Archive for August, 2016

Life Portrait

Posted: August 23, 2016 in Uncategorized

This post was written on Monday, August 22.

My portrait on the 76th anniversary of my birth is a new one, never before seen or described. Today is the day after my my birthday and I feel no older than I did the day before my birthday. Birthdays are signposts on a journey. They are not the journey.

We have other signposts we plant along our life’s road-trip—days we were graduated from various educational institutions, moments of spiritual epiphanies, and significant moments along relationship roads to name a few. Some of these mark a past moment engendering present reflection. Others mark annual progress which we call anniversaries. Reflective in nature, these annual mile-markers also look toward the future. They are markers—not prescriptions but descriptions. They do not define us as much as provide bits and pieces to aid in describing who we are.

We are much more than descriptions of a moment in time. My graduation from a school—elementary school, high school, college, university, graduate school—describes an accomplishment I’ve made but does not define me; I am much more than a high school or university graduate, or holder of a graduate degree. I have had moments of spiritual ecstasies and encounters with the Spirit of God, but I am more than a spiritual being. I was a principle partner in a wedding that began a marriage lasting 45 years, but I am more than a wedding day or the acknowledgement of it in annual celebrations that lasted until Barbara’s death in 2012. Earlier this month, August 13, 2016, to be exact, I recognized the third year anniversary of the day I began the process of bringing the world into my truth as a gay man; I am more than that descriptor. Yesterday, I marked the 76th year of my life on earth, but that day was a description and not a definition; I am more than a seventy-six-year-old man.

Markers in life help us take account of where we’ve been and map a road for the future, but we are much more than any one of our markers. I venture to say that we are more than the combination of all of the markers—the anniversaries we celebrate and the events the celebrations commemorate—along life’s road. I am more than a university graduate with multiple degrees who is a gay man, has experienced the life-giving grace of God through Jesus the Christ, was married for 45 years to Barbara, and has celebrated 76 years as a human being. There are many more markers along the road I’ve walked that I could add, but no matter how many I add I will still be describing who I am, not defining. The definition of David Wigger is far more than the descriptors.

I am still exploring the depth within and finding things about myself I never knew existed. I don’t want this “fleshing out” of who I am to stop. Some of these discoveries are filled with joy and excitement about new strengths and the flexing of dormant mental, spiritual, and emotional muscles.

Sometimes the discovery of something about myself I had not known before is tinged with fear and takes me to the edge where I feel vulnerable. There are discoveries about myself that are unpleasant. That unpleasantness is opportunity for growth. Growth doesn’t take place in comfort but in discomfort. So whether new discoveries about myself are pleasant and welcoming or fearful and disarming, they are all good.

I look forward to new experiences when I can plant another marker on my pilgrimage. Perhaps this new marker will be of such import that it becomes an annual celebration, an anniversary like a irthday. Whatever it becomes, it will add another descriptor to further fill in my portrait, which is yet unfinished, but always emerging.

Should I present a definition of David Wigger it would begin with “A creature of God that God made in his image…”

Living in the Deep Places

Posted: August 8, 2016 in Uncategorized
I wrote about deep places when 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 living more deeply.

When I began the journey of entering into the fuller truth of who I am, part of that reality, which I had heretofore pushed aside, was that I am gay. This did not mean a change from who I was, rather it was a fuller picture of who I am. In the afore mentioned post, I brought that dimension of myself into public view to add to everything else people already knew about me. Therefore, I’m no different than I was, just more fully known. That truth came out of the deep places in my life.

I am discovering that I am returning to those deep, sacred places more often after having opened them to the public. They are no longer secret, though no less deep and sacred. The door once opened cannot be closed. I have discovered that living with a door open to the deep places in my life has brought freedom greater than any thing I have ever experienced.

Concomitant with opening this once dark and fearful space to the light of public scrutiny was a public affirmation of Truth (Jesus the Christ) in my life. My daily walk with Jesus has been more conversational while at the same time multidimensional, from casual to formal—Friend, Saviour, Lord, of the godhead One, Confidant.

I have discovered that having once opened the door to the deep places in my life, I am unable to return to daily living without meaningfully incorporating that space. The deep places follow me. I cannot ignore bringing conversations into those deep places while shallowness and superficiality become an effort to sustain.

The deep places in my life were once a basement filled with dusty floors and cobwebbed corners due to the absence of life. I opened the door wide last year, swept the floor, cleaned the walls, and invited you and many other people to enter. I now find myself walking into that space daily. It has become a peaceful place even though there are still nooks and crannies, rooms behind doors yet to be cleaned. I find that, as a result of making my life transparent in this one area, my sexuality, I am able to live more vulnerably in other many areas. I am growing daily and becoming more cognitively and spiritually engaged with reality. Life has a forward energy that is breeding a vibrant self-esteem, which produces confidence and eagerness about engagement.

I don’t hold on to my feelings, my fears of what people think, and other anxieties—my own perceptions of life and the way I had lived. It’s a radical change from the life of anxiety and fear that truth, which I had kept hidden, would escape and people would know the real me. Truth cannot now escape because it has been set free.

We develop models for our lives in forms that make sense to us. I had built my life on the model of a home. Various places in our homes are designed for certain functions of living. We have space that is personal and private (bedrooms), there areas for entertainment where we invite guests (living rooms, family rooms, patios, great rooms, etc.), and there are areas that are storage areas (dusty, cobwebbed basement closets). That was the model I had for my life. I had personal space and I had areas of my life into which I invited people. Then there was the basement closet, which was closed and locked and I kept the key with me, secure at all times.

That basement closet,  that deep place in my life, has now been opened. By opening it, I have discovered that it is no longer as deep as it once was. Not only does the open door allow light to enter, I have also found a window that had been obscured to block out curious eyes from observing what I did in my deep places. Upon opening the window, fresh winds blow through the once closed up, locked space, and light sweeps across it to meet the light from the open door.

Just because the deep place is now open—and even has a window—does not imply that it is shallow. This place inside me is still deeply spiritual, deeply challenging, and deeply personal. Yes, it’s personal space into which I have invited people to come and sit awhile.

If you would like to engage in conversation about deep places, please leave a comment by clicking the lasso at the top. If you would like to connect with me off the blog, go to the Let’s Talk page. I look forward to our conversations.