Be Ye Glad

My thoughts run towards gratitude tonight. The song “Be Ye Glad” by the group Glad was a popular Christian song when I was in university.  I have re-discovered this song and tonight it has primed the pump in my heart for reflecting on a life that has been shaped and sustained over the years by faithful family, friends, and organizations that have led me to my path.  So tonight, in the spirt of this song, I am glad.    

I am glad for loving parents who created a home filled of laughter that taught me to always believe the best is yet ahead….

I am glad for Watauga Christian Center of Boone, NC that introduced me in my university days to the joy and blessing of worship and exuberant praise as part of my Christian journey….

I am glad for the Oral Roberts University Seminary in Tulsa, OK that first taught me Biblical criticism and how to read the Bible critically…

I am glad for the struggle of growing up gay in the midst of a faith system that was hostile towards the gift of my sexuality.

I am glad for the initial refuge I found in the Exodus ex-gay ministries.  While I wholeheartedly oppose reparative therapy, I am grateful for a group of people who took in a scared evangelical young man who was afraid he might be gay and let me cry for almost a full year to cleanse the wounds of carrying around the hurt of sexuality denied. These people were Christ to me.

I am glad for my husband of 21 years David Watson.  This man has modeled what unconditional love and acceptance looks like.  As a result, we wholeheartedly love and accept each other with no conditions and no demands for change. Our home is a haven and a rest for me.  

I am glad for the Epworth United Methodist Church of Oklahoma City and the Rev. Kathy McCallie.  This church took me in after the devastation of ex-gay ministry and loved me back to wholeness. They modeled a new way to be church in the world.

I am glad for our home city of Vancouver, British Columbia.  I never knew a spirituality of place until I moved here. 

I am glad for my family of choice here in Vancouver.  I would never want to be without the men in my life that make up my family here in Vancouver.  Warm, strong, loving, funny, caring, and beautiful in every way possible, I never want to be apart from these guys.

I am glad for my nephew Hudson who brings laughter and joy to my life.

I am glad for the spiritual practices of yoga, Centering Prayer meditation, the Examen, and Lectia Divina.  These gifts awaken in me a greater compassion towards my fellow sentient beings.

Most of all, I am glad for life itself.  The tears and the laughter.  The joys and the sorrows.  The dark night of the soul.  The joy that comes in the morning. It’s all part of the whole.  I cannot experience pleasure without the pain.

 Tonight I am profoundly aware that I a man transformed by the power of love.  The gate has been opened in my life and I am now free.  This song says it all:

“From the dungeon a rumor is stirring.
You have heard it again and again.
But this time the cell keys are turning,
and outside there are faces of friends.
Oh the love that your heart is now tasting
has opened the gate, Be Ye Glad.

So be like lights on the rim of the water,
giving hope in a storm sea of night.
Be a refuge amidst the slaughter,
for these fugitives in their flight.
For you are timeless and part of a puzzle.
You are winsome and young as a lad.
And there is no disease or no struggle,
that can pull you from God, Be Ye Glad.”