The longest journey
Is the journey inwards.
Of him who has chosen his destiny,
Who has started upon his quest
For the source of his being
(Is there a source?).
He is still with you,
But without relation,
Isolated in your feeling
Like one condemned to death
Or one whom imminent farewell
Prematurely dedicates
To the loneliness which is the final lot of all.
Between you and him is distance,
Uncertainty—
Care.
He will see you withdrawing,
Further and further,
Hear your voices fading,
Fainter and fainter. [1]
Dag Hammarskjöld (1905-61)
This profoundly spiritual man – the Secretary-General of the United Nations at the time of his death – died in an air crash in 1961. Hammarskjöld was not openly gay in his lifetime, and we will never really know whether or not he would have wanted to be identified as gay, this, despite evidence pointing to a relationship with another man. I’ve always wondered whether “the longest journey” had to do with a coming to terms with his sexual orientation, a journey perhaps not completed because it was cut short by tragic events. Whatever the case, the opening verses have resonated with me ever since that first time I read them many years ago, but even more so as I began to make my own coming-out journey. I like the word journey because, as has been repeated ad nauseam (here on QTC, and elsewhere) coming out is not a onetime event but normally a process. I say ‘normally’ because we have heard of coming-out stories that seemed to happen very suddenly, the reason usually being because in these stories the person was outed. So, even if the general public may get to know of one’s story as a news item, a singular event, I think it wouldn’t be amiss to say that coming out is first and foremost an inward journey (well, if you disagree, please give me your feedback).
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This past week or two, I was leafing through the pages of my 2008 diary, remembering that it was during this time of the year (February-March) that I made those first fateful steps to come out of the closet. Now, I’ve been keeping a spiritual journal on a fairly regular basis for close to thirty years (since 1984, to be precise). In all this time I felt that there was something I really needed to come to terms with – that something being in all these years very real yet likewise indefinable. Indefinable? Or unmentionable? Whatever the case, matters came to a head early in 2008. Away from home, and overwhelmed by loneliness, I began to realise that, in my loneliness, I was longing for intimacy and companionship – to be precise, I was longing for the love of another man. It’s not that I never had such feelings before. Rather, it’s because I’ve always suppressed these feelings – or reasoned (as I had been told) that they’re just temptations – so, off I’d go to throw myself into more work, or strenuous exercise, or what have you, to drown out these feelings. I didn’t want to listen to myself. But in 2008 there was no more escaping, there was nowhere to hide:
It’s so strange that just this week the subject of intimacy should come up in my conversations with the other priests. I’m realising more and more that intimacy becomes the dominant issue as one grows older – more than sex per se. The problem, with regard to the priesthood, is that the boundary lines between intimacy and sex are not very distinct and, in any case, a priest has to face a greater dose of loneliness in view of his role – intimacy is always suspect in the case of priests. … What’s left over for the priest from God’s table of love? (10 February)
At that point (early February) I had not as yet uttered the word gay (or homosexual, for that matter) and definitely not as a self-descriptor. I came across the film When I’m 64 – a film that resonated with me in an inexplicable way, as I had the opportunity to state in one of my first posts – and then something happened:
I saw the film for the fourth time today. It has a calming effect on me – I don’t know why. Lord, help me to be myself, no masks. Help me to find out who I really am, and help me to be able to reveal myself to others. Lord, I owe it to you to be truthful; as the psalmist (Ps 51:6) says: “you desire truth in the inner parts.” (14 February)
Strange isn’t it? that the core issue is truth. Call it a series of epiphanies, a falling of the scales from one’s eyes, coming to the truth about oneself may seem to be the most obvious of things. And yet it’s not necessarily the case. As I pored over the pages of the diary, I could see that my self-awareness was very fragmented, possibly because of internalised homophobia and/or little positive feedback and encouragement to build on. What’s clear is that it seemed then (as now) that layers were being peeled off, with the truth about who and what I really am slowly being revealed to me – in doses I could cope with. Being true to oneself – and to God (if, like me, one believes in a personal God) – seems to be at the core of coming out. The more I reflect on what happened four years ago, the more I realise and confirm that God’s Spirit was doing the gentle nudging work for me to take the first steps. Far from being an act of shame and fear, I took it to be an act of grace and freedom that shouldn’t be missed (I think what I’m saying here dovetails nicely with what Terry recently had to say here).
The longest journey
Is the journey inwards.
Of him who has chosen his destiny,
Who has started upon his quest
For the source of his being
(Is there a source?).
How aware are we, when we start upon our quest, of the end-point, the destination of our inner journey? To what extent would my being gay be part of the destination or end-point? Or is the destination none other than a fuller knowledge and integration of my self, whilst accepting my gay identity amounts to discovering where certain pieces in the jigsaw fit? The reason why I’m stating this now, four years on from those first steps, is that though I’m not defined simply by my gay identity, coming out (and therefore embracing this identity) has freed me in ways that makes it possible for me to truly discover who I am in the eyes of the Loving Other.
I am going through an upheaval of sorts, and only God knows where this will end. I don’t know what God’s plans for me are, but I do know that what I’m going through will not go away. … I am already grasping a bit of the freedom I will gain when all this is finally through – I don’t care what the others think, not anymore. I will not live a lie. (19 February)
Discovering my worth in God’s eyes, and the immensity of God’s love, were the drivers behind this inward journey. Hadn’t this been the case, I would probably not have survived the pressures of being part of a homophobic institution, nor would I have dared to go further and slowly come out to others. I began to come out to others to ensure that there’d be no race back to the closet. A ‘mantra’ I’ve repeated to myself several times since then is: there’s no going back now; the only way is forward.
[to be continued]
[1] From his book Markings, translated from Swedish by Leif Sjöberg and W H Auden (1963; trans. 1964, 1992, New York 2006) page 58
