ShadowLurker, ShadowLurker, ShadowLurker... What are we going to do with you?? A couple of quotes come to mind. (Surprise!! )
A man without hope is a man without fear. -- Kingpin
When you ain't got nuthin', you got nuthin' to lose. -- Bob Dylan
From what we're hearing, you identify with these more than with what the rest of us are saying. But those things don't let you return love after having been denied it - in fact, receiving rejection, fear, and hatred instead - for so many years. They don't get you on a plane to go to the other side of the world to meet someone despite great fear that history will repeat itself. This comes from your core, something that could not be touched, however you were assailed.
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest -Paul Simon
I understand what you are saying, Fist. And that is something I have never been able to do, hate those who have shown me nothing but hate. I've told myself that it didn't matter to me what others felt about me, and I believed it. But, the truth is, I carried around this self worthlessness, I felt the reason I was hated and rejected and abandoned was because I must have done something to deserve it. Like being born homosexual, because, believe me, I did not choose to be gay. It is just what I am. And of course, my bible belt parents, upon finding this out, immediately assumed that I was meant for damnation. It didn't matter what kind of person I grew to be. What marked me was my homosexuality, that is all I became to them. They loathe me for it.
I tried to deny it for awhile, had a couple girlfriends, thinking I could drive the "gay demon" out by going through the motions of being straight. Of course, that didn't work. And being starved for love, I stepped into a number of relationships with men who basically just used me for their own gratifications. I thought that was love. Never actually knowing what love was supposed to be, I assumed what was being done to me was the way it should be. It all ended when I discovered I was HIV positive. I have been alone ever since. I fled the US and went to the UK, thinking I could start over somewhere new, but I was wrong.
Then, I started coming here, about a year ago. I would sit and read all the wonderful posts, enjoying the lighthearted as well as the serious discussions. My favorite Forum was Dissecting the Land. I marvelled at the intelligent, mindblowing discussions you all were having. I never posted, because, frankly, I didn't think I had anything to add to such brilliance. Then a new member by the name of "Furls Fire" joined, I noticed immediately how open she was. She sprang out at me, jumped right into the discussions as tho she had always been here. She amazed me. I loved reading the stories in the Hall of Gifts, and I noticed one by her and read it with awe. ( Thank you, Fist, for getting her to post "The Creed"). When she posted that it was rejected, that is when I was finally compelled to post something to the board. The rest as they say is history.
Tracie is the first person who actually had any interest in me as a person. She opened her heart to me almost from the first email we exchanged. I found myself telling her everything. She told me about Stephen, she told me how she is active in the fight against AIDS and the prejudices that surround it, and she told me that I wasn't alone.
Now, I know what love truly is. All I have to do is look at this beautiful family, read these astounding words by a man who personified love, and I know. I just have to find a way to accept it all, I have to find away to believe that I too deserve it. Because I never felt I did. I never want to leave here, I've never felt at "home" anywhere. When I walked through this front door that first time, I knew this is where I belong. I will always be enternally grateful to these wonderful people for opening up their home to me, I will never be able to repay them.
"Even the blind can see this light, what a glorious passing this is.." -Stephen C. McKinney
Ah, Shadow. My heart goes out to you. One of my best friends is gay...as you said...born that way...and he fought it for nearly fifty years, to the point where he married and they had a child...
Then one day he couldn't bear living a lie anymore...
He and his wife, his best friend, are seperated, though they still travel together as friends...and this has been a great loss to them both...as they ARE good friends and are very close...
He still has not told his conservative parents, as he fears ...knows...that they will react as yours did...the thought tears him apart...
His daughter accepts him and loves him as he is, thank God...
A deeply religious man, he left his church, as he felt he would not be accepted there...
He joined a choir for gay men, and that has helped him through all of this...it has really given him a support group, and lets him continue to sing the hymns and music he loves so much...I have met many of the men in the choir and many of them have similar stories, of trying to "change" themselves, of hiding their sexuality, many of them marrying and having children...until the day came when they could no longer live a life that was based upon fear and lies...many of them, as my friend, are deeply religious men who had to leave their churches because of fear of or actual rejection...I am so glad they have each other!
I don't know if you remember my story of the man with AIDS I met at a party before Christmas...this was a party at my friend's house, for his choir and a few friends he knows are accepting of his choir...the man with AIDS came home to the Midwest to die, rejected by his family. He has been taken in by some of the people of the choir, and he will live what is left of his life taken care of, and being surrounded by love.
People are born the way they are born -- whether they are male, female, straight, gay, sweet, cranky, fat, thin, blue eyed or brown eyed, white, black or somewhere in between...and if you believe, as I do, that God is infinate then we are ALL in the image of God -- that we all have that spark of divinity in us -- to me, when we are told to love God, then to love each other...that is the same thing...when we love each other we are also loving that bit of God that is inside each and every one of us...no matter what we look like, no matter how we are born...we all have a bit of that divine fire in ourselves...and when people hate or reject each other for being what they were created to be, then they are also hating and rejecting God...
duchess of malfi wrote:Ah, Shadow. My heart goes out to you. One of my best friends is gay...as you said...born that way...and he fought it for nearly fifty years, to the point where he married and they had a child...
Then one day he couldn't bear living a lie anymore...
He and his wife, his best friend, are seperated, though they still travel together as friends...and this has been a great loss to them both...as they ARE good friends and are very close...
He still has not told his conservative parents, as he fears ...knows...that they will react as yours did...the thought tears him apart...
His daughter accepts him and loves him as he is, thank God...
A deeply religious man, he left his church, as he felt he would not be accepted there...
He joined a choir for gay men, and that has helped him through all of this...it has really given him a support group, and lets him continue to sing the hymns and music he loves so much...I have met many of the men in the choir and many of them have similar stories, of trying to "change" themselves, of hiding their sexuality, many of them marrying and having children...until the day came when they could no longer live a life that was based upon fear and lies...many of them, as my friend, are deeply religious men who had to leave their churches because of fear of or actual rejection...I am so glad they have each other!
Duchess, thank you for your kind words. Your friend is very lucky to have found those like him who can support him. It is so hard being this, I was never one of these "flambouyantly gay" men, who are very happy with their existence. My existence was one of shame, degradation, and self-abhorrance. I was raised to fear God, my childhood was spent in constant terror that I was going to go to hell, because I knew I was different. I had no love for God and as I grew older, I told myself He didn't exist at all.
duchess of malfi wrote:I don't know if you remember my story of the man with AIDS I met at a party before Christmas...this was a party at my friend's house, for his choir and a few friends he knows are accepting of his choir...the man with AIDS came home to the Midwest to die, rejected by his family. He has been taken in by some of the people of the choir, and he will live what is left of his life taken care of, and being surrounded by love.
I do remember reading that and I think it is wonderful that he has found people to care for him as the darkness falls. I am continually amazed by the generousity of some people. He, like me, is blessed to have found such people. I said before that I told myself that I didn't believe God existed...well, I don't tell myself that anymore. Tracie, Stephen, you, and all the others here have taught me so much. And my self-abhorrance, it's waning, not entirely gone, something like that just doesn't disappear, but it's waning.
Your words are inspiring and warming, Duchess. I'm touched by you and everyone I've met here. As Stephen quoted..."My cup runneth over".
"Even the blind can see this light, what a glorious passing this is.." -Stephen C. McKinney
A note about that piano. It was our great-grandfather's. He used to play it in a rag time band back between 1900-1920's. It was passed to our grandfather, who gave it to Stephen upon his graduation from Berkeley. When Steve passed I asked my father if he wanted the piano, and he told me I should have it. I've kept it in tune, but I haven't altered it's appearance in any way. It's an antique, I thought about having it restored, new keys, new finish, it's been restringed a few times to keep it sounding wonderful. Anyway, just thought I'd fill in a little about the piano. Shadow loves it, he had the kids dancing around to that old time boogie, it was great
Hey, isn't he handsome?? Makes ya just want to cuddle him all up.
(This is payback for all the times he has made me blush...hehe)
And I believe in you
altho you never asked me too
I will remember you
and what life put you thru.
~fly fly little wing, fly where only angels sing~
~this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you~
...for then I could fly away and be at rest. Sweet rest, Mom. We all love and miss you.
Fist and Faith wrote:Hi Shadow! Nice picture. You look like you're having fun.
Thank you. I did not know she did that! LOL! She got me good. Guess I kind of deserved this little embarrassment after all the times I made her blush.
It was fun, I love that old piano, you can just feel the memories vibrating within it as you play it's music. Tracie said..."when Stephen used to play it, it was like they became one, the music flowed from them so completely that you couldn't tell where one began and the other ended. It was like the piano knew what note Stephen wished to play and played it just a fraction of an instant before his fingers laid on the key. Stephen's fingers were feather soft as they glided along.."
She has videos of Stephen playing at different occasions, some public, and he truly was amazing. She has let me watch quite of few of her home videos of him, playing music, reading poetry, family gatherings, WAD footage. He makes my heart stop. There is one, their last Christmas together before he died, (Christmas 2000), and he is reading the Christmas story to the kids, and it's like hearing the voice of an angel, or God himself, he doesn't just read it, he becomes it. It so hard to explain with mere words the wonder of it. He seemed to actually glow. Tracie was right, there was this light about him all the time, but when he was reading the the Christmas story to the kids, it seemed to resonate around him, he was enveloped and his voice rang as though he were music. I'm not doing it justice...I wish you all could see it.
I've never felt closer to God than I do now, in this house. This is a house of love, of faith, of music, of peace, of joy. And you know it the second you cross it's threshold. I have smiled more in these past few weeks, then I have in my lifetime.
"Even the blind can see this light, what a glorious passing this is.." -Stephen C. McKinney
ShadowLurker wrote:I've never felt closer to God than I do now, in this house. This is a house of love, of faith, of music, of peace, of joy. And you know it the second you cross it's threshold. I have smiled more in these past few weeks, then I have in my lifetime.
Your joy is a wondrous thing! The trees are singing - literally singing - in response to your presence among us!!
One wide forest of sentience and passion filled all the region - one mind and heart alive in every leaf and bough of every tree among the many myriad throngs and glory of the woods.
Taiga Tzu wrote:Your joy is a wondrous thing! The trees are singing - literally singing - in response to your presence among us!!
Well, Shadow, you can't do much better than that!!
ShadowLurker wrote:She has videos of Stephen playing at different occasions, some public, and he truly was amazing.
What's this?? Stephen shows ability at something? Well color me surprised! Hey, how is it that I'm jealous of someone who died so young??? Did he have any weaknesses at all???
ShadowLurker wrote:I'm not doing it justice...
I'm gonna have to disagree with you there. You're doing just fine! I can fairly see the whole thing now!
ShadowLurker wrote:I've never felt closer to God than I do now, in this house. This is a house of love, of faith, of music, of peace, of joy. And you know it the second you cross it's threshold. I have smiled more in these past few weeks, then I have in my lifetime.
As duchess and the Taiga Lady said, we are all thrilled, absolutely thrilled, for you!!
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest -Paul Simon
Thank you all You humble me. And Taiga, I can hear the trees singing, the music surrounds me, thank you so much for letting me live within the Forest.
Oh, and as to your question Fist..
Fist and Faith wrote:Did he have any weaknesses at all???
Tracie says he really sucked at math. She also says, "Tell Fist that Stephen would not want any feelings of jealousy, everyone has their special gifts and you have many." She also says, "Stephen knew from an early age that his life among us would be short, and so, his life-force compacted and concentrated to burn exceptionally bright for that brief time, as though it meant to spend all the years that it would be denied in brilliance."
She's amazing.
"Even the blind can see this light, what a glorious passing this is.." -Stephen C. McKinney
Tell her I'm just kidding about the jealousy. Though I believe he was one of the extraordinary people.
And yes, I had considered that also, about the trade of length for brilliance. I really can't stand the second Highlander movie, so I've only seen it once. Therefore, I can't remember Sean Connery's exact line, but it's like that.
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest -Paul Simon
Yeah. ***SPOILER*** Sean's character died a few hundred years earlier, in the first movie. He's resurrected somehow or other, and sacrifices himself to save Connor. He says something about people going through their lives doing not much of anything, then says something like, "But what if they lived their entire life in one moment?" And he does this impossible thing, even though he knows it will kill him.
All lies and jest
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest -Paul Simon
Shadow chose this next one because he feels it reveals more of Stephen's inner struggle with AIDS. I agree. Many of his entries were like this next one. If Stephen was angry about his illness, this is who he directed it at. Satan.
Some of these I hesitate to post, because they are so "raw", for lack of a better word. But, then, in order to know him, I realize that this "raw" side of him must be exposed as well. And I believe he wants to be known here.
This next entry truly shows my brother's unrelenting courage and faith in God.
And I believe in you
altho you never asked me too
I will remember you
and what life put you thru.
~fly fly little wing, fly where only angels sing~
~this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you~
...for then I could fly away and be at rest. Sweet rest, Mom. We all love and miss you.
A couple of quotes come to mind. (Surprise!! 
)
Nice picture. You look like you're having fun. 
