Monday Morning Daydreams

Monday mornings always seem to arrive a little too quickly. I wish I could wake up on a Monday actually looking forward to the week ahead. Instead, here I am with my usual routine—watching the news, drinking a cup of coffee, and mentally preparing myself for another work week.

One of my coworkers is on vacation this week, and another won’t be back in the office until Wednesday. That means I’ll have the museum to myself today. I usually enjoy the quiet, but first I have to find the motivation to get ready and head out the door. Eventually, the coffee will do its job, and a hot shower will wake me up the rest of the way.

If I could choose where to wake up this morning, though, it definitely wouldn’t be here. I’d much rather be in Montreal. I’d love to spend a week north of the border, with enough time to take a day trip—or maybe even spend a night—in Quebec City. I’ve visited Montreal in the spring and in the fall, but I don’t think I’ve ever been there during the summer. I imagine the cafés bustling, the parks full of people, and long evenings strolling through Old Montreal or the Village, people-watching and admiring all the handsome men passing by before settling in for a leisurely dinner on a patio.

Maybe someday. Until then, it’s a pleasant little daydream to help get me through the Monday blahs. I hope everyone has a wonderful week!

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Faith Is the Victory

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” 

— Hebrews 11:1

There have been seasons in my life when finding a church home has been difficult.

Part of that comes from my background. I was raised in the Churches of Christ, and there is still something deeply moving to me about hearing a congregation lift their voices together without instruments. There is something beautiful about hearing nothing but human voices singing praise to God. Paul’s words have always resonated with me: “singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, singing and making melody to the Lord in your hearts” (Ephesians 5:19).

At the same time, being an LGBTQ+ Christian can make finding a church complicated. Some of us have been told outright that we don’t belong. Others have quietly walked away after years of hearing that our very existence is incompatible with following Christ. Thankfully, many affirming churches now welcome LGBTQ+ believers with open arms, but not everyone has one nearby.

For me, there is another obstacle as well: anxiety.

I’ve never liked walking into church alone. Even when I know I would likely be welcomed, anxiety whispers that I don’t belong or that everyone is watching me. It’s much the same reason I sometimes struggle to go to the gym without a trainer. Once I’m there, I’m usually fine. It’s getting through the door that’s difficult.

For a long time, I wondered whether these struggles somehow made me less faithful.

Then I realized something important.

My relationship with God has never depended on whether I could walk through the doors of a church building.

Faith is what joins us to God.

The writer of Hebrews tells us that faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Faith is not confined to a sanctuary. It is not dependent on someone else’s approval. It is the confidence that God is present even when circumstances make us feel isolated.

Jesus said, “Whoever comes to me I will never drive away” (John 6:37). The invitation is His, not ours to earn and not anyone else’s to revoke.

That doesn’t mean church isn’t important. Scripture encourages believers “not neglecting to meet together” but to encourage one another (Hebrews 10:24–25). Christian community strengthens us, teaches us, and reminds us that we do not walk this journey alone.

Yet there are seasons when gathering with other believers simply isn’t possible. Sometimes there isn’t an affirming congregation nearby. Sometimes illness, caregiving responsibilities, anxiety, or painful experiences make walking through those doors feel impossible.

Even then, God has not moved away.

Paul reminds us, “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come… nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38–39).

Not rejection.

Not anxiety.

Not distance.

Not the opinions of others.

Nothing.

Those words always remind me of the old hymn Faith Is the Victory:

Against the foe in vales below

Let all our strength be hurled;

Faith is the victory, we know,

That overcomes the world.

The victory isn’t that every obstacle disappears. The victory is that none of those obstacles can separate us from Christ. They may keep us from a building for a time, but they cannot keep us from the God who loves us.

Faith remains the bridge.

Faith remains the assurance.

Faith remains the victory.

If you are unable to worship with a church this week—whether because of geography, anxiety, past wounds, illness, or any other reason—remember that God’s presence is not limited to a sanctuary. Read Scripture. Spend a few quiet moments with Him. Listen for His voice in the stillness. And if you are searching for a church home, don’t give up hope. Trust that God will guide you in His time.

Until then, hold fast to the assurance that no one can stand between you and the love of Christ. As Hebrews reminds us, faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Sometimes that assurance is exactly what carries us through until we find our way home.

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Moment of Zen: Sleeping In

After feeding Isabella this morning, I did something I almost never do—I fell back asleep. Every once in a while, an unexpected extra hour or two of sleep is exactly the kind of peace we need.

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When My Heart Kept Changing the Story

Yesterday, I mentioned that while catalogs, department store underwear sections, and advertisements for men’s underwear fueled many of my earliest fantasies, there was one boy who seemed to dominate my imagination. I thought I’d take a stroll down memory lane today because those memories aren’t really about teenage lust. They’re about a young man trying to understand feelings he didn’t yet have the words to describe.

I remember the first day of seventh grade. Some of the boys in my class were picking on me. I don’t remember exactly what they said, but it was probably about my voice, the way I moved, or simply because I was different. There was a new boy in our class that year, and he stepped in and put a stop to it.

We were never best friends, but I always admired him. He was handsome, athletic, blond-haired, blue-eyed, and seemed to have the effortless confidence I wished I possessed. Looking back, I like to think he admired something about me too. I certainly wasn’t athletic, but I was smart, and I hope he respected that. Whether that’s true or simply the way memory softens over time, I don’t know. What I do know is that people didn’t seem to bother me when he was around, and he was one of the genuinely kind people I remember from those years.

For a long time, I didn’t understand why he occupied so much of my imagination.

My fantasies almost always started the way I thought they were supposed to. I’d try to imagine being attracted to a girl, because that’s what I believed normal teenage boys were supposed to do. Somehow, though, those daydreams always drifted back to him. Every single time.

The strange thing is that I knew almost nothing about being gay. Everything I had heard came from playground insults, whispered jokes, and the cruel stereotypes that were common in the South during the 1980s and early 1990s. I didn’t have positive role models. I didn’t know any openly gay people. I certainly didn’t have anyone telling me that it was okay if I happened to be one of them.

Instead, every fantasy ended with shame.

I’d lie awake afterward feeling guilty, wondering what was wrong with me and why I couldn’t make my mind work the way I thought it should. I may have been a good student, but when it came to understanding my own heart, I was completely lost. Looking back, I wish someone had simply told me that it was okay to like other boys. It wouldn’t have erased every struggle, but it might have spared me years of believing there was something broken inside me.

It wasn’t until college that someone finally gave me a different way to think about it.

One of my psychology professors, who was also a clinical psychologist, allowed us to submit anonymous questions for class discussion. One student asked, “How do you know if you’re really gay?”

His answer was simple. He asked us to think about our romantic and erotic dreams. When we dreamed about someone we desired, was it a man or a woman?

I don’t know that there’s any single question that can define a person’s sexual orientation, and I wouldn’t claim that his answer applies to everyone. But it applied to me.

In that moment, I realized something that had been true for years. No matter how hard I tried to imagine girls, my thoughts always found their way back to boys. More specifically, they had almost always found their way back to one particular boy.

That realization didn’t magically erase years of guilt or fear, especially after growing up in a conservative religious environment where being gay was presented as sinful and where the AIDS epidemic was often spoken about with more condemnation than compassion. But it did give me permission to admit something to myself that I’d been trying very hard not to see.

Sometimes the hardest person to come out to is yourself.

Looking back now, I don’t remember those fantasies with embarrassment. I remember them with compassion for that confused thirteen-year-old who was simply trying to understand himself with almost no guidance at all. He wasn’t broken. He wasn’t choosing to feel the way he did. He was just beginning the long journey toward understanding the person he had been all along.

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Some Memories Deserve Their Own Post

Yesterday, I wrote about catalogs, department store underwear sections, and the advertisements that gave many of us our earliest glimpses of the male body before the internet existed. Judging by the comments, I wasn’t the only one who remembers those innocent little moments that weren’t quite so innocent.

As I was thinking about yesterday’s post, my mind started wandering a little farther down memory lane. Those catalogs and advertisements certainly caught my attention, but they weren’t the only things that occupied the imagination of a very horny teenage boy. Looking back, I can remember a few guys who found their way into my fantasies, but there was one in particular who seemed to appear again and again. He dominated my teenage imagination in a way no one else ever did.

But those memories are about more than teenage hormones. They’re also about a young man trying to understand feelings he didn’t yet have the language to describe. I knew I was different long before I admitted it to myself, and those fantasies were part of how I slowly came to recognize what my heart had been trying to tell me all along. Looking back now, I can smile at that confused, curious teenager who was simply trying to make sense of desires that felt both exciting and frightening.

I think that’s a post of its own.

Not because it’s some dramatic story, but because it’s one of those memories that deserves a little reflection. So many of us who grew up before the internet pieced together our understanding of attraction from fleeting glimpses, innocent crushes, and private fantasies that we never dared tell another soul. Looking back now, those memories are amusing, a little embarrassing, and, perhaps most of all, an important part of discovering who we were.

Unfortunately, this morning isn’t the best time to take that stroll down memory lane. I woke up with a bit of a headache. Thankfully, it doesn’t seem to be anything serious—certainly not serious enough to call in sick—but it’s enough that I’m moving a little slower than usual. Coffee is doing its best to help.

So, I’ll save those memories for another morning when I can do them justice. After all, some walks down memory lane are worth taking slowly.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thursday.

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