14th of December 2007
The Meaning of Christmas
The true meaning of Christmas should always bring a smile to your face and peace in your heart. During the holidays, a grin is used by people who normally scowl, a gift is left by those who normally expect to receive, the smell of snow, the feel of a roaring fire, the taste of roasting nuts and the smell of winter green from the trees filling the air like a blanket draping over a cold body on a frosty night. Your ears hear the sounds of music from carolers at every turn and your senses feel the harmony in the air that draws closer this one time a year. To walk the streets with snow falling, the store front windows decorated and lights with tensile glowing all around will help set the mood for a truly magical time.
Anything that brings peace to three quarters of the world, even if only for one day, is worthy of everyone who lives every where taking part of its majesty.
CHRISTMAS = WORLD PEACE
Christmas may be a Christian holiday, but when peace is abounding the world around, the holiday should be celebrated weather you are a Christian or not.
I celebrate Christmas in a very special way; by paying homage to my Great Grandpa Lalka in repeating his acts of kindness. Helping those who need a guiding hand while simultaneously keeping my great grandpa’s legacy a live is giving me new meaning every year I am able to place a smile on the face of the children who might otherwise go without a blessing on this day.
Great Grandpa Lalka (Paul Lalka), his family (sons, daughters, brothers and sisters) lived in the Washington (Tacoma) Valley after moving from Czechoslovakia. My great grandpa had a coal business and his brothers owned various stores like a shoe cobbler, a furniture maker and each had his own farm. Because of their businesses, they knew the families in the region who needed a little extra help. In the old country, the family trade was carving and all of the Lalka men whittled. They would fashion toys year round and put together baskets of food to accompany the toys for the family. These baskets were left at the homes on Christmas Eve for the children to find come Christmas day, hence continuing the legend of Santa Clause.
The Lalka family persisted to give year after year eventually garnering attention to their kindness that was happening throughout the Washington Valley. As word spread of their good deeds, my great grandpa took on a new persona for himself and in his duplicitous nature; he felt he needed a new suite that better match his role. He and his brothers created an authentic Santa Suite.
They used crush red velvet for the jacket, pants and the hat. My great grandpa trapped rabbits and used the white fur to line the lapel of the jacket, the cuffs of the sleeves and the brim of the hat. One brother created a very wide belt and another made a huge brass buckle and hand carved buttons for the jacket. My great grandpa didn’t need any padding; he had just enough of his own. He had thinning snow white hair with a long naturally flowing beard.
The family lineage dates back to the fourteenth century and was not our original surname. The last name Lalka was given to the family by a princess as an ancestor walked in to a small village during her visit. As he waited to meet the Princess, she was taken by his alabaster skin, rosy red cheeks, beautiful eyes and striking good looks. She called him lalka meaning doll because she thought he was as beautiful as a doll. The name was taken by the family to honor the princess. This being said, great grandpa Lalka had alabaster skin with rosy red cheeks and a crimson nose. He was the epitome of Santa Clause with the suite that portrayed the jolly man within.
My great grandpa was offered money by every major department store on the North West coast, but he reserved his gifts for those who truly needed them and pandering money to perform acts of kindness was not his motivation. I was honored to have found his legacy and more so to feel the desire to continue keeping it alive. When Great Grandpa passed away, he was given tribute by every major news paper up and down the North West coast with many reserving front page headlines such as the one in the Seattle Tribune, “Santa Clause has Died”!
No one could know that this simple man born in to the meager means of a Czechoslovakian family would have such a positive impact on so many lives. He was a real man who made many mistakes, but giving true love to those who needed was not one of his misgivings. Striving to be just a little more like my Great Grandpa on a daily basis is what Christmas means to me.
While I know it is a Christian holiday, it has pagan roots, but more importantly, when any one day can bring three-quarters of the world together in harmony and with peace, it deserves to be shared and enjoyed by all. I don’t care if it is referred too via any other name, but enjoy the day – share in the enlightenment of the moment and give freely to those who don’t share your gifts.
More importantly, for those parents who wish to teach their children of the true meaning of Christmas...ask your child to give just one toy of their choosing to a child in need. Show them by example with donations to charities who help the less fortunate or something as simple as donating your time to feed the homeless. Children learn when we aren’t teaching. They learn more by our examples then anything lesson we choose to teach. Lessons on compassion and what it truly means to give will do so much in the way of extending the legacy of Santa Clause or someone more down to earth like Paul Lalka.
Christmas is meant to be shared and enjoyed by all and to me that is giving to someone who might otherwise go without. Spread the Christmas Joy and spread this message to all you know and love.
May each and every one reading this be over-come with Love and Peace for the holidays, and each and every day you believe in my message. Thank you for sharing in my meaning of Christmas and may it give you some meaning within your life too.
~~ Warmest wishes for everyone on this day and every day to come~~
Todd M. Dobson
Showing posts with label Unconditional Love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Unconditional Love. Show all posts
Friday, December 21, 2007
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Comments from Danie450 & My Response
Comment from Danie450 (as posted to my blog on www.wordpress.com)
In their disgust and hatred the Phelps are themselves committing sin. They should be trying to show their Christian love be trying to compassionately, yet calmly, convincing homosexuals that they are not on the path to God and Salvation, but will be denied by God - a VERY SAD God too. For He does NOT want to deny them. If they should choose not to follow God’s plan, then they shall not be forgiven and their souls forever destroyed. They should be fruitful and multiply. They must procreate. This means lay with women. I have no hatred toward homosexuals and wish them well and pray that they will be enlightened and find favor in God’s eye.
Hello Danie450,
I read your comments multiple times trying to gain some insight. After several detailed searches on you, I am perplexed with you as much as the dichotomy of your words. I must first say that I am greatly appreciative that you read my thoughts and took the time to remark on them. That will never escape my recognition and within itself, it says something about you as a person and this subject matter.
I appreciate your understanding of my dislike for Mr. Phelps and his followers. Their recklessness and headline seeking behavior has hurt many innocent people and that needs to be acknowledged no matter if you agree with me or with Mr. Phelps’ representation of the real issues. Having a cause does not necessitate the right of its focus. In the zeal Mr. Phelps has against homosexuality, he has directed his anger at the innocent people who many of whom, themselves would agree with his original purpose before being tolerant for mine. I do understand that while I am defending the thousands of men and women who serve in our armed forces, I also know that the highest percentage of them would rather watch me die than to defend me directly based on my sexual orientation. That is ironic since I would give my life to keep them breathing and dreaming with their family and friends for just one more day beyond the ones they were given.
Mr. Phelps is extremely misdirected in his efforts for attention to his cause and he will go to any lengths possible to espouse that bigotry and anger for all to hear and see. His faith is based so little in religion and that which is truly of God as apposed to him. Mr. Phelps and his followers will eventually know the truth that constantly judging others will only get you judged by all. Mr. Phelps is a highly intelligent man who if he used his talents for good instead of hate, could find the results truly liberating instead of feeling like a weight that anchors him to the one position that makes him equally as unhappy.
All of that being said – Danie450, please explain to me the darkness surrounding your own heart. You are a gifted, intelligent woman who can have so many things handed right too you, so please explain to me what has your heart in the shadows and covered in such darkness as apposed to the love you could be rejoicing in. You have great abilities to reason and yet you strive with such a zest to show the antithesis of everything you should be demonstrating and that has me greatly concerned for you.
For greater understanding can you please tell me when did you first decide you were a heterosexual woman? You may think it a slight on you, however it is not, please honestly explain to me when did you choose to be a straight person? The reason for my question is as simple as it sounds, because I don’t remember when I choose to be gay and almost 100 percent of the heterosexual and homosexual friends and family I’ve asked this same question tell me there was never a time when they chose to be straight or gay. So a major premise of your notion is that I choose to be gay and therefore because it is written in the bible that homosexuality is a sin, thereby, I am a sinner because of my choices. So let’s eliminate that first incorrect assumption.
I never chose to be gay just as I assume you did not choose to be straight. If it truly comes down to a choice, who would I choose to be gay? Why would I choose to be isolated away from family, friends, and jobs limiting my options for every portion in life? If choosing to be straight is as simple as many would like the world to believe, why would I not make that choice immediately and make every body around me happy. Why would I choose to be the black sheep of my family based on being gay? Why would I choose a life style that from the Christian beliefs, I should contract HIV and AIDS.
There is no logical reason for any person to choose to be gay today when the world is so much easier when you are not. The other part of this comes down too accepting people for who they are as a person and not because of one portion of their lives. I am a man who happens to be gay, but I have a heart and a soul just like you do. The blood running through my veins is the same color as yours and if either of us is cut, we both feel the pain the same and we both bleed the very same. So please answer for me why being gay makes me less of a person than it makes you; because in my faith, I can never be a better person than you. I can never be anything but a different person than you. That has me questioning why you make it such a large part of your time seeking and responding to every thing about tolerance and acceptance and push it towards intolerance and never accepting others for being who they are?
As for your inference of faith and God, please understand that I come with a great base of faith in God. I would never take it upon myself to tell you or anyone else that your faith is less than mine or is misguided. However, I could never believe that God made me anything but the person I am. He gave me my heart and he made me in his own image. Because I know that to be true, I don’t even question when I witness hatred, I only question why that person chooses to be directed by hate instead of love as only God wanted us to be. He gave us a great ability to make choices over those things we can choose and who we love was one of them, but not the sex of the person we love. I can choose to live a loveless life if I were to listen to people as you believe, but why would I do that when everything about Jesus and God is all about love. So I embrace who I am and love freely and openly knowing there are people who feel I don’t deserve to do so. If I was made in his image, why should I start by questioning everything that is instinctive like the hand I favor, the love in my heart or the mind I was given. If I started questioning what I am, who I am and why I’m here; then I would never allow myself to be opened to anything or anyone.
I am opened to everyone and everything and I have great hope for everyone, especially people I can help open their hearts and their minds as they step through their own life journey. So please express to me why over 120 sites had your name tagged as a racist? That is a harsh label for someone who is more capable of choices then I am.
I am open to your questions and your concerns because I know you feel as though I have just attacked you, but please re-read what I’ve said because there is no judgment within the words on this page, but there is hope that I might positively impact your life in the direction of love, honor and respect rather than hate.
Take care my friend and I hope you are as opened to my words as I am trying to be to yours.
Your humble servant – Todd M. Dobson
Saturday, November 10, 2007
Message to Phelps...just not from God
Message to Phelps...just not from God
1st of November 2007
Message to Phelps, but Not From God
$10.9 Million Dollar Message
Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka Kansas was given a very loud message yesterday, but will the Phelps Family and followers listen to a judgment that wasn't handed down from GOD?
I was deeply saddened in March of 2006 when I read that the funeral of slain Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder had been picketed by the Phelps family with support of their church,
I was elated to read yesterday's news to see the awarded sum of more than 11.9 million dollars to be paid by the Phelps family and the
This morning my heart was darkened by the fact that I could neither agree with their stance nor could I find respect for what they do or how they go about it. I strive daily to understand that which I don't know by asking myself if Jesus were here, how would this man have answered Mr. Phelps. If Jesus were here how would he show me to find the love in my heart for a man and a family that rages against humanity for the simple sake of an angry outburst? My position started to bother me more than the situation itself and I could not resolve myself to the position of judging even this horrible man for his actions. I pride myself in looking for both sides of every situation. I can find most motivational factors for most people and in the case of the Phelps' family, I still think the reason Mr. Fred Phelps is so insistent on anti-gay everything is that he is either a huge closeted homosexual that was incensed in his early years at the thoughts he probably had favoring another young man. It could have been that he secretly wants the largest bull dyke with a huge strap-on dick to fuck him and hard. It has to be the fist because I don't know any lesbian that would get close enough to Mr. Phelps' ass in order to even stick a titanic sized dildo within his enlarging prostrate…they have too much integrity to do something like that.
Seriously, my conundrum greatly disturbed me as I ate my breakfast this morning deeper in though than usual and it finally came to me! Todd, you are only human and Jesus was divinely guided, I am only guided by my beliefs and the heart beating within my chest and the soul encompassed by this physical form. I am able to be human and allow feelings that are not always of a higher order. I don't always have to find the good in absolutely everyone. Just to let you, my readers know, I am also not so deluded that I don't realize there are just bad people in this world and with whom doing bad things just for the sake of doing horrible acts against as many people as they can. I know this to be true, but even in those cases, a person can usually find a path that led them to where they are, rarely does a person get up one morning and decide they are going to picket the funeral of a grieving family for a decorated war hero. Crimes of hate are committed with far more planning and thought as apposed to being spontaneous.
Knowing this does not grant me any solace in the enjoyment I felt at the possible dissolution of a cult-like group calling themselves a church. Society as a whole must continue to search our hearts because Fred Phelps did not wake up one summer day in 1947 and decide he was going to be a man who would rid
Be brave enough to make up your own mind when listening to your local clergy, politician, family or friend who is espousing something that deep within your own heart you know to be wrong. We are better when we Love, Honor & Respect all of those who share the same air we breath, drink the same water we drink and the blood running within their veins gushes from their fragile body just as yours does when either is cut. Humanity is better without the Fred Phelps of the world and we have the power to silence the only voice he has.
Your humble servant – Todd M. Dobson
Saturday, November 03, 2007
The Most Amazing News for ME!!!
3rd of November 2007
Hello My Readers,
Many of you read my blogs and have commented directly on this site and other sites about the experiences of my life that I've written about. The support you provided me has spurred me to press forward with something that was once laughable and then turned in to a possible dream.
As many of you know seven years ago I left
It took me four years to overcome the thoughts of Ian or wish him next to me and one of the ways I accomplished that amazing feet on my own was to start writing about him. I wrote about my anger and the eighty-six thousand dollars he owes me. I wrote about how I missed touching is beautiful skin and sculpted features. I was tortured by his lingering French accent and the eyes that once made me feel safe, warm and loved. I wrote of how we met and how for the first time in my life I understood how amazing love should always be. I also wrote in great details with the descriptions of a blind painter how we met, how we fell in love and how we ignited passion with fires of lust and the most amazing sex two people could ever share.
I wrote all of my feelings in to this manuscript without any order or conscience decision to organize my thoughts. Without ever thinking of what I was doing, I wrote this wondrous manuscript that many friends have read and prompted me to publish. You must understand that it was writing this book and the first women who read this book and pressed me to publish it. Dale's voice in my head gave birth to me thinking that my writing may be helpful to some people and was the precipitous to my blogging. I never was able to write before this experience. My book (Love, Honor & Respect) is really good and extremely descriptive and brings you into our world as if you are walking with us each step of the way. I still can't read it without correcting this or that. I can't open those pages without getting excited when I read of our first sexual encounters or cry every page when he rips my heart out with dishonesty and the loss of such great love.
I received a phone call yesterday with the most amazing news that I have wanted so dearly for so long; my manuscript is being published. My dreams of publishing that book that holds so many personal details about my life, my love and the darkest moments of my life is going to be for sale in a matter of months. I am elated beyond all belief. I know one thing that I want to do and that is to Thank You. Thank each and every one of you for your support of my writing and to thank you for telling me how my experiences have helped you. I love that I hear from so many people how the events from my life can help any one person. The love that so many of you have shown has pushed me to want to publish this book. I am dearly grateful and I hope that once my first book is published that each of you enjoy the parts of my life within its pages.
Deeply grateful,
Todd M. Dobson
Friday, October 05, 2007
True Gifts Come From Within
02 March 2007
Why do Bad People always receive Rewards
I’ve been through enough in my life to have come across some really bad people. They don’t shock me like they use too, but its funny from whence they come. What makes me stop and think recently is Why Do the Bad People Always Receive the Rewards and the truly good people seem to be trampled?
I won’t bore you with my entire past, because I could really show too many less than good people, but lately, I keep asking when will my suffering stop. There have been people from my past who were truly ugly people. I don’t mean ugly in the since of physical beauty, but rather that their interactions with me were so dark that it kills the flowers from their vines and the light is suffocated out of existence.
One such person was David, who I worked with at the young age of twenty years old. David hated me because I was a young kid who worked hard and received the opportunities he felt he should have received. I shined for the first time in my life and the Director took a personal interest in my development. I was moving up the corporate ladder in a Marriott company while David didn’t like that I made his title and position within a year of being with the company. David has been struggling to get ahead for more than five years without gaining any traction. He suffered with a cocaine addiction that threatened more than his job at times. On one occasion he told me that he had already decided that my death would not be worth the cost of the blow it would take to get rid of me. To this day I know he was serious about his comments, which alarmed me with how easy he could consider killing another soul for something like a job.
It made me think for the first time in my life as I realized he was considering my life to have so little value that he considered it wasting cocaine to use it in my demise. David thought so little of the life and soul within me that getting rid of his competition or problem by killing me would somehow enrich his life. All of this over a job!
Then we have to talk about my current boss. Jorge is the CIO of Taylor, Bean & Whitaker Mortgage Corporation and he got upset when the owner (Lee) asked him to find a position in the IT team for me. I also think he was offended at having to hire a gay man because while the owner of TBW is gay, Jorge has surrounded himself by a very heterosexual team of people. That is a very difficult thought to prove because Lee is gay and has a very close relationship with Jorge. Jorge has such an ego that it interferes with many aspects of running the IT department at TBW. For instance no one can hold a title anywhere close to his own. The man who has been managing the infrastructure, Cecil, has had the title of Technician III, not Manager, however designed a vast and complex infrastructure that supports an intricate environment.
Lee hired a new person without Jorge’s knowledge at the beheadst of an outside consultant who identified a series of problems plaguing the TBW IT Team. While
Jorge would not be bad if he only had an ego, but that is just the start. He placed me in a dead end job, making no money and with no capabilities to prove myself. I have almost twenty years experience and I am a gifted project manager. I am also a great IT manager/director, but I was denied every opportunity to prove my value or worth and my attempts to identify issues and suggest solutions only furthered my isolation. I am the laughing stock and the joke of the TBW IT department and then someone finally had the nerve to ask the question based on a rumor that Jorge himself was spreading; did you really get your job by sleeping with Lee? I asked who would even indicate such a thing and I was told by several people, Jorge. That he openly made such statements on a number of occasions to everyone in the IT team. Nothing could have been further from the truth, but the truth was not what anyone wants to hear when the person controlling so many is depraved, sick and twisted.
I recently found out that Jorge has set it up so that anyone calling for a reference to TBW about me has to get their reference from him. He is directly black balling me. My fault was to ask my roommate if he could ask his good friend Lee, who has a nation-wide mortgage company, if they could put me to work doing anything. Jorge has me so locked down that my only way is out and he even went as far as to indicate that very sentiment to me. For more than a year, I’ve been trying to get out, but he has taken care of several really good opportunities with bad references.
How can so few people impact a life so negatively and why would they want too? I just want another job and I want to give him exactly what he wants, which is for me to leave TBW. I don’t care where I go or if it even strengthens my career at the present time, it could be doing almost anything in IT industry, I just want away from the depravation of this company. I’m tired of working hard and being a good and honest person only to be shit on by those around me who take their queues from a bad people. The Jorge’s in this world seem to have all the good opportunities, the right positions and the ability to kill what dreams we may have for ourselves. So why continue the fight when there is no chance to win? Why play the game? Why deal with a living hell shadowed by nothing but gloom and darkness?
10/05/2007
I wrote this distressing piece, but never posted in to any of my bloggs. In the time that has past since writing it, I found a good job surrounded by positive people. The people are the reason the change has been so rewarding and the reason I have excelled in a short period of time. It is odd and shocking how the people around you can so negatively or so positively change your life. What a positive change can happen when people other than yourself believe in you and your abilities or just give you the opportunities to prove your value and capabilities.
I took a project management position with a company called Silverpop. They are a very energetic company that moves at a fast pace. My bosses, Waylon and Garrett, are both positive and challenging. I find myself both eager to learn the immensely complicated products that are extremely well designed inside our doors with extremely gifted professionals in every division of the company. Working with such gifted people is such a joy that challenges a person in all the best possible ways. The curve to learn that which I don’t already know has pushed me forward making me a better professional and teaching me skills I did not already posses. My immediate boss (Waylon) has guided me through the doors of a very complicated position and I find myself striving to improve and sharpen skills just to make sure I can please him and make his superiors grateful for his role within their ranks. It is not lost on me how sharp the contrast between my current role and my previous hell. Silverpop has everything I was struggling to find for so long and removed me from the existence of a living hell.
There are good people in the world just like the bad ones. I’ve met my share of bad people like Mike and Jorge, but I have also been influenced by some truly gifted and amazing people as well. People like the Director at Marriott who saw something in a twenty year old boy struggling to make a man out of himself. Ellen Freeman is a great friend and powerful Media Powerhouse who not only created a mega-powerful career in a man’s industry, but made her voice the only one the industry listened too. Influences personally and professionally from as close as my first boyfriend; Rick Mickool, who has become such an industry leader that his ideals are sought after and his opinions listened too while his next steps are regarded as trend setting and cutting edge. There are many other wonderful souls who have touched my life and when I originally wrote this blogg I could not see their influence struggling to surface in hopes of changing the direction I once headed.
I know how negative adulation and perspective are hideous reminders of our current situations and can paint a dark picture. It is hard to see the sun light when you are surrounded by dark clouds blocking it from shinning through. I have to say that I was closely arriving at the point when this was first written where my world could not see those rays of light shinning through the clouds that enveloped me. Self loathing and hate were all I could see because they were the last gifts given to me by someone who impacted my life for far too many years. He and all of his ghosts have left my life and the sun has cleared the skies once again. I am happy and can see people like Jorge for what they truly are…a pebble in my shoe that needs to be removed. Once you clear all that obstructs you from the good person you already are, you become the only obstacle blocking your own path. The words I typed above were profound and remain on this page as a reminder of the steps I’ve made to move my life forward. There are positive influences, but they must first start from within you. It is as true today as it was for the seven years I walked in darkness; the sun starts to shine from within my own heart and will reflect what emanates from within me. Jorge was given power over my life by me and because of me. He is gone from influence because I rid him from my life. He is the bad person I wrote about, but only to those who allow him to be. He too will receive what he gives and that will make him a truly lonely, desperate and dark person in his own life. Let him live his life and answer for his own darkness, because I chose to live my life in the sun light and shine on all of those with whom I can positively affect.
May your own life be enriched by the rays of hope I send to you. May the warmth of my sun help spark the flames within your heart giving your life the power it needs to positively effect change! The greatest gift I can ever give you is to Love, Honor and Respect all of the people around you; but most importantly, give the same gift to yourself too!
My gift to you,
Todd M. Dobson
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Cherish what you have While you have it! Part II
5th of April 2007
Cherish what you have While you have it!
No body ever claimed life would be easy. Sometimes you get lost in the envy of seeing those who have more and for whom life come so easily. I hope you can realize that the person you envy might be doing the same thing to you.
I learned a very hard lesson early in life, which was playing the envy game, only makes you long for that which you don’t have. Instead of loosing myself in what I didn’t receive, I took stock in what I did possess, but more importantly those things necessary to accomplish my goals. Yes, I am human and notice how other people have skills and success thrust upon them, but success is defined differently for each individual person and is almost never the same thing for you or for me.
Let me explain what I mean. I grew up in the shadow of my older brother. Barely one year older than I, and he possessed a photogenic memory with an intelligence that few would ever achieve. I had to study non stop to score a low “C” on an exam, while my brother never cracked a book or if he did it was five minutes before the test and he would always receive an “A” on the same exam. Popularity came easy for him as did any sport and so did the ladies. They would swoon in his presence and no matter what he did, he was cool. I on the other hand barely had friends, however I knew everybody. I was strategic in my decisions with how to achieve any goal. I can’t take a test to save my life and women…well, let’s just say I’m glad I’m gay, because I could never romantically approach a girl. We were polar opposites from the first day and remain as such still today.
My brother could have been a history maker, a politician, a doctor, a lawyer, a Nobel Prize winning scientist; he could have been anything he wanted to be. However, he has fought drug addiction for more than half his life, he just lost an amazing women who loved him and he is repeating the failures of our parents by slowly killing his two beautiful children.
His life is such a sharp contrast to mine. He has the greatest challenges given to him with such ease that they bare challenge at all. Before I ever took my first breath, life itself has been my greatest challenge. For a white man, I have had to fight against homophobia even within my own skin. Growing up in a small Southern town brings about a closeness that will either divide or concur the weak. In my house, I was always and remain to this day, the weak even to my own family members. Because of this and blatant hate, I left home after graduating High School at the age of seventeen years old. When I left home I had everything a person could ever need to be on their own. I worked very hard and became a department manager before I was even close to twenty years old for a grocery store chain and later as I turned twenty-one I was running an 8.4 million dollar operation for Marriott Host in
However, it took less than a year to destroy it all. I was making decisions for two, when only one was present. I lost everything that meant anything too me and along the way I lost myself in the exchange. I watched it slip away with incredible speed and precision all fostered on the wings of LOVE, but the experience appears to move in slow motion. I collapsed to points far lower than I ever started from and every attempt to claw my way out failed miserably. For more than seven years my life, my world and my dignity have all been meticulously stripped away. The shell that appears before you is but a mirage that can’t seem to get out of its own way allowing what ever is left to struggle back in to existence.
People who use to listen to me professionally won’t even return my calls. I can’t find any job anywhere close to the skills I posses failure mounts on top of each attempt. I can’t even get interviews from the jobs that seem to be at everybody else’s finger tips. All those wonderful things I once purchased have evaporated away as if to taunt me as they left and where once their place was known, they were now treasured never to be seen again. I could bear to loose everything if only I could grab hold of any sliver of hope, but after seven years of searching for any job and finding nothing. I can’t even get out of my own way. There is no pride, no self worth and absolutely no love for me, finding anything resembling life would take a scientist at the current moment. My family has been a constant factor hammering the next nail in to my coffin before the previous one was completely inserted and with no support my floundering dropped me to greater depths than even I could imagine. Friends that once stood by my side have all but been chased away leaving no one to listen to my sad recollections of the once story book life that now marks disgrace and ruin.
I climbed to heights very few ever got an opportunity to reach. I have succeeded at finding points lower than anyone could imagine falling too. I have worked harder during the past seven years than I ever did in my original climb to success. I have had more setbacks than any one person could ever think imaginable and all of this seems unreal to me now. Can life be so cruel and so cold? Yes, it obviously can! One would think coming out from my background with abusive parents and fighting my way out of such a homophobic environment that I would deserve far greater than the Universe is handing me. I always felt we create our own opportunities. In the past when life handed me a bad turn, I flipped it around and made it a great step to tomorrow. So why can’t I do that today? Why can’t I turn this around now? Why is life so determined to destroy everything that has become me?
Why has life forsaken me?
Updated: The 19th of August 2007
This was the pain I felt less than one year ago and its shadow still shows me what skepticism can really do to a life. I finally found a good company with people who believe in me. I found that within my own heart, I could even start to believe in myself again when all else had failed time and again. I am the person that made a good man of myself once before…and I am doing it better the second time around. The struggle is harder and the walls are more treacherous than I could have imaged them ever being. However, I am making my way out. I will find the heart that beats within this soul again and I promise to never forget what believing in me is like ever again.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Dedicated to a Loving Woman...My Grandmother
24th of July 2007
~ Margaret Scott ~
Five years have passed since the last time I saw my Grandmother and while I’ve missed her dearly over those years, I still wonder immensely at her presence in this world. Grandma Scott is my mother’s parent and she lives in
Grandma wouldn’t even consider the chance that she might not be laid to rest next to her beloved husband (Herman Scott). I was bothered greatly when this exchange continued over the few years that I pleaded my case for her to be close with a younger family member so we could take better care of her. She was relentless in her zealous nature to remain in the
I have been unusually close with my Grandmother without ever knowing why that bond was forged or how. I was born in
I remember visiting my mother’s family when I was just a very young boy (four maybe five years old). Grandma and Grandpa were present with an Uncle living next door to this shack of a place in a wonderfully constructed house with his wife and children. Another uncle was close by and so was my aunt with her husband/boyfriend at the time. From the sounds of it everyone seemed to be a happy family, but none of them were happy at all.
My Grandfather had sexually abused my mother from the earliest ages until my mother’s secret was uncovered and he went to prison for nine years. My mother was in her teen years and had the enormous weight of what her father had been doing to her when their world came crashing down around her by his impending incarceration. The family, including my grandmother, blamed my mother for the loss of their dad and her husband. They crucified my mother daily until her night in shinning armor, my father, appeared. I would love to say that he saved my mother from a miserable life, but the hell he took her from was mild in comparison to the anguish he delivered her too. You might believe that this would excuse any ill behavior my mother might convey towards my grandmother.
I however, never saw the side of my grandmother that would blame her own daughter for seducing her husband. She has always been kind, loving and especially forgiving. The woman I grew up knowing was nothing like the lady that blamed her daughter or might have even known what was happening before other people found the families dirty secret. One might expect that after discovering what really happened to my mother, that a mother would leave her husband and protect her daughters. My grandmother never considered that action and to this day has remained a loyal companion to her once disgusting husband. Even if you don’t agree with her behavior, you must respect her allegiance to the only man she ever loved. That is the one part of this sorted tale I can’t figure out is why this faithful, undying love for a man who shamed and shattered an entire family for his own selfish depravity. How could she excuse and remain the loving, dutiful wife to such a sick and twisted man for killing the innocence of his own daughter? I’ve never received answers to this or any other question pertaining to this portion of the family’s history. As I indicated she has always spoken of forgiveness and love and never once denounced the man who shattered the Scott family so many years ago.
Over the years I have seen and heard absolutely cruel words with the force of venom behind them exit my mother’s lips towards my grandmother over the tiniest of things. I’ve said in horror as I’ve encountered these horrifying acts wondering why my mother hates her mother with such fervor, yet why does she goes out of her way to do so much for the woman at the same time. My mother lives in
My uncle sold the property and blew the money with little concern for what might happen to his own mother knowing that my mother would come to her rescue. My mother flew up to take care of finding an assisted living apartment that would take my grandmother immediately. My grandmother has always praised my mother for her quick and decisive actions in getting her the apartment, boxing up the entire house and moving her all within a weekend.
Because grandma refused to leave
Again my mother rushes up to
I continued to see love and trust and forgiveness exude from my grandmother to all surrounding her and with the empathy only she could convey. I grew more and more perplexed with my mother’s movement in the opposite direction. As the years pressed forward I kept track of my mother’s inability settle her anger over the actions of a man who had long been dead. In the midst of many questions and long talks my mother and I had over these issues, I was able to put together that she knew her mother had known what was happening to the little girl the entire time it was occurring. The family knew the hell she was enduring and they did nothing to save her and then they blamed her when Grandpa was sent to prison. The only thing that didn’t inflame the issue greater was silence. My mother’s inability to release this anger has eaten her up over the years, but is a burden she and only she can resolve. As much as I would like to take away her pain, I can only be a support when ever she needs it.
As for my Grandma, she continues to exude forgiveness, love, honor and respect for all surrounding her. I can thank her daily for an enlightened path that I call my own now. It tears me up when I walk in to her room now and see that when my presence is not known, she stares into the corner wall as if it is a long lost friend. It is as if she is in a vegetative state and my heart completely skips a beat when I think of her like that. I would give anything to take away her pain and suffering allowing her to move on. I refuse to make this a loving memorial when the woman is still alive and love emanates from her existence. This is a living dedication to a rare and wonderful woman who has impacted my life wonderfully.
With love – your grandson,
Todd
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Challenges to My Mantra: Love, Honor & Respect
4th of July 2007
Challenges to My Mantra: Love, Honor & Respect
When you truly believe in something, it is natural for someone or something to challenge that belief. Three years into distributing my mantra of Love, Honor & Respect, I have had many attempts to dispel this philosophy, but it perseveres throughout all of my struggles and my faith with these three little words has grown to mean so much more to me.
Recently I turned a corner closer to home that brought me face to face with the challenge to my credo that has shaken me to my core. It has me thinking if only for the briefest of moments that my mantra is too arduous a struggle to maintain and humanity is not worth it. However, clear heads normally do prevail and I’ve come back to espouse my credo that if you Love, Honor & Respect all of the people surrounding you; everyone will walk away happier and better by doing so.
New neighbors moved next door to me approximately ten weeks ago and already we have been shouting at one another. The name calling went directly to vicious. Even as I prodded myself reminding me of my belief systems, I struggled in the face of truly ugly people who care little for anyone other than themselves. It was an enormous task to want to find that little area of respect that I might be able to find within my neighbors. They made their intentions abundantly clear days after moving in that they were scared of dogs and wouldn’t have two of them next door to them (no matter how nice my dogs are to anyone). They dragged their intentions across the lawn that connects our two homes and shouted it at the top of their lungs. I had to force myself to stop as soon as I realized I started reacting to them just as they were treating me and my precious pets. Given such bad circumstances, I was trying to live a wiser, more enlightened life by treating even the horrible, ugly people better then they treated me. I was attempting to see through the clouds and smoke that were tossed across the yard shielding me from seeing that common part of them as a human being that I could use for grounds to gain some respect for their position.
I never could find that common ground, but I learned in the process that in the face of adversity, where two or more people are entrenched into opposing positions, common ground may not be established. I fought and scolded myself for not being able to see the humanity in the people who were yelling, lying and cheating their way to what they see as a better life for themselves by breaking the backs of those people surrounding them. Their tactics and attempts to move in and dominate by intimidation, force, lies and manipulations were the only way they knew to change their surroundings making themselves comfortable while placing everyone else in a constant state of unrest. I kicked myself for not recognizing immediately the tactics of those people who are so much like my own father who can only see force, intimidation and violence as the only ways to be safe from seeing the demons that look back at them from mirrors .
It took some time and effort on my part to realize that you don’t have to find common ground in a person to respect where they are coming from. You can simply respect that they are different and hope that one day they recognize the error of their ways. I use to be very close with all of my neighbors and still am with everyone but my immediate neighbor, however, when I allow them to disrupt my life because of their inability to live peacefully with all of their neighbors; I grant them the power they need to become comfortable. I took back that power and they must now try something new if they are to continue their lifestyle of misery.
While I wish I would have been wise enough to make this recognition sooner and with few if any cross words lobbed from my side of the yard, however, I am grateful that the words that hang above my head brought about a means to give new meaning to a credo that needs advertisement even in the face of anger. May all of the challenges to this code of arms find fruitless attempts and feeble the thoughts that thrust them aside. I found that it is more important to Love those who stand in your wake touting the things you treasure the most in effigy. Honor them for their refusal to grow while Respect is given even if only from your understanding of peace.
Todd M. Dobson
Monday, June 25, 2007
Erase Hate
Erase Hate
Thursday the21st of June 2007 I had the great pleasure of attending the Cindy Lauper concert at
I’ve been trying to see Cindy Lauper perform for the past eight years and this was the first opportunity to successfully experience a show. Cindy was opening for the Cher’s farewell tour and I paid to see
One of the leading indicators that had me pursuing Cindy in concert is in part to pay tribute to a woman who has created alternative listening music since I was a young boy. Her first major album (She’s So Unusual) moved a generation of young people to their feet; not just in dance clubs, but in protest. She was the radical voice telling us as youth that it was OK to challenge authority when it is wrong. That the voice of reason didn’t always come from your mom and dad and the lyrics to her songs taught a new generation to start accepting the people around us for who they were. She explained how it was OK to be a punk girl, a gay boy or even just a singer who just wanted to have fun.
As the years marched to different sounds, Cindy Lauper stepped behind the scenes helping other young artist make their own sounds. She saw in other people what they couldn’t see in themselves. People like Hulk Hogan who was giving up on professional wrestling when Cindy became his Manager and Producer. He is now a household name. Cindy has created an empire for herself but along the way she never gave up the voice that taught us so many lessons about acceptance, peace and love. She has married and brought wonderful children into this world and every step of the way she has been a beacon – a light that shines on the gay, lesbian and transgender community.
I guess that is why I felt it was fitting that her concert be a starting place for the 2007 Atlanta Gay Pride festival. She is not a lesbian, but she has always stood up for our community. She has given her voice to causes like Gay Marriage, Equal Rights and now Erase Hate in conjunction with the Human Rights Campaign and Matthew Shepard Organization.
The focus of this tour is to bring awareness to the Hate that is fueling parts of our country via fear and intolerance. Each person in
Most importantly we must thank people like Cindy Lauper, Judy Shepard and the countless other heterosexuals that stand up on the behalf of all gay, lesbian and transgender people in the world trying to make it a better, safer and more accepting place. They are truly heroes and deserve our recognition, admiration and undying support. The message they push – “Erase Hate” is one that fits in perfectly with my own mantra, “Love, Honor & Respect” and both need to be in the faces of every person. Each human being loss due to a Hate Crime is far too costly for us to bear. Cindy is right when she reminds us that as hate crimes are committed, the victims are not the only people harmed by these senseless crimes, but so are the perpetrators. Each person harmed due to hate is truly a burden that we all must carry because each and every one of us can stop hate long before it becomes and issue like Matthew Shepard tied to a fence and left for dead.
Stop Hate Crimes – Erase Hate
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
Father's Day 2007
Father’s Day 2007
Yesterday was Father’s day and if you had asked me a month ago about my father, I would have quickly questioned if you meant the man who donated sperm for my birth. I would have countered any question about my father as I don’t have one, but there was a man who forcefully gave sperm and whom I’m told is the reason for my existence, however he has never earned the title “Father”.
Kenneth Alden Dobson Senior is the man who fathered me as well as three other children (Kimmy, Kenny & Tonya).
As you’ve read in previous bloggs, I emerged from a very abusive childhood. My father was raised by an even more horrific man – Clinton Dobson. My grandfather among other things claimed the title as religious leader for the Reorganized Later Day Saints church. He among many other Dobson men had major sexual issues and were raised with strict Mormon beliefs that places women below farm animals in the hierarchy of impotents. Even lower than the rankings of most women was the coveted position as wife. If you were a wife to a Dobson man you were treated dreadfully, giving no credence to their wishes or desires.
My grandfather taught his boys that women were to be ruled over with a harsh hand. They were present only to service their man’s needs, raise the children, clean the house and prepare the meals. If they failed to perform those tasks in accordance with the “Head of the Household’s” requirements, she was to be firmly and swiftly dealt with including verbal as well as physical abuse. That did not take away from the constant verbal abuse that Dobson men were known to deliver at a steady pace. An ongoing barrage of verbal exploitation followed by the appropriate physical abuse when called for, let the women in the Dobson households remain off balance and scared to look closely at anything surrounding the husband. The art of these tactics dispelled any woman from looking too closely at lost time, frivolous spending and other habits that hid the sexual deviances of all Dobson men. If the wife ever had the audacity to question the veracity of her husband, he was to immediately deny everything at all cost and simultaneously claim the wife is at fault for all failures the man may have. Never accepting culpability for anything they may have done even if caught red-handedly.
I watched as my father swearing his loath and hatred for his own father while continuing the traditional Dobson woman bashing that so proudly established the men in our family. Ken Dobson treated my mother like she was lower than dirt. He hid his pornographic magazines in our bedroom in an attempt to hide it from our mother. Just as his father did to him and when his stash was found, Clinton and then my father would deny its existence and even blame the kids. Ken Dobson hated my grandfather for doing the very same things to him that he was doing to my brother and me. My father also carried on the traditions of always having other women on the side. When he wanted to visit one of his many side women, he would pick a fight with my mother over some frivolous issue making it insurmountable in order to rush out the door and into the arms of what ever mistress he spent time with that month.
I remember very vividly when he threw a full jar of Helmen’s Mayonnaise across the kitchen without even noticing that he almost hit my little sister as he yelled because my mother didn’t buy Blue Plate Mayonnaise. It didn’t seem to bother him the day before when he opened that very jar and made sandwiches for work. The difference was on that specific day he wanted to have sex with one of his countless other women before going to work and the fight with a flying jar of mayonnaise deflected attentions away from his own selfless desires regardless of the fact that he could have killed Tonya in order to supplement his sexual prowess. As usual he left in a huff after verbally bashing my mother with his usual tirade of epithets such as slut, bitch, whore, worthless, never going to amount to anything, stupid and the list increased daily.
All four children suffered constant abuse. Unfortunately, both parents contributed to this growing family tradition, but as my mother was taught this trait by years of abuse towards her by my father and his siblings; she ushered down her own form of verbal and physical abuse keeping a tight control over the only people should had power over – her children. When you are told for years how worthless and stupid you are, it becomes difficult to believe other wise. As someone sincerely bestows a compliment on you; it begs the question, how dumb are they that an obvious oversight where they can’t see your worthless façade. One might think that words like stupid, worthless and hearing that you are less than dirt should trigger your mind telling you the person is wrong, but what is triggered when you hear these very destructive phrases daily from the people you know who are suppose to love you. All of this is meant to keep an unstable home life, which is the opposite of what a child needs to develop appropriately into an adult. My father didn’t care about his children; he made it clear we were insignificant and how he would stop paying for everything the moment we turned eighteen years old. I can’t tell you how many times he said that I had better know how to make money after graduating from High School because he would not be paying for my sorry ass after his legal obligation ended.
There are many things that portrait this man as a ghastly, evil man who should never have been granted the gift of children. I can’t remember exactly which birthday it was, but I was young and we were all home playing in the back yard. Kenny (older brother), me, Tonya (younger sister) and two neighbor kids were in the back yard playing while my parents were yelling and screaming as it ended with a couple of smacks by one or both of them followed by my Dad leaving in a huff. We were very hot and thirsty, but weren’t going to enter the war zone, so we were getting a drink of water from the outside water spicket on the front side of the house. It was my turn after Kenny and Tonya had already drunk their fill and I was bent over with my mouth as close to the valve as I could get it in order to drink some water. My father came around the corner of the house and without so much as a warning kicks me as hard as he could. As I flew the couple of feet away to the side of his car, the spicket caught my jaw and lips and almost ripped them off. Blood was gushing out of my mouth and from my lips while my hip and ribs were bruised and hurting. The other kids scattered as my father told me “I was no better than a worthless nigger and I didn’t deserve to live in his house. He told me I was not to step foot back inside his house because he didn’t live with niggers”. I don’t think he ever looked at me long enough to see if the damages he inflicted were harsh, permanent or superficial. He got in to his car and left tire marks down the road as he left for work. He never apologized or even commented about it ever again.
The day I decided to leave home I was fifteen years old. It was the day my brother went into the Navy. Kenny had promised several months before that before he left for the Navy he would beat the shit out of me showing the rest of the world what a faggot I was. He made good on his promise by turning me around in a dark hallway as I walked to my bedroom following a brief verbal altercation. He requested that I give him my hairspray from my bathroom, but my father paid for all of Kenny’s accoutrements, where I paid for all of mine. I told him to get some from Daddy, he should have some upstairs as I left the kitchen heading down the hall for my bedroom, and Kenny grabs me by the arm to turn me around and starts pounding. Before I even knew what was happening he landed blow after blow to my face along with a series of racial epithets (faggot this and faggot that). Kenny didn’t break my nose, but he was as close as a person could get to breaking it. He broke two front teeth, split open my lips in four places, blackened one eye and left bruises all over my face and down my body. It looked more like I suffered in a car accident rather than got beat up by my own brother. As I was in the half bathroom that was attached to my bedroom, my father almost tore the door off its hinges. Not knowing who was at the door, I held up a bat in the event that I needed to protect myself. My father was incredulous as he took the bat away from me and for a second held it as though he was about to swing it while he looked at me as if he was contemplating using it on me while I tried to balance myself between the wall and the sink counter barely able to focus on much of anything with all the blood and blurred vision. He threw the bat down into the bedroom behind him and picked me up throwing me back against the far wall saying he should finish the job. I couldn’t really see out of my eyes, but the blood was pouring everywhere from different parts of my face, but in that second all I could think about was that if I survived, I was leaving this hell hole as soon as I possibly could.
I moved out of my father’s house months after that incident occurred with emancipation papers drawn up, an apartment and a full time job waiting. I had been saving and buying the things necessary to fill an apartment and it was all waiting for my moment of freedom. I moved to
My father begged me to stay with him in an effort to appease his new girlfriend who hated that we didn’t speak. Very apprehensively I moved back in with my father to conserve what little money I had and take as few loans as possible. Given my father’s new found generosity, I asked him to help me purchase a much needed computer from Ricky for $1000 dollars. He paid for the computer and I was paying him back with monthly payments. I repaid $550 dollars by the end of my first year. During my second year at LSU I had an opportunity to work at IBM under an Internship Program at their
There are many reasons that I can claim my father has never been a positive influence in my life and therefore has not earned the title “Father”. The greatest of these is the simple fact that he doesn’t know what true love is, so how can anyone expect him to give it. However, yesterday I was forced to think about all of this and find a solution that comforted my heart.
I will never have a relationship with the man who fathered me. Neither does he earn the right to claim being my dad. He never contributed to my well being and has gone out of his way most of my life to deliver grief and misery instead of love and understanding. But with all that he has neglected, I can only come to one conclusion a second time in my life; he is being the man that his father taught him to be. He was not strong enough to see how that life leads to one of misery and self loathing. Therefore it is incumbent upon me to be the bigger man for the two of us. That while I will never hear from the man who fathered me and know there is no love in his heart for the son who could never measure up to being a real man. I can do what is right by forgiving him for all the wrongs he has perpetrated on me.
I know deep within my heart that had he ever been given a positive childhood himself, he might have made a wonderful father. That given the opportunity, he might even show love for someone that has disappointed him every day I draw a breath. I have great empathy for Kenneth Alden Dobson Senior in that while he bestows grief and bile on the existence of his children; he does so towards himself as well. He can’t really see the man who is reflected in the mirror because he long ago gave up looking for meaning where loathsome disgust resides. Kimmy tells me all the time he gives all that he can, all that he knows how to give and until yesterday that could never have amounted to anything for me. When given the chose to grow and become a better person, I know he chooses not too. I just could not understand how any father would choose not to love their own child. However, given countless opportunities to show his children that he is a decent man who could bestow true unconditional love, he chose not too. For this and many other faults – I forgive you.
I know there is nothing I could ever do or say that might make you realize what you’ve done and what you’ve lost; but I can forgive the injustices and hope for a better end to your life. I can know that once you pass, you will recognize the many traumas you have delivered and beg for forgiveness. I can ensure that you have at the very least – my forgiveness.
Thursday, June 07, 2007
Can We Regain Our Humanity
Can we regain our Humanity??
The state of our country and the world around us has me thinking much as of late. I am troubled that in our race for cutting edge technology, making more money, having the latest and greatest has us caring less for our neighbors, friends and family while forgetting about Humanity.
I lay in my bed at night trying to forge my way into slumber, thinking philosophically about my credo Love. Honor and Respect. As I should be drifting slowly in to a dream-like state, my mind tends to be at its most active and clear. In the past three years I have written a great deal about Love, Honor and Respect, substantiating how they need to be an integral part of our daily lives.
It is difficult for the average person to think about life on a greater scale with some regularity. More appropriate to the individual is maybe a once a month nostalgic view of humanity without discovering their own affects on its obliteration. But to wax philosophically on a daily basis would mean taking far too much time away from other activities like reality television or the latest fashion trends or maybe even that gadget promising to give more personal time if only you owned it. While I am no miscreant to Jack Bower’s trisks at saving the
It is my foray into the philosophical dilemmas of our time that had me write many of my bloggs, such as Unconditional Love. The very same temptress had me searching my heart for the real meaning of the word Honor last night instead of finding a vast slumber.
It bothered me so much that while I felt I had a good understanding to my perplexing inner debate, I was unable to extol the virtues of the word Honor as clearly as Webster might. The dictionary says that honor is 1. personal integrity, 2. respect and 3. dignity or distinction; however, lets see if you can agree with my retort: Something that comes from the depths of my soul and speak of me as a human being and not merely a man. That which I choose to give to those who earn it and yet I will protect at all cost, keeping it safe from those who care less of its true meaning. It speaks of my virtues, my strengths and exalts from deep within. It manifests who I am and the directions yet veered towards. It is my heart, my shield, my sword and my fig branch all in one.
Today we trip around the word Honor as if it is a physical being that once shared our lives together, yet no longer has time to entertain. We are far too swift with out bellows of dishonor, yet we have no true grasp of what honor really is. Explain to me how one can claim honor has been stripped from them when they are oblivious to its true connotations? I feel we desperately need to move back in time when a person could find Honor within themselves as they easily recognized it within their friends, family and fellow beings.
Remember my challenge to Love, Honor and Respect all people around you. Love every individual we encounter unconditionally while honoring them for the similarities we must search to recognize and by respecting that person for the differences easily accounted for. Holding steadfast, that Hate has no place in today’s society while rejoicing when another person finds Love, Honor and Respect within themselves. Acknowledging the existence of it within each of us makes it easier to recognize the same within all other people. That is when, we will truly find peace within our hearts and humanity will thieve instead of wither.
Todd M. Dobson
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Hate is not a Family Value
Hate is not a Family Value
Hate is not a family value, so why is it that family is usually the first to let hate drip from their lips like a rabid dog frothing at the mouth? I don’t understand how a mother can give birth to a little baby, share in its first breath and later kick that same child out of their home when the child acknowledges their own natural sexuality?
Hate drives our gay youth from their warm homes for no other reason than loathing and selfishness of the parents who toss their own flesh and blood into the cold nights with no care for where they go, how they survive or even if they survive. These same parents go to churches on Sunday and call themselves the faithful. They stand at the pulpits and espouse fire and brimstone from a book they hold dearer to them than that flesh and blood that was ostracized because he/she dared to love someone of the same sex. However, the faithful are the truest meaning behind the devastation of
We gay and lesbians are accused of being the heartless ones. We are denounced by the faithful stereo typed as immoral and only wanting drugs and sex. The parents who send us their very own are the same ones yelling at our events and stirring congregations with hatred and venom. But we are the ones looked down upon and judged harshly. We are the ones sharing love and looking for those throwaway children that were denied entry into the only homes they ever knew. We are the ones denied rights, privileges and most importantly the love of the only people that truly mattered to us - our own parents.
What has riled me so was the receipt of an IM session from someone on MySpace. He tried to email me several times, but I spurned his advances because they were sexually charged states and his profile said he is fifteen years old. He claimed to be nineteen, but it really doesn’t matter because there is nothing he could say that would have led us in the direction he originally sought. His sexual drive was misguided and after a couple of comments, I recognized the agony he was in as if my past came to visit on the words from his keyboard.
Over an hour and a half we chatted as I discovered that he was kicked out by the vary mother who bore him. She denied her flesh and blood that passed through her womb the warmth and nurturing home because at fifteen years old, she found him in the arms of another male friend. He claims to have graduated High School through the charity of others in his community and has been working to support himself since the night his mother made him mature beyond his years. Even though he’s been on his own for several years, there is no stability in his life and he is desperate to feel the love and affection he once received from the people he knew as family. But the only way he can feel the warmth of that love, is to renounce his disgusting homosexuality by which he knows is defying the natural tendencies that defines him as a man. Can someone please explain to me how this exemplifies the love between a mother and her child?
My heart went out to this kid who just wants to feel the loving arms of the same person he called Mom. She was the one who conceived a child giving it love and originally not expecting anything in return. I wanted him to call me or let me call him, but he ended our chat session saying he was going to call his mother and plead with her to take him back.
It is not my place to tell him he is gay when the only sexual encounter that never really happened was interrupted by his mother. He has no clue if he likes men or women and is scared to try either. His inclination that one time was to test the waters with another male friend, but he is too scared to even contemplate his sexuality based on the results of his that first encounter. The lady with whom he trusted to be rational, loving and companionate has him questioning the very foundations of everything he thought he knew as well as his very existence. I understand why the question of his sexuality is so prevalent to him, but only he can find the right answers. Neither his mother nor I can answer the question as to what am I? If he is heterosexual, that is great and I wish him the best. If he is gay, I fear for him because of the confusion and indoctrination delivered by the lips of one that he loves and trust - his mother.
My heart broke last night as he closed our chat session because there is nothing I wouldn’t do to help him come to terms with himself. Why does love come with so many strings attached? When will humanity learn that love makes the waters flow, the sky blue, the sun yellow, the birds chirp, the grass green and your heart beat? Love is what we need to share and hate has no place in our lives. Shame on this kid’s mother, for not getting to know her own son at a time when she could really be a positive influence, instead she would rather practice HATE before she shows him true unconditional love. It obviously means more to her to be in good with her church then it is to love her son.
We must stop the hate; love and accept those around us to make this world a better place for all!
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