Pic of the Day

Creatures of Habit

Cats are often a creature of habit. some have their routines, and they stick to those routines very closely. Back when I was teaching in Alabama, my previous cat, Victoria, and I had our afternoon routines. She used to sit in an upstairs window watching and waiting for me to come home, then when I opened the door, she’d be sitting at the top of the stairs waiting for me.

This was her perfect vantage point for seeing through the window above the front door, and there she would wait. Occasionally, she’d come down the stairs to greet me, but more often than not, she would sit there and wait for me to come upstairs. I would be so exhausted from teaching, and she wanted me to come upstairs and take a nap with her. I’d go upstairs and to lie on the bed and take a nap; she’d come lie down beside me so that the bottom half of her body was by my side and the upper half would be lying across my chest. Them, we’d take a nap. She would get quite upset if I did not take my nap with her in the afternoon. Although, she had one unbreakable rule, I had to keep a shirt on. She hated laying on naked skin. Go figure.

Isabella has her habits too. She wants me to get up around 4 am to feed her, which I admit often annoys me. However, she realizes when I really need a little extra sleep, and in those days, she can be a bit more patient. But that’s not her only habit. She too will greet me at the door when I come home. She’ll also demand where I should be at what time of the evening. If I go into my bedroom before 9:30 pm, she comes and taps my arm to try to get me to go back into the living room. However, if I stay in the living room past 10 pm, she does the same thing, but wants me to go into the bedroom and go to bed.

We also have another routine each morning. I always thought it was really just for me, but I realize yesterday morning, that it’s become part of her routine. Each day as I’m leaving for work, she’ll be lying on her pile of blankets, and I’ll walk up to her, scratch her on the head and say, “Bye bye, Isabella. I have to go to work. Be a good girl today.” Yes, I know it’s silly, but it’s what I do. And each day as I say it, she looks up at me and meows like she’s telling me to have a good day. More likely it’s to say, you better come home on time. Yesterday morning, she was not on her blanket, and I wasn’t quite sure where she was, though I’d seen her only a few minutes before. So, I said to the room, “Bye bye, Isabella. Be a good girl.” I was not expecting a response, but she came running up to me and meowed. Where she came from, I don’t know, but I reached down and scratched her head. A few minutes later (I have a blink camera so I can check in on her while I’m not at home), she crawled up onto her blankets and went to sleep.  I thought it was kind of sweet that she was afraid she’d miss me telling her goodbye yesterday morning. 

Anyway, here’s your Isabella pic of the week:

Pic of the Day

Feeling Better

I woke up this morning feeling better. Thank goodness because I have things I have to do at work today. It doesn’t mean my headache is gone, I’m feeling the effects of a postdrome or migraine “hangover,” which is an apt description of how I feel once the worst of my migraines ease. I'm usually achy, mentally foggy, and physically drained. I wish I could just go to bed and be able to fully recover from my migraine, but, as I said, it’s not possible with what I have to do at work today. Most of what I have to do is this morning, so if I still don’t feel well, I could possibly take the afternoon off. We’ll see.

Pic of the Day

Another Migraine

With temperatures plunging from 63 degrees yesterday to 26 degrees today as a storm front moves through, it was no surprise for me that I developed a migraine last night and that said migraine is still with me this morning. I had really bad photophobia last night, and it’s not much better this morning, so thankfully, it is raining so the sun won’t be out and it should be a full gray day. It’s strange: the rain caused my migraine, but I’m thankful for the rain because it will keep it from being a bright, sunshiny day. It’s definitely a catch-22.

Pic of the Day

Self-Portrait as Combination Taco Bell / Pizza Hut / KFC

  

Self-Portrait as Combination Taco Bell / Pizza Hut / KFC

By Aaron Tyler Hand

 

the unholy trinity of suburban late-night salvation 

barring seemingly endless options of worship

 

bean burrito breadsticks and mashed potatoes 

or a soft taco pan pizza and a buttered biscuit

 

an unimaginable combination of food flavors 

for people not ready to go home to their parents

 

and yet none of the options feel quite right 

so maybe I should call it Self-Portrait as idling

 

in a drive-thru with your friends crammed 

across the sunken bench seats avoiding

 

the glow of the check engine light with black tape 

pressed with a precision unseen anywhere else

 

in their lives as a fractured voice says don’t worry 

take your time and order whenever you’re ready

 

from behind a menu backlit like the window 

inside of a confessional booth as the hands

 

of the driver open up like a collection basket 

for the wadded-up bills and loose change

 

that slowly stack up as the years go by 

and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be

 

in this analogy but I know about masking 

warning signs and hearing out of tune

 

voices scream WE’RE THE KIDS WHO FEEL 

LIKE DEAD ENDS so instead I’ll call it Self-

 

Portrait as From Under the Cork Tree 

or maybe even Self-Portrait as whatever

 

album people listen to when they love 

their friends and still want to feel connected

 

to the grass walls of a teenage wasteland 

that they can’t help but run away from

 

 

About This Poem

 

“I love using poetry to capture the malaise of growing up in the suburbs. When you spend your life in a place that feels defined by its monotony, it’s hard to find a sense of personal identity that isn’t mass produced. In order to feel like you have any control over your life, you have to find the small rebellions that lead to a sense of belonging. That aimlessness and escapism is what I tried to capture in this poem.”—Aaron Tyler Hand

 

This poem was the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day yesterday. While I found the title intriguing, I found the scene it sets nostalgic. I did not grow up in the suburbs, but in rural Alabama;, however, when I was in undergraduate and graduate school, I remember the late nights of getting Taco Bell, though in graduate school, it was often Krystal’s, which was open 24 hours and a block from my first apartment.

 

The title itself made me think of probably what all of us thought the first time we saw a combination “Taco Bell / Pizza Hut / KFC”: fast food with a personality disorder. It does seem kind of lost in what it is trying to do. I usually only see Taco Bells and KFCs together these days, but it’s still an odd combination.

 

 

About the Poet

 

Aaron Tyler Hand (@airinhand) is a creative writer with an MFA from Texas State University. He has previously been published in San Antonio Express-News, Houston Chronicle, Faultline Journal, GASHER Journal, HASH Journal, Funicular Magazine, Meniscus, among others. In addition to his own creative writing pursuits, Aaron volunteers his time to the prison teaching non-profit Rough Draft and hosts the poetry podcast The Personhood Project.

Pic of the Day

Earth Day

Earth Day, which takes place on April 22, dates back to 1970, when U.S.-based organizers were hoping to bring awareness to the environmental degradation they were witnessing across the country. Since then, recognition of the holiday has expanded to more than 190 countries who have added Earth Day to their calendar.

The holiday is both a grim reminder of the work that must be done and a celebration of the progress that has been made when it comes to climate change efforts. It's also been the catalyst for actions including the creation of international climate agreements and environmental agencies.

This year’s theme is Planet vs. Plastics, which calls on government leaders, businesses, and everyday people to reduce plastic production by 60% by 2040. It is also calling for the full elimination of single use plastics by the end of this decade.

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Gates

“Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”

—Matthew 7:13-14

 

I grew up in rural Alabama, and my house was surrounded by a pasture. There were a lot of pastures around where I lived, and I remember vividly the numerous ways to enter a pasture. If you were on foot, you could climb over or under the fence, but if you were in a vehicle, you either had to cross a cattle gap or get out, open the gate, drive through and then get back out of the vehicle and close the gate. I always found it so tedious to have to get in and out of a vehicle to open and close the gates. It was a lot easier if there was a passenger, which I most often was, who could handle the gates when we’d come to them.

 

When I came across the picture above, it made me consider the symbolism of gates in the Bible. To me, I most often think of Matthew 7:13-14 when I think of gates. In this passage, which is part of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is speaking to a large crowd about how people are often more interested in appearing outwardly to be religious by practicing rituals that others could see. They were using the wide gate, which signifies a dependence on ourselves and obtaining our own self-righteousness through trying to do things outwardly to impress others, rather than a more personal relationship with God.

 

The wide gate in many ways represents our culture today, characterized by being self-absorbed and wanting to appear outwardly better than everyone else. Too many people latch onto individual and misinterpreted Bible verses to push forth their own hateful ways while also trying to appear pious. The wider gate is a popularity contest, and it causes people to latch onto politicians and news media that align with their own hateful beliefs and reinforce those beliefs by perverting the Word of God.

 

The narrow gate that Jesus was referring to is a personal relationship with God, not being outwardly pious by following religious rituals and sacraments to try and earn your way to heaven. It means not wasting time and energy trying to appear outwardly in a way to be accepted by the pious culture of many churches, but rather asking the God to live in you, to change your heart, and transform you into the person He made you to be. God sees the inward appearance of our heart, not our outward appearance to others. Even at the risk of being unpopular, we should follow the teachings of Jesus to live a life of giving help, hope, and happiness to others.

 

Narrow gates are also easier to defend because they use lesser material and can this concentrate the defense greater than the massive amount of material needed for larger gates. It takes less to defend a narrow gate because it limits the attack of the enemy. The wider gate allows an enemy to attack with a greater force that can weaken the defensive purposes of a gate. Wider gates need greater materials to defend against an enemy. The gates of the ancient cities are not as we imagine today’s gates, but massive gates made of stone, iron, brass, or wood frequently sheeted with metal. They were tall and wide. The gate of Herod’s “which is called Beautiful” (Acts 3:2) was made of brass and required twenty men to close it. These gates were opened during the day to allow the citizens to come and go but were generally closed and barred at night as a safety measure to keep out enemy attacks. Whoever controlled the gates of the stronghold ruled the city.

 

Gates can be for good or evil. They can serve as protection or as a prison. Just as Heaven has gates, so does Hell. Therefore, gates can protect us from evil, or they can keep evil contained. We must shut our open gates against the enemy. If even one gate is open and unprotected, we fall prey to our enemies who seek to oppress us and gain a foothold. God warns us not to give the devil a place to spread evil. Gates of pride, rebellion, false beliefs, or wrong motives, allow evil to erect a fortress giving the enemy a place to establish his camp. We must keep watch over our gates. This means searching through our relationship with God and guarding the gates and doors to our soul and body.

 

When Jesus promised to build His Church, He said Matthew 16:18, “And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock, I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” Understanding the biblical implications of “gates” helps us interpret Jesus’ words. Since a gate was a place where rulers met and counsel was given, Jesus was saying that all the evil plans of Satan himself would never defeat the Church. In Matthew 7:15-16, Jesus warns us to “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits.”

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Nico Coopa is not only a sexy porn star, but he’s also a very talented artist.

Moment of Zen: White Briefs

I love seeing a guy in white briefs.

Guys can also be very sexy in white briefs and a white t-shirt.

…and even sexier in white briefs and a tank top…

…or only a tank top.

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Migraine

Thank goodness I didn’t have to even contemplate going to work today. I developed a migraine not too long after I got to work yesterday, and it was a bad one. I ended up going home after only being at work for three hours. I knew there were three things at the museum that would have only made my migraine worse: 1) 🖥️ I think my computer screen was trying to kill me (even though I have it on the lowest brightness, it still aggravates my migraine), 2) 🔨 one of my coworkers was installing an exhibit and was hammering in shelves so every time I heard the hammer come down, my headache nearly exploded, and 3) 🙄 another coworker said something about one of our other coworkers, and I started to roll my eyes, but I couldn’t because it hurt too much with my migraine centered in my left eye. I end up rolling my eyes a lot at work these days, and I could tell that the day would be filled with more eye rolling than usual.

Anyway, I woke up to the same migraine. Today is a vacation day for me, so I was hoping to feel better. Although my weather app says we will be cloudy all day, our local meteorologist said that we’d actually have sun most of the day. I was hoping to be able to get outside some today and enjoy the sun. However, my migraines always come with really bad photophobia, so at this point, I’m hoping for the cloudy day.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

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Thursday Morning

When I woke up this morning, I fed Isabella, made breakfast, and since it’s Thursday, I watched the new episode of Star Trek: Discovery. It’s a show I can’t multitask while watching, so I didn’t have much time to write a post. By the way, I think Discovery saved the best season for its last season. So far, I’ve enjoyed it more than any other season. I hope that continues.

Well, that’s it for today, have a great Thursday. Here’s your Isabella pic of the week:

In this picture, she’s staring at a robin. Of all the birds and wildlife around where I live, she only pays attention to one other animal: a robin. She’s obsessed with them. If I have a window open, and she hears a robin, she runs to the window as fast as possible. When I took this picture, she and a robin were having a staring contest. It seemed to go on forever until the robin got bored and flew away.

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If Only…

If I didn’t have classes to teach today, I would have loved to call in sick and go back to bed. However, not only do I have classes to teach, but I spent all afternoon yesterday pulling objects out of storage to use in the class. I got home and was totally exhausted. I woke this morning with my back hurting. Even if I didn’t have classes to teach, I probably wouldn’t call in sick. I work with people who’ll call in sick for the most minor things, including “mental health days,” which basically means the person just didn’t want to go to work that day. I have a better work ethic than that, not that it gets noticed. If I have responsibilities that can’t be postponed, even if it’s something someone else could handle, I take my job seriously. 

Anyway, “Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho; it’s off from work I go.”* I may not “ dig dig dig dig dig dig dig” the “whole day through” like the seven dwarfs in Snow White, but my job “is what I really like to do.”

*Before anyone points it out, I know the lyrics are actually, “Heigh-ho, Heigh-ho; it’s home from work we go.” 

Pic of the Day

Having a Coke with You

Having a Coke with You

By Frank O’Hara

 

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne

or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona

partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian

partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt

partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches

partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary

it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still

as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it

in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth

between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

 

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint

you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them

                                                                                                              I look

at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world

except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick

which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together for the first time

and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism

just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or

at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me

and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them

when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank

or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully

as the horse

                               it seems they were all cheated of some marvelous experience

which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I’m telling you about it

About the Poem

 

First published in a small magazine Love, “Having a Coke with You” was also included in the 1965 book Lunch Poems, which I mentioned a few weeks ago. It is a typically spontaneous O'Hara work, unconventional and open-hearted, dashed off with enthusiasm.

 

Frank O'Hara was known as 'a poet among the painters' because of his association with a group of New York artists, the abstract expressionists, with whom he collaborated for a number of years. A livewire and party animal, he worked as an assistant curator at MoMA. Though not prolific, his carefree style, which he termed 'Personism', went against the grain of tradition. He hated literary pretension and wanted his poetry to reflect his dynamic interest in and involvement with cutting-edge cultural activity. Manhattan, his stomping ground, was certainly full of that.

 

"Having A Coke With You" was written when O'Hara returned from a trip to Spain in April 1960 and focused on the intimate relationship between two people enjoying a drink and alludes to art and religion. It's an unorthodox poem that contrasts a beautiful lover with fine art and saintliness. The poem celebrates the mundane and the present moment, contrasting it with the formalism of traditional art. It's conversational tone and colloquial language differ from O'Hara's previous poems, which were often more experimental and abstract. Compared to his earlier works, this poem showcases a shift towards simplicity and accessibility. O'Hara emphasizes the immediate and personal experience, rejecting the grand narratives and artistic conventions of the past. The poem also reflects the cultural shift of the post-war era, where artists sought to break away from traditional forms and engage with everyday life.

 

By praising the beauty and authenticity of everyday moments, "Having a Coke with You" challenges the notion that art must be monumental or grand to be meaningful. Instead, it asserts the value of the ordinary and the subjective experience.

 

 

About the Poet

 

On March 27, 1926, Frank (Francis Russell) O’Hara was born in Maryland. He grew up in Massachusetts, and later studied piano at the New England Conservatory in Boston from 1941 to 1944. O’Hara then served in the South Pacific and Japan as a sonarman on the destroyer USS Nicholas during World War II.

 

Following the war, O’Hara studied at Harvard College, where he majored in music and worked on compositions and was deeply influenced by contemporary music, his first love, as well as visual art. He also wrote poetry at that time and read the work of Arthur Rimbaud, Stéphane Mallarmé, Boris Pasternak, and Vladimir Mayakovsky.

 

While at Harvard, O’Hara met John Ashbery and soon began publishing poems in the Harvard Advocate. Despite his love for music, O’Hara changed his major and left Harvard in 1950 with a degree in English. He then attended graduate school at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and received his MA in 1951. That autumn, O’Hara moved into an apartment in New York. He was soon employed at the front desk of the Museum of Modern Art and continued to write seriously.

 

O’Hara’s early work was considered both provocative and provoking. In 1952, his first volume of poetry, A City Winter, and Other Poems, attracted favorable attention; his essays on painting and sculpture and his reviews for ArtNews were considered brilliant. O’Hara became one of the most distinguished members of the New York School of poets,* which also included Ashbery, James Schuyler, and Kenneth Koch.

 

O’Hara’s association with painters Larry Rivers, Jackson Pollock, and Jasper Johns, also leaders of the New York School, became a source of inspiration for his highly original poetry. He attempted to produce with words the effects these artists had created on canvas. In certain instances, he collaborated with the painters to make “poem-paintings,” paintings with word texts.

O’Hara’s most original volumes of verse, Meditations in an Emergency (1956) and Lunch Poems (1964), are impromptu lyrics, a jumble of witty talk, journalistic parodies, and surrealist imagery.

 

O’Hara continued working at the Museum of Modern Art throughout his life, curating exhibitions and writing introductions and catalogs for exhibits and tours. On July 25, 1966, while vacationing on Fire Island, Frank O’Hara was killed in a sand buggy accident. He was forty years old.

 

 

*About the New York School of Poetry

 

The New York School of poetry began around 1960 in New York City and included poets such as John Ashbery, Barbara Guest, Kenneth Koch, and Frank O’Hara. Heavily influenced by Surrealism and Modernism, the poetry of the New York School was serious but also ironic and incorporated an urban sensibility into much of the work. An excerpt from Ashbery’s poem “My Philosophy of Life” demonstrates this attitude:

Just when I thought there wasn’t room enough
for another thought in my head, I had this great idea—
call it a philosophy of life, if you will. Briefly,
it involved living the way philosophers live,
according to a set of principles. OK, but which ones?

Abstract Expressionist art was also a major influence, and the New York School poets had strong artistic and personal relationships with artists such as Jackson Pollock and Willem DeKooning. Both O’Hara and James Schuyler worked at the Museum of Modern Art, and Guest, Ashbery, and Schuyler were critics for Art News. O’Hara also took inspiration from artists, entitling two poems “Joseph Cornell” and “On Seeing Larry Rivers’ Washington Crossing the Delaware at the Museum of Modern Art.” O’Hara’s poem “Why I am Not a Painter” includes the lines “I am not a painter, I am a poet. / Why? I think I would rather be / a painter, but I am not.”

 

A second generation of New York School poets arose during the 1960s and included Ted Berrigan, Ron Padgett, Anne Waldman, and Joe Brainard. These poets were also influenced by art, and their work contained much of the same humor and collaborative spirit. Their scene grew up around downtown New York and was associated with the Poetry Project at St. Mark’s Church, a poetry organization that started in the mid-1960s.

The New York School continues to influence poets writing today. Recently published books such as Daniel Kane’s All Poets Welcome: The Lower East Side Poetry Scene in the 1960s and David Lehman’s The Last-Avant Garde: The Making of the New York School of Poets are important histories of this poetic movement that still captures readers today.

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Pleasant Dreams

I had a weird night of sleep last night. It’s not like I didn’t sleep well; I slept really well and woke up refreshed this morning. However, what made it weird was that I feel like I was dreaming all night long, one dream after another. Some of you might say that everyone dreams during REM sleep, and that’s certainly true. I know I dream, but I never wake up feeling like I’ve been dreaming all night. I can’t remember any of the dreams, just vague flashes here and there this morning. Every so often, I vividly remember my dreams; the vast majority of the time, I do not remember any of my dreams. 

One of those bits and pieces I remember was dreaming about the movie Cruel Intentions. I’m not sure why I was dreaming about this movie other than a friend and I were discussing the movie Friday night. I wouldn’t actually call it discussing the movie, I was mainly saying that this was one of my gay awakenings. There were certainly other things I saw or that happened that really cemented to me that I was gay, but the scene above in which Sebastian (Ryan Phillipe) drops his towel after getting out of the pool is one I will always remember vividly. Many gay men around my age will say that this scene was their gay awakening too. I think that’s what made this somewhat mediocre movie a cult classic. Oh, and my dream car has been a black vintage Jaguar XK140 convertible, like the one Sebastian drives in the movie.

Anyway, as I sit here drinking my tea, it’s nice to have the feeling that I slept well last night and had pleasant dreams. Whether we remember our dreams or not, I suspect we have all woken up some mornings knowing we had a night full of unpleasant dreams and nightmares. So, it’s very nice to wake up knowing that you had a restful night of sleep filled with pleasant dreams.

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Comfort and Acceptance

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 

—2 Corinthians 1:3-4

 

I had a migraine last night, and it is still with me this morning. As it is Sunday, I was thinking about my weekly devotional. Did I even have the fortitude to write one this week? It made me think about what the Bible says about pain. The Bible speaks a lot about mental and metaphysical such as Revelation 21:4, “And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.” The Bible discusses our grief and suffering many times and how it will one day end “In the Morning of Joy.”

 

However, other than the miracles Jesus performed healing the sick, not as much is said about physical pain and suffering. As I was searching for verses about physical pain, I came across 2 Corinthians 1:3-4, which says, God “comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” While this may not be specifically about physical pain, it did remind me of some of the purposes of this blog. When I first started this blog, it was meant to be “A blog about LGBTQ+ History, Art, Literature, Politics, Culture, and Whatever Else Comes to Mind. The Closet Professor is a fun (sometimes tongue-in-cheek, sometimes very serious) approach to LGBTQ+ Culture” as the tagline says at the top of this blog, but as we do in life, it has taken a journey in a more varied direction.

 

One of those purposes was to be a place where LGBTQ+ Christians, especially those raised in the Church of Christ, could find a place of understanding and acceptance. Over the years, I have met some wonderful people who came across this blog while searching for what it means to be an LGBTQ+ Christian who wanted to keep their faith in the very conservative Church of Christ, and many of them told me that this blog helped them to understand their faith better and through it found personal acceptance. Some of those individuals became close friends of mine. 

 

Being a welcoming place for LGBTQ+ Christians is something I consider a mission of my Sunday devotionals, but this has not been my sole objective for this blog. I have also chosen to be open and honest about the trials, tribulations, and treatments for my migraines. I am not in the medical profession, but I have experienced nearly every possible medical treatment for migraines, from antidepressants, anti-anxiety medications, beta blockers, calcium blockers, Botox injections, to newer CGRP treatments. I have taken a long list of preventative and abortive treatments for migraines.

 

In both of these instances, I have tried to give others an honest perspective and to let them know they are not alone. There are people out there who have suffered just like I have. I wanted this blog to be a place where others can hopefully find the same comfort with which I have been comforted by God. I may no longer attend church or formally pray, but I have kept a close relationship with God. I have an internal dialogue with God constantly. Yes, there are certainly times when I offer up a silent prayer for myself and others, because I follow Jesus’s instructions about prayer in Matthew 6:6-7, “But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their many words.”

 

For me, faith is a very personal journey. I will never deny being a devout Christian. I will continue to share my spiritual mission every Sunday, but in my everyday existence, I believe that the best way to show my faith is by living in a way that I hope is an example of a true believer in Christ’s teachings. 

 

So, with this blog, I attempt to provide comfort to others, whether that is through my personal journey as a faithful Christian, a sufferer of chronic migraines, or through stories of my mundane life, my love of poetry, or by giving examples of LGBTQ+ people and our allies throughout history (and, yes, also my appreciation for beautiful men). I’m not sure I’m successful in all those aspects, but I’ll continue to try to be a place of comfort and acceptance.

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Moment of Zen: Running

I personally don’t like to run, but I love watching other guys run.

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