Douglas G. Mack

 

Text of Reflection Given at Easter Vigil on April 22, 2000

For those of you who do not know me, my name is Douglas Mack. And, this is the third Easter Vigil at Holy Comforter that I have had the privilege to participate in, having been invited to share in the Easter Vigil celebration two years ago by a dear friend who was aware of my seeking for a spiritual home. Since that time, I have grown to know and love Holy Comforter as my faith community.

I have been asked to share a bit of my faith journey with you and would like to begin with a sentence that St. Augustine wrote in the first chapter of his Confessions,

You have prompted us, that we should delight to praise You, for You have made us for Yourself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in You.

Growing up, I heard a call from God to draw closer to God, to draw closer to God's love, and to share that presence and love with others. Those moments of intimacy with God left me desiring more. This is my faith journey.

It has three interwoven elements, first, my relationship with God; second, my call to ministry; and third, my identity as a gay man. And, they all come together in my journey.

I was raised in the Methodist Church. The emphasis was on a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. I remember stories of John Wesley's preaching, and stories of missionaries in China, bringing the message of God's love to God's people. The point of it all was that God loved each person, that God loved me, that in God I would find true peace and rest.

In the sixth grade, my immediate family and I became Episcopalians. The emphasis on faith community, worship, and sacrament was very clear in my new church. The personal relationship with Jesus Christ was enhanced by the community of the faithful where that relationship was lived out and the nourishment of the holy sacraments received.

At the end of my first year in college, I became a Catholic. The strong emphasis on the Communion of the Saints, especially regarding Mary the Mother of God, was added to my faith journey.

Through all of this time, my relationship with God grew, formed, to a large degree, by the faith community of which I belonged.

From early on, I felt a call to bring the love of God to others. It was as an Episcopalian that that call began to solidify into a call to ordained ministry. And, when I became a Catholic, the call strengthened further.

After becoming a Catholic, my faith journey took me through college seminary, then almost four years as a cloistered monk, and then four years of graduate level seminary and parish ministry. Through those years, my knowledge of God and God's people expanded, and my relationship with God deepened. I made my vows and received minor orders. And then, shortly before my planned ordination to the deaconate and the priesthood, I left the seminary and ministry.

What happened?

Though I had developed a relationship with God in a faith community and was bringing God's love to others, there was part of me that was not being addressed in a healthy way, though it needed to be.

From very early on, even in the grade school years, I felt "different" than those around me. And, over the years, it slowly became clear to me that one way in which I was "different" was that I was attracted to members of my own gender.

This recognition brought much pain and confusion. I was not able to "fit it in" to the rest of my life. I was unable to reconcile my attraction to members of my own gender with the call to come closer to God as I understood it at the time. I tried to ignore my attraction to members of my own gender. I tried to "pray it away". When that did not work, I separated my sexual self from my spiritual self and my relationship with God. My heart was truly "restless" and torn.

As I began to address in a more healthy way this element of my life, it became clear to me that I would not be able to "play the game" of deception and maintain the required façade in the institutional system I was in. Rather, it became clear to me that I needed to be honest with God, others, and myself.

I petitioned my bishop for a dispensation from my vows and left the seminary, beginning a very painful period of my journey to God. For over ten years, I had been moving in one direction, and now, that was all turned "upside down", "inside out".

It would be years before I could come to accept that God's love for me was unconditional. It was a love for me as a whole person, including my sexuality.

God did not ask me to become something, or someone, other than who God created me to be. I came to realize that my attempts to do so, in conformity with "rules and regulations" of the human element of the Church, was a true blasphemy.

During this time, I did maintain a relationship with God, but it truly "had its moments". Many of God's promptings to me were ignored as I could not, would not, accept the implications of those promptings, that is, I would have to follow my conscience and God's voice, which might mean going against my formation in an institutional church.

The result, much "restlessness" in my life.

I entered into a long-term relationship with someone special. And, that was a truly "loving" time in my life. I knew what it meant to love someone completely, to be completely open and vulnerable, to be loved, and to be loveable. At the same time, however, I did little to maintain my primary relationship, my relationship with God. It was there, but definitely on the "back burner".

After eight and a half years, my long-term relationship ended. The struggle and pain with that ending put me in a place where God opened my heart to seek a closer union with God and to seek to more fully do God's will.

My journey to God took another turn, I entered the student clergy program for the Metropolitan Community Church, a predominately gay protestant church. But, the reality was, that, though this was a "graced" time, and an opportunity for ministry, many of the spiritual elements that I had come to need were not there. I resigned the student clergy program on Ash Wednesday in 1998 --- not picking that day in particular, but chuckling afterwards and saying that I "gave up the church for Lent".

It was during Lent of 1998 that Steve H., sensing my need for a faith community, invited me to come to Holy Comforter for the Easter Vigil. In fact, he invited me more than once.

And, I did come to the Easter Vigil at Holy Comforter in 1998.

Since that time, I have found a faith community here that is one that worships God in liturgy and the service to God's people that flows from true liturgy. I have found a community where I am accepted as a fellow pilgrim on the journey to God. I have found a community where the unconditional love of God is manifested, and not the slavery of human interpretations of who, what, when, where, and how God "should" love or does love.

Rephrasing one of the antiphons from the Eastern Easter Liturgy, I can describe my experience by saying:

Sisters and brothers of Holy Comforter, look around: behold the return of your children. From West and North, from the seas and from the East, they come like stars guided by God, blessing Christ who dwells in you for ever and ever.

Though I do not know where my faith journey will lead me in the future, I do know I am at a dynamic, challenging, "rest", here in this faith community. This is where I am called to share the unconditional love of God with others.

You have prompted us, that we should delight to praise You, for You have made us for Yourself and restless is our heart until it comes to rest in You.

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