Grace & LGBT communities 101.

A guide for Christians being friends with the LGBT community.

When someone tells you that they are gay for the first time:

1. Do not immediately tell them you think it's wrong. No matter how nice you're saying it. It's not nice, and that isn't what they were asking you.
2. Be their friend. They aren't going to drag you into their "agenda" or "lifestyle" or whatever else word you're using for it these days.
3. They aren't telling you because they have a crush on you. Seriously. Get over yourself. You're not that cute.
4. Don't act shocked. The attraction to members of the same sex is not new, it's fairly common, and most people will experience it at one time or another. If you react like they just told you are actually from a different planet, you will immediately make them feel uncomfortable in their own skin. Don't do that.
5. If you actually are shocked, get out of your christian bubble for a few months. Learn to interact with people who don't believe the exact same things as you. Get to know a person.
6. Don't abandon their friendship be you are afraid, disgusted or whatever else. If that's the case, you need to get your shit together.
7. If you do need some space because you are afraid, let them know gently. But do NOT make it their fault. This is now your responsibility to deal with. Not theirs.
8. Don't assume they are telling you because they are 100% out and ok about it. Coming out is terrifying, confusing, and not all LGBT folks KNOW if what they are doing is right or wrong. At the most, they just know what it is. Let them be where they are at. Don't push them one way or another.
9. Do NOT also assume they are telling you because they are struggling and they want to stop "their heathen lifestyle" unless they specifically ask to hold you accountable.
10. Please meet their significant others. Please.
11. NEVER out another person even if they came out to you. That is not your job. No matter how much you think it helps. It doesn't. It's violating.
12. Love them, still. I know it's confusing. You may not understand. But when have you ever really understood everything about people? Never. Being gay is no different. Don't treat it like it is.
13. It's ok to ask questions if you don't understand. But be genuine in your non understanding. Don't use passive aggressive questions to prove a point.
14. Love, Love, Love.

The reason I know these things, is because I am officially sharing with the world that yes, I find myself attracted to members of my own sex. No, I don't know if it's right or wrong. Yes, I'm terrified. And yes, I have prayed every night since I was in 8th grade for it to go away. And it didn't. And it hurts more to hold it in than to bravely face possible judgement, harshness, or otherwise rude behavior.

To those who I have told and who have still loved me, thank you. And thank you for letting me be where I'm at.

Love, Erica

There is more shame than falling for a person of my own sex in one other thing.  in desiring for the last feeling I ever feel is cold metal against my skull.

Ohio, again.

Today, is my last day here at Rocky Mountain Pathways Ranch. I'll say the cliche part first: I cannot believe it's already over.

This experience has been one of the most challenging yet beautiful experiences of my life. I find myself constantly astounded on what high school students can teach a person about life. So raw. Uninhibited. Hilarious. Gentle. These amazing beings bursting into bloom. Honored does not begin to describe how I feel about the fact that I got to work with them for these past six months. I never thought a rag-tag, crazy group of high school students from LA could literally drag out the best parts of me right to surface. It was truly incredible.

Colorado, however beautiful kicked my ass while I was here. If you've followed my journey, there was homelessness, poverty, depression, and a coming out. My life changed in ways I could not ever of dreamed of when I was packing my Honda Civic and driving 1,000 miles to be with the mountains- what I considered (and still do) my soul to be made of.

When I got to Denver, God tore me apart.

But, God damn I learned so much. I learned how brokenness is beautiful. And how to stand up for myself. And how certain I am that God will never let me go. Even when I ask Him to. I learned the goodness of others can turn your insides into feathers, and how the gentle snow across mountain peaks can rip your rib cage wide open, exposing your beating heart to the world. I learned that it's OK to say "I don't know" even when the question pertains to your identity. I truly felt how Adam and Eve felt in the garden when they first discovered their nakedness. I learned that nakedness isn't always a bad thing. And I learned that in this insane, brutally beautiful world- we will receive gifts we never deserved. Shit.

As I reflect back to the Great Colorado Adventure, I would like to share with you something. During our programming at the ranch, we ask our students to write a letter to themselves to read 3 months from now. I did one for myself, as well. Here's what it said:

Dear you,

Right now you're in your second week and you're loving it. Relating to students, laughing with them- being their role model. Just what you desired. You wanted to move to Colorado to be in the mountains and to have a job which helps people. And you DID. It's exactly what you've been praying for since you started praying. Remember: God is good. Not just right now because you're happy and satisfied. Chase after Him.

Remember also why you are here. For the students. You are a have been a light to them. This responsibility is enormous and one of the greatest gifts you could ever be given.

Erica, do you remember when you were in Denver? Broke, lonely depressed, hating God...life...everything? Look where you are now. God honored your perseverance and waiting and HE WILL AGAIN.

You are funny, loving and God put you here for a reason. To relate to these students. Because you can and you will. This means you have purpose in your life. You will feel purposless again. You will make mistakes again. You will be mad at God again. Keep trucking. It will come and so will He.

God has made you ERICA LYNDSEY REESE. For this what you are doing NOW......ROCK IT. God wants you alive today.

-Erica Reese October 5th 2012.

Dang.

I remember these things as I embark back to Ohio. I will remember that I have purpose. Always. I will remember that God will not let go, even when I tell Him to fuck off right to His face. I will remember to keep trucking. I will remember to be naked. I will remember to feel the feathers and to feel my heart beating. I will remember the mountains and I will remember that I will be back, again, soon.

But for now, it's the season of Ohio, again. Not what I expected, but when do plans ever really turn out the way you think they do?

in that order.

1. Try not to fall in love.
2. Fall in love.
3. Move to Colorado.

Stay

Stay

You are a park bench at the bottom of the ocean,

because every time I laid with you, I couldn't breathe.
I remember the first time I saw you,

you knocked the rhythm of my breath right out of my lungs.

You knocked my soul off balance,

and my heart out of key.

And snuck your way into my veins without even knowing it.

I remember the first time I saw you,

you were wearing a bright red pea coat,

and your lips caught me on fire.
You made me wish there was another phrase for
love at first sight.

Because it was more of a train wreck
making the sound of a moth fluttering around a light bulb.
Or a shipwreck disguised as a birthday party
It was more of me, loving your hands
but wishing there wasn't a wedding ring on it.

Leaving you was like trying to put my heart in a cabinent
and always keeping the key in my pocket.

Impossible.

I feel the key every time I breathe.
Every time I sit down.
During every commercial
every time I see a pair of eyes that aren't yours
Every time I see.

And I miss you.
I miss the way you drug the laughter out of my bones,
the way you made my insides feel like feathers,
the way you took my arm into yours when we walked down the street.

But I can't love you like that.
My heart can't stumble at the thought of you.
I can't think of your body during church.
I can't have you.

And as death gives to mourning,

and has your colors begin to fade,
I have to say goodbye.

When what I really want to say is

Stay.

wings

I have been writing poems that would get me burned at the stake.

On becoming.

Right now I work at a job in Colorado where I often take kids on hikes through the National Forest, among other activites designed to shove them out of their comfort zones. Most of the students are from LA and have never even walked up a large hill before so needless to say, the trudge up and down the rocky paths through yeild for some interesting complants. "I can't breathe."  I always respond something to the degree of "It's ok if you're breathing hard, it's good for you." "But I'm going to have a heart attack." "Your heart is beating fast. It's ok, it's good for you." "But it hurts." "It's ok, sometimes pain isn't a bad thing. Sometimes, it's good for you."

When I give advice to 17 year olds, I'm often giving advice to myself.

Pain is good for you.

Looking back at the entire journey that brought me here to Colorado, I kind of wish I knew that earlier. Between nights of lonliness being so heavy it cracks my ribs, to mornings where my body was trembling like a new born rodent because I was throwing up so much. Between goodbyes that sound like they're being said underwater and hellos said in such sharp silence you cover your ears. Between packing up as much as I could into my Honda civic and driving halfway across the country, to finally seeing the magnificant Rocky mountains about one year too late.

I always tell people that the three months I lived in Denver before I moved here are three months I try to forget. Those three months simply erased from the Great Colorado Adventure. Because they were horrible. It was numbing. Like a moth fluttering around a lightblub making the sound of a train derailing. I was so embarassed about the person I had become, I wished I had never become anything at all.

God's timing always throws me off. Writing that sentence itself, feels obvious and contrived. But it seemed like just as I was done digging my own grave, He reaches down and takes the blindfold off my fucking face. The blindfold I had tied when I was drunk, with dry hands and dirty nails. Squinting in the light, the brightness burned my retnas.

"Sometimes, pain is good for you."

And I have to say that to myself everytime I think of home. Everytime I think of how badly I need Ohio to hug me. Everytime I realize that not only have I not talked about God in weeks, I haven't thought of Him either. I love my job. I love what I do. I love the students. I love the mountains. I love watching the student's pupils open wide as they love the mountains as I do. It makes my heart swell so big I can feel it in my toes. I would never leave. I look at the mountains and they are so delicious and  magnificant and terrifying. I look at the mountains and I can't help but think, "God is good."

But the memory of Ohio is like a cigarette burn.

"Sometimes, pain is good for you."

I'm excited to see what I will become after these 8 months at the ranch are over. Through the brutal pain, the soft voices of students telling their stories for the first time, through aching for a hand to hold, through mountains that stretch your soul wide. Through forgetting and remembering God: it hurts to become. But, sometimes, pain is good for you.