Reputation: Too Precious to be Trusted, by Phillip Hoyle

Reputation has little to do with the way I see other people. I’ve come to this rather strange way of thinking because for me people are much too interesting and potent to be known for what actually is an outsider’s point of view and idolization. A fine reputation is the result of the appearance one makes in regard to his or her adherence to reified social norms. I developed quite a reputation as an effective minister. I was nice to people, worked hard, provided creative and unusual programming for people of many ages, prepared my choirs adequately, appreciated the work of volunteers, spoke publically with enough charm not to offend, had a great attendance record in the church office and in hospital calling, worked well with the church staff, and had a family that also participated in the congregation’s life. People liked me. I didn’t embarrass them with my ideas. They knew I was not afraid of the strange folk like foreigners, poor, and needy. I was a great resource for a large church organization for my ability to work with difficult people. And eventually I wrote curriculum resources for religious education. I was somewhat known for whatever that is worth.

I took a job at a church in a western city. I loved the church facility. I found the congregational leaders delightful. I appreciated the strong core of folk who nurtured liberal concerns and practical approaches to church work. I enjoyed the support of a cadre of retired ministers in the congregation. I liked the music program. On and on. The Senior Minister, Bill, told me one day I was supposed to be a woman. I responded, “I’m trying as hard as I can.” We laughed. He said that the search committee for the associate minister had made obtaining a female clergy as its goal. They found me. He also said the hiring was influenced because of my fine reputation.

I thought about that and realized that the Area Minister, Jim, had wanted me to come to that Region because he trusted my leadership, appreciated my willingness to work in summer camp and conference programs, and liked my cheerful disposition. I wondered what all he had said to move the committee away from their original intention. Although I knew that one person’s likes often influenced committee members, I also knew the appeal to reputation actually set up a minister for failure since the minister would never really know how he or she was represented, what actually was the content of that reputation. I trusted that work-wise I would sufficiently meet the needs of staff and congregation. I was already doing so when I heard I was supposed to be a woman and about my fine reputation. But I wondered.

Some years before I had known a past minister of the church where I worked. His divorce from his wife several years after leaving our congregation made the local gossip. People expressed such deep disappointment to me about the divorce. I don’t recall if the minister or his wife initiated the proceedings, but do remember clearly that the critics didn’t voice much interest in the whole picture of his life. Still, like is true in the kind of church I came from, they did fall short of saying “tut, tut,” this last probably out of deference for his then ex-wife. I listened and wondered how this change affected their feelings about what he had taught them, what leadership he had provided, what sense of faith he had engendered. Their sense of disappointment seemed larger than necessary to me. He had spoiled their ideal.

So when in my next congregation I knew the search committee had been influenced by my reputation, I became extremely alert to the function of reputation and its relation to ideals and expectations. When I learned I was hired because of my reputation, I wondered over my work and its consequences, especially were it ever to come out that my life might have changed within just a few years after my exit from that fine church. What would those fine folk think when they got the gossip that I, who was widely appreciated, left ministry fifteen years before retirement age, left my wife, moved to a large city to live as a homo (probably the largest reputation spoiler), and took up a new career as a massage therapist (oops, maybe this was the main spoiler). I knew I couldn’t control whatever people chose to think. I couldn’t save them from themselves. And I knew exactly why I could never believe in reputation. Besides I have lived through too many American general elections cycles. Even the best—and the worst—reputations are far too fragile, too precious to trust.© Denver, 2014

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot

Drifting by Phillip Hoyle

In a very important sense I was drifting through life back then. Oh I had goals in my career and a highly structured schedule, but I was living into the common cultural expectation of marriage with children. I appreciated that my ministerial work afforded me the luxury of reading, researching, teaching, and the like. I easily tolerated the work conditions. In regard to family, I lived with a wonderful woman and by then two very interesting and creative children. I floated my way downstream keeping in the current but letting it move me along well-worn channels.

Then Mike A drifted into my life. He showed up one afternoon at the church where I worked, out on Camp Bowie Boulevard in west Fort Worth, Texas. I didn’t know what he expected, but there he stood looking a little beat down yet clean in cowboy boots, western shirt, Levis, and sporting a tooled leather belt with a big metal buckle that announced in all caps STUD. I was amused as well as concerned. We talked. He wanted help getting his life back together.

I don’t remember if Mike had his equipment with him but he told me he was a welder and needed to get a job. He may have had his welding mask and gloves and probably a suitcase or a box of clothes. He did have a rather pleasant manner and spoke working-class Texan with a distinct twang, drawn-out syllables, and what seemed to me, strange pronunciations. He also had a sense of humor and a charming smile. He was down on his luck but he wasn’t done with life or with living it.

Mike assured me he would be able to get work if he could just get to a particular place to apply. Realizing he’d have to rely on me for a few days, I drove him to a fabrication shop way out in east Fort Worth where he secured a job. Maybe he’d worked there before; I didn’t know. In fact I knew nothing about this world, but Mike did start work at that shop the next day.

Mike knew his trade. While returning to our apartment, he said my car was “arkin’” and asked me to pull into the grocery store and give him a dollar. He’d fix it. I knew there was something draining the power from my car and had wasted quite a bit of money paying mechanics who didn’t repair it. I had no idea what was wrong, nor had I ever heard the word “arkin’.” For 89 cents Mike bought electricians tape and wrapped the places where the insulation had worn off a couple of spark plug wires. He knew the sound of an electric arc; after all he was a welder. And his fix held for many years!

Mike went home with me to my wife and two kids and stayed for a week. I gave him a ride to work and picked him up at the end of his shift—what in the church office I called my paper route. One parishioner overheard the reference and asked the secretary if the church wasn’t paying me enough to live on. That week as we traveled back and forth across the city, I picked up random details about his life, his loss of job, his estrangement from his wife, their two girls who lived with her. I felt like I’d gone down this road before; assisting someone, wondering if my efforts would really help.

Within a week Mike arranged two-way transportation for work. It didn’t occur to me that he was probably back into a network of relationships he had known for years; I was too busy with my life to worry over his details. Mike met church people at our apartment. For him being around educated folk may have seemed odd. One of them perceived Mike’s alcoholism. I knew he drank; she knew of his disease. Her insight made sense of some things I had observed.

One night Mike called me. He had burned his eyes at work—a common hazard for welders. “Could you get some eye drops and bring them to me?” he asked. “Of course,” I answered inquiring just what kind he needed. I drove over to his by-the-week motel, knocked on his door, and administered the eye drops. That’s when Mike gave me one of the most precious gifts I’d ever received. As the sting was abating from his eyes he looked up and said, “I love you, Phillip.”

“I’m happy to help,” was my defended reply to this rather crass, beer-guzzling, Texas cowboy stud. But I was stunned. No man had ever said those words to me, not even in my family.

I knew about love. In college years I had learned to speak words of love to my girlfriend, who became my wife. Actually she taught me how. Saying such words seemed a requirement to get married. I’d said “I love you” many times to her, to my son, to my daughter, and I meant it. A couple of years before Mike drifted into my life I realized that I had fallen in love with a male seminary classmate. I refrained from saying “I love you” to him lest it seem manipulative or, worse, scare him away. Now this drunk said “I love you” to me. I took it to mean he deeply appreciated my help. At the same time I realized I was not interested to explore any further dimensions of its potential with him. My heart was already elsewhere—way too committed to my family and to the one male friend I adored.

I also came to realize my patient and caring help to this man who may have been starved for any kind of love—that along with his lowered threshold of defenses due to his drinking—left him open to say whatever he felt. I received his drifting expression with deep appreciation and realized how much I wanted, even needed to be loved deeply by a man, especially one who might open his non-alcoholic heart to me.

It took twenty more years of maturing for me to do what my heart of hearts desired: to live with a man I loved and who loved me. But I wonder how many more years may have passed if I had not heard those words from my Texas cowboy STUD. His gift to me far exceeded mine to him, and I continue to appreciate that Mike A. had drifted my way.© Denver, 2014

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot

Angels and Archangels by Phillip E. Hoyle

Save me from angels! They’re too fiercesome. Why even in the ancient Hebrew book Tobit, young Tobias’s guardian angel Raphael carried a sword. That angel was no sentimental Europeanized childhood protector but rather the leader of the angelic host, the army that surrounded the throne of the great Lord, God of Israel. Raphael served the one that no one could look upon and live. And then someone said of me that I was an angel—this after I’d lost my lover Michael to an AIDS related cancer. Of course, somewhat like Raphael did with Tobias I walked with Michael on his way to test after test at Denver Health, accompanied him during his chemotherapy sessions, picked him up from the floor when he fell, helped him to the restroom, cleaned up after him, loved him mightily during his rapid decline in health. I also sat with him while he died. Many things actually. That seemed simple love proffered to a beloved, not something magical or mystical; simple love mixed with profound responsibility.

When Michael’s friend told someone I was an angel, I’m sure the man meant something very sentimental. But mythological? I don’t know. At the time I was in no mood to be either kind of angel. I was angry at my loss and all too aware that my late arrival in Michael’s life journey saved his closest friends many, many hours of care giving. I was not going to be consoled by anyone’s guilty feelings or sincere intentions. And besides, I knew my journey into this love and my imperfect execution of love’s demands. I knew myself all too well. Spare me the blather.

Now we’re talking mythology here, but it always seems to get mixed up with sentimentality. I abhor that! Still I don’t know how to get beyond it to something more constructive. It’s always easier to criticize than to create something new.

A couple of years later I again got called an angel this time after the HIV-related death of my Rafael. His Mexican mom told his Puerto Rican social worker that I had been his angel in his last months. I’m sure he had dramatized for her just what we had going—probably with too many details for her comfort. He insisted that she understand our love. The case manager told me what she expressed. Somehow since the ascription occurred cross-culturally and from a devout Roman Catholic person, I could more easily accept it being assigned to me. For her to say so was a breakthrough of acceptance, one I knew her dying son demanded of her. She was strong in her love and although she didn’t say it directly to me, she did convey it through a third-party, a way of communicating much more Mexican than American. I realized I did serve somehow as a messenger of the divine love, acceptance, and care to a young man who had meant no harm, who had experienced too little love, and who had broken too many Mexican taboos in his too short life. My love for him, whom I found somehow beautiful enough to assign godly terms, made me happy to provide the divine service however it was perceived and interpreted by others.

Our affair was in so many ways perfectly divine—even in the ancient Judeo-Christian sense with the fearful God who sent fearful angelic troops to announce to freaked out shepherds that they were to receive a great joy, one for all humankind! Whatever my role, whether angel or shepherd, I was finally pleased—oh so pleased—to be in the middle of such a divine drama.

Some months after Rafael’s death I told the man who had irked me with his angelic name calling that I would not care to meet another man named for an archangel—no more Michaels or Raphaels for me. He smiled and with an arched eyebrow and sly grin asked, “Well, what if his name was, say, Lucifer? Could that get your attention?”

“Probably,” I admitted.

© 15 December 2014

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot

Believe It or Not, This Really Happened to Me by Phillip Hoyle

Several years ago I developed an unusual medical condition that stumped my doctor and both interested and frightened me. One morning I discovered a growth on the index finger of my left hand. It first appeared to be a long splinter the length of the finger next to the thumb. Unlike a splinter, it seemed articulated and bent when my finger bent. I was fascinated but also knew I needed to show it to my doctor. I couldn’t get an appointment that first day but set one for the next. Overnight the splinter-like protrusion expanded a little bit beyond the finger, and looked like a kind of lobe, like a smaller finger attached to the index finger.

Many things went through my mind on the bus ride to Dr. Pierce’s office. Was this some kind of exotic infection from Africa? I had any number of African friends. Was it from the high Himalayas, the original home of my friend Ming? Or China where my friends Rong and Fong originated? Or Korea from which Chong immigrated? I decided not to worry and just kept my hand on my lap covered by my other rather normal appearing right hand. But I did worry. Would I ever again play the piano? Could one even play with six fingers? Would I have to give up my massage practice? I’d already cancelled half a dozen massages. Would I still be able to shuffle a deck of cards?

At the doctor’s office I watched as my physician examined the oddity. He said it was not a splinter but rather a buildup of fluid and proposed to extract some of it for further examination. Out came the needle. Into the finger it reached. Out came dark red blood. Doctor looked concerned and marked the sample for the lab to examine STAT. He asked me to wait and showed me to an empty room. I wondered what he’d find. I had wanted to excise the dark line that invited ideas of demon possession, an idea I had long excised from my mind. Couldn’t I simply cut it off like I once did a mole? I examined myself. I thought about the many projects I was planning. I made a list of friends to call, especially those I had lost track of over the previous couple of years. I checked my phone messages, listening to all those I’d not heard, erasing many, many voice and text messages, and otherwise filled my time with distracting tasks. After about an hour, a nurse brought me a bottle of water and some magazines apologizing for the long inconvenience. My one hour wait turned into two hours. Finally Dr. Pierce returned. He told me I would have to enter the hospital. My heart rate rose. “We need to keep watch over this.” He frowned; I wondered why. “The CDC wants you isolated,” he explained for their computers had matched the sample with something dreadful. My fears shook me.

I entered a world of sterile isolation. There all was bed rest, confusion, and fear. The staff members were nice to me yet cautious and also afraid. I was also amazed for when in my long life had anything I had ever done become of national concern? Finally I awoke from the dream that morning, December 29, 2010.

Morning Pages entry from 12-29-2010

Woke up from a dream in which I discovered a growth on my index finger. It looked like a long splinter the length of the finger but protruded a little bit beyond in a separate lobe as if the whole thing were growing alongside my finger. I used it as an illustration that, like this splinter, most folk in the room (were they UUs?) would like to excise the mythological elements from their minds. I wondered if it really was a splinter and thought I’d like to find out. The stuff that came out was liquid like pussy blood. The CDC said to contain the liquid and get it to a hospital for examination. The medics were to isolate me because their computers had matched it with something dreadful. Sterile concerns all along towards the end of the dream. Keep samples sterile, etc. keep the fluid isolated. Isolate me, too.

© Denver 2014

About the Author 



Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

Gay Music by Phillip Hoyle

I like my music gay! For more than one reason I am planning to spend several months hearing mainly gay music. The first reason for this insistence seems most immediate: my current health crisis that demands from me a sense of upbeat expectation of a recovery from my present difficulties and from the therapies the doctors devise. So I’ll play gay music to speed along the healing process. The second reason for this gay insistence relates to having just retired from fifteen years of giving therapeutic massages, mostly to tempos largo, lento, and adagio. Back then (it’s been over a month and a half) I wanted my massages to promote relaxation and so avoided country and western songs, rap, abstract jazz, metallica, and most rock ‘n roll. I played almost no Nashville, no Broadway. Now seems the time to quicken the pace and lighten the mood. So it’s gay music for me in the coming months.

I’m a habitual shelf reader from my many years of roaming library stacks. I’m a methodical one preferring to read from left to right, following the ascending numbers of the Dewey Decimal System. So I’m going to read the shelves of my small CD collection to select my first round of music playing for the weeks to come. Luckily I no longer have a catheter in place so I can comfortably sit on the floor to view my low-down shelves.

So it begins, shelf one. Mathias organ music. I’ll skip that. Oh Dupré. More organ music but too dour and over serious for this man in recovery. Skip, skip, skip, skip. Hmm. Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto? No, I have always found this particular recording just a bit too screechy. I don’t want to put myself on edge. Skip, skip, skip. “Songs of Atlantic Canada”? Surely this album is out of place among these classical works, but I recall how accessible the arrangements of regional folksongs are. Guess I’ll select this Cape Breton Chorale album and think of my Canadian friend Bill, who gave it to me and has for years been thoughtful and supportive. John Tavener’s “Ikons” presents glorious, creative music but … no, not now. Just not gay enough. “Lend Me Your Ear” by Double ‘O Six. That’s a possible listen with classically trained voices. Very choral though all soloists who do crazy things to Chattanooga Choo Choo, With a Little Help from My Friends, and other pop pieces. Here. “Pieces of Africa” by the Chronos Quartet. I might put that on right now and reread the get-well note from my African son Francis. Oh, an album of Charpentier’s Christmas music. Yes. Even though the composer accidently poisoned himself and his family by serving the wrong kind of mushrooms, his music evokes a delicate gaiety. Well, it’s French Baroque with a light touch. Hum. “Albinoni’s Adagios.” More Baroque, although Italian. I really like these but heard the album way too many times over the last twelve and a half years playing it for one of my long-time clients who listened only to classical music. As I mentioned, too many adagios in my recent past. Oh Dianne Bish’s “Great European Organs.” That sounds like a gay album. I clearly recall Bish’s pant suit—all gold sparkles—from when she concertized the Cassavant at East Heights United Methodist Church, Wichita. If she’d had a candelabrum she’d have seemed a twin to Liberace. How gay that would be?

Brahms. Lovely Brahms, but his “German Requiem”? They can play that for my memorial service that I hope is a long ways off. Hovhaness’ “And God Created Great Whales.” That one always picks me up, especially when the humpback whales make their first appearance. “The Choral and Vocal Arrangements of Moses Hogan.” Some of that album is somber but I’ll surely enjoy his stunning arrangement of Elijah Rock. Yes. And here, for a change of pace, Handel’s “Chandos Anthems.” I know at least a few of the anthems that can serve me for a special meditative gay moment, especially the soprano and tenor duet In the beauty of holiness with its long descending melismas spun out and interwoven by singers and orchestra. It thrills me. Brahms again; his ‘Complete Intermezzos” played by the Russian Luba Edlina. Yes. These always lift me with their lush harmonies and inventive melodies. I’ll float along with Brahms. While at it I guess I’ll hear Bach’s “Inventions and Sinfonias” played by Glenn Gould, for me always an exquisitely gay experience.

Okay, shelf two. Pop music. Hmm. Here we go. Imogene Heap’s “Speak for Yourself” will do good things for me with her always musical and creative command of synthesizers, her invention and variety. Yes. Of course Cyndy Lauper’s “The Body Acoustic” will be on my playlist. I probably will indulge in it daily, like She Bop and Girls Just Want to Have Fun. I like so many more of these pop CDs but played most of them too many times in massage. I’ll give them and me a rest! Now this one looks good, Keith Jarrett Trio’s “Up for It.” Yes. Jazz. I’m so pleased I’m doing this. And another jazz album but this one Jacques Loussier’s “Play Bach,” his jazz trio’s renditions of JS Bach pieces, an album from 1960 that I first heard in high school. I especially am ready to hear them improvise the Gigue from Partita No. 1 in B flat major, BWV 825. I’m feeling better already. Then another kind of gay music: “Whirl” from the Fred Hersch Trio. This album will surely move to gaity, both by the music and by the knowledge that all three men are gay! Oh and the three volumes of “Verve Remixed” with their most inventive remixing of jazz standards, many from my favorite singers, with hard-hitting dance beats. Certainly I’ll spin those albums for their tremendous energy. Now this should be fun, “The Original Cast Recording of Forever Plaid,” another CD from my Canadian connection of a musical we saw together, pure nostalgic fun. Sure. And how could I not select Dinah Washington’s “Finest Hour.” Any day she is okay for me. . Oh I’ll have to skip these Miles Davis pieces. Too blue for the occasion. Guess I’ll skip the whole blues section for now with probably one exception; here it is, Cyndy Lauper’s “Memphis Blues.” She thrills me with her tremendous range of feelings and styles. Jai Uttal’s “Monkey” gets in, also his “Mondo Rama” with its high school kids. I am lifted by his traditional Indian raga, jazz, and rock fusion.

I’m tired from all these decisions. So … that gives me a good playlist that ought to last for a while. I hope they’ll lift my mood, help make me clever and gay, of course. So … I’ll just skip all the R. Carlos Nakai and other Native American flute players. I heard them too many times with my client who for over ten years wanted to hear only these pieces during her massages. “No strings,” she’d say. “They make me tense up.” Besides, if I were going to play Native American pieces, I’d want war dances. That’s not very gay sounding of me although Stonewall showed that gays in pumps and frocks can go to war. I think right now I’m just angry at disease and failures in my own body. I’ll pass on the flutes and war drums.

I’ve got plenty of music to soothe me with gaiety. I’ll even listen to some of these albums with my gay partner. Suppose that will double their effect? I hope so.

© Denver, 2014 


About the Author 

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

What’s Your Sign? by Phillip Hoyle

What’s your sign? I’ve been asked, but probably missed what was happening either because I don’t interpret questions as come-ons or more probably because I feel aversion to any archaic system of interpreting human behavior. I readily admit to being prejudiced in this matter. I’m wary due to my inattention to emotional signs; I just don’t read people well. I’m also wary due to Christian teaching and scientific methodology, both of which in the forms I got them rejected the reading of stars as omens. Were I asked, “What’s your sign?” I’d either want to explore these ideas intellectually or judge the person asking me as someone I’d not want to become intimate with—but those are my problems. In admitting these things I really wonder if my prejudice serves simply as one more defense to protect me from predators.

Oh I can answer: for instance, if you are interested, I’m a Cancer, but it seems such a lame sign as if I’m the victim of a diagnosis. Then to add on to that there’s the image of being a crustaceous crab or someone who walks backwards or sideways when what I really am interested in from life is that it be enjoyable. I certainly don’t want to become someone’s dinner. The Zodiac sign just doesn’t stick with me at a superficial level. This moniker Cancer, this superficial analytical device approached superficially for superficial reasons doesn’t attract me in any way.

In general, I find the Zodiac about as interesting as I find the medieval meditations on the temperaments. For me they have their place in history. I recall my good friend Gerry McMillin being put off by a book on the Zodiac and the Gospels, a volume that a student and friend lent her. When she told me she probably would return it unread, I reminded her that astrology was the astronomy of the biblical eras. I elaborated that according to the Jewish historian Josephus, a contemporary of the earliest Christian period, the Zodiac had a major architectural presence in Herod’s temple. Furthermore I added that I do think it strange that if this phenomenon was no good as in evil, Satanic, or against God, why didn’t Jesus the prophet and subject of the Gospels rail against it? He did preach against the money exchanges in the same temple. My friend was then able to read the book and somewhat see its logic. Still, like her, I’m not much interested in the Zodiac or in casual discussions of its details.

Super-rationalist me doesn’t want the imposition of magical formulae for analysis of personality type or prediction of future or fate, or… whatever. I have always been more interested in modern analytical categories, but eventually I came to see that norms established in psychotherapeutic practice, in sociological inquiry, and even in education-related developmental schemes often are used against people rather than for them. They are thought to describe the perfect person against which one must be judged rather than simply averages of assessment. Such norms are conscripted for court use in civil and criminal proceedings by both prosecutors and defenders. They are used to demean cultures different than those based on Euro-American values. And the modern behavioral norms really haven’t changed all that much from their ancient counterparts—which means they are imbued or endowed or stink of the fear of the beyond, powers over which humans have no control, and so forth. So I laugh at being asked “What’s your sign?”

Oh, I’m polite, because really I don’t know what the asker is wanting: for example, does the interlocutor simply want conversation? Not bad in itself. Does the person want an answer to easily fit me into some convenient category? I will only disappoint. Does he or she want to know me for what I am? That’s going to take more than a conversation. Is the asker on some drug that makes the esoteric knowledge afforded by the Zodiac real? I’m not at all interested. Is my inquirerer a lay pop psychologist? Still not interested. Is this person a deep thinker trying to assess me in my approach to life? This will take a long time; we’ll need many meetings and carafes of coffee and probably some wine. You see, many possibilities make me both interested and wary.

What to answer? I could say:
“I’m a Cancer but probably not in the way you mean.” or
“I’m a Cancer but not all that moody.” or
“I’m a Cancer but an unpredictable cusper.” or
“I’m a Cancer but probably not what you’re looking for.”

Now, if with dark browns enhanced by natural eye shadow and a slight downturn shape at the lateral edges that crinkle when laughing, and should those eyes look longingly into my hazels and ask: “What’s your sign?” I’ll probably not have anything to say but may really get confused and confounded by the question and not worry over why it was asked. I’ll simply say, “Sure,” and pay the bar bill and say, “Let’s go.”

© Denver, 2013

About the Author 



Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

Drifting by Phillip Hoyle

In a very important sense I was drifting through life back then. Oh I had goals in my career and a highly structured schedule, but I was living into the common cultural expectation of marriage with children. I appreciated that my ministerial work afforded me the luxury of reading, researching, teaching, and the like. I easily tolerated the work conditions. In regard to family, I lived with a wonderful woman and by then two very interesting and creative children. I floated my way downstream keeping in the current but letting it move me along well-worn channels.

Then Mike A drifted into my life. He showed up one afternoon at the church where I worked, out on Camp Bowie Boulevard in west Fort Worth, Texas. I didn’t know what he expected, but there he stood looking a little beat down yet clean in cowboy boots, western shirt, Levis, and sporting a tooled leather belt with a big metal buckle that announced in all caps STUD. I was amused as well as concerned. We talked. He wanted help getting his life back together.

I don’t remember if Mike had his equipment with him but he told me he was a welder and needed to get a job. He may have had his welding mask and gloves and probably a suitcase or a box of clothes. He did have a rather pleasant manner and spoke working-class Texan with a distinct twang, drawn-out syllables, and what seemed to me, strange pronunciations. He also had a sense of humor and a charming smile. He was down on his luck but he wasn’t done with life or with living it.

Mike assured me he would be able to get work if he could just get to a particular place to apply. Realizing he’d have to rely on me for a few days, I drove him to a fabrication shop way out in east Fort Worth where he secured a job. Maybe he’d worked there before; I didn’t know. In fact I knew nothing about this world, but Mike did start work at that shop the next day.

Mike knew his trade. While returning to our apartment, he said my car was “arkin’” and asked me to pull into the grocery store and give him a dollar. He’d fix it. I knew there was something draining the power from my car and had wasted quite a bit of money paying mechanics who didn’t repair it. I had no idea what was wrong, nor had I ever heard the word “arkin’.” For 89 cents Mike bought electricians tape and wrapped the places where the insulation had worn off a couple of spark plug wires. He knew the sound of an electric arc; after all he was a welder. And his fix held for many years!

Mike went home with me to my wife and two kids and stayed for a week. I gave him a ride to work and picked him up at the end of his shift—what in the church office I called my paper route. One parishioner overheard the reference and asked the secretary if the church wasn’t paying me enough to live on. That week as we traveled back and forth across the city, I picked up random details about his life, his loss of job, his estrangement from his wife, their two girls who lived with her. I felt like I’d gone down this road before; assisting someone, wondering if my efforts would really help.

Within a week Mike arranged two-way transportation for work. It didn’t occur to me that he was probably back into a network of relationships he had known for years; I was too busy with my life to worry over his details. Mike met church people at our apartment. For him being around educated folk may have seemed odd. One of them perceived Mike’s alcoholism. I knew he drank; she knew of his disease. Her insight made sense of some things I had observed.

One night Mike called me. He had burned his eyes at work—a common hazard for welders. “Could you get some eye drops and bring them to me?” he asked. “Of course,” I answered inquiring just what kind he needed. I drove over to his by-the-week motel, knocked on his door, and administered the eye drops. That’s when Mike gave me one of the most precious gifts I’d ever received. As the sting was abating from his eyes he looked up and said, “I love you, Phillip.”

“I’m happy to help,” was my defended reply to this rather crass, beer-guzzling, Texas cowboy stud. But I was stunned. No man had ever said those words to me, not even in my family.

I knew about love. In college years I had learned to speak words of love to my girlfriend, who became my wife. Actually she taught me how. Saying such words seemed a requirement to get married. I’d said “I love you” many times to her, to my son, to my daughter, and I meant it. A couple of years before Mike drifted into my life I realized that I had fallen in love with a male seminary classmate. I refrained from saying “I love you” to him lest it seem manipulative or, worse, scare him away. Now this drunk said “I love you” to me. I took it to mean he deeply appreciated my help. At the same time I realized I was not interested to explore any further dimensions of its potential with him. My heart was already elsewhere—way too committed to my family and to the one male friend I adored.

I also came to realize my patient and caring help to this man who may have been starved for any kind of love—that along with his lowered threshold of defenses due to his drinking—left him open to say whatever he felt. I received his drifting expression with deep appreciation and realized how much I wanted, even needed to be loved deeply by a man, especially one who might open his non-alcoholic heart to me.

It took twenty more years of maturing for me to do what my heart of hearts desired: to live with a man I loved and who loved me. But I wonder how many more years may have passed if I had not heard those words from my Texas cowboy STUD. His gift to me far exceeded mine to him, and I continue to appreciate that Mike A. had drifted my way.© Denver, 2014

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

Lonely Places by Phillip Hoyle

The young man who came into my office that afternoon seemed restless as well as earnest. He had stopped by the church, asking to talk with a priest I suppose. I don’t recall the specifics—perhaps the two ordained ministers were out making calls or attending meetings—but like most odd cases not involving members, he ended up in my office. I shook his hand and invited him to be seated. He was shorter than average, a lightweight, dressed in slacks and a summer shirt, his light brown hair buzzed short.

I asked him, “How can I help you?”

He replied, “I need to make a confession.”

My mind rushed through spontaneous although unexpressed thoughts, “Oh they do that at the Cathedral just a block away,” “He doesn’t know much about churches,” “I need to hear this from his point of view,” “I hope he doesn’t think I’m a priest.” I said, “What happened?”

As he hesitated, I realized that whatever the problem was, he thought of it as a sin.

He spoke the unmentionable quickly, “I was with a man last night. We had sex. I didn’t like it.”

I heard his choked out words. He was nearly shaking, ready to cry. I wondered just how old he was, not because I was thinking of the legality of the act or of who initiated it, or why it had taken place. I didn’t assume he was asking for council. He had used the word confession. I felt sorry that whatever happened made him feel so badly. Also I didn’t know if he was playing me for financial support, but I did know he was upset.

I engaged him in further conversation, the content of which I do not recall. Perhaps we prayed together. I’m sure I gave no sacramental words of absolution (we just didn’t do that in our church), but I may have prayed with him in such a way that he could open himself to a sense of forgiveness and self-acceptance through an idea of God’s infinite love. The office was getting ready to close. I asked him if he had transportation home. I offered a ride.

We engaged in more talk during the ride to the south end of the city. Although I have no memory of the conversation, I do recall my feelings and thoughts. I didn’t find myself attracted to him. I wondered at his family life. I realized he might not be asking me for anything but simply needed to tell another human being about the upsetting event. I didn’t know what he thought.

Really I was not much older than he: I twenty-four or five, he nineteen or twenty I supposed. I thought of him as being younger. I was a college graduate; I didn’t know if he had finished high school but thought he may have dropped out.

We must have talked about his need for a job, something I’m sure he brought up. I told him if he needed a ride to a job interview to give me a call. He did so a day or two later. That’s when I met his mom and was in their house. He was not waiting for me so I went to the door and knocked. He came to the door shirtless and invited me inside. He was in the front room ironing a shirt in preparation for the interview while talking to his mom who was in the kitchen. I put myself in neutral, so to speak, listening and watching. While he wasn’t handsome, he did have an attractive body and fine enough verbal skills. I could see he lived in a family with few resources. The new thing for me was their conversation about relatives and friends who were in and out of jail. I was surprised. This was no movie script, and there seemed to be no consciousness of their topic being strange. I concluded that this distraught young man faced more problems than simply his sexual crisis I heard about in my office. In fact, in the weeks I knew him, he too, was in and out of jail. I know because he called me to give him a ride home when he got out. We talked about the experience for him. I don’t recall why he was in jail, perhaps just following in his familial footsteps. He didn’t seem too upset by it except for the boredom of life in jail with nothing to do all day except play cards with other prisoners incarcerated there. I had listened, accepted, talked, and in our brief time offered him transportation. I never heard from him again.

I wondered how conflicted he might be over his homosexuality, but for me his needs seemed more basic: to get and keep a job, build a life, and have a goal. With all my middleclass assumptions, I was unable to touch him in his lonely place or even approach the events that pushed him to show up for confession at the wrong kind of church.

Of course, now I know his lonely place met mine. My work at an upper-middle class church of professionals often left me feeling alone. I fit in but only because of my sense of ministry, my work in music and education. I told another minister of my contacts with the young man without the detail of what he was initially upset about. I told him about how strange I found the conversation between him and his mom when talking about uncle so and so who had just got out of jail or just went back in. I had never been exposed directly to such a world and saw how disadvantaged a youngster in a family with that as daily conversation could be. The minister responded, “O, I bet he was probably as surprised by your world as you were by his.”

That seemed a good perspective. At least I thought it helpful especially as no lines were inappropriately crossed by me or the young man. Yet his voice that appealed across experiential boundaries spoke powerfully to me. I was learning much more about myself. With more knowledge I then saw in our church indications of young people who were conflicted homosexuals and felt a kind of heart for them during those years. I knew adults, too, about whom I wondered, especially when they would tell gay-deriding jokes that I learned gently to counter. But in so doing I realized I was walking a dangerous, lonely edge. I hoped they’d see my appeal as pastoral rather than self-revealing. That fear left me in the most lonely place of my life.

Denver, © 2014

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot

Breaking into Gay Culture by Phillip Hoyle

I didn’t break into Gay Culture but rather carefully walked in prepared for my entrance by my good friend Ted. Over many years he had coached me, revealed the ins and outs of much of the culture by taking me to gay bars, introducing me to gay people, teaching me the language both spoken and unspoken, introducing me to gay novels, showing me more of his life than I really asked to see, and talking endlessly with me about gay experience. His tutoring took on a different seriousness when in my mid-thirties I told him I’d made it with another man, a friend of mine he’d met years before. From that point on, Ted simply assumed I was gay whatever non-gay decisions I made. His assumption led him to open even more of himself to me rather than shield me from realities that would certainly become important should I leave my marriage and go gay full time! Ted was my effective educator.

About two months after my wife and I separated I made my entry into a world I had only studied. Three blocks from my apartment I entered a bar named The New Age Revolution, a bar I had seen while walking with my wife and had wondered if it could be gay. Why else would it have such a name in Tulsa, Oklahoma? I had thought about when I would be ready to go alone to such a place, thought about when I’d go there as a gay man. Would I be courageous enough to do so? Of course, I would. After all, I didn’t separate from a twenty-nine-year-long, perfectly fine marriage to an understanding and lively woman whom I adored without intending to live a fully open gay life. I had already begun preparing to leave my profession of thirty-two years, one in which I realized I would not be able to live openly gay. So I glanced in the mirror, took off my tie, straightened my clothes, walked out the apartment, descended sixteen floors in the elevator, waved at the security guard, exited the building, and walked those three blocks down to the bar. I went early, way too early according to Ted’s instruction. He taught me never to show up before ten. I’m sure I was there at nine. I suppose it was a weeknight; I had to work the next day. The place was nearly deserted. There was music. A few people stood around talking to one another. I went up to the bartender, said “Hi,” and ordered a beer; I don’t recall what kind of beer but it was in a bottle. While I slowly sipped at my drink, I looked around at the decorations. This place just had to be gay. I couldn’t imagine any other saloon that would display a decorated dildo on the wall behind the bar. I was pretty sure I had made it to the right place.

This was not only the first time I had been alone in a gay bar; I’m sure it was the first time I’d been alone in any bar. I grew up in a dry state with a prohibitionist mother and had married a tea totaler. I had drunk beers on occasion, but had never gone to a bar before I was in my thirties and living away from Kansas. I had rarely even paid for a drink. I thought about a gay friend of mine who said he sometimes went to gay bars simply for the spiritual aspect of it, as a point of identity, participation, and presence. I stood in the bar that night not talking to anyone, thinking about how being there certainly was a kind of spiritual experience, one of great importance to me. I was finally present publically as a gay man. There I was beginning my future life as openly gay.

I drank another beer. Finally I nodded to the bartender, left a generous tip (changes must be commemorated with great generosity), and exited the door. I walked thoughtfully up the hill all the time watching peripherally for anyone that might have seen me leave the place; after all I was in Oklahoma. I entered the apartment building and returned to my home. I suspect I played music and messed around with some art project. I thought about making gay saints for my next series of mixed media works. Would I become one I wondered?

That evening I walked into a bar but wasn’t breaking into gay culture. Actually I was breaking out of several important, long-standing straight relationships. My entering gay culture passed as quietly as that first night in a gay bar by myself, and I’ve never regretted that short walk some fifteen years ago.© Denver, 2012

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com

A Few Words about Sex and Relationships by Phillip Hoyle

At times I am a thinker. So here is a summary of “I used to think…, but now I think…” although it really is “I used to do…, and then I thought…, and then I did a lot more, and then I thought some more, and now I think….”

As a child I was open to sex with my friends. I never had it with my siblings and was unaware of any of my friends having sex with their siblings. Nor was I aware that any friend or acquaintance was having sex with an adult. The play happened occasionally over several years, with a number of kids around my age.

When I was fourteen, an older man molested me as it is defined by law. I wasn’t upset. What he did felt good, but I was not interested to spend time with him and within a year my family moved to another town.

Then at age fifteen I had quite a lot of sex with a friend a year younger than I. With him, the sex came complete with all the pleasures afforded by increasing hormones—that double testosterone fix as it were—and some things the other guy had learned somewhere else. His family moved away the following summer, just before I turned sixteen. I didn’t have another boyfriend for years.

What did I think of all this? I wasn’t bothered by it and since I also had girlfriends, I reasoned it might be a sort of phase I was going through. I did not have sex with my girlfriends although we did dance and hug and kiss on occasion.

Upon graduation from high school I went to college and applied myself to my studies but found no girlfriend or boyfriend. As a sophomore I met and started dating the young woman who would become my wife. Unlike some other students in our church-related school, we were conventional in our expectation to wait until the wedding before having sex. At the same time I read books on the matter. I learned about hymens and pain and how men and women often have quite differing relationships with sex and differing expectations related to the interactions. I found helpful the ideas about how to have sex and how to sustain the loving relationship for years and years. I paid attention. I taught my wife what I had learned and we commenced our marriage with gently-approached, though vigorous, sex. We continued that exploration for twenty-eight years and the sex was an important feature of the way we communicated and loved one another.

At the same time during these years that were characterized in our nation by the sexual revolution, I evaluated ideas of sex and relationship. Not being very ceremonial, I came to think that if a man and woman get together sexually, they become married—at least in terms of the religious universe in which I lived and, of course, state statutes of common-law marriage. I was not at all concerned about premarital sex assuming it was just that. When one of my sisters and her boyfriend talked with me about their pregnancy, I was accepting and reassuring, a fact that surprised her ROTC boyfriend who was sure I’d beat him up. I laughed when he said it. He was the soldier and quite a bit bigger and stronger than I. I had no judgment against them for I was aware that I had been sexually active as a child and teen. In fact, co-habitation followed by marriage after pregnancy seemed to become the norm in American society around that time.

When at age thirty I fell in love with a man, I realized I had a few more things to consider. I had no idea of leaving my marriage and family. My only fear related to what the other man might think or desire. I would have loved having sex with him but he, too, was married, and I valued marriage. So that relationship didn’t go sexual for several years. By the time it did, I knew him well enough to hope he’d never want to leave his marriage. While I was somewhat crazy for him, I didn’t want his debt or his expectations regarding what he owed his offspring. By that time—in my mid-30s—I knew about men getting it on and sometimes living together in committed love relationships. (I had kept reading!) I knew about lesbian relationships also. I started wondering about even more complicated relationships.

The churches I worked in often had more conservative views than I. As clergy I conducted weddings—rituals with simple Hollywood-like vows—ones I found realistic given what I had learned over the years. Still I wasn’t interested in counseling couples and some years later felt relieved when I was out of the marriage business altogether. Perhaps that’s why I argue for the adequacy of civil union services for all kinds of marriage. For me it’s kind of like this: People who willingly make babies together must shoulder the responsibilities. But I know well that a union or marriage certificate has little correlation with folks’ behaviors or their ability to shoulder the burdens. I have become more European in my assumptions about marriage and extra marital affairs and have let go of all fairy tale assumptions about romance and royalty and marriage. No man’s house is his castle. No woman dolled up in a long dress adorned with flowers is Eve or a princes or a queen, and the man she is marrying is not prince charming however good looking. For me, the same sorts of things apply to all marital-type pairings, with or without children.

Oh—I remember—we live in a democracy. I’m happy to be here. I’m happy to see laws change toward more tolerance and equal rights for all citizens. I’m happy to define my own relationships. I’m happy to work out my relationships in ways that to me seem moral, helpful, and loving. That’s what I think now about sex and relationships.

Denver, © 2014

About the Author

Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”

He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot.com