, “Of course, I can keep a secret!”  He then proceeded to tell me that Paul did not have cancer at all and he’d been expelled from Ozark for going to a gay bar.  (This is a gay bar??? I’m leaving just as soon as I finish my LEMON DROP!!)  He continued to tell me, and I must admit to the details being a little fuzzy, that he got caught by another student who was a prominent figure on campus, a performer in the college’s premier singing group who walked into the bar, saw Paul, got scared, went to school authorities, and ratted Paul out.  This other character, I’ll call him Luke, did not get expelled, although he was removed from the college’s premier singing group.  

When I meet people, I always assume that they assume that I’m gay.  I wear pink, I gesture a lot with my hands, I’m not above belting a Whitney tune.  I am a Chardonnay drinking, VW driving, bruschetta eating, 2(x)ist underwear wearing, Rupaul’s Drag Race watching gay stereotype.  It’s hard to remember a time when my biggest fear was someone finding out that I liked guys.  There were guys on campus that I suspected of being gay and I always kept my distance from them.  I remember the dean of students was a little mean to me and I thought it was because he knew what I knew and what I was afraid everyone knew.  So much torment over something I had no control over.

I still have so many questions about the entire Paul Fielding incident.  Were they cruel or compassionate when they asked him to leave? Who came up with the idea that the entire college faculty replace the word cancer for homosexuality every time they referred to Paul?  Isn’t that lying?  Did any faculty member consider going rogue with a “Guys, we should just tell the student body the truth!”? Did the school ever reach out to Paul in the aftermath?  Did Luke ever feel like an asshole for ratting Paul out?  Did Paul ever come to terms with his sexuality?  Does Luke still wrestle with his sexuality?  Would the event play out the same way if it happened today? And most importantly, why do I still care about this incident so much, 25 years after the fact?  

I do think I know the answer to the last one.  When I learned about about Paul’s eviction, my first thought was a fear that if anyone ever found out the truth about me, I would have not a place.  I would have been shipped off, written off with a cursory prayer.  In the matter of days, there was no more room for Paul at Ozark.  The thought of being kicked out terrified me.  Apparently it still terrifies the subconscious me because about every six months I have a dream that I’m in college and the administration has found out I’m gay and they’re expelling me.  So, well, make of that what you will.

I do have a few things I wish I could say to that 20 year old me who was sitting in his friend’s dorm room finding out the truth about Paul while struggling with his own sexuality.  Chiefly, it’s going to be okay.  You will become the person you feared becoming and you will be okay, better than okay.  Your life will be full of joy.  Your life will be full of love.  There will be a place for you.  You will have friends that will always be there for you.  And you will no longer wear that Coca-Cola shirt that you think you look so cute in.