Rumi – Sage Telling Your Story

“If the Universe doesn’t care about us and if we’re an accident in a remote corner of the Universe, in some sense it makes us more precious. The meaning in our lives is provided by us; we provide our own meaning.”

Lawrence M. Krauss

The last sentence of this quote, from the controversial physicist and atheist Lawrence Krauss, I think could be viewed as a synonymous description of the actualized queer person. We have had to, through our multitude of unique coming out paths, provide our own meaning. Many of us have started on our path of self-actualization feeling very isolated and alone wondering what is wrong with me. Most of us though eventually realize how precious we really are. We are the golden threads in the tapestry of humanity.

As modern astronomy has proven beyond a doubt our solar system is phenomenally insignificant in our own very insignificant galaxy. Best estimates from data provided by the Hubble Deep Space Telescope is that there are between 100 and 200 billion galaxies in the ever-expanding Universe. Our own galaxy the Milky Way is estimated to contain between 100 billion and 400 billion stars.

If there is a God, or sole initiator of this whole phenomenon, that entity surely must have a bit more on their mind than whom we, inhabiting the third rock from the sun in this miniscule solar system, are fucking. I mean really get a grip and begin to try and comprehend the mindboggling immensity of the Universe. It really implies an extremely exaggerated sense of our own importance to think the initiator of the Big Bang leading to the creation of 200 billion galaxies is preoccupied with our drama. If there were a hell this over the top human hubris alone should get us sent to hades for eternity.

I will admit that perhaps I have a very immature and un-evolved sense of the spiritual. I will concede there may exist an omnipotent source of direction running through the evolution of the Universe from the Big Bang to date, call it God if you want. Sorry but the comprehension of such an entity at this point in my life is way above my pay grade. It would require an amount of faith-based belief I find really unthinkable and quite frankly a lazy copout. Maybe I could be further along in actualizing the possible reality of this wonder and not having to rely on faith alone, if I spent more cushion-time but I don’t think that is going to happen either.

I actually am quite content thinking we really are the result of a bunch of lucky evolutionary “accidents” that have occurred since living things first appeared on the planet 3.8 billion years ago. When you look at all the countless evolutionary steps and cross roads traversed and we still made the cut it is really something. It is quite precious really.

I was at a very wonderful event recently when two dear male friends decided after 27 years of living together they should get married. Though the words marriage and God were spoken several times during the event it was actually billed on the program as a “Celebration of Love”. I think the institution of marriage was cooked up to control property and women and then their reproductive capacity. I do believe we queers are really bringing our own meaning to it all, to this age old and until recently heterosexual institution.

I was asked to participate by doing a reading or two lasting no more that a couple minutes. It did cross my mind that if there is anything to this God business my stepping into one of his churches might unleash a meteor strike ending the human race right then and there. That did not happen. I was able to read a poem by Walt Whitman and another by Rumi with no detectable dire consequences resulting.

So even if God doesn’t exist and the Universe doesn’t care a twit about us and we are just a happy evolutionary accident in an isolated solar system on the edge of an in significant galaxy it sure is still amazing. As gay people we also get to provide our own sense of meaning and that creative self-realization adds immensely to the human dance on this third rock from the sun.

About the Author

I was born in La Porte, Indiana in 1949, raised on a farm and schooled by Holy Cross nuns. The bulk of my adult life, some 40 plus years, was spent in Denver, Colorado as a nurse, gardener and gay/AIDS activist. I have currently returned to Denver after an extended sabbatical in San Francisco, California.

The prompt “family”
reminds me of Hillary Clinton having once proclaimed that “It takes a village
to raise a child.” Of course, there is some truth in that. It is a reference to
what many sociologists refer to as the “extended family.” If we take this
broadening view of the “family”, we may think in terms of an extended, extended
family or Diaspora, or world-wide family. Webster’s dictionary defines
“diaspora” as “(1) (a) the dispersion of the Jews after the Babylonian exile;
(b) the Jews thus dispersed; (c) the places where they settled [and by extension] (2) any scattering of
people with a common origin, background, beliefs, etc.”

In this etc. I would definitely
include “sexual orientation”. Lesbian and gay people are everywhere in the
world. If our community could only harness the power, it would mean a better
world for us, a better world for everyone.

In the 1950’s, Senator
Joseph McCarthy, if you recall, went on an anti-communist witch-hunt and an
anti-gay witch-hunt, claiming there were communists and homosexuals in the U.
S. State Department that were trying to subvert and even overthrow the
government. For a while Senator McCarthy was taken seriously. He referred to
the international communist conspiracy as the “comintern,” that is, the
international communist movement and the international gay community as the
“homintern,” presumably meaning the homosexual international.

Many liberals would claim
there is no such thing as the “homintern”. That was just Senator McCarthy’s
overactive imagination. Au contraire,
of course there is a “homintern” although I would call it the gay and lesbian
diaspora. We do not necessarily want to overthrow governments, but we do want
liberation. Our diaspora implies that our struggle for liberation is the most
analogous to that of the Jews. All of which we should embrace exuberantly rather
than shy off for fear of enraging homophobes.

If we take a bird’s eye
view of our diaspora, we note, for instance, that the Muslim world population
is one billion one hundred million. That means that there are one hundred and
ten million lesbian and gay Muslims. Have there been any attempts to organize
these one hundred and ten million people? Yes, but so far the results are
miniscule. In New York City there is one out-of-the-closet gay male Imam. In
time there will be millions like him. The MCC church of New York City provides
a weekly meeting place for lesbian and gay Muslims in that city.

In 1995 a group of lesbian
and gay Muslims held a “congress” in London, England. It would be good if our
Denver lesbian and gay community had an expert historian who could describe
exactly what happened at that congress. More information please?

Recently when I was back
in Jackson Heights, Queens County, NYC, I attended a lesbian and gay spiritual
meeting, at which the topic was gay spirituality in the history of Islam. The
leader asked each of us in attendance what spiritual remark we would like to
make. The leader did mention Rumi*, of course. I
said I think we should remember how many people we are talking about: 1/10 of
one billion one hundred million was 110 million. The leader responded to my
comment by first saying that that was not exactly a spiritual observation and
made other comments indicating that he could not even begin to understand what
I was talking about.

I did not reply to his
evasive reaction. I felt like saying “I cannot begin to understand how you do
not understand”. We have to raise the consciousness of millions of “lesgay”
people everywhere.

Consider also the efforts
of lesbian and gay Russians to organize to resist oppression in Russia. Their
best chance is to organize in Russian colonies abroad located in more liberal
countries, such as Brighton Beach in Brooklyn, NY.

Consider also there was
even a study of gay and lesbian people in the indigenous Maori tribes of
Australia and New Zealand. Let us celebrate our ubiquity, or omnipresence
rather than fear to acknowledge the simple truth.

*Rumi

About
the Author

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

Tag: Rumi

The Solar System, by Pat Gourley

About the Author

The LGBT Diaspora, by Louis Brown