"Queer as Faith"
by Nathan Gunter

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 26:
Supermodels and Saints

Someone cute and charming called me handsome this week, and it freaked me out. I’m not used to anyone to whom I’m not blood-related using kind words to describe my appearance, least of all people who fit into the attractive column themselves. Of course, in this same conversation I was called “absurdly self-absorbed,” so I suppose any ego boost I might’ve gleaned from the conversation was negated.

Of course, he’s not wrong. I am self-absorbed. All artists are, you know, which is why if given my choice I’d rather not date another one. Maybe I just haven’t met the right one, but all of the artists whom I’ve dated have been self-obsessed prigs, which really got in the way of my own self-obsession. I was raised a polite Midwestern boy, and polite Midwestern boys don’t put their own needs before anyone else’s. Instead, what I do is to tend to everyone else’s needs while silently fuming that my own are going unmet.

Oh yeah, I should be getting a date any day now.

Of course, being called self-absorbed only had the effect of making me more so, and now I’m trapped in some kind of postmodern void wherein I’m unsure if I know myself at all, or if I know myself entirely too well. The words “self-referential” come to mind, and yet mean very little.

Still, I was intrigued and attracted by this person, because I like someone who can slap me across the face with something like that and not realize the effect it’s going to have on me, because he meant the words as a compliment.

Being called handsome had pretty much the same effect. Rather than lifting me up off my sagging knees and helping me to walk in a bit more confidence, it made me park myself even more in front of the mirror and examine why exactly anyone would find me attractive or visually pleasing.

Last week I hung out at the pool with my roommate, and we started up a conversation with some older gay gentlemen, all of whom spent the entire time discussing how unattractive and old they were. Gabe and I were unsure how to contribute to the conversation, so we leapt headfirst into a six-pack of beer (the best kind of six-pack, really) and pretended to fall asleep on the deck chairs.

It’s been a weird couple weeks to be in my body. One of my wisdom teeth has decided to come in a little bit more, and has begun rearranging a big chunk of my gum tissue, which has been horrendously painful. One night, I slept on the couch in my living room and was bitten on the face by a brown recluse spider. I spent the entire next week nervously taking steroids and antibiotics, picturing what it would look like when half my lower jaw rotted away and children screamed as they passed me on the street.

The bite cleared up with minimal scarring, and my tooth is starting to feel better. Pretty big immuno-achievement for a person with no health insurance of any kind. Still, it all got me worried about my body.

In my braver moments, I am able to say with great confidence that in life, we must worry about tending to our spirits first, about treating our hearts with the kind of loving care that requires our full-time attention. In these moments I am able to look at skinny girls and hot boys and feel loving pity, a kind of healthy distance that keeps me from becoming envious or angry.

Those brave moments are very few and most of the time I feel angry, saggy, and uncomfortable in my own body. In these moments I stay in the house wearing baggy clothes and not shaving, staying away from MTV or E!, because they always make me feel rotten. I see skinny girls or hot guys and I yell out, “Eat something!”

Be afraid.

Still, I realized that day at the pool that no one likes a person who harps on their own, mostly-unchangable faults. No one wants to hear about it, least of all that part of my heart that’s always begging my Bad Mind, “Stop! Stop, please stop!”

At my worst, I let my soul fall into disrepair while I obsess about my funky little frame. At my best, I can look in the mirror, see it for what it is, and try to believe I won’t be alone forever.

Sure, some guys are just really nice to look at, but would my life be any easier if I had a six-pack or bulgy arms? Evil Butt-Brain says yes. Holy Spirit says no.

And so here we are, with the words of the Apostle Paul in Romans 8 ringing loud and clear (a pizza coupon falls out of my Bible as I look up this verse): “To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.”

I keep obsessing, and keep beating myself up, and hoping to God at least I’m burning some calories doing so. But no, I’m not. What I am doing is experiencing death, which forces me to pray, because the only movable strand in this whole equation, the only thing in which I can really effect change, is myself. And as I pray, stuff starts to happen.

Prayer helps us work our way out of the swampy mire of our own horrible thoughts, and in this case, I’m praying to be a bit less self-absorbed. So I’ll plan a birthday party for my roommate, and play golf with my mom, and forgive myself, because I realize that we just don’t get all the way there this side of Heaven.

Someday maybe we’ll look back and see that there was progress when all felt like stagnation. Someday maybe I’ll go for a five-mile run because I actually enjoy running, and someday maybe I’ll be able to take a compliment without having to write an entire thousand-word essay about how much it freaked me out.

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