con vino rosso

It’s certainly interesting how little attention generational blessings receive, despite being right there in the third commandment. I suppose they are easily overlooked, with a declaration of God’s punishment on those who hate Him, right in the verse preceding.

I like to encourage people to consider something: What are the generational blessings in your family? My American roomie in Ireland realized that for her family, their generational blessing was the ease of meeting their life partner and the certainty they had regarding who that person would be. This happened for her grandparents, her parents, and then for herself. How cool is that?

One of the generational blessings that is apparent in my family is our love for Jesus and our unwavering faith in God. I didn’t even know that this was my family’s legacy until I realized that the blessing had manifested itself in my life after a season of spiritual crisis. I have to admit, there were many times (and more to come, surely) when I was angry with God, I doubted Him, I ran away – and every time, I would return with stronger faith and stronger resolve to cling to His promises.

I find myself continually planted in ministry - in churches that are unaccepting to those who are non-heteronormative or hold a misguided perception of people who fall outside of the gender binary. As I am subject to these transphobic and heterocentric sermons, I feel my heart breaking for my fellow LGBT+ brothers and sisters in Christ sitting in the congregation. We’re right here! I cry. How can you keep condemning us this way?!

I sit in ministry leadership meetings, board meetings, Connect groups, and Team Nights, surrounded by leaders of the church who make these declarations without any regard for those of us marginalized, and not realizing that their non-affirming posture is devastating to a fellow faith leader sitting right there in the room. I hurt deeply. I know better, yet I hope again and again that it is those alongside me in ministry that are the ones to encourage me, rather than ostracize me.

I am reflecting on the hurt I endure being a queer faith leader in these spaces, and how I can bear to take this devastation over and over again. I honestly believe that without my family’s blessing of spiritual resilience, I wouldn’t have the courage or strength to continue serving in a faith community. I am so grateful for my family’s legacy and look forward to passing on this generational blessing of stubborn faith to my own family.

As I navigate the Christian world with one foot out of the closet, I am fully aware that I walk among leaders and influencers who believe that my world view is completely off the mark and misaligned with the Word of God.

I frequently expose myself to opinions that differ from my own in an exercise to put myself in the shoes of others. An opposing mindset that I took on recently was that of a white supremacist and the longer I stayed in this mindset, the more shaken I was about the inherent evil of this world perspective. It’s hard for me to imagine that historically, people have used even scripture to defend this particular belief.

Is there not inherent evil in discriminating against someone who’s skin colour is different? In the same way, is there not inherent evil in discriminating against someone who is attracted to the same (or both or all) gender(s)?

Neither skin colour or race or sexuality are choices that people were able to make as humans in determining their identity, yet people in the church make rules for who can and cannot participate based on these factors.

This is an injustice that I cannot unsee. Whenever I come across church policies that bar people who are not heterosexual from serving God within their faith community, I feel like I’ve been kicked in my stomach. When churches enforce such policies, they take on a posture of discrimination which makes me question absolutely everything else that they’re preaching.

When Jesus spoke The Greatest Commandment, He had no footnotes or asterisks or parentheses attached to it. Loving others doesn’t allow us room to discriminate against them also. Loving our neighbour as ourselves doesn’t allow us to bind others, and specifically the LGBTQ+ community, under the pain of exclusion. Do faith leaders not see this?

Would you believe I began blogging in Grade 9? I was so broken-hearted! My youth leader at church had just moved five hours away, my best friend of two years had turned on me because we liked the same guy, my medication made me gain 20 pounds, and I had resorted to counterfeiting my report cards because my B average was not good enough for my Filipino parents. Oh, the woes of a 14 year-old.

It’s an interesting experience it is to return to blogging 15 years later, especially to this particular journal. valenofficial was my longest-running blog, which documented my most important experiences of the past decade – highlights of which include the full and complete surrender of my life to God, the entirely messy process of understanding my sexuality, and all the drama of being in university (and finally graduating!).

Thinking back on the past decade, I realize that I held a better sense of who I was when I spent time in self-reflection. I was more in tune to how I felt about the happenings around me, and with counsel, I was readily able to decide on a course of action. I was proactive about where to navigate next in my life instead of letting life happen to me. I felt more purposeful! I’m not sure if that’s actually how I came across, but that’s certainly how I felt.

I feel a sense of loss not having documented the most recent of my life. I have no reflections of my travels to Europe; there are no rants about working in corporate Dublin then corporate London; I can’t trace the awakening to and then acceptance of my bisexuality; I have no stories to reread about how my relationship with Paulo evolved from dating to getting married… which brings me here.

God is pressing on my heart and I will do my best to put to words the thoughts that are swirling within and around me. I find that such matters of the heart are easier discussed with a glass of red wine, hence con vino rosso. (Insert shout out to my Vancouver small group, Beers and Bibles, I miss Bible studies with them.) But if a hot beverage more your style, then I invite you to pour yourself a cuppa and join me for this new chapter.