Tag: Phillip Hoyle

Posted on

Anxious Moments, by Phillip Hoyle

When I heard the sound of the rattle I froze. Here alone with no one knowing I had even gone anywhere. My day off. No one at home. No cell phones. Late March afternoon on the West Mesa across the river from Albuquerque. I’d come here alone to look at the petroglyphs so I could look and look without anyone becoming bored or impatient. I’d started up a trail I’d never walked following its diagonal slope across the steep south exposure when I realized I really wanted to be off the path searching out there where no one was likely to have looked. And now I heard this surprising sound. It was too cold to worry over snakes, yet the distinctive, bone-chilling sound was from a rattlesnake. Where was it? I searched the large rock I was standing on. I studied the sage brush, rubber rabbit bushes, snake weed, and yuccas in every direction. I saw nothing, but recalled all too clearly my Scout training that had taught me these places make snakes hard to see. I wondered just how close the snake might be hoping it had moved away. I moved slightly. No sound. I waved my arms. The rattle resumed, and then stopped when I stopped. I moved my arms periodically hoping to discover just where the rattler had coiled. No such luck. I supposed my shadow had tipped off the snake in the first place. Recalling what I’d learned about snakes I realized it probably didn’t know where I was, just aware that I’d caused a shadow. Even though I couldn’t see a snake I knew not to step forward.

I’d go back the way I had come, but since I had been climbing slightly upward I’d have to go down, not a good thing in this rugged terrain. I knew a man who once stepped over a rock right onto a rattler. He got bit. Not me. I figured if I walked up hill to rejoin the well-travelled trail, (you know zag after my zig) I could then continue. I would walk uphill toward my shadow hoping not to see a snake, yet hoping to see one before it saw me. Did I want to be that close? No. Gingerly—no word for an outdoors adventurer but acutely accurate for this city slicker’s picking his way through the wilderness—I made my way ridiculously waving my arms like a windmill. Within a few yards I was startled to see the tail of a snake disappear into what I surmised was its den in the hillside. The snake had apparently been sunning on his front porch before being rudely interrupted by this quaking interloper. I was then super alert to my surroundings, and on my way up to the safety of the trail, I spotted two more disappearing snake tails. I must have been in a suburban Rattlesnake village.

Back on the trodden path I continued to the top of the mesa still alert to everything I could see to be afraid of. At the top there was mostly shade on the ground, no rattlesnake chaise lounges that I could see. I continued to a wide gully on the north side and reasoned I could safely descend where there had been no sunshine for quite a long time and probably no front porches at all. With relief but still quite a bit of anxiety running through my body, I picked a place to descend and had walked about two thirds of the way to the bottom when a loud crackling sent me almost into a panic. I saw with relief that I had frightened a rabbit. Still, several lower-body organs seemed caught in my throat. I laughed at myself the rest of the way down the hill where I was pleased to view some petroglyphs along the base of the escarpment even ones that had been viewed by thousands of other people. I really just needed to look at them, not discover new ones. Several were beautiful, and I was pleased none of them pictured rattlesnakes.

© 12 June 2017

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

Posted on

Figures, by Phillip Hoyle

Following a fifth grade public humiliation in art class, I decided I could not draw figures. I was slightly interested but never liked what I drew after that. In seventh grade I signed up for wood shop to be in class with my best friend Keith. The only thing I actually liked in that class, besides cleaning varnish brushes (I liked the way twirling bristles full of soap felt on the palms of my hands), was drawing and wood burning a design onto the bookends I made. I should have signed up for art but I just knew I wasn’t an artist.

Due to my responsibilities in religious education I organized art programs for children. One teacher taught figure drawing. She made sure it included things like crosses and globes so the parents would understand why. Mostly I was interested that children grow artistically (music, drama, and visual arts) seeing them as religious expression, skills they would never forget from their childhood years in church.

Eventually I knew I needed to draw, so I bought a book on how to draw in a natural way, a large drawing tablet, and a set of art pencils. I worked at it and learned much more that I could incorporate into art projects I planned for others. Still I wasn’t a strong drawer. When I later signed up for a drawing workshop the thing didn’t get enough enrollees. I kept at my own figure drawing, even used my slight skills in my work.

Figures of speech were much more familiar to me. I had learned speech and some rhetoric in college and graduate school, wrote many papers to satisfy my professors, used the assigned topics in my own way in order to do research related to what intrigued me in the classes, preached a bit and eventually wrote professionally (probably a figure of speech itself although I did get paid for my work). I wasn’t a strong speaker, but I did enjoy turning ideas into written pieces.

Important figures in my life, you know those special people known or read about, include: my parents and grandparents, Lakota leader Sitting Bull, local minister W. F. Lown, a family friend who took me to powwows, The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Professor James Van Buren, several other profs, two music performance teachers, late-in-life art teachers, Myrna Hoyle my long-time wife and mother of our children, a few other partners in my gay life, many authors, some editors, the late Winston Weathers, and now some creative writing teachers.

I figure it has taken a village of thinkers, writers, musicians, and artists to make me into what I have become these days. I celebrate them and the many, many people who have put up with me in the home, work, friendships, general community, and of course, in the SAGE Telling Your Story group at the GLBT Center of Colorado. And I add; these last tributes are not just figures of speech, but rather, real live influences and personal realities that I appreciate and revere.

© 5 June 2017

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

Posted on

Dont!, by Phillip Hoyle

Surely back when I was a kid there was plenty of parental advice given, but I don’t remember much of it, certainly not many precautionary prohibitions starting with Don’t. Our parents trusted us kids—all five of us. We got freedom. A few years ago my youngest sister, Jewel, said of the folks, “They gave us too much freedom.” I was not sure what she meant but I did know that as a kid I had a life my parents knew little or nothing of. Then as a young teen that life was getting less illegal and more sinful. As an older teen it was more deplorable, but to describe my perspective more accurately, the deplorable self lived at peace with the non-deplorable self. I always liked the freedom, the lack of Don’ts, the trust merited or not.

My eldest sister, Lynn, advised, “If Dad gets angry, don’t argue, just listen.” He was mainly pleased with me, but one evening I had to follow her advice. My protracted goodbye at my girlfriend’s door went on too long. Perhaps Dad imagined I was kissing her too much while the truth was that I was trying to get up my courage to kiss her at all. I wanted to but couldn’t make myself do so. I followed Lynn’s advice when he scolded me in the car. He seemed angry that he had to wait on me. I listened and apologized without saying anything about what I was doing or unable to do, just for inconveniencing him.

My reluctance about kissing disappeared a couple of years later under the tutelage of a boyfriend. After going to his school which offered several classes and then his moving away, I finally kissed two different girls. One of them wondered what had got into me; the other expected that behavior from her boys. My second year in college I kissed Myrna much to her surprise. She got nervous and bit my ear. I thought she loved it and knew I was on my way to becoming a real man or something pathetic like that. I really enjoyed kissing her like my boyfriend had taught me and teaching her to enjoy it as well. Finally I understood what someone had written about French kissing: that it was the French answer to the need for birth control. We kissed passionately, and it did fill in for the Don’t factor for the two of us.

I prescribed a few don’ts for myself. Don’t try to answer all the teacher’s questions; doing so will only make other students despise you. Don’t forget to smile. Don’t forget to stand up for your own ideas in discussion. Don’t argue needlessly. Don’t overdress or underdress. But those are not terribly important.

Eventually I advised myself a Do. Do find a guy to do that really fun kissing with, and do it now.

© 22 May 2017

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

Posted on

Life before Ice, by Phillip Hoyle

It’s no
wonder Mom was happy to live in town where almost everyone had electricity in
their homes. Not so on the farm where she grew up just ten miles south of
Junction City.
When Mom
moved into town to attend high school, she entered a new world of running water
in kitchen and bath, flush stools inside the house, electric lights in every
room, natural gas stoves and heating systems, and refrigerators that could even
make ice. No wonder to me that she never wanted to return to the farm except to
visit her folks. And when she was being courted by a young man who wrote for a
newspaper, was buying into his father’s grocery store (that wonderful citified
substitute for a farm garden and fields), played the piano like a dream
(classical, church, and jazz), and sang with expression and in tune, it looked
like her life could become one of relative ease, say contrasted with her
mother’s.
In town Mom
could have ice every day—winter and summer: iced coffee (which she abhorred),
iced tea (great with meals in summer), and iced cream (need one say more?). She
could quickly get ice onto a burn, bruise, or swelling should a child need it,
and make better whipped cream by beating it in a bowl surrounded with ice, on
and on. And should she see a need for a large quantity of ice for any reason,
she could simply call the local Ice House and the Ice Man would show up to
deliver the size and style of ice needed. It took me years to understand any of
this; in fact, I just figured it out this year, 2016, my 69th year,
when I started writing about my early childhood.
My great
grandparents on both sides of the family rarely had ice and certainly had no
electricity in their homes. My grandparents grew up without electricity but
fortunately got some when the Hoyle’s moved from Dwight to Junction City,
Kansas in the 1920s and when the Schmedemann’s greeted the national rural
electrification program to Clarks Creek in 1947—the year I was born. I’m sure
the same was true of my rural Colorado in-laws as well. To my amazement, my
mother-in-law used to eat crushed ice a lot, even had her own ice crusher to
make it. For her the habit may have been some kind of celebration of what she
had missed in childhood and probably kept alive the hope that she might someday
retire to life in town. Eventually she did so and kept enjoying her shredded
ice.
My family
was lucky to have a refrigerator with a freezer compartment. It was rather new,
probably purchased the same year I was born. I say this because the folks’ old
refrigerator, a small one with a very small ice maker near the top, went out to
my maternal grandparents’ farm. Their lives surely got easier. By the time I
could make sense of anything, we in town were living high with running water,
city sewage, electricity, natural gas heat, a gas range and oven, a swamp
cooler, and a refrigerator with a freezer unit. This was luxury in our town.
Ice was made in cubes at home using trays with movable grids. Pull up the
handle and out pops the ice cubes, but watch out; they might be all over the
floor. Or you might have trouble getting them out at all. That’s when we’d run
water over them to begin the melting.
I take it
all for granted and do so love my Monday bowl of Guinness Ice Cream with
chocolate chunks, but that could be for the enjoyment of the ale flavor and
that of my favorite candy.
© 5 Dec 2016  
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
Posted on

All that Jazz, by Phillip Hoyle

Jazz goes
way back in my family. Dad played piano in a dance band in the 1930s and 40s. He
played a lot of jazz and he sang. Sitting at the piano in those pre-microphone
days he’d keep the rhythm going in his left hand and sing to the dancers
through a megaphone he held in his right hand. I’m sure he never lost a beat, missed
a note, or mis-sang a word.
He played
at church where the Sunday morning service was rather formal featuring hymns
like “Holy, Holy, Holy” or “Faith of Our Fathers” or even “Faith of Our
Mothers” (yes, a special version probably for Mothers Day), but the evening
service was much less staid. Preludes then featured improvised versions of simpler
gospel hymns played by Dad and my eldest sister Lynn. They would decide who
would play organ and who piano. Each hymn was played twice, first with one
person being in charge of the melody while the other was free to improvise. On
the repeat they’d change it around. Dad always played the key changes so they
had a seamless delivery. They’d begin at, say, Number 252 and keep going until
the preacher showed up to pray and preach. They’d continue their duet
accompaniments during the congregational singing. Jazz rhythms mixed with
holiness. Mom said that sometimes in those evening gatherings the back of
Brother Lown’s neck would grow red when Dad jazzed up some particularly
vivacious song. When Dad played the church’s Hammond organ, he didn’t use the
vibrato and jazz-sounding combinations, but his improvisations were as much
influenced by Jelly Roll Morton or Fats Waller as by J. S. Bach or Franz
Schubert.
There was a
lot more jazz. There were jazz 78 rpm records ones my father had collected. We
played them over and over. Then there were LPs. As a junior high kid my
favorite album among my oldest sister’s Columbia Record Club selections was
“Ella in Berlin.” My favorite moment in the recording was when scat singing a
rather fast song Ella laughingly sang, “Oh, I almost bit my tongue that time.”
And there was more performance. My sister Lynn played piano in the school jazz
band. Eventually, when churches let in more styles, she would occasionally do
jazz stylizations on hymns and gospel songs—even Christmas hymns—and yes, in
the morning service.
My next
older sister Holly and I both sang some jazz standards. Dad taught some of them
to us. One Saturday evening we got to go with him to a dinner club to hear a
live performance. Afterwards Dad made sure we understood that although he liked
our interest in jazz we should never try to make a living in jazz. “It will
never be enough for your life,” he explained. He knew too many musicians who
had music only (well that and booze and drugs and sex), and said that wasn’t
enough.
Dad and I
would sometimes stop by the Donovan Sundries Store on a Sunday afternoon. Paul
Donovan had an organ there and occasionally played jazz for us. Being
self-taught, Paul played mostly black notes; that would be like in the key of C
Sharp or F Sharp. They fit his hand Dad explained. Sometimes Dad would play a
piece or two while Mr. Donovan filled his order for a box of condoms. (It’s
interesting what a junior high boy knows about his parents. They already had
five kids; didn’t need any more!)
In high school,
I got to sing a medley of Cole Porter songs with the school jazz band and later
with the city band. That’s how I came to know “It’s All Right with Me,” and
“You Do Something to Me.” The director liked that I sang loudly. But it was
many years later when those songs really meant something romantic for me. That
occurred when I fell in love with another man.
My son
Michael from early on had a good jazz ear and played his renditions on the
guitar. His son Evan followed suit by playing his own kind of jazz on the
piano. Then his son Kalo got the jazz fever and today plays the bass in jazz
bands, folk bands, rock bands and symphony orchestras. He is also a composer
of, among other music, jazz songs. I suppose at least one of my great grandkids
will also start jazzing it up someday. Frankly I’m looking forward to it.

I feel
lucky to live in jazzy Denver. The house sits just three blocks from live jazz
performances six nights a week. And Jim and I try never to miss hearing Larry
Wegner and CJ Nicolai when they perform at the club. I bought their CD and sent
it to my sister for her birthday. It features “I Can’t Get Started,” “Stars
Fell on Alabama,” “The Falling Leaves” (CJ sings that in French), “No Moon at
All,” “Smile,” and “The Nearness of You.” Lynn wrote back: “Dear Phillip, Thank
you for the jazz CD. The first time I played it, I was cleaning the hard[wood]
floors. After one or two songs, I was crying to the music. My Style of music! …
Now we play one song at night, to get relaxed. I think I’ll never get tired of
it.” 
© 2 January 2017
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
Posted on

Assumptions, by Phillip Hoyle

The professor said to her students, “I don’t so much care about what you conclude as I do about what you assume.” She went on to explain that two people cannot actually discuss any issue until they discover what assumptions they share. If they do not have enough assumptions in common, they actually have nothing to talk about. For her, assumptions were at the heart of any matter.

Early in my church-related career I learned a process called Strategic Planning. It began with defining your goal. That would be the picture of what you hope to accomplish. The second step was to write out your assumptions about the project. Such assumptions might have to do with your own ideas that lay behind the goal and objectives, those of others who might be involved in the project, the available resources, and so forth. In group planning this look into assumptions might be brainstormed. That part would give the group a look at whether there was any hope for the goal to be pursued to its end. Sometimes the assumptions are not in accord enough to keep the group together. I used that process regularly in my work, and as a result amassed quite a number of files describing the assumptions that I held or assumed participants might hold. Those files went to the trash bin outside the church building when after thirty years I left that work.

My most recent use of this process me occurred a number of years ago when I was recruited to lead “Telling Your Story” at the GLBT Center of Colorado. I had been in the group for a few months and thought I had better clarify my own assumptions about my participation, what I had observed about other participants, what I had picked up from the originating leader, about how the setting would affect the group, about the meeting time, about the Center’s interest in the project, about the elder aspects. I wanted the program that I had found to be significant to keep working well for me and for others, and I wanted to clarify for the SAGE program director what to expect from me. I asked the director to review my assumptions about Participants, the relationship of the group to the Center, and the process of storytelling.

One past SAGE director suggested one important assumption, saying it was better to come to a group on Monday afternoon than to stay alone in one’s apartment drinking. I suppose that would come under the category Assumptions about Participants.

Not long after that assumption was shared, another one surfaced from a “Telling Your Story” participant. He assumed that we would want to publish our stories. I’m still chewing on that idea and doing a lot of work.

There was another assumption, one I thought better and truer. When I told my artist friend Sue that we weren’t an activist group, she said, “Phillip, anytime you get a group of Senior Citizens to tell the stories of their lives; that’s activism.” Her perspective came from working several years in a Senior’s living and care center. I suspect we haven’t yet covered all the assumptions possible. Perhaps these last few assumptions are more points of view related to what we have accomplished together as a group.

© 27 March 2017

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

Posted on

Maps, by Phillip Hoyle

I like maps. They remind me of a map game we played at home when I was a kid. Mom would get out some old geography books and world atlases and hand them out to us older kids. Then she’d say, “Find the Europe map.” When we all had one she’d say, “Prague,” or “the Volga River.” She might say find the Asia map, and then call out, “The China Sea,” or “The Bay of Mandalay.” Her challenge for the South America map might be, “Asunción,” or “The Amazon River.” The first one to find the place—and show it to her—was the winner. The winner would then pick out the next place name, a river, city, country, sea, ocean, continent, and so forth. One of the special challenges of the game was that the maps were not the same, so a river might not be named in one of the books. I suppose it trained our pronunciation and our ears for the language suffixes that might indicate a location by country. The teacher in Mom created a number of these games for her children to play, but I especially liked the map game. 

Map-like Art Cards by Phillip Hoyle 2017
Migrating birds.

Now I paint on maps, print on maps, sometimes even write on maps. I collect them from brochure racks in tourist places and at rest stops along freeways. I tear them out of magazines and occasionally buy one at a convenience store. I look for them in antique shops and secondhand stores. I sometimes cover them with thinned gesso or acrylic paints to make a ground for a mixed media work. I splatter them, pattern them, block out spaces, or tear them in order to match some traveler’s dream. I print on them, draw on them, paint on them, glue other things on them and in so doing create places of memory or worlds of fantasy. Most of my map messages are personal, a few political. With these maps I travel, juxtaposing unusual images, feeding some internal need that is often unclear to me, the artist. I go to places in my art, places that feed me, soothe me, please me, challenge me. I often don’t even pause to look up the name of the place. I wonder what my mother would make of these map games I now play. But I know of all the unusual people I have befriended, she would be the most likely to understand.

© 20 March 2017

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

Posted on

Connections, by Phillip Hoyle

On the holiday the Clan, my partner’s family, gathered for one of their periodic get-togethers. As usual the food was good, the conversations lively, the four generations in constant communication over what is occurring in their lives. This time the gathering was at our house where matriarch Ruth, Jim, and I live. Jim had prepared a special feature: videos of past events, ones recorded by a late partner, DB, who had related to the family more years than I have. (I’m up to 14 years.) DB died a few months ago and the showing provided family members a reminder of his contributions to their life. I enjoyed hearing them laugh at how they looked back then. I listened to their conversations about what they were seeing and realized how we newer members had missed a lot.

The youngest child, Ruth’s great-granddaughter, a precocious and rather insistent five-year-old with long blond hair tied back with a bow that matched her beautiful spring dress, kept coming indoors where the videos were running to see if her mother was on the screen. To me the mother and daughter appear to be twins separated by many years—insistent, mouthy, strong. The little one enjoyed playing with me—high fives, snatches of conversation, laughs, and flirtations. She seemed to want my attention. Jim told me she had asked him toward the end of the afternoon, “Where’s Uncle Jim?” He said, “I’m Uncle Jim.” She said, “No, not you.” He said, “Oh, you mean Uncle Phil.” “Yes.” So I made a new connection to the family through its youngest member.

© 10 April 2017

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

Posted on

Backseat of the Car, by Phillip Hoyle

I recall all too clearly the opening lyric of a song from the mid 70s, one that had its origin in the Jesus Movement and made its way to Wichita, Kansas, where I worked in a church. Someone in the youth group had heard it and since it had only three or four chords picked it up and sang it to us while strumming his guitar. “I’m just sitting in the backseat…” Although I was appalled at it for both its musical and theological simplicity, I saw clearly why it appealed.

I could just picture the California newly saved young person sitting in the backseat toking while Jesus, his ever so polite chauffeur took him here and there in the spiritual fantasy that dominated his smoke-filled imagination. I wondered if the Jesus driving the car was wearing a uniform or a long white robe. And I wondered at the sanity of the person singing the song—not the young person in my youth group– but perhaps a generation of true believers who hopefully assumed that the good God would solve all their problems. Just believe, they asserted, and open the back door of the car.

Immediately upon hearing the song my mind went to a lyric written years before by Paul Evans of six girls complaining to the driver, “Keep your mind on your driving/Keep your hands on the wheel/Keep your snoopy eyes on the road ahead/We’re having fun sitting in the back seat/Kissing and a hugging with Fred.” We laughed as we kids sang that song from the backseat of the car. But the “I” who heard the gospel song sighed, “At least in the gospel ditty Jesus is in the front seat.” There was so much romanticizing of Christianity in those mid-20th century days when people were often urged to fall in love with God or with Jesus.

The little backseat song did nothing positive for me. I hated the simplistic melody that sounded like music in a TV ad for dish soap. Its cleverness seemed so juvenile. Now, my objection wasn’t in its attempt to communicate in a popular medium. Actually my objection was to its misappropriation of John Calvin’s doctrine of salvation by grace alone, and the lyric reminded me too much of the rather unattractive sermon I heard as a teenager from a cowboy preacher in which we were urged to make Jesus our Pardnuh. This song encouraged one to let Jesus, with whom the singer had a personal relationship, take the wheel. Why? So he could drive you to heaven? So you wouldn’t have to take responsibility for your life and decisions? It was just too sappy for me. I didn’t attack the song; the kids liked it and with all the social change underway churches were always interested when any kids wanted to go to church or church youth groups. Churches were in a great hurry to accommodate the culture. That’s not a bad program in a culture based on capitalism, a society given to popular advertising gimmicks, a religion offering some kind of salvation—I suppose. The problem is the basic one of all religious communication. It is based on metaphor. I though this song chose a flawed image—especially for teenagers. Had I said so out loud I would have been seen as hopeless for work in youth ministry. That didn’t worry me. I already knew I was or at least was little interested to continue with that job description.

© 6 March 2017

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

Posted on

GLBT Hopes, by Phillip Hoyle

Growing up I had no GLBT hopes. I had no idea what those initials represented; no idea that the concepts and rich human experiences behind them had anything to do with me. I didn’t feel hopeless. I was simply clueless.

In my early twenties I began to hear and understand a little about the beginnings of the gay liberation movement. I had taken great interest in the African American movements, had begun to read about the feminist movement, and realized I needed to know more about all such movements. I had very generalized hopes for all of them, for the securing of civil rights for all Americans under law regardless of race, gender, sex, education, and a number of other differences that left them susceptible to many injustices. I saw how churches as well as the general community were unjust towards minorities. I had hopes for a better America and for better American churches.

For myself I had believed in the idea that you grew up, got educated, got married, reared children, and in my case served churches through your ministry. Since I was on route to become a minister, I accepted I would have to toe the line on some things that others in the congregation might not find necessary. Life was good. Whatever LGBT hopes I had were for others.

At the point when I accepted that homosexuality was right at the center of who I was, I hoped that my wife might find herself to be lesbian. We could then work out a special arrangement to continue living together. It didn’t happen. I assumed I would always be married and hoped I would never to go too far in satisfying my homosexual needs. I didn’t want to change the trajectory of my life.

Midlife took care of that for me. I was changing emotionally. I had no doubt that I loved my wife or that she loved me. I wanted a man to love me; I wanted to love a man. When I realized I was going to become the bad husband and a bad minister, I changed both roles. I was hurting my wife. I didn’t want to do so. We talked but there was so much emotion—so many emotions—we didn’t know what to do. Our settlement settled little. We did separate. I bore the responsibility before our families. We said goodbye with a kiss and tears.

Within a month I had GLBT hopes. Lots of them: to finish my job obligation; to move to one of three western American cities; to live openly as a gay man. For twenty years I had considered myself bisexual. Now I was going to simplify my life.

My gay hope was to learn just what gay would mean for me. First though some other things would take my attention: getting work for income, writing, and dedicating lots of time to the visual arts. I began writing episodes from my life and then writing about my new work: massage. A new gay hope emerged: to write up my gay life experiences. Before long I was pleased to find myself loving a man who loved me. I hoped we’d have lots of time together. He died from AIDS. Then I grieved a true GLBT grief. During this time I was careful with myself. I stayed busy with my work. I was still engaged as a gay man. I wrote about the loss of my gay partner. It was a sequel to one I had written a couple of years earlier when a gay friend had died from AIDS. (The two pieces may be my best writing to date.)

Then I met a gay daydream at a bus stop in my neighborhood. Our love blossomed. Then he died. I sagged. Still I wrote and realized I would write much more about my gay experiences. My arts kept me hopeful.

A straight woman friend of mine told me about the SAGE of the Rockies Telling Your Story. I attended wondering how my writing would be heard by a truly GLBT audience. It was like a gay hope come true.

From this ever-changing group of storytellers that offers every-changing and sometimes emotion-blowing perspectives, I have clarified my new GLBT Hopes:

I now hope that GLBT (etc.) folk will all someday take time to hear one another’s stories. There is no better way to come to know oneself than to hear the stories of others, no better way to be inspired than to hear the experiences of another person you know more than superficially. I hope that those stories will also become of interest to other humans—you know like those who claim to be straight or heterosexual or some other category. I want this latter so they can see how little different are all people.

I hope that GLBTs will always vote mindfully in local, state, and national elections.

I hope that LGBTs will come to appreciate and respect one another as much as we want others to honor and respect us.

© 9 January 2017

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