PREFACE
In my last post, I dropped hints and postured innuendos, but didn’t make a personal statement. In other posts, I’ve talked about honesty; and I do value honesty. It’s time for me to be honest and invite you into one of the deep places within me. I can imagine many of you who read this will have difficulty assimilating what I am about to tell you. Some of you have known me for a long time, others for only ten to fifteen years, and yet others have met me only on this blog. Nevertheless, it’s time for me to engage you in conversation in a personal way.
The Deep Places
There are deep places in my life, wells of thought, experiences, feelings that lie deep within. These are sacred places. It is here where I walk with God, where he and I struggle with the meaning of life in the moment. Sometimes these places are shrouded in darkness and other times they are as bright as the sun at noon on a cloudless day.
It is here in these deep places that I live unhindered by anxieties engendered by what I fear people may think about my choices in any given moment, choices that may or may not affect anyone else but God and me. It is here that I joy in his acceptance of my differentness, whereas the joy would be tarnished at the least and possibly even be transformed into pain should I live out my differentness freely before other people.
The deep places are not, by their location, relegated to darkness. I live in the joy and brightness of beauty in these deep places of my soul. The light-filled, lyrical, sublime patterns and designs of the life around me often strike chords deep within and demand to be let loose in my soul to sing.
I fit in or relate to the world out of these deep places. They provide the foundation, strength, knowledge, vision, desire, commitment, and courage to be the person I am and the one who is seen by and relates to other people.
These deep places are not walled off into separate compartments; they interact with, influence, and enhance each other. It is the wonderful place from which my life, as it’s lived out in the world, finds its foundation for meaning, purpose, interest, and vitality. It is only when I place a lid on one compartment, close it up and not allow it to interact with the rest, that I lose integrity and the deep places of my soul become diminished and that particular compartment gnaws away at the well-being of my soul. It becomes a secret that I won’t let out and begins to fester contaminating the whole of my being as a rotten apple does to a peck of that delicious fruit.
My sexuality is one of those deep places that is the foundation for a significant part of how and where I fit in the world. My sexuality—to whom I am attracted, what romanticism means and how it works, how I view the world, how I make and nurture relationships—is a gay sexuality. Before coming out as a gay person, I felt as though I was living a lie, that I wasn’t being honest about who I am to people around me and that I couldn’t live into truth. As with any person, straight or gay, my sexuality is a significant part of what is undeniably and uniquely me. Leaving that part out in my relationships with people, leaving it out when I knew it was there, left me feeling inauthentic and my integrity was degraded.
Some LGBT people, out of their desire to be authentic, to gain a sense of integrity, to be who they were intended to be, but not wanting to out themselves with words, begin finding ways to telegraph their sexuality through speech patterns and mannerisms. I didn’t take this route of expressing my sexuality in ways people would unmistakably identify me as gay. I kept it hidden in a compartment in the deep places within. Out of anxiety and fear, I not only kept the sexuality compartment closed, I closed the door on most of the deep places of my soul; I lived my life on the surface and forbade anyone access to my life within.
I didn’t invite people into the deeper places of my life because I didn’t feel safe enough to do so. To extend the invitation would have opened a door I had closed in early teen years and I was afraid of what would happen if I opened that door. To my astonishment, in coming out as a gay man, I have discovered safety in truth and that I can invite people into those deep places where I live, and can do so with integrity.
Since I have opened the door—two years ago now—to that long-closed (locked?) compartment where my sexuality lived, I have found freedom to invite more people into the deep places of my life. My walk with God becomes more transparent and my witness to him more authentic; I am able to share anxieties I may have; and choices are made without fear of what other people may think.
The deep places have not become less deep but rather they have in turn deepened my life, particularly my relationships, as I invite people to join me there. And with this post, I invite you into these deep places.
EPILOGUE
Some of you may not have read this far; others will dismiss me without desiring to engage in conversation having already confirmed their truth for me. However, you may be conflicted because you have known me and this news seems in opposition to what you know. Perhaps you are confused but desire more information and maybe conversation. Or, you believe, accept and embrace me because you know people who are gay, or have a family member who is gay, or you have engaged in a rigorous study and examination of literature and Scripture, and engaged in prayer and discernment and thus have arrived at an affirming place, or maybe because you are gay yourself. Perhaps you will accept this information because you trust me and because of the love with which God has graced your life, the love that you extend to other people, and now you extend it to me.
Out of respect, love and deep appreciation for each of you, and with a desire to honor you with honesty from my heart, I have opened a deep place within me and have invited you in. May God grace our lives with love for each other and thereby honor him.
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I am proud of you and thankful for you. Thank you for allowing us to know you more deeply. Thank you for opening space for all of us to live into ourselves more wholly. . . it is a holy thing =0)
Thanks Jennifer. To be wholly known requires transparency, which is a journey into daily living.
Beautifully written, a true piece of your soul David Wigger! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for your kind words.
Beautifully shared. Blessed to have had you in our lives “back in the day” and continue to be blessed by your openness in sharing fully who you are. Our love to you!
[…] I first described myself on this blog as a gay man a year ago (August 6, 2015) in a post titled Deep Places . To continue the theme of deep places a year later, I believe we experience life more fully by […]