Promise Divine

“So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

—Isaiah 41:10

There are moments in all of our lives when we wonder where God is. We pray, we wait, and we search for some sign that He is near. Instead, we often find ourselves facing uncertainty, grief, rejection, or fear. For many LGBTQ+ Christians, those moments can feel especially isolating. We may question whether we truly belong in the Church, whether God still has a place for us, or whether we have somehow wandered beyond His reach.

Most of us have experienced seasons when we looked back and wondered how we made it through. At the time, it may have felt as though we were walking alone, carrying burdens too heavy for us to bear. Only later do we begin to recognize that our strength was never entirely our own. Somehow, God sustained us through each difficult step, even when we could not see His hand at work.

Isaiah speaks directly into those moments: “Do not fear, for I am with you.” It is one of Scripture’s most reassuring promises. God does not promise that we will never experience rejection or heartbreak. He does not promise that our path will always be easy or that every prayer will be answered in the way we expect. Instead, He promises something even greater—His presence. “I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

As I’ve been reflecting on Isaiah 41:10, I keep finding myself thinking about the hymn “Heavenly Sunlight.” Written by Church of Christ hymn writers George Harrison Cook and J. S. (Judson W.) Baxter, it was a hymn we sang often while I was growing up. As a teenage song leader, it became one of my favorite hymns to lead because its message was both simple and reassuring. Even now, years later, it is the opening verse—not the chorus—that keeps running through my mind:

“Walking in sunlight, all of my journey,
Over the mountains, through the deep vale;
Jesus has said, ‘I’ll never forsake thee,’
Promise divine that never can fail.”

The older I become, the more I appreciate those words. Life is not lived only on mountaintops. We all travel through deep valleys as well. There are seasons of joy and seasons of grief, moments when our faith feels strong and moments when we struggle to see the road ahead. As LGBTQ+ Christians, some of those valleys include rejection, misunderstanding, and wondering if there is truly a place for us in God’s family. Yet Christ’s promise remains unchanged. He will never forsake us. That promise echoes the words God spoke through Isaiah centuries earlier: “Do not fear, for I am with you.”

Later in life, another reminder of God’s presence became connected with that same promise. My grandmama kept a framed copy of Footprints hanging on the wall of her bedroom. It was her favorite poem, and I can still picture it there whenever I think about visiting her house. As a child, I simply saw it as a comforting poem. As an adult, I have come to appreciate the deeper truth behind its familiar imagery. Like Heavenly Sunlight, it points us back to the same biblical assurance that Isaiah proclaimed long before either the hymn or the poem was written: God does not abandon His people.

Many of us can look back now and see moments when we nearly gave up. We may not have recognized God’s presence then because our vision was clouded by sorrow, fear, or doubt. Some of us wondered if we could reconcile our faith with who we are. Others questioned whether God had forgotten us altogether. Yet He never stopped strengthening us. He never loosened His grip. Even when our faith was fragile, His faithfulness remained steadfast.

Perhaps that is why both the hymn and the poem have remained so meaningful through the years. One reminds us that Christ walks with us over the mountains and through the valleys. The other reminds us that, when our strength is gone, He carries us. Together they echo the enduring promise of Isaiah 41:10: “Do not fear, for I am with you.” God does not simply point us toward the path and wish us well. He strengthens us, helps us, and upholds us every step of the way.

So today, if your journey feels lonely, remember Isaiah’s words: “Do not fear, for I am with you.” Whether your path leads over mountaintops or through deep valleys, whether your steps are steady or uncertain, you never walk it alone. The God who has carried us through yesterday walks beside us today and will remain faithful tomorrow. His promise is divine, and it never fails.

May we walk forward with confidence—not because the road will always be easy, but because the One who walks beside us has promised never to leave us. And when we look back over the path we have traveled, may we discover that even in the moments we felt most alone, we were always held securely in the loving hands of God.

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Moment of Zen: Art Appreciation 🖼️

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Worth Every Step

Too bad the view didn’t include him.

Yesterday, I had to drive down to Dartmouth for my six-month follow-up appointment with my neurologist. Everything looks good, so that was a relief.

Since I don’t like making the drive all the way down there and then having to go back to work, I took the day off. With a little extra time on my hands, I did a bit of shopping before heading over to Quechee Gorge—the so-called “Little Grand Canyon of Vermont.”

I decided to hike down to the bottom of the gorge. If I heard the gentleman in the visitor center correctly, it’s about a mile down and a mile back up. It was definitely worth the effort. Quechee Gorge is a beautiful place, and standing beside the Ottauquechee River at the bottom gives you a completely different perspective than looking down from above.

After making the climb back to the top, I walked across the bridge that spans the gorge. Looking down to where I had just been, I was amazed at just how deep the gorge really is. My thighs are a little sore this morning, but not nearly as sore as I expected them to be.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Looking back toward the bridge from the bottom of Quechee Gorge.

The view from the bridge. The arrow points to where I had been just a few minutes earlier.

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Life Magazine and the Male Body

Cincinnati Reds at Florida Training Camp, 1939

For much of the twentieth century, Life magazine wasn’t just another magazine. It was America’s photo album.

Through its pages, readers witnessed wars and weddings, presidential campaigns and baseball championships, scientific discoveries and everyday life. Its photographers documented the world with an honesty that made readers feel as though they were standing in the middle of history rather than merely reading about it. Long before television became the dominant medium, Life brought Americans behind the scenes of history through photographs that were often as memorable as the events themselves.

Life magazine was largely before my time. By the time I was growing up in Alabama, its golden age had already passed. But as someone who has always loved history, I eventually found myself exploring old issues in libraries, museum collections, and, years later, in digital archives. I was fascinated by the stories and the photography, but every now and then I would come across something unexpected.

Yale student athletes share a communal shower

Unlike fitness magazines or bodybuilding publications, Life never set out to celebrate the male physique. It wasn’t selling an ideal body or encouraging readers to spend hours in the gym. If a photograph included a shirtless or nude man, it wasn’t because the editors were trying to be provocative. It was because that was the story unfolding before the camera.

That distinction made all the difference.

One of the places Life most frequently presented the male body was through sports. Before television routinely took viewers into locker rooms and behind the scenes, Life photographers did exactly that. They followed athletes beyond the playing field, documenting the moments before and after competition that most fans never saw.

One of my favorite examples is Life‘s coverage of athletes. Rather than stopping with the final out, the photographers captured the celebration in the clubhouse. Players laughed, embraced, showered, and celebrated exactly as victorious athletes do. The camera wasn’t creating glamour photographs. It was preserving history.

Green Bay Packers Offensive End Ron Kramer

The same approach appeared in the magazine’s coverage of the Yale swim team. Swimmers naturally spent much of their lives wearing very little, and Life photographed them without embarrassment or sensationalism. Coverage of the Cincinnati Reds during spring training in Florida in 1939, Purdue football players in their locker room in 1954, hockey star Bobby Hull, pitcher Karl Spooner, Red Sox player Joe Albanese, and jockey Raymond York after riding Determine to victory in the 1954 Kentucky Derby all reflected the same philosophy. The photographers followed the story wherever it led, even if that meant photographing athletes changing clothes, preparing for competition, or relaxing afterward.

To the editors, these were simply honest moments of athletic life.

To me, they became something more.

War photography offered another window into everyday masculinity. During World War II, Life published countless photographs of American servicemen. Soldiers bathed in rivers, shaved together, washed from steel helmets, changed uniforms, and tried to find moments of normalcy amid extraordinary circumstances. They were often shirtless, and sometimes completely nude, because that was simply the reality of military life.

Yale Swim Team

These photographs weren’t intended to highlight the male body. They were meant to show the daily lives of ordinary men serving their country. Yet, in doing so, they also captured moments of vulnerability and camaraderie that rarely appeared elsewhere in mainstream American publications.

The same honesty extended beyond sports and war. One of Life‘s greatest strengths was documenting ordinary Americans. Farmers worked under the hot summer sun with their shirts off. Construction workers, fishermen, ranchers, and laborers appeared exactly as they were. The magazine wasn’t trying to create idealized images of masculinity. It simply recorded everyday life.

U.S. Naval Training

Looking back now, that’s what makes these photographs so remarkable.

The male body wasn’t hidden.

It wasn’t sensationalized.

It simply existed.

As I explored those old issues of Life, I began to notice something that had probably never crossed the minds of the magazine’s editors. Mixed among the stories of war, sports, politics, and everyday life were photographs that quietly celebrated the male body—not as fantasy or glamour, but simply as part of life itself.

I wasn’t reading Life hoping to find pictures of shirtless or nude men. Most issues contained nothing of the sort. But every so often, there would be a photograph that quietly caught my attention. At first, I probably would have said I admired the composition, the lighting, or the historical significance of the image.

The truth was more complicated than that.

What I was really looking for, though I didn’t yet fully understand it, wasn’t nudity.

It was recognition.

Growing up, there were very few openly gay people in my world. There were no gay characters on television that I identified with, no openly gay teachers or neighbors, and certainly no one talking openly about sexuality in the small Southern community where I was raised. I didn’t have the language to describe what I was feeling, much less anyone with whom I felt comfortable discussing it.

Cincinnati Reds at Florida Training Camp, 1939

So I found reflections wherever they appeared.

Sometimes that reflection came from a photograph of a victorious baseball team celebrating in the clubhouse.

Sometimes it came from swimmers preparing for practice.

Sometimes it came from soldiers bathing in a river halfway around the world.

None of those photographs were intended for someone like me.

Yet they reminded me, quietly and without judgment, that the male body wasn’t something shameful. It could be strong, vulnerable, athletic, ordinary, and beautiful—all at the same time.

That was an important lesson, even if I didn’t recognize it at the time.

Today, images of the male body are everywhere. Social media, streaming services, advertising, and the internet have made them almost impossible to avoid. Young gay men have access to representations of masculinity that my generation could scarcely have imagined.

In many ways, that’s a wonderful thing.

1954 Purdue Boilermakers football team in the locker room

But I also think there was something uniquely powerful about discovering these images unexpectedly, tucked away in the pages of a magazine whose purpose was to document history rather than create fantasy.

The photographs in Life weren’t asking to be admired.

They weren’t selling underwear, gym memberships, or protein powder.

They weren’t trying to be erotic.

They simply documented life.

Ironically, that honesty made them even more meaningful.

I doubt the editors of Life ever imagined their magazine would become part of anyone’s journey toward understanding his sexuality—especially decades after many of those issues were first appeared on newsstands.

Yet I suspect it did.

Long after those photographs were taken, they continued to speak to new generations of readers who saw something the photographers never intended to capture. History has a way of doing that. Sometimes the meaning of an image changes with time—not because the image changes, but because we do.

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Finishing Touches

This will be a short post today.

I have a couple of posts in the works to continue last week’s discussion about the print media that gave gay men a chance to admire handsome, fit men in the days before the internet—without having to turn to porn magazines or videos. I’m still putting the finishing touches on them and adding the images I want to include, so they’re not quite ready yet.

I’m also leaving work a little early today because I’ll be putting in a couple of hours at the museum on Saturday. If I can avoid a migraine, I plan to use the extra time this afternoon to finish those posts so they’ll be ready for Thursday and Friday.

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