I just got off the phone with my mom--we talk every week or so. And ever now and then, as I did today, I have to bring up the vast gulf between us, created by her disagreement with my gayness and my disagreement with her position about that.
The ridiculous thing is that she must choose between her love for God (as she sees Him) and her love for her son. Just as I must choose between my love for my mother and my love for myself. She and I are essentially in the same position. We have to choose between our commitment to some kind of meaningful family relationship and our commitment to living out our ideals and life experiences. It's too easy to say that being gay for me trumps her faith--but for her, faith is life, and her experience of God is as real as my experience of love with my partner. I hate the fact that religion has separated belief and life to the extent that lived experience is somehow hedged by a belief structure instead of the other way around. I love religion in that it gives me language to talk about this.
I don't have a handle on it either, but I am trying to live through the lessons of experience--allowing that to inform my beliefs about the world and spirituality. For me, it's about trying to live a conversation among elements of my life; my belief in what's right; and the religious symbolism I that I inherit, discover, and make up.
I hate the fact that I understand where my mom is coming from (after all, I came from there, too!). It makes it too hard to condemn her (to hell or ignorance, or exile from my life). At the same time, it's hard to know what I'm still doing with the relationship. I asked her what it means to love her son in this context--and I have to ask myself the same question, what does it mean to love my mom in this context?
Part of the answer involves grieving for the aspects of our relationship that are lost, along with my relationship to the community and extended family that I came from. Part of the answer also asks me to return to my belief in the importance of family relationships while reconfiguring my understanding of what it means to be a family (with my blood kin and with the family I am creating and living in).
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I can tell that you are dealing with this part of your life in good ole mature fashion.
And I'm proud of you for that b/c it takes work.
But fuck, it just pisses me the hell off that you don't have all the love in the world bending in your direction.
I think that's what religion should be: a system whereby love bends in response to need. That would be a lived experience though, and you've already pointed out how/why that doesn't work.
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