Family

Remembering a Friend

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Sunset on the Missouri RiverA friend died a couple days ago. He was an alumni of the same Bible college I attended. I’ll call him Charles. There is a part of me that feels like I should let this sit before I start writing about it. Even though I’ve changed his name, I wouldn’t want to say anything that would hurt his parents should they ever stumble upon this blog.

I did not know Charles well while we were in college. That seemed like a pity a few days ago and even sadder now. We lived in different dorms, ran with different friends. We only connected a few years ago via Facebook, and to me, that’s when our friendship began.

We had a lot in common. Both from small Midwestern towns who went to Bible college in the 1980s. Also, I’m sure you’re already ahead of me: he, like me, was gay. He was a minister a few years after college, like me. He moved to a metropolitan city, like me, where he started a life with other gay men and women, people who, judging from the posts on his Facebook page, loved him dearly.

A few years ago he returned to his Midwestern home town to take care of his aging parents. I think Facebook became even more valuable to him then because it allowed him to keep close to all his friends, both near and far.

We messaged each other back and forth last week about something that was bothering him. He spoke of a specific incident, a specific person who had been merciless in his views on Charles’ sexuality. Someone he had known many years, someone who even went to our same college, this person, he told me, had disowned him as a friend. And it hurt. I tried to encourage him that he had many, many friends that accepted him exactly as is. He said, “Thanks, Bro, you have been a lifesaver.”

When I read about Charles’s unexpected passing, I was heartbroken. I know he had so much pain in his life, that sometimes it felt unbearable for him. All weekend, mere days ago, he posted pictures of the cute dog he was dog sitting for. I had seen the pictures and goodness knows , there’s nothing I love more that cute dog pictures. I thought I had clicked like on several of them, but apparently I had not and I cursed myself thinking that Charles didn’t even know how much I liked those dog pics. I’m being silly, I suppose.

And actually, that’s the least of it. Since I started this blog, I’m always looking for the next story. When we talked last Tuesday, when he shared frustrations about the judgments he felt from Christian friends and I tried to encourage him, be like that guy Barnabas, the encourager, someone I learned about back in Bible college. I reminded him of the many, many adoring friends he had, tried to make him feel better. We were kindred spirits, sensitive boys who went into ministry to try to save ourselves from being gay.

The next day, I asked him if I could write a blog about his experience, I told him many people would relate to his story. I told him I wouldn’t use his real name unless he wanted me to. I also told him I wouldn’t share his story without his permission. He never responded. My last contact from Charles, if you call it that, is the time stamp on my message telling me what day and time he read it. From his silence, I feared that he thought I saw him more as a story than as friend.

And now he’s gone and I feel like I let him down. Maybe I’m letting him down more by writing about him, but I’m making a decision and I hope that it lands in the spirit it’s intended. Charles was a beautiful, kind, funny, passionate guy. I’d rather not be writing about him in the past tense, because I wish he was still with us, fighting the fight. If you read this and you remember him, I hope you remember him fondly, as I do. And if you are a Christian, a conservative evangelical Christian, I hope you add him and his family into your prayers. And if you are person who had a friend from long ago, a friend you’ve lost contact with because they live a lifestyle you don’t agree with, I hope you’ll reach out and tell them you care, that you love them. We don’t know what tomorrow holds.

I’m really sad this morning. I’ve been sad since I read the news. And I’ll be sad whenever I think of him for awhile. I went to his Facebook page and read the beautiful tributes people have written. One wrote, “You were always so kind to me and I will never forget how supportive you were of me. You told me I could do anything and be anything I wanted and would always remind me of how loved I am.”

“You told me I could do anything and be anything I wanted.” And that is the way I will always remember Charles, a beautiful, kind, funny, passionate man who left us far too early. Rest in Peace, Friend.

Come Into My World

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Butterflies-yorkshire_rose-15990936-1280-960It’s been kind of a long few days.  I received several sweet comments on my Facebook page after my last post.  Yesterday, I was feeling a little pleased with myself when I read something a relative wrote about a conversation we had that had hurt her feelings.  Of course, I apologized immediately, but I spent the rest of the day thinking about it.

I don’t need to go into the specifics here.  It’s a conversation that took place 20 years ago.  I don’t actually remember the conversation, but I do not doubt that it took place.  I was wondering if I would have felt better or worse had I remembered.  It’s a wonder I haven’t received more messages from people in the last 72 hours, reminding me of hurtful things I’ve said, I’ve been around long enough to inflict a few scars of my own.

Since yesterday, I’ve thought about how much hurt we all deal out, most unintentional, hopefully, but some completely willfully.  I do not hold a grudge against the former co-worker that I wrote about on Saturday.  If I saw her tomorrow, I would be happy to see her.  Some friends conjectured why she would say what she said to me, but really, who knows.  I’ve always been a little bit of a brat.  To love me is to love me in spite of my occasional bouts of obnoxiousness.  I can think of reasons why a person just ultimately may not be a fan of Ray Barnhart.  And to play devil’s advocate, I can think of a few reasons why someone would like me, too.

I am sensitive, sometimes overly.  Hence, the name of my blog.  I’m the kind of guy who would smart for twenty years about a comment he received from a person playing an under 5 in the soap opera of his life.   But I am also the kind of guy who feels very bad for hurting the feelings of a loved one, especially someone he’s looked up to since he was a boy.  

Her words to me were, guess what, let it go.  I need to let a lot of things go. I don’t want to be the kind of person who is remembered for his unkind words.  

I’m ending this blog with a video of Amy Grant singing one of her newer songs called, “Come into My World.”  It reminds me of the risk involved when we invite someone to know the real us: the insecurities, the arrogances, the cruelties and kindnesses, too. All the messy rooms and scattered pearls.

Lineage

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I’ve been swimming at the same pool for about 4 years now.  You get to know the regulars over time and there is a Russian woman who reminds me of my grandmother.  She has one lane that she likes best so if I’m swimming in her lane, I usually offer to switch lanes with her.  She always thanks me profusely and tells me that I am a good boy, or something along those lines.  Once when I wished her a Happy Mother’s Day, she thanked me and told me I had good parents.  Today, after we switched lanes, she said, “You are good person.  You are your parents.  You are your grandparents.”  I think that what she was saying is that the people we are is greatly influenced by our lineage.  She proceeded to tell me that when she visits her kids who all live in different countries, they go to the market together and she’ll say to them, “Why are you buying this?  This is the same thing your grandmother always bought.  You are your grandmother.”  And then she told me again that I was my grandparents.

What struck me about the conversation was that my grandmother had been on my mind all morning.  Just last night, I was called on stage to share an impromptu story and I talked about my Grandma Sue, who played Scrabble with me and knitted clothes for my favorite stuffed animal Chim-Chim and was sometimes known to tie a scarf around her head, hold out her hand and mourn, “Alms for the poor?”.  In general, I was not one of those cute kids that adults took a shine to, but my Grandma always treated me like I was funny and interesting and smart, even though I was probably none of those things.  I talked about how I was 19 when she passed away and I wished that I’d had the opportunity to spend more time with her.  A few years ago, one of my cousins told me a story about a time when she and Grandma worked breakfast and lunch together at another cousin’s cafe.  After their shifts were over, they’d go across the street to the dive bar and drink tomato juice and beer cocktails for the rest of the afternoon.  When Vicki told me this, I realized what I feel like I missed by her dying when she did: we didn’t get to become friends, drinking buddies.  My Grandma loved happy hour as much I love happy hour, apparently.

So this loss was on my mind this morning, when my swim buddy told me that I WAS the person she reminds me of, the person who’d been in my thoughts for those 72 laps.  There are ways that I am like my Grandma Sue. When I go to Claro’s Italian market, I know I buy the same pepperoni and olives and provolone that she used to buy, the same items my parents buy.  Food and family were always at the center of her life and I feel that I am the same way.  My meatballs are a variation of my mother’s meatballs which are a variation of her mother’s meatballs that I can only assume goes back much further.  It is a lineage.  

So this morning, I felt like I received a gift. Not only the reminder that my Grandma Sue is still with me, but also, in a funny way, I am her.

 

Guest Blogger: Theresa Barnhart

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carrie-closet-1040kk052410-500x399A few days ago, some friends of mine suggested to me that I ask my Mom to write a guest blog.  When I asked her about it, she hesitated initially, but I think the idea appealed to her.  She IS a writer, she’s been writing me letters since I was 12, when I went away to camp for the first time.  If you think my writing leans toward the sentimental, you only have to read the following to see where I get it.  Enjoy:

I was asked to write a guest blog for Ray. I told him I wouldn’t know what to write.  Later, after our conversation, I thought, yes, I will write about my summer experience.  First, you have to know that I save everything.  I have boxes, manila folders and file cabinets filled with my memory keepers.  We have eleven closets in this house and I bet I have some memory keepers in each one.  Does it sound like I am trying to find an excuse not to get rid of the Christmas cards or baby teeth from my son’s mouth or those special drawings and homemade cards from my grandchildren?   Of the eleven closets, three of them are walk-in, including the closet in our bedroom that doubles as our tornado safe room. I have tried all summer (school starts next month, I work at the high school) to get rid of some of these boxes and folders and other paraphernalia. I started with a box here and a folder there, not finishing  one.  I got rid of a few things, but I just couldn’t part with a newspaper article about my son and his bunny rabbits and how they came to live with us.   Another newspaper article about a play called “You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown” with a picture of a boy with a bag over his head.  I knew it was my son even with the bag over his head, a mother knows these things.  Right?  So back in the folder with these other special treasures they go.  Now back to the safe room, my closet.  One afternoon, the tornado sirens started, so I gathered my dog Ruby and a chair.  Why a chair? I knew if I sat down on the floor it would take a tornado to get me up.  There we sat, Ruby and I,  only Ruby wanted to look in my boxes where some of my treasures were stored.  My thinking was, if there is a tornado I wanted to save my treasures or at least the ones in my closet.  As I tried to get her nose out of the box, I discovered what one might call the “mother lode”. I found three accordion folders!  Each one had hundreds of papers in them dating from the mid 80’s through the mid 90’s.  I had written down appointments, how many hours I worked, prayer requests, praises, books I read, movies I’d seen, movies I wanted to see, personal thoughts and prayers and more. Well, I couldn’t shred them ’til I read them, so you can guess what happened.  I shredded a lot, but I couldn’t part with all my memory treasures.  I guess there will be another summer to clean out those treasure boxes.  I still have all my Christmas cards, birthday cards, etc. from this past Christmas and birthdays.  Next summer for them! 

 

 

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.

Family (and Facebook)

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I must give credit where credit is due. When I was in my 20s and 30s, I did not have a lot of contact with my family other than my parents. Because I’ve lived at least 1500 miles from home since I was 22, it’s been difficult to attend family functions like reunions, funerals, graduations, birthday parties and weddings. My cousins would get married and have kids and I wouldn’t even know the kids’ names.

And then about 6 years ago, Facebook entered my life and completely reconfigured those relationships. Even though I still live far away from my cousins and aunts and uncles, I see the pictures of kids and pets and trips that they post. I have a friend that says that people reveal who they are on FB and I must agree. I know who loves to drink wine, who is a choco-holic, who drinks Starbucks, who hates Starbucks, who thinks George Strait is the greatest entertainer that ever lived. All this is not to say that we are all on the same page. Lets just say we did not all vote for the same presidential candidate in 2008 or 2012.

Still, it’s been wonderful to get to deepen these relationships. It was on Facebook that my cousin Valerie sent me a message a couple months ago and told me her sister Tracey was getting married in Vegas and that I should come. And I’ve been in weekly contact with Valerie and Tracey and my other cousins since then. While we’re there, we’ll also celebrate my cousin Susie’s birthday as well.

As I type this, Eric and I are somewhere on the 15, just outside of Victorville. I can’t wait to get to Vegas and gamble and swim and drink and see my family. And on some level, I do feel like I have Facebook to thank for making this happen.

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