Made a Decision (Jim)
What "Made a Decision" means to me. 11/02/2005
The first conscious decision I made was to pull away from God at age 20. Just like I’‘ve made a decision that I can no longer trust Ty, because I don’t want to open myself up to being hurt by him ever again. Likewise, I decided that God and spirituality was just too dangerous for me. I didn’t understand what had happened fully or why and so I feared I could not stop it from happening again, except by cutting spirituality totally out of my life. It was because the demon experience was so unexpected, and because it had become an entity of its own, that I literally feared possession from that point on! I had a real terror of anything associated with the occult. I guess I wondered if the demon was still lurking around within, just waiting for an opportunity, and perhaps this time he’d stay and win out. I had felt in him pur malice and heard the screams of sheer agony. I’d lost the world, for moments. So I didn’t feel spirituality was a risk I could take. Even decades later I’ve been utterly unwilling to allow any intimacy, trust, vulnerability to return in my relationship with God. I’ve actually been unwilling to allow a relationship with God at all, unless, like with Ty, you call enforced abstinence and longing, a relationship.
At 40 though the deep depression and longing for death, scared my soul equally badly. I felt I must return to God, for my meaning lies there, and that the time absent had nearly cost me my existence. I knew it was an equally dangerous time as during the demon experience because I was so porous, so lost, and like then I had utter contempt for myself. I was very, very vulnerable to possession, and during the demon experience the demon had masqueraded as God. I had thought I was living God’s will powerfully, in deep surrender, until the moment of the demon experience, when I realized my fatal error. So I couldn’t trust myself to know God, and besides I felt evil again. God and good had been on the side of abstinence and rejection of sexuality, but that too was at the root of my rejection of self. And rejection of self was what the demon had used against me to lure me away from God’s will. So I had a doubt as to whether I knew God or his will at all, but the overwhelming feeling was ‘yes I did, and I was evil’.
So I made a second decision to risk it all by courting desire. I really didn’t know if desire and my sexuality was the will of a God I didn’t yet know or of the cunning demon, at work in me, but it felt evil, and I was going to rediscover, empower and release it. Those red-devils with the pointing tails were starting to look erotic.
At first though, desire, seemed completely gone in me, dried up, only a distant, wisp of a memory - I had no sense of what turned me on. Desire had gone into deep, deep hiding. So I followed any path that got a rise out of me, trying one after another. The Advocate Freshman stories of peoples first time, when they discovered they had an attraction to men, that both captured and horrified them, did the trick, till eventually even that rise was satiated.
Also holding self condemnation at bay was no easy feat. I had already bared my shame and come out to my family, yet it seemed to help none, they were still strident voices of rejection within me, huge parts of me I couldn’t escape. I explained to them, that when I called each week, for three days before and three days after, I knew only their voice of disapproval. If they loved me, they must let me go and we not call except for emergencies, so I could begin to hear alternatives. That was hard for them because they knew they’d nearly lost a son or brother to suicide, and had vowed to themself they’d not lose me ever again. Just like God, within me though, they were rejection, yet I believed but didn’t feel, that was not their true nature. The space was an act of love and trust.
In ‘Greeting the Muse’, it was all straight women and one cute guy and me. Though I’d made a decision in the preliminary session, that there was no way I’d come out to this group, I came out anyhow in the first session, and asked to work on releasing my desire. Cliff asked me to pick out a “Fuck Buddy”, the term alone bringing up shame. I chose a cute girl. Cliff had her ask how she could please me? I said she could rub my feet. He eventually got her in my hair and I’d go no further, so he asked me to choose another “Fuck Buddy”, and I chose the guy. Cliff put on romantic music and dimmed the lights and had the women encourage me. I put my hands in his hair, eventually moving to his face and shoulders. Cliff blared the music “Fuck My Pussy” now, and had the women shouting condemnations. With 90% of my will I could hold the condemnations at bay and feel my desire with the remaining 10%, more than enough. My hands drifted to his chest and let go to it. The guys eyes were full of fear now, at which point Cliff stopped the work.
My roommate, an attractive quiet young guy, had been ten years with lover 20 years his senior, who had died of a heart attack six months ago. The older guy was into leather, and so the attic was full of 1970 leather rags and paperbacks. This more forbidden, more hard-core, older sex was just the rise I needed after, the first-time ride wore out. Desire was getting into lust and animal magnetism. One novel completely disgusted and horrified me and yet I was unbelievably aroused. I was evil!
I had noticed something about my desire too. Except in my fantasies, I could only give pleasure and not receive it. Besides I wanted to get out of myself and porn with it and release myself into the world. I could not. So I went to “Body Electric”, for flesh and blood experience in a safe container. It confirmed that I could not receive pleasure. On the table for an hour with others working on pleasuring me, and I in deep Tantric breathing, I was in frozen agony. Nor did “Body Electric” have the mechanisms in place to help me process the experience. I was a time-bomb ready to explode, as I walked out. I processed the experience and went beyond it into healing with the 2nd Reiki vision, which I’ve already described to you.
After that I went out into the world to release my sexuality in it, but could find no suitable repertoire. After the last novel, I was sure I was evil, though the Reiki vision said otherwise, so I allowed myself to go from one lust temptation to the next, feeling sure the depravity was what I’d want, but to my amazement it wasn’t. The end result was my desire was something I could trust and love and release in love. I entered into a relationship with Ty, another broken taboo since he was black. My destiny, as God had created me was not evil, nor was God. What joy!
Yet I have not made a third conscious decision and deeply committed myself to move back toward God. My very existence feels less at stake now. I’ve secretly hoped I could be spiritual again and still safely distant from God. I’ve wanted to stay in the drivers seat, and not fully trust God. I must though make a conscious decision to risk intimacy, trust and be vulnerable with God again, by making regular quality time and space for the relationship. This third decision, I know, requires an equally deep commitment as I made in the first two decisions.
The first conscious decision I made was to pull away from God at age 20. Just like I’‘ve made a decision that I can no longer trust Ty, because I don’t want to open myself up to being hurt by him ever again. Likewise, I decided that God and spirituality was just too dangerous for me. I didn’t understand what had happened fully or why and so I feared I could not stop it from happening again, except by cutting spirituality totally out of my life. It was because the demon experience was so unexpected, and because it had become an entity of its own, that I literally feared possession from that point on! I had a real terror of anything associated with the occult. I guess I wondered if the demon was still lurking around within, just waiting for an opportunity, and perhaps this time he’d stay and win out. I had felt in him pur malice and heard the screams of sheer agony. I’d lost the world, for moments. So I didn’t feel spirituality was a risk I could take. Even decades later I’ve been utterly unwilling to allow any intimacy, trust, vulnerability to return in my relationship with God. I’ve actually been unwilling to allow a relationship with God at all, unless, like with Ty, you call enforced abstinence and longing, a relationship.
At 40 though the deep depression and longing for death, scared my soul equally badly. I felt I must return to God, for my meaning lies there, and that the time absent had nearly cost me my existence. I knew it was an equally dangerous time as during the demon experience because I was so porous, so lost, and like then I had utter contempt for myself. I was very, very vulnerable to possession, and during the demon experience the demon had masqueraded as God. I had thought I was living God’s will powerfully, in deep surrender, until the moment of the demon experience, when I realized my fatal error. So I couldn’t trust myself to know God, and besides I felt evil again. God and good had been on the side of abstinence and rejection of sexuality, but that too was at the root of my rejection of self. And rejection of self was what the demon had used against me to lure me away from God’s will. So I had a doubt as to whether I knew God or his will at all, but the overwhelming feeling was ‘yes I did, and I was evil’.
So I made a second decision to risk it all by courting desire. I really didn’t know if desire and my sexuality was the will of a God I didn’t yet know or of the cunning demon, at work in me, but it felt evil, and I was going to rediscover, empower and release it. Those red-devils with the pointing tails were starting to look erotic.
At first though, desire, seemed completely gone in me, dried up, only a distant, wisp of a memory - I had no sense of what turned me on. Desire had gone into deep, deep hiding. So I followed any path that got a rise out of me, trying one after another. The Advocate Freshman stories of peoples first time, when they discovered they had an attraction to men, that both captured and horrified them, did the trick, till eventually even that rise was satiated.
Also holding self condemnation at bay was no easy feat. I had already bared my shame and come out to my family, yet it seemed to help none, they were still strident voices of rejection within me, huge parts of me I couldn’t escape. I explained to them, that when I called each week, for three days before and three days after, I knew only their voice of disapproval. If they loved me, they must let me go and we not call except for emergencies, so I could begin to hear alternatives. That was hard for them because they knew they’d nearly lost a son or brother to suicide, and had vowed to themself they’d not lose me ever again. Just like God, within me though, they were rejection, yet I believed but didn’t feel, that was not their true nature. The space was an act of love and trust.
In ‘Greeting the Muse’, it was all straight women and one cute guy and me. Though I’d made a decision in the preliminary session, that there was no way I’d come out to this group, I came out anyhow in the first session, and asked to work on releasing my desire. Cliff asked me to pick out a “Fuck Buddy”, the term alone bringing up shame. I chose a cute girl. Cliff had her ask how she could please me? I said she could rub my feet. He eventually got her in my hair and I’d go no further, so he asked me to choose another “Fuck Buddy”, and I chose the guy. Cliff put on romantic music and dimmed the lights and had the women encourage me. I put my hands in his hair, eventually moving to his face and shoulders. Cliff blared the music “Fuck My Pussy” now, and had the women shouting condemnations. With 90% of my will I could hold the condemnations at bay and feel my desire with the remaining 10%, more than enough. My hands drifted to his chest and let go to it. The guys eyes were full of fear now, at which point Cliff stopped the work.
My roommate, an attractive quiet young guy, had been ten years with lover 20 years his senior, who had died of a heart attack six months ago. The older guy was into leather, and so the attic was full of 1970 leather rags and paperbacks. This more forbidden, more hard-core, older sex was just the rise I needed after, the first-time ride wore out. Desire was getting into lust and animal magnetism. One novel completely disgusted and horrified me and yet I was unbelievably aroused. I was evil!
I had noticed something about my desire too. Except in my fantasies, I could only give pleasure and not receive it. Besides I wanted to get out of myself and porn with it and release myself into the world. I could not. So I went to “Body Electric”, for flesh and blood experience in a safe container. It confirmed that I could not receive pleasure. On the table for an hour with others working on pleasuring me, and I in deep Tantric breathing, I was in frozen agony. Nor did “Body Electric” have the mechanisms in place to help me process the experience. I was a time-bomb ready to explode, as I walked out. I processed the experience and went beyond it into healing with the 2nd Reiki vision, which I’ve already described to you.
After that I went out into the world to release my sexuality in it, but could find no suitable repertoire. After the last novel, I was sure I was evil, though the Reiki vision said otherwise, so I allowed myself to go from one lust temptation to the next, feeling sure the depravity was what I’d want, but to my amazement it wasn’t. The end result was my desire was something I could trust and love and release in love. I entered into a relationship with Ty, another broken taboo since he was black. My destiny, as God had created me was not evil, nor was God. What joy!
Yet I have not made a third conscious decision and deeply committed myself to move back toward God. My very existence feels less at stake now. I’ve secretly hoped I could be spiritual again and still safely distant from God. I’ve wanted to stay in the drivers seat, and not fully trust God. I must though make a conscious decision to risk intimacy, trust and be vulnerable with God again, by making regular quality time and space for the relationship. This third decision, I know, requires an equally deep commitment as I made in the first two decisions.
posted by LifeWriter at 10:25 AM
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