DREADSONG: 'Within Your Wounds Hide Me'^
[UPDATE] Pope Benedict XVI left Poland via Auschwitz:
See him sail past the skull and crossbones! DREADNOUGHT is a man with Polish roots (Poland is, literally, my Motherland) and I am deeply in love with the Jewish people. I cannot tell you how moving these images are. I'm in tears. The German Pope brought a rainbow to Auschwitz. A rainbow! God bless the Pope. God bless Poland. Shalom b'Israel.
[UPDATE] Perhaps DREADNOUGHT's approach is more Charles Xavier to the homoactivists' Magneto?
:: Begin It ::
DREADNOUGHTERS often ask me what I think same sex attracted men should do. In a world set against us, they say, how can you argue against 'gay marriage' and point out the bad things about the 'gay culture'? After two weeks during which my own shortcomings - my silly pride and baseless arrogance - have been on display for all the world to see; my only response is that individual and collective humility rather than pride should be our preferred moral standard and service, rather than ego-preservation and protest, should be our default mode of behaviour.
:: Taking it Back to Basics ::
In all the flare and spark of ritualised debate, the 'research' flung and arguments hurled, we lose sight of the individual subjects: the fleshy bulky types, the small men with enormous DVD collections or the boy who longs for light and love and hope in the starchy confines of a small town. Today DREADNOUGHT blogs the wounded same sex attracted man and the suffering Christ and attempts to map out the way forward to true 'liberation'.
:: If I Could Open my Arms# ::
All of us, by virtue of our difference, are hung open. We're stuck to the trees of our sorrow. Our secret shames* are often buried deep but they constantly needle us, like a hot lance in the side. Same sex attracted men, perhaps in a more intense, if not a more bewildering manner, come to learn that we're alone in the crowd.
:: If I Could Open my Mouth ::
When our heads turn the other way, when we respond to 'him' and 'his', not 'her' and 'hers' we're alone. When we seek the hard and sure, the swift, the powerful, the man with the sad eyes who'll respond to our loneliness with even a hint of grace and a promise of future acceptance, we're lost.
We kick about, casting furtive glances, hiding this and showing that; always with a wary certainty that rejection is too close. Genet said it better in Querelle de Brest:
:: They Would Make Your Name Sing ::
It is in the middle of such things, wrapped up in the knowledge that I am alone, I am cast aside, maligned, ignored or hated that the same sex attracted man finds himself hanging, dangling, crying out with Christ. Our sorrow, our pain is caught up, nailed fast and transformed by the sufferings of the hated One.
:: Bend Through Alleys and Bounce off Other Buildings ::
Fussing through the streets of Melbourne, unsure what to tell the driver about the 'gay' judge I'm meeting: we are alone. Momentarily put out by the reaction of a mother to the mention of an HIV-infected, older writer: we are alone. Beating about the West Village, nodding when the guy who owns the place gives us free drinks but talks about the 'ladies': we are alone.
Taking the sweetest blonde girl from Tennessee to Midnight Mass at the Vatican, holding her hand, smiling and crying: I was alone. Choking that back, stopping there, leaving my hand on his shoulder, talking deeper, louder, slower even walking more deliberately I'm attempting to prove I'm not the pussy fag boy the audience, DREADNOUGHTERS, even strangers expect. You're alone, you've told me, in the same manner.
:: I'll Pull the Curtains and Blinds to let the Light in ::
But we're alone with Him. Sitting, hanging, bleeding we're miraculously gathered up into Christ's sacrifice. Matthew Sheppard on a fence in Wyoming.
Any drag queen sacrificed on a rough bar, served up as freak-tainment for the mewling mass of near-Roman, often straight, suburban bar-goers. Screamed at from cars, beaten in alleys, torn and sad the same sex attracted man's trials represent, if we offer them right, one long hymn of tears, cried out for the God Who cried blood.
:: It is True What You Say ::
Something of this, an idea of redemptive suffering, is borne out in the Catechism:
:: Sorrow Drips into Your Heart through a Pin-hole ::
Merely by identifying with, indeed loving, the Man of Sorrows our own sorrows find a Man and they're given meaning. Shame is washed from our hearts because if God could suffer like us, unjustly, there is nothing to fear from wordly scorn.
Indeed, when it is directed at same sex attracted men because of our sensitivity or compassion, such fury can be proof of holiness.
:: There is Comfort in the Sound ::
As for politics and protest; DREADNOUGHT looks forward to the full integration of same sex attracted men, where such a thing doesn't always mean the end of all discrimination (which is an impossible goal), but - rather, the realisation that to be human is to be, in this broken world at least, sometimes if not often scorned by the mob. Consolation rests in knowing that if we sing our loneliness right the world won't always get easier, but it will get better.
In this manner, via humility rather than 'pride'-marches, we'll take back the power our oppressors wield, take it back and cast it aside; we'll turn the other cheek and lay bare our humanity. Sure it might be snuffed - and they ripped Christ to shreds - but we know that such sacrifice lives forever - Christ rose - and causes love, purer, surer than any hate or darkness to spread from heart to heart. At Pentecost it set the world on fire and it will not fail us now.
:: The Upshot ::
Rather than a self-righteous shriek and better than 'pride', same sex attracted men must adopt, indeed personify humility and a love-for-others that forgets the self, indeed crucifies it for all men everywhere. God knows, DREADNOUGHT must learn these lessons. Only in this way do we suffer at last into truth. Only in this manner does pain come to represent healing. Neither in protest, nor in bitter debate, but rather in service will our real liberation find its lasting expression.
:: Resources ::
- DREADNOUGHT on redemptive suffering and the homosexual condition; and
- John Paul the Great's Salvifici Doloris.
*(Much of this post was prompted by something of a flood of deeply affecting, sometimes disturbing emails from DREADNOUGHTERS who have been violently abused, suffered from schizophrenia or other mental illness, feel too scared or vulnerable to be entirely honest about themselves with even their closest family and a card I received from Perth, in a purple envelope, that blew my socks off in the best possible way. I am humbled and gratified by the things you share and you can be assured of my respect and affection. All such emails remain, of course, absolutely confidential).
#(Sub-heads taken from Marching Bands of Manhattan by Death Cab for Cutie).
^(Header taken from the Anima Christi).
"To speak in this place of horror, in this place where unprecedented mass crimes were committed against God and man, is almost impossible -- and it is particularly difficult and troubling for a Christian, for a Pope from Germany. In a place like this, words fail; in the end, there can only be a dread silence -- a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this? In silence, then, we bow our heads before the endless line of those who suffered and were put to death here; yet our silence becomes in turn a plea for forgiveness and reconciliation, a plea to the living God never to let this happen again."The Pope toured the site, visited the chamber where St Maxmilian Maria Kolbe (DREADNOUGHT's confirmation saint) was martyred and listened as the Chief Rabbi of Poland chanted the Kaddish. This happened during a Shoah remembrance service that included the stark words of Psalm 44 and the Pope's prayer, auf Deutsche, for peace.
See him sail past the skull and crossbones! DREADNOUGHT is a man with Polish roots (Poland is, literally, my Motherland) and I am deeply in love with the Jewish people. I cannot tell you how moving these images are. I'm in tears. The German Pope brought a rainbow to Auschwitz. A rainbow! God bless the Pope. God bless Poland. Shalom b'Israel.
[UPDATE] Perhaps DREADNOUGHT's approach is more Charles Xavier to the homoactivists' Magneto?
:: Begin It ::
DREADNOUGHTERS often ask me what I think same sex attracted men should do. In a world set against us, they say, how can you argue against 'gay marriage' and point out the bad things about the 'gay culture'? After two weeks during which my own shortcomings - my silly pride and baseless arrogance - have been on display for all the world to see; my only response is that individual and collective humility rather than pride should be our preferred moral standard and service, rather than ego-preservation and protest, should be our default mode of behaviour.
:: Taking it Back to Basics ::
In all the flare and spark of ritualised debate, the 'research' flung and arguments hurled, we lose sight of the individual subjects: the fleshy bulky types, the small men with enormous DVD collections or the boy who longs for light and love and hope in the starchy confines of a small town. Today DREADNOUGHT blogs the wounded same sex attracted man and the suffering Christ and attempts to map out the way forward to true 'liberation'.
:: If I Could Open my Arms# ::
All of us, by virtue of our difference, are hung open. We're stuck to the trees of our sorrow. Our secret shames* are often buried deep but they constantly needle us, like a hot lance in the side. Same sex attracted men, perhaps in a more intense, if not a more bewildering manner, come to learn that we're alone in the crowd.
:: If I Could Open my Mouth ::
When our heads turn the other way, when we respond to 'him' and 'his', not 'her' and 'hers' we're alone. When we seek the hard and sure, the swift, the powerful, the man with the sad eyes who'll respond to our loneliness with even a hint of grace and a promise of future acceptance, we're lost.
We kick about, casting furtive glances, hiding this and showing that; always with a wary certainty that rejection is too close. Genet said it better in Querelle de Brest:
"The severe and at times almost condemning glance - a glance that seems to pass judgement - with which the homosexual appraises every good-looking young man he may encounter, is in reality a quick but intense meditation upon his own loneliness. In that one short cursory glance is concentrated a constantly recurring and deep-seated despair that is wrapped up with the fear of seeing himself rebuffed."In a world where one's love is an insult, one's pain is a political debate, where even one's most private behaviour is the subject of sternly worded directives from the Vatican or surprised looks from an otherwise warm congregation, same sex attracted men too often feel maligned, cut off from the bulk of humanity and left behind to burn with shame. And we burn.
:: They Would Make Your Name Sing ::
It is in the middle of such things, wrapped up in the knowledge that I am alone, I am cast aside, maligned, ignored or hated that the same sex attracted man finds himself hanging, dangling, crying out with Christ. Our sorrow, our pain is caught up, nailed fast and transformed by the sufferings of the hated One.
:: Bend Through Alleys and Bounce off Other Buildings ::
Fussing through the streets of Melbourne, unsure what to tell the driver about the 'gay' judge I'm meeting: we are alone. Momentarily put out by the reaction of a mother to the mention of an HIV-infected, older writer: we are alone. Beating about the West Village, nodding when the guy who owns the place gives us free drinks but talks about the 'ladies': we are alone.
Taking the sweetest blonde girl from Tennessee to Midnight Mass at the Vatican, holding her hand, smiling and crying: I was alone. Choking that back, stopping there, leaving my hand on his shoulder, talking deeper, louder, slower even walking more deliberately I'm attempting to prove I'm not the pussy fag boy the audience, DREADNOUGHTERS, even strangers expect. You're alone, you've told me, in the same manner.
:: I'll Pull the Curtains and Blinds to let the Light in ::
But we're alone with Him. Sitting, hanging, bleeding we're miraculously gathered up into Christ's sacrifice. Matthew Sheppard on a fence in Wyoming.
Any drag queen sacrificed on a rough bar, served up as freak-tainment for the mewling mass of near-Roman, often straight, suburban bar-goers. Screamed at from cars, beaten in alleys, torn and sad the same sex attracted man's trials represent, if we offer them right, one long hymn of tears, cried out for the God Who cried blood.
:: It is True What You Say ::
Something of this, an idea of redemptive suffering, is borne out in the Catechism:
"2358 The number of men and women who have deep-seated homosexual tendencies is not negligible. This inclination, which is objectively disordered, constitutes for most of them a trial. They must be accepted with respect, compassion, and sensitivity. Every sign of unjust discrimination in their regard should be avoided. These persons are called to fulfill God's will in their lives and, if they are Christians, to unite to the sacrifice of the Lord's Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition." [Emphasis mine]Same sex attracted men already suffer, but we can turn our suffering into joy.
:: Sorrow Drips into Your Heart through a Pin-hole ::
Merely by identifying with, indeed loving, the Man of Sorrows our own sorrows find a Man and they're given meaning. Shame is washed from our hearts because if God could suffer like us, unjustly, there is nothing to fear from wordly scorn.
Indeed, when it is directed at same sex attracted men because of our sensitivity or compassion, such fury can be proof of holiness.
:: There is Comfort in the Sound ::
As for politics and protest; DREADNOUGHT looks forward to the full integration of same sex attracted men, where such a thing doesn't always mean the end of all discrimination (which is an impossible goal), but - rather, the realisation that to be human is to be, in this broken world at least, sometimes if not often scorned by the mob. Consolation rests in knowing that if we sing our loneliness right the world won't always get easier, but it will get better.
In this manner, via humility rather than 'pride'-marches, we'll take back the power our oppressors wield, take it back and cast it aside; we'll turn the other cheek and lay bare our humanity. Sure it might be snuffed - and they ripped Christ to shreds - but we know that such sacrifice lives forever - Christ rose - and causes love, purer, surer than any hate or darkness to spread from heart to heart. At Pentecost it set the world on fire and it will not fail us now.
:: The Upshot ::
Rather than a self-righteous shriek and better than 'pride', same sex attracted men must adopt, indeed personify humility and a love-for-others that forgets the self, indeed crucifies it for all men everywhere. God knows, DREADNOUGHT must learn these lessons. Only in this way do we suffer at last into truth. Only in this manner does pain come to represent healing. Neither in protest, nor in bitter debate, but rather in service will our real liberation find its lasting expression.
:: Resources ::
- DREADNOUGHT on redemptive suffering and the homosexual condition; and
- John Paul the Great's Salvifici Doloris.
*(Much of this post was prompted by something of a flood of deeply affecting, sometimes disturbing emails from DREADNOUGHTERS who have been violently abused, suffered from schizophrenia or other mental illness, feel too scared or vulnerable to be entirely honest about themselves with even their closest family and a card I received from Perth, in a purple envelope, that blew my socks off in the best possible way. I am humbled and gratified by the things you share and you can be assured of my respect and affection. All such emails remain, of course, absolutely confidential).
#(Sub-heads taken from Marching Bands of Manhattan by Death Cab for Cutie).
^(Header taken from the Anima Christi).
by DREADNOUGHT at 3:13:00 PM
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