If so what kind of man am I? Lets explore
I have been writing and uploading what I write to a WordPress URL… and did so partly from intuition. I say that because of how glad I am I did so. It’s not my first attempt at creating a blog. As I’ve told in other conversations, I’ve seen myself shift as you would put it, but I made a conscious shift from how I was when I was younger to the way that I am now. I really like how I am now. And what I’m referring to is actually had a website called throwoutthelifeline.com. Where I had chat rooms available, my memories a bit I don’t know Shady about this, but the idea was that people who were struggling in life would have a place to go to reach out and to be reached. Of course, there was a whole world of things that I didn’t see coming, but when I saw it happening, I thought OK that makes sense. Like one day I saw one of my chat rooms was being used to the guy had a girl in there and he was chatting her up. So I think the allegory or metaphor or a picture that’s plainly see there is how stunned it is to have a building open with private rooms for people to go to what are people gonna use those private rooms for except things that you don’t wanna do out in public. My heart was that they would be able to get together and speak to one another heart to heart things of the soul spiritual that’s sort of stuff. But it seems people need to have rules and someone to enforce those rules. I’m not sure if I had any of my writing there at the time but I know I did have my own email address and I basically set myself up as a counsellor for people in crisis. And later on when you’re reading all this don’t bother asking me if I cringe while I tell you this because I’m cringing while I tell you this. I’m so glad that this won’t be on a tickertape banner across the Skytrain for everyone to read. “hey do you know what Laurence did?” Really trying to rack my brains trying to remember how far back that was, but I think it was after my divorce. I didn’t have anybody to go to, and my entire life fell apart, and didn’t even know how all that had happened to me. I had become isolated and withdrawn, but even as I say that I realize that I lived in a isolated way.
Going into some deep self-history.
Ok… I am going to give you a fuller context. I have always gotten along with girls more easily or naturally or?? I think it stems from my having some character traits that are traditionally regarded as feminine… I love talking about things like spiritual, emotional, relational. People are my interest. Romans 1:11-12 is a foundational scripture for me. In junior high school I was so socially awkward that I found myself having been lifted off the ground after having been grabbed by the throat with both hands – by a fellow in my own grade 7, home room class. He declared to me this, “you’re dead!” And then I vaguely remember that I had some how told the teacher about his misdeeds… I don’t recall that part, but I do believe he perceived me to be a threat to his being in good graces with our teacher. My parents solution was to pull me from public school and put me in a Christian private school. A one room classroom run by a southern Baptist church that was nearby our home, and most likely cheapest option. That was for grade 7-8 and then matters there encountered led to my being sent to Mennonite brethren collegiate institute on the other side of Winnipeg. A school so big that it was like a public school. I’ll come back to this but first let me say this:
My parents? Well, my Dad was very much a man, who hid his heart from me, and my mother overshared hers with us kids. 4 boys and a girl. She talked to us about how he forced her to has sex with him when she was in the hospital with tuberculosis. They’d had sex in the back seat of a car, she got pregnant and they “had to get married” shortly after she was diagnosed with TB, she always thought? Idk actually if she ever got over the idea tbh but that her illness was God’s judgement or punishment for having sex outside of marriage. She also told us kids, “I abhor the sight of a man’s nude body” and no surprise now, her step father sexually abused her mother blamed her for being a hussy. She also shared that Dad was always wanting to have sex with her, and when he finally quit asking she said “it’s such a blessing”… enough said? My Dad was aloof and my mom babysat him her whole life.
So in grade 9 at MBCI I had 3 friends that were girls at school, Connie Lori and Joan. Connie was pretty, Lori was sexy and Joan was the plain jane not attractive one. And although I was fully heterosexual it never occurred to me to date, or be intimate sexually with any of these girls. I just loved being their friend. Guys were jealous of me because about this I seem to vaguely remember. I did have a group of acquaintances that were boys. One of them also went to my church, Alan. That group of guys consisted of maybe 6-7 of us. Brock and Andy were two of these. When Brock was away, Andy was my friend, when he returned Andy paid attention to him. Our thing in common was that I went along with them to do such things as play pinball at a corner store near the school, and various miscellaneous mischievous things… all stemming from Brock. Whose father sold Amway. I know this brace Brock would steel cheques customers had written to his Dad, and then Brock would cash them at another corner store nearby to buy cigarettes. At the school Brock (while the rest of us giggled with delight) made a “smoke bomb” out of tobacco, and gunpowder and other things, and lit it in an air intake at school… causing trouble. We never hit caught for that, but eventually we were the prime suspects in Mr Penners house key going missing, and after all us spending a few days in the principles office, we were expelled.
At church the group of people after church Friday night youth group, of a city wide 500+ folks, we’d go out for pizza or McDonald’s in various groups. My best friends were again girls. Maureen being one of them, who had to drag along her younger brother John, whom I hit to know, and his relationship with me led to a spiritual transformation when he no longer wanted to play games in the balcony of our 3000+ church service. He led me into taking God seriously, not by coercion but by saying like Joshua’s “as for me and my household we serve the Lord” he wrote me a note in church one day, “I’m not going to goof around in church anymore” and I decided, “me too.”
At one point in all of that I wondered about my disconnect with my own gender.
Ok… I am going to give you a fuller context. I have always gotten along with girls more easily or naturally or?? I think it stems from my having some character traits that are traditionally regarded as feminine… I love talking about things like spiritual, emotional, relational. People are my interest. Romans 1:11-12 is a foundational scripture for me. In junior high school I was so socially awkward that I found myself having been lifted off the ground after having been grabbed by the throat with both hands – by a fellow in my own grade 7, home room class. He declared to me this, “you’re dead!” And then I vaguely remember that I had some how told the teacher about his misdeeds… I don’t recall that part, but I do believe he perceived me to be a threat to his being in good graces with our teacher. My parents solution was to pull me from public school and put me in a Christian private school. A one room classroom run by a southern Baptist church that was nearby our home, and most likely cheapest option. That was for grade 7-8 and then matters there encountered led to my being sent to Mennonite brethren collegiate institute on the other side of Winnipeg. A school so big that it was like a public school. I’ll come back to this but first let me say this:
My parents? Well, my Dad was very much a man, who hid his heart from me, and my mother overshared hers with us kids. 4 boys and a girl. She talked to us about how he forced her to has sex with him when she was in the hospital with tuberculosis. They’d had sex in the back seat of a car, she got pregnant and they “had to get married” shortly after she was diagnosed with TB, she always thought? Idk actually if she ever got over the idea tbh but that her illness was God’s judgement or punishment for having sex outside of marriage. She also told us kids, “I abhor the sight of a man’s nude body” and no surprise now, her step father sexually abused her mother blamed her for being a hussy. She also shared that Dad was always wanting to have sex with her, and when he finally quit asking she said “it’s such a blessing”… enough said? My Dad was aloof and my mom babysat him her whole life.
So in grade 9 at MBCI I had 3 friends that were girls at school, Connie Lori and Joan. Connie was pretty, Lori was sexy and Joan was the plain jane not attractive one. And although I was fully heterosexual it never occurred to me to date, or be intimate sexually with any of these girls. I just loved being their friend. Guys were jealous of me because about this I seem to vaguely remember. I did have a group of acquaintances that were boys. One of them also went to my church, Alan. That group of guys consisted of maybe 6-7 of us. Brock and Andy were two of these. When Brock was away, Andy was my friend, when he returned Andy paid attention to him. Our thing in common was that I went along with them to do such things as play pinball at a corner store near the school, and various miscellaneous mischievous things… all stemming from Brock. Whose father sold Amway. I know this brace Brock would steel cheques customers had written to his Dad, and then Brock would cash them at another corner store nearby to buy cigarettes. At the school Brock (while the rest of us giggled with delight) made a “smoke bomb” out of tobacco, and gunpowder and other things, and lit it in an air intake at school… causing trouble. We never hit caught for that, but eventually we were the prime suspects in Mr Penners house key going missing, and after all us spending a few days in the principles office, we were expelled.
At church the group of people after church Friday night youth group, of a city wide 500+ folks, we’d go out for pizza or McDonald’s in various groups. My best friends were again girls. Maureen being one of them, who had to drag along her younger brother John, whom I hit to know, and his relationship with me led to a spiritual transformation when he no longer wanted to play games in the balcony of our 3000+ church service. He led me into taking God seriously, not by coercion but by saying like Joshua’s “as for me and my household we serve the Lord” he wrote me a note in church one day, “I’m not going to good around in church anymore” and I decided, “me too.”
At one point in all of that I wondered about my disconnect with my own gender.
Our youth pastor helped me with this when teaching us in Sundays school class by pointing out – I never spoke to anyone about this but
God knew for sure! – but he gave a lesson on sexuality that assured me that my sexuality was my choice not something imposed on me by nature. That God made me a male, I’m not a mistake I had solid ground but… scripture about homosexuality are clear, not ambiguous. Leviticus and Romans chapter one. He pointed out the scripture that says God does not tempt us beyond that which we are able, and always provides a way of escape. So I for one gladly took a hold of that. I stepped into an identity of heterosexuality. I am a man. I disagree with having to wear a badge that states this. I also don’t have a badge that says, “I’m a human being” or “I am not merely a plant”
I know this is a grievous topic in the world at the moment.
So that you can know my mind on this. I do t believe there is genetic proof that homosexuality is at the chromosome level.
But regardless back then I needed confirmation that I was not pre-determined to be gay. That there was another way explanation for my personality. Much later I did the Myers’s-Briggs test, does ChatGPT capable of similar type test? I come out as a counsellor teacher.
November 5, 2020
Here is background to It’s Over
That was the first blog of running down Vimy.
Running Down Vimy 