Tag: Phillip Hoyle

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Sorry, I’m Allergic, by Phillip Hoyle

I’m
allergic to several fine particles such as house dust, essential oils, and some
burning incense. They sometimes provoke histamine reactions such as itchy eyes,
tears, sneezes, or a runny nose.
In
my late 30’s I became allergic to MSG when it is used in high proportions in
the food it seeks to enhance. I started getting hives when ingesting this food
additive. Originally the itchy red spots showed up just in the hair on my head,
then later in my ears, then on my cheeks, eventually on my neck, and finally on
my shoulders as well as all the other places. The hives tend to itch for about
20 minutes and then subside. A doctor friend gave me Benadryl when I got hives
at a meal. When the medicine went to work some twenty minutes later, I wasn’t
itching but was so sleepy I yawned until our friend left. I decided the
treatment wasn’t really effective for me. I gave up eating anything marked MSG.
In
spring and fall I tend to have congestion in my sinuses. I usually blame
pollens or other things in the air. I abide them and their attending
discomforts, usually without treatment. My relationship with allergies seems
pretty mild and way too lame to provide fodder for stories, a fact I’m actually
happy to report.
But
who wants to hear such good news except the person receiving it or their
partner who may have to suffer with them sneezing, wheezing, blowing, and
complaining? Oh I do snore and wonder if my partner will develop an allergic
reaction to this condition. He rarely complains, and for some reason I almost
never am aware of my snoring.
My
sister Holly was allergic to Tommy Shane, the boy next door. She’d get
congested and develop hives anytime he came around much the same as she would
get when eating fresh strawberries. Fortunately she eventually found a guy she
was not allergic to and they have been married for decades.
No
one in our family was allergic to work.
Sometimes
when fresh cut flowers are on display in the living room I find I have to move
to another room. I blame it on the strong aromas of some of them but suppose
more realistically my reaction is to the pollen they bring into the house, but
to say so seems as lame as telling my history professor my paper was late
because one of the children was ill. Oh well. I just don’t talk much about my
tiny allergies that seem like almost nothing compared with the skin allergies
my mother and my next younger sister endured. They seemed especially reactive
to springtime elm pollen. Mom also was allergic to some household cleaners. She
wore gloves and smeared lots of petroleum jelly on her hands at certain times
of the year.
I
feel fortunate that I am not allergic to any of the art materials I choose to
work with.
 That’s about it. Really boring…
I
can’t even think of a personal story to treat allergies as a metaphor so broad
is my acceptance of people. So you can probably conclude that if I were to make
the excuse, “Sorry, I’m allergic,” I’d probably be lying or at least
exaggerating a non-condition in order to get out of some situation I didn’t
want to cope with or some activity I just cannot abide.
© 15 Sep 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
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Patriotism, by Phillip Hoyle

Last
weekend while travelling south along I-25, we approached the Broadway exit. A
large American flag held aloft on a sturdy pole sunk in concrete and sitting at
the top of a rampart flapped in the breeze. “I’ve never noticed that before,”
my friend commented.
“Nor
I. Must be new,” I responded.
Her
next comment was about how good it is to live in America. I agreed with my
rather minimal statement that I, too, was happy to live here. I believe for her
the sentiment is rather standard fare formed from listening to too much
conservative talk radio. We don’t talk about that. For me the issue of being
“proud to be an American” is something quite different. She seems some kind of
absolutist while I am surely a relativist. So are we philosophers? Since we
spotted the flag on I-25 I’ve been thinking about patriotism—perhaps that does make
me a philosopher of sorts.
I
believe patriotism most dramatically relates to an image of heroes who put
their very lives on the line for their identity as part of a particular people.
The history of any Fatherland or Motherland obviously has its origins in the
LAND. For me the land is always the Flint Hills of Kansas. I grew up in wide
open spaces with a broad river valley and low bluffs nearby. The landscape was
further defined by creeks: so grassy highlands and wooded valleys with stretches
of plowed fields in the bottomlands of waterways are all a part of my
fatherland. Agriculture abounded there.
In
my particular patria a military
presence with a long history lent gravity and opened me to a larger society and
world. I grew up around the U.S. Army’s Seventh Cavalry; Custer was once
stationed at Fort Riley just across the river from our town. The presence of historic
stone buildings that housed both the officers and the fine horse stock of the
cavalry, of wooden barracks for the enlisted men, of parade grounds, of rifle
ranges, of helicopters coming and going in the air around the base’s heliport,
of convoys made up of personnel carriers and artillery, jeeps and guns, trucks
and heavy machinery often impeding traffic on highways, and of our lively
community that entertained GIs provided endless variety for a Kansas town me.
Then there were the children of Army families in our school population, and for
me, the family-owned IGA store providing groceries for families of GIs, Civil
Service employees, as well as the townies like me.
Thus
my patria was racially mixed, with
multiple languages, mixed-race families, and people who had lived all over the
world—especially Germany and Japan as I recall it. Soldiers marched in local
parades and cannons and other Army equipment impressed the youngsters and brought
tears to the eyes of elders.
My
fatherland was rather new by world standards yet as a youngster I felt
connected to the antiquity of the place by the presence of an old log cabin church
and by stories of my ancestors who had long lived in the area. Still the Hoyle
and Schmedemann families arrived only three generations before my advent. My
great grandparents came to Kansas to homestead. Some may have come to help
assure that Kansas would be a free state in the political heat up that
eventuated in the US Civil War. Yet in my family there were no ultimate
patriots—those who made the ‘ultimate sacrifice’ for their country—in any of
the stories I heard.
Growing
up I heard lots of talk of such sacrifices of life, but most of them were in sermons
not about the country but quoting a “no greater love” value as applied to the
ultimate vicarious death of Jesus as the Christ. Religion figured heavily in my
fatherland.
I
became aware of the country as something much larger than my state when I heard
my parents talk about the differences between Ike Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson, then when I met men who had served in the Korean conflict, when I
further realized just what the US Army did besides entertain us with wild
stories and exotic tattoos, when I became aware of missile crises, the Cold
War, the building of the interstate road system, the anti-communist diatribe,
the deaths of national leaders, the threat of the draft, the Vietnam non-war,
the peace movement, and the growing realization that our USA motivations
idealized in myth and PR announcements didn’t well match my own vision of reality
or basic values.
Welcome
to thoughtful adulthood, Hoyle.
AND
EVEN MORE THAN THAT, THERE WAS ALWAYS THAT NAGGING REALIZATION THAT IF ANYONE
REALLY KNEW ME, THEY CERTAINLY WOULDN’T LET ME BE A PATRIOT IN ANY SENSE OF THE
WORD.
But
I am a patriot who feels a deep sense of meaning in being American. I love it
but not in an exclusivist, better-than-any-other identity or country.
© 25 Sep 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
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House Cleaning, by Phillip Hoyle

I’m not against it, house cleaning; I
just am not very good at it, never thinking of the need until I can barely
breathe or company’s coming! I’d rather live in a clean place than a pig sty,
but I’ve been around a bit and know that standards of house cleaning vary
greatly from culture to culture, country to country, family to family, and for
me day to day. Sometimes I feel the need, other times I don’t even see the dust
or grime. I think of Quentin Crisp’s book The
Naked Civil Servant and take consolation that, as he claims, after
three months the dust doesn’t get deeper. It may be true, but then company is
coming and something has to be done.
House cleaning is not a favorite
task. Oh, I was trained to do it as a kid: to run the Electrolux and the
Johnson polisher, to do the dishes and take out the trash. I had to keep my
room neat, put away toys, return books to their proper places, and occasionally
run a dust cloth. Daily I made my bed although it was always an awkward task.
When I went to work at the family grocery store, I learned how most effectively
to use various kinds of brooms, how to dust and face shelves, how to mop and
wax floors, how to strip tile, and how to wash windows. Still, such tasks are
not my favorites.
During the past two weeks I’ve been
reading a book of Pawnee village life in the year 1876 (Gene Weltfish. The Lost Universe: Pawnee Life and Culture
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1965). I was intrigued with the
housekeeping work their semi-nomadic life required. They’d leave their earthen
lodges for a month for the summer hunt. In their absence fleas would take over,
so an advance party would return and start cleaning. They’d smoke the places
out several times to chase away the vermin and deodorize. In one scene the
women who were preparing their house complained that the fleas that summer bit
worse than the bedbugs. I thought of Denver’s current plight with bedbugs and
my fear we might get them since I check out books from the public library.
Fears aside, my house cleaning seems quite simple compared with what these
folks endured.
Mom was a housekeeper who must have
marveled at the modern home she and dad built just before their wedding, a house
with a gas furnace, gas stove, and hot running water. There were no trees to
cut and logs to carry in, no cows to feed and milk, no chickens to feed, to get
eggs from, and to dress for dinner, no garden to tend and reap, no necessary
canning chores. I recall seeing her canning set, probably a wedding gift in
those days, packed away in a box in the basement. I often wondered how one used
such tools. Smart woman, she married a grocer! Harvesting was a simple call to
the store. And I’ve mentioned the Electrolux, the electric polisher, all that
modern stuff. But life was not especially a picnic once the children came
along. Besides house cleaning and feeding the flock, she modeled clothing at a
department store, taught Sunday school, eventually led PTA and Girl Scouts
meetings, organized an evening youth group at church, and reared five children.
She served as a committee person with the Kansas Prohibitionist Party, attended
meetings of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, supported the Kansas
Children’s Service League, and after my sister Christy got polio, worked hard
for the Kansas March of Dimes. She trained her kids to do any number of
cleaning tasks and like a sergeant held us to our work with expectations
softened with humor. Housekeeping was easy for her, a woman who worked
efficiently in everything she did.
I married a young woman whose mom
very self-consciously had trained her to become a housewife as well as a good
citizen and good church volunteer. Myrna buzzed around the house with ease
keeping things clean, cooking, and preparing for company. I made it my task to
support her work by not leaving messes, picking up after myself, and assisting
in house cleaning anytime I was asked. I’m sure I was completely spoiled.
Many years later I had my own place,
alone. I was fifty years old. I immediately smashed together living and dining
spaces in order to gain an art studio, a place I wouldn’t have to clean up
daily. I rarely entertained but rather read, wrote, studied, did art pieces and
occasionally had sex with a guest. Later, in Denver, I had even less space to
mind. I got a sweeper, set up my art studio in one room and my massage studio
in the other. The regular presence of clients for massage served as my impetus
to do house cleaning. I’m sure I wanted Mom and Myrna to be somehow proud of
me.
I so tend to get into the moment of
house cleaning, a moment that takes me deep into a corner, for instance, a
stain or some other single task I’ve been putting off and attend to it with
such intensity I lose track of time and the rest of the things I had originally
thought I’d accomplish in the next hour. It’s a hazard of my personality I
guess. Oh well, I’m really not a house cleaner although I do a number of things
in the large house where I now reside. But I miss my two-room apartment that I
could really keep up with. Ten rooms seems excessive to me these days. Oh for
the good old days, but that’s really just a jest. I’d hate to get with it farm
chores, fleas, and bedbugs. So I do what I need to do and let the rest of it
go, oh until company’s on its way.
© 12 Mar 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
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Still Learning after All These Years, by Phillip Hoyle

My artist and poet friend Sue keeps learning. She has studied art with teachers and has produced art in several mediums for years. She has managed co-op art galleries, displayed her works in solo and group shows, and taught art to youngsters. But now Sue has extremely limited money resources. For awhile she kept up her learning about art processes by watching arts and crafts shows on TV. When she got a PC, she switched to following art blogs and watching tutorials. Still she is learning. Still she keeps experimenting. Still.

I likewise keep learning bolstered in my resolve to do so by watching Sue’s creative efforts and by recalling the concept of lifelong learning I promoted during my long career as a minister. I try to practice what I preached. For instance, I have long participated in a writers group that, although it does not critique pieces, affords me a constant source of response and learning. When I read something to that group of writers, I hear my words differently and pick up problems I’ve missed in my own reading and editing. I also get positive feedback.

When possible I have attended art workshops. One of the most helpful processes I learned in a week-long event with Houston artist Polly Hammett in 1998 was a process of self-criticism. She recommended the process that continues to teach me about my work and its direction. Her SELF-CRITIQUE is this:

Select from your current work several of the pieces. Set them up as a gallery. Decide three things you like about each piece.

1. See them. As you look at each piece see what you like.

2. Say them. Aloud say what it is that you like. Say aloud all three things.

3. Write them. Write down those things you have decided. If you are working on paper, write them on the back of the piece itself. If not, write them in a notebook. Write them.

Then choose your favorite piece. Decide, say, and write why it is your favorite, how it is related to the other pieces, and how it is different. “Do this,” she said, “so you keep affirming what you like. You will do again such things if you repeat them verbally.” She also stressed not to spend any time on the things you don’t like or you’ll end up doing them again and again! I have applied her advice to my work over the past fifteen years.

When I worked at a spa clients would sometimes ask, “How long have you been doing massage?”

I told them, “I’ve given massages professionally for eight years.”

“What did you do before that?” they almost always responded.

“I was a minister,” I said. That stopped the conversation almost as effectively as being introduced as a minister to a group of people drinking heavily in a bar.

“That’s really different,” many of them would eventually respond.

“No,” I answered with a chuckle. “My clients still tell me their problems.”

We’d laugh together. Then I’d clarify. “Actually it is different. In the massage context they edit their stories much less.”

Even in this last year of massage I have been learning new processes, new applications of things I learned in school, and sometimes a realization of what my teachers were trying to communicate about the work all those years ago.

In 2013 I am still learning not only about my art and massage, but also about personal relationships, things I never before could have imagined. The things people have told me about their lives probably were just details I couldn’t imagine about folk in churches when they told me their troubles. I have learned about life and about people, including many things about the varieties of GLBT folk!

Enough of these stories. Here’s my elder advice:

* In learning and work, both go it alone and collaborate with others.

* Adopt a rookie attitude about your life, skills, and learning even if you are ancient.

* Like Sue, find novel ways to learn.

* Keep your eyes open, your ideas transportable, and your attitudes creatively engaged.

And let me tell you; I hope to keep learning right up to my last breath.

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

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Shopping, by Phillip Hoyle

We’d been out dancing together earlier in the week—Ronnie, my wife, and I–and were planning another outing. I liked Ronnie, thought he was really funny and cute in his own peculiar way. He was clever with language and image, always laughing, a serious two-stepper in his western boots twirling my wife this way and that with an ease I could never quite master. We’d go dancing, and she’d keep us both busy so teetotaler she would never have to stop and consider that she was dancing in a country western bar. That afternoon, while sitting in a booth with several employees at the Marie Calendar’s restaurant where Ronnie and my wife worked, I heard him say he liked to shop.

I phoned him to ask, “Were you kidding about liking to shop?”

“No.”

“Do you like to shop for clothes?”

“My favorite.”

“I need you this Wednesday or the next because I have several hundred dollars a friend sent me to buy clothes to wear at my daughter’s high school graduation. He doesn’t want me to embarrass her. I need to spend the money in one afternoon because shopping depresses me.” Ronnie agreed to take me shopping. We met at the apartment and went to a variety of stores.

He asked, “What’s your favorite color?”

“Grey.”

“No, no. We can’t have you in grey. Grey will just wash out on you,” he declared as he whipped down rack after rack of shirts. “Go to the dressing room and start trying on these,” he instructed as he handed me several shirts. So away I went, and down more aisles of TJMax he flew. Several more shirts in bright colors: turquoise, purple, and red were shoved through the door. I tried them on one after another. They all fit and to me looked really good. Then in came pants for me to try. Only one pair didn’t fit. It must have been mis-sized.

Usually I would go shopping alone and get discouraged after two or three tries, feel depressed, and take home clothes that didn’t really fit. This time Ronnie dressed me; everything fit. We went to Burlington Coat Factory where we decided on a silk sports jacket to go with the shirts and pants. I told him I wanted a belt I had seen at the Pendleton store in Old Town. We drove down there only to discover they didn’t have it in my size.

While there Ronnie tried on some western hats at my encouragement. He looked lovely; well I mean handsome; well actually sexy. I told him I’d buy him one that fit perfectly. He refused. I told him it wasn’t my money anyway, but he said, “No.” Around that time I wondered just what I was shopping for. We went back to the northeast heights to Ross’ and found a satisfactory belt. Then we looked at swim wear for the coming summer, and he let me buy him trunks and a t-shirt.

I went to the Missouri graduation outfitted in colors. I still enjoy looking at photos of me in my turquoise shirt playing with my grandson Kenneth. We had such fun. I was happy to get back to Albuquerque to see Ronnie and tell him stories of the success of my clothes. That’s when I clarified another level of my shopping, one that never made me depressed. So Ronnie and I started going out alone at times when my wife was working. We went to play pool even though neither one of us was any good at it. We’d go to those over-lighted straight places and share a pitcher of beer and play with lots of noise making: groans, cheers, and laughter. I suspect people thought we were a couple of irritating queers who insisted on being seen together in public. Finally one night when we were driving north on Wyoming Boulevard I rested my hand on Ronnie’s belly. Soon after that night we started playing sex games together.

I still don’t like shopping and every time I think about having to go buy some piece of clothing I think of Ronnie and our Wednesday shopping spree. I learned about color. I learned not to care about the money I was spending since it was marked for that purpose. I was happy to share the experience with a gay guy who loved to shop. I still don’t like to shop except for art supplies, but I do so when necessary. I miss my fashion consultant and all the things we did together back in those days.

We had fun, Ronnie, Myrna, and I. I had fun with Myrna. I had fun with Ronnie. I loved having a male lover, one close to home whom I could see more than two or three times a year, maybe even two or three times a week. I loved having a male lover who wanted to have sex with me often, and who liked the ways we played off each other. I liked being desired. I liked desiring this very funny man.

Such memories of shopping!

© 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

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Mushrooms, by Phillip Hoyle

I read a lot of Carlos Casteneda, his reports and stories of learning about healing plants used by Yaqui healers and magicians. I wondered about the drug effects, but they were not a part of my life in Kansas or Texas, Missouri or New Mexico, Oklahoma or Colorado. But in those same places his ideas and experiences were emulated by others, even by people I knew. I read—I do a lot of that—but I didn’t experience firsthand what these others knew. Oh, I did occasionally use mushrooms in salads or omelets; I ate them on steaks. I liked them but always thought of them as a luxury, a kind of decadent French sort of thing. But of course those were simple mushrooms with no powers beyond pleasing the pallet or filling the stomach.

One of my friends used the other kind of mushrooms for quite a few years. He always seemed on a quest for esoteric knowledge. Once he told me that if he wasn’t drugging, his quest went flat. High he could convince himself that the worlds of ESP, Zodiac, and other mind-bending pursuits and readings seemed wonderful: the Truth. Later, when seriously addicted and then having a cancer removed my friend was scared away from the drugs he had used and abused. Now he uses only prescribed pain killers and some un-prescribed alcohol. He’s calmed down and in his drug-lite life is saving enough money to pay off his school debts. He’s changed and seems unconcerned about special knowledge. He may feel like he’s once again living life in small-town Mid-America. I suspect, though, dancing to techno music with a light show in some cool bar could easily transport him back into the world of visions, but without the drugs he’d still be saving a lot of money. (Perhaps I’m a bit too hopeful and way too practical.) My friend’s doing well now on a path of self-preservation rather than destruction. His mind is keen. I hope he can keep it that way. Still I fear post traumatic stress reactions could become too much.

I’ve never seemed to need any kind of hallucinogen to get my mind rolling with images of the exotic, unseen, and overwhelming excitement. Always a daydreamer, I experience the unusual and incorporate those ideas and images in my teaching, writing, and artwork. I have done so not to escape, not to clutch or control power, not to become extraordinary; I have done so because the acts and perspectives seem to be what I am. Look at my life: I may seem strange.

See me…

Standing there looking at landforms I somehow love, like the relatively flat tops and steep slopes of the Kansas Flint Hills; OR

Dancing like a traditional American Indian decked out in leather and feathers, wool and beads; OR

Frightening preschoolers when I am wearing an African shaman’s mask at church; OR

Looking at a painting in the Denver Art Museum while I imagine that I am riding a horse across the high plains; OR

Dancing in rehearsal to get my middle aged and elder white choir members into the rhythm of an African American spiritual; OR

Standing alone on a hill at age twenty feeling filled with wonder at my body’s sexual relationship with nature; OR

Smoking my annual cigar at a retreat while I take in the act with a sense of exultation; OR

Sipping a beer while I prepare paints at the outset of an art project in my studio; OR

Prancing with wild abandon while I dance with a friend or alone in a techno bar on an urban Saturday night; OR

Standing on a western Colorado escarpment surrounded by hundreds of petroglyphs imagining that I can hear the horses, smell the fires of piñón and juniper, hear the chant of the singers, respond to the beating of the drum and ratcheting of bull roarers, and watching the lines of dancers greet the vernal equinox; OR

Sitting in my room as I imagine bears emerging from their winter caves to begin the seasons of warmth; OR

Seeing hunters track the deer, the sheep, and the buffalo; OR

Watching a poet friend prostrate himself before the dancing Shiva in the temple of his lonely Denver apartment made full, light, and lively by the divine presence.

I feel, see, smell, touch, taste the world, common, daily, and extraordinarily a swirl of life and love.

Guess I’ll forego the mushrooms and simply close my over-active eyes to explore some other part of my mind.

Well, something like that.

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

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Forgiveness, by Phillip Hoyle

I grew up in a religious community that preached forgiveness of sin, that awful impediment to right relationship with the divine. One sought salvation or, more exactly, reconciliation with God and sought baptism as a symbol of the washing away of sin. Our church taught that baptism was not magically cleansing but symbolically so. Magic and miracles belonged to the pre-Enlightenment past. The religion was modern, rational, and even democratic. Still, the religious life and congregational experience were not without feeling. As members tried to live what was often called the Christian life some folk felt forgiveness, others did not.

Forgiveness was tied in with a moral insistence that if we were to be forgiven, we must be forgiving. For me, the prayer of St. Francis of Assisi seemed to capture the relationship. It ends with these words:

O Divine Master, Grant that I may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

To my way of thinking, that sixth line could easily and logically read, “It is in forgiving that we are forgiven.” The religious and moral sentiment was: if we wanted “in” we had to invite others in, if we wanted love we had to love, if we wanted hope we had to offer hope to others.

When I was around twenty-five I talked on the phone to a woman who could not forgive herself for an abortion she had sought years before. From my naïve and inexperienced perspective I suggested that God had already forgiven her. I guess I was kind of pep talking her into a theological affirmation that somehow didn’t address the forgiveness issues in her life. In the ensuing years I replayed that conversation and eventually heard in her voice evidence that she was drunk. (As I said, I was naïve.) I suspect that she probably called a different church every time she took up the bottle. There was something in her behavior that harkened back to experiences, teachings, accusations, probably preaching, and perhaps emotional instability. The only thing I could say about my end of the conversation is that I was open, positive, caring, and long-suffering. Eventually I came to understand how difficult forgiveness could be for some folk, especially in being able to forgive themselves or, in a religious sense, to accept that God has forgiven them. My twenties-something world was so simple. I was not plagued with guilt feelings; I was preoccupied with the challenges of career and family-building, enjoying life in a city church where I wasn’t expected to pray for rain. (I had left small churches in farm towns.)

Over the years of ministerial practice I learned to be more compassionate to and tolerant of other people whose beliefs sometimes seemed pathetic to me. I learned to listen with greater complication and to move myself into work most appropriate to my gifts. I felt good in my ministry. Still I knew more and more that I was living in a strange and probably unhealthy environment. My homosexual proclivity placed me in a precarious position, especially as the conservative powers of the 1980s and 90s focused more and more on a concept of otherness, opposed the gay and lesbian search for freedom as legalizing the unpardonable sin. I knew better. I knew the great humanity of homosexual love, its enriching effects in my own life. I valued my homosexuality as well as my heterosexuality and realized that for this to become generally known would relegate me to outer darkness in the view of many parishioners and even many of my colleagues. They would see me as sinful—you know: he desires the wrong sex and he is not monogamous—sins that even if tolerated in distant relatives certainly could not be countenanced in clergy. Quite often I had to forgive people their ignorance and hate while promoting a strategy and spirit of tolerance, service, and love.

At the family core of my life I knew that whatever happened between my wife and me would be forgiven. I already knew that and trusted the two of us to weather the storms of our relationship. It has been so. She forgave; I forgave. She forgave my needs and the pain I brought to her; I forgave her chosen unawareness and temporary anger. We forgave but still separated, and at age 50 I did not want to spend any time trying to represent my complicated self to the churches of my denomination. I chose to continue my St. Francis perspective and prayer outside that organization although I remain connected with my family and some long-time friends. I presume their forgiveness just as I do the forgiveness of the profligately loving God. And I live in open acceptance of others even when they are not particularly open to me.

Denver, © March 9, 2015


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

Hospitality, by Phillip Hoyle

My
parents lived truly hospitable lives. As a couple striving to live within the
Christian and biblical tradition, they entertained strangers and travelers. They
knew the stories of heavenly visitors that sometimes showed up asking for a
meal or a place to spend the night. They were familiar with the Old Testament
story of Abraham and Sarah’s visit by angels and the New Testament
interpretation that the same thing could still happen. They read the biblical commendations
of individuals and churches that welcomed travelling prophets and evangelists. In
their own time they lived out the spirit of those old stories and
interpretations.
They
also entertained their children. Of course that idea is not caught up in the
hospitality laws and traditions of Hebraic antiquity, for in Jesus’ teachings
there was no righteousness in taking care of one’s children or parents. Anyone
with dependants simply was responsible for the attendant burdens. Yet when I
contrast my parents’ providence and attitudes toward their children with what I
know happens too often in other children’s families, my parent’s home shines as
a place of true hospitality toward progeny, offspring who were treated as
persons not property. Our home went beyond the ancient values that treated
wives and children as a man’s chattels, for my parents treated one another
humanely and their children as well. They also treated other people as human
beings of value, and thus they related responsively to and responsibly toward
them. Surely such a distinction can be listed as hospitality, extraordinary
hospitality.
I
enjoyed a great upbringing in a hospitable home environment. So did Myrna, my
wife. Upon coming together, we saw our home as an environment for rearing
children and entertaining friends and strangers. Thus we accepted foster children
and “foster” adults into our home. For five years we entertained, as it were,
foster children when we served as a boarding home for the Kansas Children’s
Service League, a group I knew about due to my mother’s long-time support of
them. We also welcomed relatives and friends to live with us while they went to
school: Myrna’s sister who attended medical assistant school, a foster-daughter
of my sister’s who attended cosmetology school, our friend Ted who attended
graduate school, an old classmate Donna who likewise attended graduate school,
and friends of our son and daughter, kids who needed familial support in
various ways. We welcomed a friend of our son’s who as a young adult lived with
us for several months, and we welcomed a slightly crazy woman to live with us
for several more months, a woman who seemed always to be almost one inch from
living on the street. These experiences among many others kept our house lively,
taught the two of us strength, adaptability, and perseverance. Our home became
a crash pad, a loving support, an oasis, a place of cross-cultural learning, a
bed and breakfast, and the center of loving tolerance. The experiences changed
our lives, our perceptions of social reality, and our willingness to take
chances on other persons’ lives.
I
wonder then why we were unable to enfold my homosexuality into such an enduring
relationship and environment. Perhaps hospitality and homophobia don’t mix well
and the antipathy against homosexuality is too well institutionalized in western
society, too highly integrated into myths of otherness, sin, and transgression.
Both my wife and I were surprised at how quickly we moved towards separation
when details of my sexual truth became extrovert. We remain friends and when
together still wonder why we live separately. We are both hospitable; using our
separate homes to benefit others, and we are pleased that our children do the
same. Still the question lingers.
An
elderly minister and I once discussed the injunction in Matthew’s Gospel that
allowed for a church to kick out a member who would not act right. The wise man
pointed out that according to other good news passages such a sinner had to be
welcomed just like a brother or sister. But somehow, when homosexuality enters
the picture, there emerges a deep rift of disappointment, dirt, despicability, disrespect,
and dire detriment, enough so as to rip apart an intergenerational, long-standing
love and hospitality. Obviously marriages are not magic; nor is hospitality
uncomplicated.
Hospitality
must have been very difficult for Rafael’s mother, yet eventually she welcomed
me into her life on behalf of her dying son.
She
had to enter the home he shared with his gay American partner, a man her own
age.
She
had learned of her son’s homosexuality only about three months before when he
was in legal trouble. Then she learned that her eldest son was gay, he was ill
with HIV, and soon after that he was living with an American man.
Rafael’s
father was warm. His brother was warm. His sister was warm. I had to read body
language to understand those things. His mother was not mean, but she wasn’t
warm towards me. Some of what I understood about her I learned from her son.
She was not happy with the situation. It was against the church. It was against
all her dreams for her son and all the expectations she had held for her own
life. Sure her son had fathered a son for her, but he was supposed to stay with
his family, not run off to America and live with some gay man.
Rafael
told his parents they were welcome to stay at our home while they were visiting
him, but I was part of the deal. They were to be our guests. Of course, he
didn’t make it home until we were arranging home hospice for him. Then he
stayed less than thirty hours for when the home nurse tried to insert a
catheter to his bladder, she got blood. He had just been diagnosed with
full-term Hepatitis C.
Cultural
expectations were going to be a problem. I did housecleaning although I knew it
was women’s work. Once his father invited me to come sit with him. Of course we
could not talk. He wanted things to be as normal and proper as possible with
his wife and daughter doing the cooking and cleaning.
I
too was gracious and hospitable.
I
have received the hospitality of strangers.
I
have received strangers into my hospitality.
Home
life and hospitality.
Myrna:
Hospitality and generosity.
OT
traditions, NT traditions.
Users
and the hospitable, the foundation of a prejudice.
Hospitality
and spiritual dimensions of growth.
Pragmatic
considerations in hospitality.
Jesus’
words of hospitality—both to receive it and give it. Holy images.
Hospitals
Hostels
Hosts
Invitations

© 12 Mar 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
Posted on

I Do Not Exaggerate, by Phillip

I
felt like Johnson’s laughter was exaggerated as in too loud, too much like a
billy goat’s bleating, just too obnoxious, but as I came to understand much
more about him and his habits, I found his laughter a minor detraction. He was
a man given to life-long drug use and alcohol abuse. He had been adopted by
well-meaning parents who found they couldn’t easily relate to this new family
member, could barely cope with the challenges he presented: impulse control,
ADHD, bipolar swings, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, and eventual drug-induced
schizophrenia. It took them decades to understand all that; it took me years to
begin to fathom the dimensions of his life. Originally I knew only his manic laughter.
I
met Johnson when giving free massages at an AIDS clinic. By the time I was
finished giving him that first massage, I was pretty much in love with this crazy
man with loud voice, boisterous laughter, and keen wit. While I observed these
attributes I also became aware of his odor, first wondering why some guys came
to massage without bathing and then realizing the smell wasn’t awful and then
really liking it. Oh those pheromones! They cause problems for the unsuspecting.
Johnson
came to the monthly massages at the clinic rather faithfully; something I only
later realized must have required a focus he could barely sustain. I always
smiled when I saw his name on my list for the day. As I got to know him more,
heard bits and pieces of his story, came to admire his intellect, his
vocabulary, and the structure of his thought (the man was no mimic, no parrot),
my interest in him deepened.
Occasionally
I would run into him away from the safety of the massage contract. On these
occasions we would drink coffee or beer or we would simply talk. When he
started coming to my apartment for his massages, I learned much more. I also
found my defenses rising.
Some
years into our friendship I realized Johnson’s life was becoming increasingly
disorganized. For him I provided a kind of safety net I suppose; he provided me
the entertainment of his stories of life in places I’d never go, for instance,
sleeping on a grate in front of a public building along East Colfax, working as
a cook in a restaurant while high as a kite on some drug, or getting into a
drunken fight on his way home from a gay bar. When I realized he spent some of
his time homeless, living on the street, I told a friend that I felt Johnson
was hoping I’d invite him to live with me. I was trying to figure out how to
avoid such a request.
One
winter afternoon he stopped by my apartment. We talked, which of course meant we
also laughed together. I fed him. After dark descended, he prepared to leave
but said he needed to give me the perishables he had got at a food bank. The
overnight temperature was predicted for 10° F. I realized he wasn’t simply
going out to a bar; he assumed he might end up on the street and lose the
perishables to frost. I told him to stay. He stayed two nights and then got
into some housing through his case manager’s connections.
I
started seeing the effects of the drugs he took, like the time in a massage
when he wouldn’t turn over for the face-up work. He laughed with quasi embarrassment
saying he’d taken X the night before. Or the time I saw him intimidate another
guy who he thought was looking at him strangely. Or the time I met him at a
sandwich shop and pushed food on him as he sat across from me, his eyes at
half-mast. He never asked to move in with me, perhaps not wanting to have me
refuse him. I came to appreciate that he treated me with respect, even love.
His
difficulties increased when he got into legal trouble over drugs. Mostly Johnson
seemed to live alone or perhaps he just failed to mention anyone important in
his life. Finally I met a lover of his, a chef. The last time I saw this
partner was when we went together to visit Johnson in prison. The incarceration
served to end that affair.
I
got over whatever naiveté I had when I heard the stories from him about
surviving in a flophouse, living on next to nothing while he awaited disability
insurance, squandering the SSI back-pay settlement on drugs, and being tied up
and tortured in someone’s dungeon one happy New Years Day. He always laughed,
mining each experience for its humor.
To
you listeners who may be prone to exaggeration I say, “No we did not have sex.”
Such was not part of our friendship although I certainly had thought about having
sex with Johnson any number of times. I just was not willing to become the
partner of a drug addict. I was more self-preserving than that. Oh, I loved
this sucker—body, mind, personality, odors, wit, and openness. I liked that he
liked and trusted me. I loved him starting with those strange pheromones, the
feel of his muscles, and the beauty of his underarms. I even liked when he
showed up on my table with safety pins in his nipples. I liked our hugs. I
liked that he protected me from his worse times. I responded to his
desperation. I loved our correspondence from his prison stays, was intrigued
with his wild bad-boy personality; and I appreciated that he didn’t try to make
me enter his world.
I
know that some folk who knew him would think I exaggerate Johnson’s good
aspects, but I believe I do not. Like every person I have known, he was a blend
of good and bad. Neither attribute is absolute. For me the art of living is to
find a balance that one can sustain without bringing unwanted harm to others.
Of
course I am not unaware of the sometime unwanted aspects of things. I am pretty
sure Johnson did not want to die from an overdose. Probably he didn’t expect
the coke he took to be enhanced. Still, he certainly knew the risks. He wasn’t
always wise, but in his way he lived life rather fully. I don’t defend him but,
I did love him in ways appropriate, and that is no exaggeration at all. 
© 12 Mar 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
Posted on

Practical Joke, by Phillip Hoyle

Recalling clearly my eldest sister’s evaluation of the girls in her dorm five years before, [“They’re all so immature,” she said,] I wondered what I’d find in the boys dorm at the same small church-related college in north central Kansas five years later. Would there be a lot of horseplay, silliness, competition? Would the talk be rough, derisive, pious? I was pretty excited by the prospect of living around so many other guys because I had no brothers. Would I find a brother there? If so, would I like it? Who would I room with? Questions. What would be the answers? I already knew a little about the small burdens in that dorm, of needing to keep the room clean in order to pass periodic inspections, to fulfill duties of dust mopping hallways, straightening lounges, or cleaning shower rooms. Would I enjoy bull sessions?

I trudged up the steps of the rather new dorm toting my bags and boxes, depositing them in my room. Then in came my roommate—Roy his name—from a small southwest Kansas town out in the Great Plains where one can drive for a hundred miles without seeing trees or hills, where the wind blew without stop, where he attended a school with one hundred students including elementary and high school. I was lucky for, like me, Roy was studious, a seriously mature student. That helped both of us to get in good shape academically. And he was nice this slender, strong, black haired boy with a resonant voice and good manners. And he was clean.

I came to school with a stereo, a small LP collection, artwork to hang on the dorm room wall, and a two-drawer file cabinet. He came with some books, a basketball, running shoes, and a car. I came with years of musical experience; he with years of playing high school sports. We had both worked regular jobs. We shared our room, shared respect, and shared some classes for we were both ministerial students. We got along well.

Roy was athletic. He’d been the all-around great student in his graduating class: going out for all the sports, singing in the choir, dating the girls, even entering the state speech and debate tournament where he presented an interpretation of T. S. Elliot’s “The Hollow Men” for which he was awarded recognition. My eighteen-year-old mind didn’t grasp that serious poem; I wonder if his did. Some nights when Roy and I were studying in the dorm, he at his desk beneath the window, I in the middle of the room, I’d notice the floor vibrating. The first time I looked up for an explanation, I found Roy unconsciously bouncing his legs, setting the room shaking. This nervous habit may have been related to his fast speech, his hand movements when making some point, his fast metabolism that kept him slender.

There were some shenanigans in the dorm; what else would one expect from a group of undergraduates thrown together in close proximity with dorm hours that gathered us in at 10:00 pm. There was the din that finally quieted around 11:30. There were wrestling matches organized at odd hours. In general, we lived surrounded by other guys about our age, nice guys at that.

I noticed that most afternoons at the same hour Roy would return to the room following one of his classes. That particular afternoon I was reading at my desk when I got the idea, surely inspired by a current scary movie or simply by remembering life at home where one of us kids would scare another. I wondered if I’d really pull the practical joke becoming as immature as some of my dorm mates. When Roy was due to return, I turned off the light, crawled under his bed, and waited. It seemed a long wait, but finally the door opened. Roy walked over to put his books on his desk, then opened his closet door. All I could see were his feet. I was trying to figure out how most effectively to scare him: scream, grab, jump? Waiting I decided simply to reach out and clasp his ankles. Finally he took a step toward the bed and turned around into the perfect position with his back turned. I reached out, clasped his ankles and said nothing.

He said something, probably not anything he’d say from the pulpit, and screaming jumped. I suppressed my laughter and crawled from my hiding place. That was it. Fortunately Roy didn’t faint, and the practical joke did not end our friendship. It probably didn’t strengthen it though. We lived together two years more before the summer we both married our girlfriends. In fact, I gave my girlfriend an engagement ring in the backseat of his car while we were on a double date. My best guess? He forgave me.

© 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