Here I Am A Theological Snapshot
by Michael Mallory, August 2010, Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, CA
Here I am, O God, use me according to your will. Guide me and fill me with your light. Use me to be a beacon of hope and comfort to those who travel through darkness. May you bless me with the strength and courage to lift the veil of shame and fear that separates me from you and your creation. I know that it is you who walks with me and carries me through the valleys of darkness. I know that it is you who whispers the truth into the hearts of all people. Teach me to listen deeply and to touch the heart of Christ in all my encounters. May the chaff of difference and conflict be burned away by that unquenchable, purifying fire as I draw closer to your holy presence. Please remind me again and again of your eternal grace and mercy and forgive me of my sins against you and your creation. You, O Father, have planted the seed of truth in my heart. May I constantly seek nourishment from your most holy word, the word that is Jesus Christ. May I be sensitive enough to feel that burning in my heart when Christ is walking with me on my own road to Emmaus. Fill me with your Holy Spirit and let my baptism of fire spark flames of love in the hearts of all people that you send my way. And mostly, O God, may the blessed Mother continue to nurture me and give me refuge from the trials of this world. Here I am, O God, what do you want me to do?
Theology, in the sense of the literal meaning of the word God-talk, is a major theme throughout most of my life. I love to talk to God and about God. My childhood and teenage years were filled with activities and gatherings relating to God and the church. I started to learn about God in a Nazarene church with my grandmother in Bakersfield, California when I was seven years old. When I moved back with my family I started to look for a church that my brother, sister and I could go to. I am the eldest. I would select a church based on three criteria: they had a Sunday school program, a church bus to pick us up and they offered lunch after the service. I never really belonged to any specific denomination but the churches that I found were non-liturgical protestant congregations. I belonged to the church that is today labeled as the right, or conservative church. This label in the liberal communities seem to designate intolerance and old-fashion attitudes. Yet, for me, I never really felt that way. In a way, the certitude of truth in an age of relativism provides a great deal of comfort. Yet, there was one perceived truth that I could not reconcile—the truth of my sexual orientation. Nobody in church ever said to me that homosexuality was a sin. But I was also too terrified to tell anyone. It was the Nazarene book of doctrine that informed me of the church’s position on homosexuality.
I think it is important to explain a little bit about my family and the way that I was raised in order to fully appreciate the role the church has played in my life. My mother was only seventeen when I was born in 1974 and my dad just a few years older. I was born with a club foot and the Shriner’s Hospital operated and corrected it. The first few years of my life was spent fixing my foot. First I wore a cast, then a brace and then by kindergarten I was a wearing a special corrective shoe. This was one of my first challenges in my life. Yet, because of my childhood innocence I did not perceive it as a challenge. It was simply who I was. I had no consciousness of being disabled or different than anyone else. Only through retrospection can I recognize the grace and blessing that was present in this challenge—in all challenges. This story represents my theological position on the blessings of challenges and I have learned how to articulate the various challenges in my life as blessings and opportunities of growth.
My family moved around a lot. I rarely spent an entire school year in one school, or one city. I went to thirteen elementary schools, three junior high schools and four high schools in the following states: California, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Texas, Washington and Oregon. Not only did my family move a lot, but I had my own volition to live where I wanted. At the age of seven, my grandmother took me away from my family for a school year. While living with her I helped her with her Sunday School class that she taught. It was her influence that got me involved in church.
It is my grandmother, my mom’s mom, Bonnie, who is the archetypical grandmother that showered me with love and support. She encouraged me to not be like my mother and father. And, this is unfortunate, but it was through her reprimands that I started to feel ashamed of my family and my poverty. When I got into trouble she would often say, “You are going to be just like your mother!” These words used to pierce my heart like a knife, but now I can say that I am deeply proud to be the son of my mother and father. Then, and all through my adolescence, however, I was embarrassed and tried to keep my family life a secret. My grandmother is my heart and all I wanted was to make her happy and proud.
I did not fit in—not at home, not at school, not at church. My dad’s mother, my other grandmother, Betty. taught me how to read and spell before I began kindergarten. I was reading a book called “Being Six” when I was only four. I remember that she was very proud of my intelligence and would show me off to everyone. My dad would go to the flea market and bring me back all these books. I never struggled in school, but I also never cared enough to work real hard to get straight A’s. The schools in Texas and California were the best. They would take me, and a few other students, out of the regular classroom and offer us a different curriculum. This special attention definitely instilled an attitude of specialness and entitlement. My favorite example is my junior high school math teacher. The boys of the school intimidated me and I did not like going to the cafeteria for lunch. Instead, I would spend time with this teacher as she taught me high school math. I never really liked math, not then and not now, but the relationship with this teacher made me feel special and important.
My dad once told me, “Michael, if you don’t at least act dumb you will not make any friends.” So, in high school, I decided to do things differently. I was living in California at the time and we had actually lived in the same place for almost two years. I started to feel like I could actually make and develop long-term friendships. The first weeks of my freshman year I remember consciously telling myself that I could make friends. So I did. I got involved in theater, the swim team, the Key Club and all kinds of things with the church. I had a best friend, Nana. She was from Thailand. She killed herself my freshman year, February 13, 1989. It was at a Nazarene Winter youth retreat a year later that I finally cried and mourned her loss.
This Nazarene church was the church of my childhood and I had left it while living in other states but would always return when I came to visit Bakersfield. My teenage years were especially formed by the youth group of the church at the Youth for Christ program at my school. The youth pastor and his wife were role models. I was only twelve years old when I went with them to the National Christian Youth Conference in Fort Collins, Colorado. I was technically too young to go, but the youth pastor said to me that there was something special about me and that he would allow me to go. The conference was only a weekend but the trip itself was two weeks long. It began with a trip to Las Vegas and ended as a hike down and up the Grand Canyon. Everything in between was amazing and life shaping. The theme at the conference was “The Sky is the Limit.” My favorite workshop that I attended was about how to be a clown. (Little did I know then how formative this clown workshop would be for me.)
This Nazarene youth group also brought me to San Francisco for the first time when I was thirteen. We slept in a homeless shelter/halfway house in the Haight. I remember speaking to a homeless man with a Ph.D. and realizing that the homeless issue was more complicated than I had imagined. Again, little did I know then how formative this experience would be for me in my adult life. Also, it was during this trip that I discovered the Metropolitan Community Church for the first time. I remember asking the youth pastor how gay people could go to church. And he said to me, “Well, they have to twist the words in the Bible, but even gay people need God too.” He said this out of love and not condemnation. I merely tucked this thought in the back of mind. Puberty was moving in fast and I knew that when it came to sexual attraction that I was attracted to boys.
I was a born again Christian. Baptized in the water and the spirit. As a teenager, the church was my life. It didn’t matter where I was living because the church provided that sense of grounding that I needed. While living in Spokane, Washington we did not have a Sunday School teacher so I taught Sunday School. I was always participating in some type of leadership activity. As I grew and became insatiably curious about my sexual attractions a dark cloud moved into my soul. This darkness confused me and I agonized and pleaded that God would take this away from me. To no avail was my pleading. By the time I turned eighteen I began to be genuinely angry with God. My anger turned into rebellion and it was not long before I ran away from my grandmother and got involved with a group of people who were “friends of my family.”
My family name in Oildale, California (which is North Bakersfield) is infamous. Somehow, I got involved with this group of people who used me as transportation to Los Angeles. The few months that I spent with them I ended up robbed, homeless and hooked on crystal meth. My whole life up to this point is full of daily prayers to God. When I tried to pray while under the influence of this drug I felt so guilty that I stopped praying altogether. The beginning of 1993, I moved to Modesto, California to live with my mother. My mother was also a crystal meth addict and she recognized that I was using the moment she first looked at me. We began to do drugs together. The following six months was a life centered around this drug. I eventually stopped using in July of that year and moved back with my grandmother and started to go to college. It was through the challenge of drug addiction that God blessed me with a new outlook and love for my mother. Up to this point in my life I had nothing but disdain for her, and now I couldn’t love her enough. I began to see my mom in the fullness of her life. The struggles, the desires, and all the messiness made more sense to me. This was the beginning of a new relationship with my mother.
As I started college in Bakersfield, I also came out of the closet. The very fact that I had stopped praying actually helped me in this process. I had already distanced myself from the God of my youth and even tried to consider myself atheist or at least agnostic. I got involved in the Gay and Lesbian club, spoke on panels in front of classrooms about sexuality, got involved in the theater and started to socialize with gay men and women. It was like breathing after being submerged underwater for a very long time. With great energy and enthusiasm I embraced my sexuality boldly and without guilt. This led me into actual romantic relationships. And eventually I met someone and moved out on my own with him. He turned out to be quite abusive and manipulative. I couldn’t break up with him or he would tell my grandmother I was gay. He terrified me. Finally, I met someone from Los Angeles that bore witness to my situation and insisted that I move to Venice Beach and stay with a friend of his.
I was almost twenty-two years old when I moved to Los Angeles. This move is the most significant shift of reality in my life. The unfamiliarity of the urban environment and the new found freedom of my sexuality was like entering into a new frontier. The first several months were spectacular. Everything was so easy. (In hindsight, maybe too easy). My world everyday was a walk to Santa Monica along the Venice boardwalk on my way to work in the 3rd Street Promenade. I went to the clubs in West Hollywood frequently. I had several boyfriends. The world glowed. Then one day on my way to the gym I passed by a church that had just moved into the neighborhood. I recognized the name of this church from my childhood experience in San Francisco. I asked a woman standing outside, “is this the gay church.” She smiled, and said, “Yes, it is. Would you like to come inside?”
Yo no supe dónde entraba
pero, cuando allí me ví,
sin saber dónde me estaba,
grandes cosas entendí;
no diré lo que sentí,
que me quedé no sabiendo,
toda ciencia trascendiendo. –San Juan de la Cruz
The above lines translate basically: “I did not know where I was entering, but when I saw myself there, and without knowing where I entered I understood great things. I cannot say what I felt because I stayed without knowledge, transcending all science.” The woman was Rev. Nancy Wilson, the lead pastor of Metropolitan Community Church Los Angeles. At this point in my life I did not feel like I really needed God. Without realizing, of course, that I was protected by God’s mercy all along. Nancy brought me to her office and we talked for awhile. She asked me finally if she could pray with me. What?! Pray! It had been a long time since I’ve talked to God. Terrified and greatly moved I said, “yes.” She prayed and then my life unraveled.
I went to the gym and continued with my life. I was not ready for church, and did not feel like it was necessary. My life went on just as before. Then, without warning, everything fell apart. I have told the following story a million times and a woman named Jackie Waldman published her version of this story in a book called, “A Courage to Give.”[i] It is a story about reconciling my faith and sexuality. It begins as a story of sudden homelessness, periods of prostitution, drug addiction and severe loneliness. The last three months of 1996 was a dark night of my soul. Yet, in spite of myself, I could still recognize that my inner child was clinging to that beautiful light of Christ. “Even here, even now, God is with me,” I often thought.After a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs I ran away from it all. I left every person and all my possessions.
The first Sunday of 1997 I was walking the streets of West Hollywood. It was raining and I had nowhere to go. I went to an old boyfriend, the one from Bakersfield was living nearby, and he did not let me in. The rain was my tears. My heart was shattered. Unloved and unwanted I walked aimlessly down Santa Monica boulevard. In my grief, I heard a voice say to me, “Michael. Where have you been and where are you going? Do you know what today is?” I answered, “It’s Sunday.” In a flash, I saw the smile of Nancy Wilson, that pastor from that church. I found the church, I walked in, sat in the back row, and cried.
I couldn’t believe what I saw, or what I heard. This was a place where I truly saw the rainbow of the gay and lesbian community. It felt like I was staring at the sun for the first time after being hidden away in a cave. After the service, Nancy Wilson recognized and remembered me. She came up to me with the youth pastor, Rev. Dawn Wilder and a deacon, Garrett. Garrett asked me if I was hungry. I said that I was. He went and bought me food. I was so disoriented and everything—even now—is still a blur. But I do remember that I had a verse on my heart, but I needed a Bible to read it to them. After a Bible was located, I opened up Song of Songs 8:6: “Love is as strong as death.”
My physical reality did not change. Every day was still a struggle. My spiritual reality, however, went from a flickering spark to a ferocious flame. I reconnected with the friends that I had lost while I was addicted to crystal meth. They became indispensible in my recovery. I regained confidence and I started to let my inner child re-introduce me to Jesus. I started to keep a journal which I maintain to this day. The journal became a concrete way of chronicling the changes in my life. The journal also dictates my entire journey of HIV infection.
A couple of weeks before I found out that I was infected with HIV, I met a man named Rev. Carlos Jones. He was preaching during an evening service on the book of Job—“Caught in the Crossfire.” The following week, he and his lover, Wayne, gave me a card. Inside they wrote, “I noticed you were taking notes last week. We just want you to know that whatever it is that you are going through, we would like to be your guardian angels.” I felt so loved. Years later, as the story of Carlos unfolded, I felt more than loved—I felt blessed.
The night I met Carlos was a special night in his life. He had recently been in the hospital ready to die from AIDS complications. Yet, God seemed to need him for a little while longer. A week after receiving his card, I found out that I had HIV. The Gay and Lesbian Center moved me into their youth program and Carlos agreed to mentor me every Monday night. For at least three months, we sat together. Sometimes Wayne would be there, or my boyfriend would join me. I cannot express adequately how powerful and healing were these meetings.Carlos was with me when I got baptized in the Pacific Ocean in the Summer of 1997. And he died October 13, 1997.
Baptism was essential for me although I had already been baptized when I was seven. This was a moment when I reconnected my childhood faith with my new journey of faith. The death of Carlos instilled in me a burning desire to continue his legacy. His legacy is the Christian story. A story of encounter and healing. A story of grace and mercy. I knew that nothing was going to be the same. His partner, Wayne, became more outspoken in church. Bearing witness to his grief and accompanying him as part of his chosen family fortified my faith. To deny God, or Christ, ever again meant to deny these people who expressed God’s love so beautifully. I live and do for those I love. For I am not I, unless there is you.
God is in the details. Yet, I am forced to make giant leaps through my life in order to articulate a very simple truth. In spite of events in my life that could have been deemed catastrophic, God had intended good all along. Or maybe, it is that God can make a lotus flower grow from the muddy waters of our lives. I have called my life story a blessing of challenges. A challenge is an opportunity to grow and to learn. The challenge is a threshold. The challenge is an encounter with the other—an encounter with God.
One of the most amazing manifestations of my lived faith is my encounter with Buddhism. While attending Santa Monica College I decided to attend a campus Bible club. The leader of the group was saying that there were too many Buddhists meditating on campus and that we must convert them. I knew nothing about Buddhism. Conversion for me was about bringing people who are in darkness to the light that I have found in Christ. People of other faiths were seekers just like me. I felt embarrassed to assume that I had the right to discourage someone else’s journey. I brought this dilemma to my pastor and she gave me the book, Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hanh. This began a beautiful journey into Buddhism that eventually led to actually walking side by side with Thich Nhat Hanh in a monastery outside San Diego, California.
In 2002, I went to live in Monterrey, Mexico at the MCC church. This story brought me in touch with cultural relativism and the beginnings of recognizing the global mission of our church. The story of the journey to Mexico is about trusting the call of God. I was challenged to leave the comfort of my life and trust that God will provide. This calling came during a time I was taking a Nazarite vow. I had been on the Board of Directors of my church, had several great community service jobs and even had a brief moment of celebrity-like attention. I took the vow as a way of setting myself aside for a period of discernment. I started to reflect and recognize that I had a purpose and role in this ever unfolding drama of God’s Kingdom and that God was calling me towards a journey of self discovery.
I returned from Mexico with a focus to finish school and go to seminary so that I could continue the work I felt so strongly to do in Mexico. I was like a tree with many branches and leaves of ambition and ideas but I lacked the root structure to weather the storms. I knew that it was important to develop these roots if I was going to be truly effective. With this image in my heart, I went back to the United States and began to focus seriously on my studies.
I left Los Angeles in 2003 and moved to San Francisco. I graduated San Francisco State University with a degree in anthropology and Spanish. I lived and went to school in Madrid, Spain twice during this time—one summer and then one semester. I started to attend a Lutheran congregation and began a journey into traditions that were, for me, foreign. I began to appreciate deeply the tradition, liturgy and social justice of the Church. I started to really understand what a church without walls meant. I started to recognize the light of Christ in people who were not Christians. I eventually began to recognize, especially in San Francisco, a particular kind of modality that I call Urban Mysticism.
The urban mystic is a modality that expresses the desire for spiritual practice and understanding in the complex reality of the urban environment. The mystic seeks union with God and with God’s creation. In the urban landscape that necessarily means that the mystic must confront difference. This is a great opportunity for a mystic because the challenge to overcome these societal tensions can draw the mystic nearer to God. A mystic knows that approaching God is like approaching a great burning light and the closer we draw near the more God’s love burns away the veil of separation. A mystic cannot claim a single way to God, but must be devoted to a way. My way is through and with Christ. The influence of my friends who follow a different path illuminates and challenges my faith. Again and again, I must declare that it is the challenge that I seek.
The salient points and events of my life narrative that demonstrate the complexity of my relationship with God cannot all be said in these few pages. In fact, I could speak endlessly how God has demonstrated grace and mercy in my life. I did not mention my great-grandmother who died when I was twelve. The lessons I learned from her and the care her daughter gave her (my grandmother) was a powerful model. I spoke nothing of the love of my life and the complexities of balancing a romantic relationship with a person and being faithful to the call of God. There is a lot I have left out, but I hope that what I did include helps to illustrate my God-talk throughout my life.
As far as my “vocational plan” and what I intend to do after my education is complete I really do not know. I do know that my faith is strong and that I, with Christ, have the courage to move into that uncertainty. I once asked the founder of Metropolitan Community Church, Troy Perry, what I should do regarding my calling to Mexico before I left. He said to me that all I could do is have my bags packed and by the door and to wait for God to say, “Now!” I guess that is what I am doing. One thing I do consider, however, is that I have never stopped doing God’s work. I may be preparing for a different stage of this vocation, but my vocation remains the same: to love and serve God.
My internship with the Faithful Fools and my trip to Nicaragua is the most recent heart connection that I have made. I am constantly refreshed every time I encounter anyone associated with this group of people. Through them I have learned to articulate my spiritual path as: bearing witness and accompaniment. This way of being is quite beautiful and simple—but not easy. The mission statement of the Faithful Fools mentions that “we become aware of our judgments” rather than saying “without judgment” because that is the challenge. The challenge is to locate and learn how to move through those thresholds of difference that separate us and to find wholeness and healing.