Queer as Faith is a weekly column by Nathan Gunter.  Unconventional and thought-provoking, Nathan writes as a gay Christian struggling to live authentically in the real world.

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Week 7:
Open Letter

Dear Beloved Struggler:

I've had those thoughts too.  Like if the world is so messed up, and if it's always going to feel like we're floating along from one hurt to the next, and if it really is the kind of place where you have to look out for yourself first without letting yourself worry or care too much about others, then maybe it's not a world worth living in.

I've had those thoughts.  They pass.  Usually it's not so much that you realize something miraculous about life (although sometimes you do).  Usually it's more that you're laying in bed, thinking that, or dreaming it, and then you realize you have 45 minutes to get to work and haven't showered yet.  Or your kid has a football game and needs you to be there to cheer him on.  A friend calls in tears and needs some advice, and the two of you can cry together.

Thing about that stuff is, you're being called back to your life.  We're being called every day to live like we're not of this world so that we show it what it could be.  And yes, most of the time the world doesn't take the hint.  Most of the time, you try to love the world and it just doesn't cooperate.  But you don't stop doing it.

You can't.  Even if you wanted to, even if you tried, even if you were to succeed, you know that there would be a part of you that would die in that process.  And it's that part of you that made life worth living before.  It's that part of you that made you fall in love with your job.  It's the part of you that wanted to have children so you could go to their football games.  It's the part of you that reached out to that friend in the first place.  To live without that part of yourself, that part that loves and thinks and feels so deeply… that would be truly a life not worth living.

And there are times like now, when all the frustration builds and suddenly you find you've smashed your coffee pot to a million pieces.  Your job calls you to come in at 8 AM on your day off.  Your kid consistently makes choices of which you don't approve.  Your friend just isn't there for you when you need her.

The only thing we have to give us hope is that we are intimately beloved.  That really is, in the end, the only way I know for us to carry on.  We are tenderly taken care of by God, and in those times when we don't see it, well, it's faith that keeps our doors on their hinges and our feet from sinking.  Because really, in the end, what else is there?

We have nothing.  We are born with nothing and we die with nothing, and in this poverty we can celebrate.  Because in place of our nothing we are given abundance of love and freedom.  In Christ we are free to give and love freely, because it is Christ from whom we receive everything we have, and in whom we are fulfilled for every thing we have not.  What we have, what matters, is our love.

Which is exhausting sometimes.  And nothing's wrong with taking some time off, because it is easy for love to be mistaken for giving, and for giving to be exploited.  And taking a step back, learning to love ourselves again, learning to give not only to others but to me is not wrong.  No one ever said we would never need renewal.

So, Beloved Struggler, rest awhile.  Sleep warm and tight in the knowledge that you are loved and that nothing will shake that or change it, and that nothing you do has earned it, no action you take will increase it, no mistake you make will diminish it, and no person you've wronged or who has wronged you will cancel it.  Wrap that around yourself.  Marinate in it, and rest, and bring it with you when you find yourself called back.

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