Those of you who live in Portland have probably already caught wind of the media blitz I have, once again, found myself in with regard to my ongoing small group dialogue project between members of the queer community and members of the Mars Hill Church. After this past week’s vandalism and threats (video below) Pastor Tim and I decided to go on OPB’s “Think Out Loud” today and talk about our experience together thusfar. It first aired this morning live at 9:00am and will air once more again this evening at 9:00pm, so tune in!

You can download the MP3 HERE.

If you care to catch up on everything that happened to get us here this week, follow the links and watch the video below:

Q Center’s Executive Director Speaks Out Against Threats of Violence
KGW News (NBC)
Fox 12 News
PQ Monthly (Article 1)
The Christian Post
PQ Monthly (Article 2)
The Oregonian
The Portland Mercury
KOIN 6 (CBS)
Rev. Chuck Currie

(Originally Published on The Huffington Post on 4/18/2012)

I went to see filmmaker Lee Hirsch‘s new documentary, Bully, this past weekend, and even now, days later, I still find myself deeply affected. When I say that, I’m speaking not so much about the film (although it was beautifully made and completely moving) but to the extreme heartache I have felt since watching it. I started sobbing about 30 seconds into the movie and didn’t really stop until the following morning. I cried for the parents who have lost their children to bullying, I cried for the bullied subjects in the film, and I cried for myself, having gone through an amplified version of all of this years ago.

Yesterday, after reading reports of yet another 14-year-old queer kid being bullied to death in America, this time in Iowa, the feeling turned once again from sadness to anger. My own growing-up-gay-in-the-Midwest story reads like some sort of fucked-up textbook for how LGBT kids come into the world, how we maneuver through, and often how we go out. The torture I suffered at the hands of my peers as a closeted child and then as an out teenager is one that is shared by many in the community. In reality I was quite lucky to have survived back then, although I almost didn’t survive the years that followed.

I took in violence as a young man like a sponge takes up water. It came in many forms, but I always did the same thing with it: I absorbed it and made it part of me, every mean thing anyone ever called me believed, every punch thrown my way shaped into my being. I spent years reacting to other people’s hate in a variety of colorful ways, living out the disappointment of everyone who had ever known me in real time. I was driven by uncontrollable rage, crippling fear, and a sense of mourning for the person everyone else thought I should be but whom I knew I would never become. Over time I grew used to the abuse, said goodbye to my sweetness, and let the violence take me over.

Even as an adult I am still dealing with this very old idea about myself and a world that says that I am nothing; that I somehow deserve to taste blood in my mouth, because I am not actually a person; that I need to hide in order to stay alive. To this day, when I encounter homophobia, my first reaction is often to fight; sometimes the motivation is to protect myself or the man I love, but sometimes it’s because I just want to see that look of surprise on the face of some mouthy jock who didn’t expect this particular weak, pussy-faggot to be scrappy and fight back. I’ve spent countless hours in therapy working on this very thing, but having spent my formative years defending myself both physically and emotionally, it’s sometimes hard to turn that survival reflex off.

Just this past weekend, as we walked by a group of meathead bro-dudes with tribal tattoos and spray tans, one of them mocked what I had said to my boyfriend as we passed, only he did it in full-blown sissy voice. I stopped. My initial instinct was to Read the rest of this entry »

(Originally Published on The Huffington Post on 4/6/2012)

I don’t do well with death. My coping skills are still lacking around anything related to loss in general, actually — but death, I just… can’t. It’s been this way since I was a boy. The idea that everyone I have ever loved will someday be taken from me (or I from them) terrifies me and is a concept I have largely refused to look at for as long as I can remember. Death, in my personal psychology, as in life, is the final frontier.

This week when I got the call from my broken-hearted mother that her sweet sister, who had fallen ill with a mysterious condition a few months ago, was being moved from hospital to hospice, I was overcome with sorrow. My usually manageable, small, wooden feelings about death and loss were suddenly made large, alive and uncontrollable. What I am most afraid of was here, once again, greeting me head-on in the living room. I turned back into the terrified child version of myself that lives inside me while my mother and I cried on the phone together. During the really hard parts I tried not to hear what she was saying, and instead focused on the sound of my own sobbing. It didn’t work. I took in every painful word.

My brain absorbs news like this in slow motion. It hits me in tearful waves, fades to the background, then jumps out again at the strangest times. I feel a deep connection to this planet by way of my family and the love we all share for each other, and I am sad that some of that love might be moving to another part of the universe. I’m selfish in this way. I want to keep all of you close forever. Anything else just seems too cruel to imagine and, well…This has been my reality for three days now.

A few years ago I was given a book called To Bless the Space Between Us, by John O’Donohue. I have pulled it out a few times over the years when I can’t find ways of relating to the world, and it has helped me form thoughts around some of the stuff I’m just no good at thinking about. This week was one of those times. In a passage about death from the book, O’Donohue writes:

“From the moment you were born,
Your death has walked beside you.
Though it seldom shows its face,
You still feel its empty touch,
When fear invades your life,
Or what you love is lost
Or inner damage is incurred.

That you would gather yourself
And decide carefully
How you now can live
The life you would love
To look back on
From your deathbed.” Read the rest of this entry »

I almost died four years ago this week, and tomorrow is the fourth anniversary of my younger brother Landon saving my life.

After a 16 year battle with drugs and alcohol I was taken over completely in 2007 and it nearly killed me. I locked myself in my house and began to smoke rock cocaine and drink vodka around the clock. I rarely left. This went on for months and I spent $67,000.00 on my addiction during that final year. I overdosed on two occasions, and I was headed for death. I wish I could say I was so messed up that it didn’t register, but it did. I knew what I was doing this time; I just didn’t care. No one could stop me.

On March 22nd, 2008 someone did manage to stop me, though. My little brother Landon burst into my living room with his wife Ashley unannounced to “get me help”. I had passed my lowest point weeks before and was spiraling toward the end by the time they got there. My entire junky setup was on display in front of me and there it was; the truth. ALL of it. There was a thick layer of cocaine smoke in the air and I remember yelling out something like “Don’t come in here if you’re pregnant” to my sister-in-law. I was in a state.

I looked like a dying man because I was a dying man. Ashley looked afraid when she saw me. My brother did, too. This made me feel afraid, and in that moment, my sweet brother’s fear and love and hopes for my future somehow reached me. He took me by the arm and put me in the car and we went to the hospital. When we got there he had to use force to get me to go in but he managed to get me into the building, admitted, and the rest is history.

The past four years have been the most wonderful gift. I have come back to myself, back to this world, back to my family; and I’ve found love and joy that I would have never found had I not made it through. There are still moments when who I was before shows up in my present day, but I am not afraid of that person. He was a person, too. A very sick, sad person who needed help.

The truth of my story is hard sometimes. I certainly wish I hadn’t done many of the things I did during my addicted years, but I am empowered by that same, scary truth. I am not ashamed of having overcome the circumstances of my life, and I am proud to be here today as a result of hard work and the goodness of others who have given me the opportunity to start over.

I saved my little brother’s life when we were young boys, and he returned the favor when we were grown men. Now, years later, I am still moved by his bravery. To stand up to me like that in my darkest hour; to come find me when I had shut him out; to physically maneuver me toward safety; that must have all been so scary…but he did it, and I am here today as a result.

Thank you, little brother, for showing up when I needed you. You got there just in time.

…and thank you to everyone who loved me then, who loves and cares about me now, and who keeps reminding me of just how lucky I am to be here. This world is beautiful because of you.

xo,
Logan