I’m sure you’re all wondering about this sudden interest in Lent, despite all of my continual lamentations of my rejection from the Trump-Country Catholicism from which I spring … I was surprised, too, this past Christmas after coming across an Instagram account called “The Advent Project.” It was a daily queer-identity reflection exercise that was modeled after the Christian observance of the tradition, created by a gay contingent of grad students in Harvard’s divinity school. It was immensely helpful to me, providing form, structure and comfort during the Christmas holiday, which is an especially punitive time for me after my estrangement from the entirety of my family, less my brother and mom in Denver, for my getting married.

I won’t speak to a belief in God. I’m uncertain and afraid to; it’s such a vengeful topic these days. All I will say is that these traditions have been great containers for my pain. A testament to their endurance through the ages, I guess.

Throughout the coming weeks of Lent, I’ll be sharing writings about the topic of white masculinity, both theoretical and my personal experience. As my life has started to re-form after “The Great Collapse of 2017,” I’m starting to see my relative privilege allowing such a rebound.

While I too am an oppressed identity under the American caste system, I benefit as well. Lent is a practice of penance and personal change. A practice of shedding.

This is me trying to set down the ways I’ve been complicit in oppression. This also me trying to set down my own oppression. I’d like to share the hard memories of my lifetime of being visibly, openly gay in the full view of straight America, Trump’s America. One might say accepting that treatment for myself contributed to the oppression of the whole, and maybe it will help you understand your own, as we are all trying to survive this same awful system.

I’ll post password-protected blog entries of the hard things (along with the password), making it an active decision for you to read it. I’d hate for anyone to have to process that sort of thing incidentally while at work.

The only thing I ask is that you engage the things you read, even if it is only by liking it. It’s a vulnerable exercise for me, but at the end of it, I am hopeful I will more easily walk in truth during the era of fake news.

The current makeup of this group is the penultimate version of my chosen family, and I would like to edit it into a final draft. So, please let me know if you have found your inclusion in this group helpful / valuable / interesting as well.

Because I can’t wait to be among my family.

#MeToo #MarieKondo #MaleTraitor