Liner Notes: "chalice"

"I swallowed bleach I called your Spirit..."

Photo by Josh Applegate on Unsplash

I thought for sure if I tried hard enough
you would disinfect me with your love
would scour the inside of my chalice
and get the outside all polished up

In the earliest stages of coming to terms with being gay, I thought of the discovery of my sexuality as representing a kind of test. God was giving me an opportunity, I thought, to prove my faith through prayer and discipline. If I tried hard enough, God would change me. With this conviction rooted in my mind, the subsequent lack of change looked like evidence that I had not tried hard enough. It turned me in on myself, made self-criticism and willingness to self-harm the standards by which I judged my faith. How far would I be willing to go in pursuit of what I thought was holiness? Was I willing to hurt?

I swallowed bleach I called your Spirit
to cleanse the temple of my flesh
and dealing death I could not hear it:
“beloved, I have called you blessed”

The thought occurred to me at some point during those years that God was a little like bleach: God disinfected, God cleansed the world and human beings of sin. Nothing impure could remain as it was in the holy presence of God. Everything brought into contact with God would be radically changed, made white as snow, a difference as stark as a drop of bleach on colored fabric. God was unimaginably holy, good and also a little dangerous—like bleach. It was important, therefore, to be extra careful when engaging with him.

I did not reflect much at the time on how bleach not only cleansed, but also destroyed, how it killed the good germs along with the bad, how it was a kind of enemy of life. This image of God in the back of my mind exercised its influence on my spiritual life. Part of me expected—even longed for—God to kill the parts of me of which I was ashamed. And I was ashamed of anything remotely connected to being gay: not just my attraction to men, but also my perceived failures of masculinity, the way I walked and talked.

I scrubbed my skin raw, ‘til it bled
’til the surface was a devilish red
feared all that came from inside me
would not have stopped ‘til I was dead

It is probably no coincidence that in these years I also dealt with a pretty serious germophobia. I found myself fixated on the idea that my skin—especially the skin of my hands after touching food or using the restroom—was germ-ridden. I found myself (I keep saying “I found myself” because it felt almost out of my control) putting my clothes through the washer several times, soaping and rinsing my hands again and again until they bled, and washing them again afterward, because it seemed to me that the blood itself was unclean. My body produced germs; my body was an enemy. I wanted to be as clean as a freshly bleached kitchen counter—and there were even moments in which I used harmful cleaning chemicals on my bare skin.

This naturally greatly concerned my parents, who struggled to understand why I was so fearful. I was a typical moody and sullen teenager, and did not explain myself—but I do not think even I understood at the time. In hindsight I suspect it was a manifestation of a deeper fear and hatred of myself, of a desire to be changed, to be made clean. I was powerfully attracted to the idea of bleach, to the possibility of a radical, destructive cleansing.

but within my heart I heard you saying
that you meant to leave a mark on me
“so why would you seek to erase it?
this too is my body; let yourself be”

It took many years to get to a point in my spiritual life in which I am able to confront the image of God as a destructive bleach. I came to learn—with the help of a theological education and reflection, but also personal experiences of the graciousness and mercy of God—that God cleanses us without indiscriminate destruction, that God is not the enemy of life but its foundation and source of growth, that God has made each person with infinite love and tenderness, placing within them unique testaments to divine goodness, truth, and beauty. I came to learn that God wanted me to treat myself with gentleness and reverence, recognizing in myself his handiwork.