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Testify
to Love
by Wind Dancer
Lately, I've been
very angry with the world. I've felt hurt, sad. and betrayed.
I've felt ostracized, strange and worthless. I've felt that because
my religion and my sexual orientation were such targets of hatred and violent
reactions, that I must be worthy of that hatred. I mean, if all those people
believe I'm evil and an abomination of God and am bound for hell, then
it must be true, right?
I've watched my very
best friend in the whole wide-world deal with the ostracism of her family
because she chose to follow the Goddess' teachings. I've heard about
and mourned along with the rest of the gay community at the news of the
beating and subsequent death of Matthew Shepard.
Why? Why?
Why? Why am I gay? Why am I a pagan? Why am I always
the one on the receiving end of hatred and anger? Why was I the one
who was spit on in Junior High School by some kid I didn't even know?
Why was I the one who was diagnosed as HIV+ at 22? Why was I the
one who is 30 and still without a man in my life? Why is it that
all the men I've been attracted to or loved, haven't returned the favor?
What's wrong with me? Why am I so bad?
I believe that the
basic world problem is that we all want to be loved, and often feel like
we aren't. We want to be loved by people, by our families, by our
God, by our animals, by our neighbors, by our country, by our society.
Sometimes we are. Oftentimes we feel like we aren't. And when
we don't feel like we are loved, we are capable of vicious, hateful
things. The prevalent thought is that I'll screw somebody before
they can screw me, and I'm justified in doing it because I got beat as
a child.
To be loved though,
we have to do our part. We have to love. Love, as in I love
you. Not as in do you love me, but as in I love you. It's simple,
it's profound, it's oh so difficult. There are so many reasons to
hate that person who is different from you. As a pagan, I hate Christians
who seem to hate me. As a gay man, I hate those who would deny me
my right to marry and fall in love. As an HIV+ man, I hate those
will not touch me because they are afraid to die. And the worst part
of it is that I find myself rejecting and hating others. Which is
something I never, ever wanted to do in my life.
The truth is that
I'm afraid. I'm afraid that if I open myself up to love the world,
I won't have anything left of myself, and that everybody else will take
that which I call me. I'm afraid that if I give everything I have
to give, it won't be enough, and I will be ridiculed for trying.
The Goddess has made
quite plain to me over and over that all I am required to do in this lifetime
is to love, to receive live, to teach love and to help foster it in the
world. That is Her will, which I associate with my true will.
It sounds so simple. And on some days, it is. So very simple.
On other days, it is the farthest thing from my heart.
Once in a while, I
find myself approaching that state of mind where I feel the connectedness
of the Goddess' creations, and I find myself actually able to feel the
energy of love flow through me. It's an amazing feeling, and I want
more of it. The next thing I know, somebody will cut me off on the
freeway, or another person will not give to me the respect I feel I deserve,
and I'm back in the same age old pattern of anger, hurt and retribution.
So, where do I go
from here? I'm not sure. But my guess is that I try little
by little to see the Goddess in everything that surrounds me, and because
it is of the Goddess, I can love it. No matter how much it seems
to hurt.
 
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