Tag: Consequence

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Consequence, by Ray S

Since the
beginning of time for the little I know, there have always been untold numbers
of situations that resulted in serious consequence to the doer or the doee.
Doubtless you may have a few situations of your own that might need to be kept
secret, or some sort of cleansing-emotional confession. So goes the state of
consequence = GUILT.
There are
some old tired consequences such as the ones found in the King James book or
the Talmud and the warnings by Nostradamus. “Watch out or there’ll be hell to
pay.” Think about your ticket and fine for overtime parking. Can you still be
sued for breach of promise? What about divorce or wedding vows?
Look what’s
happened to good old boys and locker room parlance. Here’s the question: when is
it sexual harassment and when is it dirty conversation between consenting
parties? What constituted sexual harassment of the male gender, present company
excluded or may be included—it depends on who, what, and when, and of course,
maybe?
The devil’s
in the details-how many times have we been beseeched to “REPENT” for the end is
coming? And don’t forget the little red warning light that comes on with the
message CHECK ENGINE, or EMPTY.
Presently
we citizen’s who are registered to vote in this November’s presidential
election are faced with some truly numbing consequences. But fear not because
our shining peroxide white knight has this ‘fixed’ election all wrapped up. You
can’t go wrong with Mr. Putin’s gang working the computers and the Fox Network
and Donald’s “fact finders” grinding out more lies, lies, lies. Oh sorry, I got
the wrong candidate, but that’s alright because the new Attorney General will
take care of those consequences.
About
global warming—another lie, and if some insignificant foreign second-rate NATO
countries do have a little seacoast shrinkage, we will threaten Russia to stop
producing nuclear and start shoveling Siberia into the Pacific Ocean to cool
things down.
What are
the consequences of all these lies about a little friendly groping? It was
pretty convincing preceding the last debate with the happy maidens attesting to
it was “Just like one big happy family.”
To top that
bit of showmanship, the Donald will present to the USA a joyful, giggling group
of 426 previous contestants of Trump reality TV shows. They will bear witness
to what has been sanctimoniously labeled sexual harassment by ship-jumping
party members; they all were extremely pleased and somewhat aroused by the
candidate’s attentions. Their payoff will be front step seats at the Trumpian
Coronation.
Every day
it gets more exciting. It has become a huge game of “Truth or Dare.” Hold on to
your bikini, Sister. Or better yet, “Truth or Consequences” and guess what?
This time no one tells the truth and every one of us gets the consequences.
P.S. do you have a valid passport for Canada?
© 17 October
2016
About the Author 

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Once in a Lifetime, by Betsy

There are many things I have done once in my lifetime. Which of those things has enough importance that I might want to write about it, I mused. Mistakes, I hope, are not too numerous.

Although, if they were made only once in my lifetime, at least I can say I haven’t repeated them.

I’ve had some once in a lifetime opportunities. Some of those events, adventures I have written about. Missed opportunities? Well, I guess I missed them so I don’t even know what they are.

Some important decisions are made once in a lifetime with consequences that last a lifetime.

In the category of decisions clearly THE most important with lifetime consequences was the decision to come out—that is, to come out to myself. I don’t remember actually making that choice in my head, but I’m sure that’s what took place. But trying to put my finger on exactly when that happened, I am stymied. Coming out, I realize, is not a onetime event. It is an on-going, hopefully progressive process. The once in a lifetime event was when it all came into my consciousness that I would have to make the choice to live as the person I was born to be—or not. That meant I would have to stop playing the role I had previously chosen and drastically change my lifestyle. The implications of doing this were, at the time, and I do remember the moment—the implications were quite profound and rather threatening. However the choice not to do this was no longer possible for me.

Analyzing further as to why I delayed making this choice until I had lived almost half a lifetime, it occurred to me that I never repressed my homosexual feelings. I acknowledged and accepted them from day one. I was totally conscious of my sexual feelings, and that I was attracted to those of my own sex and not those of the opposite sex. I remember every girl/woman to whom I was attracted and exactly how it felt and how it felt to want to look at, sit next to, touch, and, yes, get into bed with, and..do what lesbians do. I was very much aware of my feelings, I realize now, and I accepted them as absolutely natural. I had no guilt or feelings of revulsion. What I didn’t accept, and what I repressed for all those years was acting on those feelings.

I suppose one reason for that is that in almost every case and until I came out, the object of my desire was also unable or unwilling to reciprocate or initiate some sort of action. Had my feelings not gone unrequited, or had I been able to initiate acting on the feelings, my life may have taken a different course. That may be the number one reason I did not come out sooner.

Another reason I did not act on my feelings is that somewhere in my experience I learned that there was something taboo about expressing this oh-so-natural feeling I had. This didn’t make sense to me, but apparently held great importance—enough importance that it became my code of conduct.

Reason number three is that I also believed it might all change one day, and my feelings and attractions would somehow turn on a dime. When I met the right man, my feelings would change, and then my behavior would be in sync with my feelings.

Needless to say that change never took place even though I stayed married to the same man for 25 years. The three children were probably one reason the marriage endured.

Now that I think about it, for me at least, there’s not much that happens just once, never to have any consequences or influence or effect on future circumstances.

© 20 November 2015

About the Author

Betsy has been active in the GLBT community including PFLAG, the Denver Women’s Chorus, OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change), and the GLBT Community Center. She has been retired from the human services field for 20 years. Since her retirement, her major activities have included tennis, camping, traveling, teaching skiing as a volunteer instructor with the National Sports Center for the Disabled, reading, writing, and learning. Betsy came out as a lesbian after 25 years of marriage. She has a close relationship with her three children and four grandchildren. Betsy says her greatest and most meaningful enjoyment comes from sharing her life with her partner of 30 years, Gillian Edwards.

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Another Plug for Metropolitan Community Churches, by Louis Brown

Romans 6:23, King James
Version (KJV)

23 For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is
eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
“Consequence”
is a term of logic, that reminds me of the inevitability of death for sinners
as stated in the above-cited Biblical quotation. This often repeated phrase
always bothered me. It was used as an excuse to persecute heretics and gay
people. It reminds me further of the so-called “clobber passages” often cited
from the Bible. Homophobes use this phrase not only to persecute gay people and
other non-conformists, they use it to justify their internalized irrational
hatred of all non-conformists and people who are different.
Most gay
people accept the basic premise of the homophobic version of Christianity and
become atheists or agnostics or adopt earth-oriented spiritualties. Personally,
I side with Lesbian and gay male positive interpreters of Christianity. In
refuting the homophobic version of this Biblical citation, I would remind the
homophobe that God did not ordain that majorities get the moral right to define
“sin”. Well, MCCR is doing a good job in refuting homophobic prejudice in Bible
studies.
My parents
were non-conformists and had a negative view of Christian churchdom.
Presbyterians (our ancestral denomination) consisted, according to them, of
hypocrites who go to church and worship the almighty dollar and call it God.
The Catholic Church has a history of sympathizing with Hitler and Mussolini and
then makes the dubious claim of being the ultimate moral authority for their
believers and for everyone. What a joke!
Personally,
I would not go as far as my parents. But we should be on guard for hypocrisy in
the Church and for intolerance for non-conformists, but give gay and Lesbian
Christians the opportunity to construct a more tolerant, a more enlightened
version of Christianity.
© 11 Oct 2016 

About the Author 

I was born in 1944, I lived most of my life in New York City,
Queens County. I still commute there. I worked for many years as a Caseworker
for New York City Human Resources Administration, dealing with mentally
impaired clients, then as a social work Supervisor dealing with homeless PWA’s.
I have an apartment in Wheat Ridge, CO. I retired in 2002. I have a few
interesting stories to tell. My boyfriend Kevin lives in New York City. I
graduated Queens College, CUNY, in 1967.
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Consequence, by Terry Dart

What is of consequence? That is, what is important? I picked up a baseball today. It has red seams. The seams are raised to provide a better grip for the pitcher. My hand covers the ball. It is small and hard with a smooth white leather surface. Its core is a sphere of black rubber wound tight with string. I know this well, the details are everyday to me. Baseball is of the greatest consequence in my life. Baseballs and memories they and I created still emit the sounds of laughter, the gritting of teeth, the rapture of looking to the sky to see a ball you hit turn tiny and disappear into the wall of weeds that hedge the back of left, right, and center field. Where we played had opened meadows and endless blue sky filled with meadowlarks, butterflies, and thousands of smaller creatures. At sundown the crickets would fill the air with their sound. Bats barely visible streaked the sky black with their flight to hunt mosquitoes.

In those days—the late fifties—our opponents were generally our neighbors and friends. They came from The Foresberg Addition, or from the modest homes beyond the hills of rich black dirt where new homes were soon to be built.

Baseball and its cousins, softball and slow pitch softball, led me many places. When I began to learn to throw and catch and field and hit I was six years old, not yet in first grade. My Dad taught me. He is now 86 and suffers from dementia. But then he would sidearm a toss and I would return it until there formed a soothing rhythm, one movement flowing smoothly into the next like a steady heartbeat.

This ball is a Wilson. My first glove might have been a Wilson too. It was a caramel colored brown. My second glove I used at thirteen. I left it in the restroom of the Mobil Station on a stop on the way back home from a game in Sturgis, South Dakota. My first lesson in focus and mindfulness. That had been my best glove. It appeared in a photograph of The Minot Daily News, titled, “Young player, Terry Kurtz fields a fly ball.” I don’t know what became of that news clipping. It used to be in Mom’s old photograph album. She has stage-four cancer now. I am her eldest.

Just yesterday Sandy, the fastest pitcher in our fast pitch league, showed up among my other Rapid City friends on Facebook. Forty-five years since, the past and present certainly do collide. During a tournament in 1972 in Pierre, South Dakota I was benched. The only explanation given for that was that I didn’t have lunch with the team. I had not ever been benched in fifteen years of playing. I was benched for the rest of the year. It was a painful time when I questioned myself and what had I done wrong to deserve this. That was the last year I played with that team.

Nearly two years later I got a phone call from Kathy, the Scotties team captain. She explained why I was benched, and she apologized. The captain had been angry at a love interest. The bitterness between those players led her to bench me as a way to get back at her apparently lost love. The intended victim of this revenge had been the second string first baseman. The captain benched me in order to snub the second string first baseman by not filling her into my starting spot at the same base. The captain was not a drinker. She did have convoluted logic. In this I experienced how the moral chaos of one individual can hurt another, how bewildering a lie can be, and how destructive to an innocent person. Baseball, not a utopia, was no exception.

That ended baseball for me. For the next four decades I kept to watching my cousin Tommy and my brother Brad hit their homeruns. Brad’s team made the Junior League World’s Series. And I followed the Minnesota Twins of The Major League.

Those years that followed were at times extremely difficult; my mental illness rose up again. I had to quit the job of my dreams. As my marriage continued to unravel I entered a dark suicidal depression. I was hospitalized after one of my attempts at suicide. My network of friends and family and former colleagues failed to stop the decline.

Years after my mental health improved I began to slow down. Arthritis, a gain in weight, and general inactivity severely affected my overall health and fitness. I was on the pathway to cane and walker and wheelchair. Pain in my knee was telling me I would never run again.

A couple years ago I joined this story group. I found the nurturing group of fellow sages, men and women of Denver’s GLBT community. You guys. Then Gail Klock joined us for a trial run. We liked her from the get-go. And she liked us. And softball showed up again like a guardian angel. Gail read her story, how from childhood she was an athlete and later a highly successful professional coach. She invited me to practice slow pitch softball with The Colorado Peaches. After a few missed opportunities I made a leap of faith and joined them along with our Jessie to practice. I discovered I could indeed manage to run. Practices brought frustration and later joy as my body remembered how to throw and to slug the ball. I learned to hit off a tee. The team graciously declared Jessie and me to be honorary Peaches.

When I asked to accompany the team to a tournament in Utah, the team arranged for me to go. Gail had me coach third base. We won a bronze medal. For me the team joined me at the heart. Now as my hand holds this baseball, past and present converge, and what I feel is love.

Denver, Colorado © 17 October 2016

About the Author

I am an artist and writer after having spent the greater part of my career serving variously as a child care counselor, a special needs teacher, a mental health worker with teens and young adults, and a home health care giver for elderly and Alzheimer patients. Now that I am in my senior years I have returned to writing and art, which I have enjoyed throughout my life.