The Greatest Adventure in Things That I'm Grateful For

It was the end of Summer 2001, I was 17 and had just moved to a new town. I had gotten into some trouble while working as a life guard at a water theme park. My mother's friend had taken me to her church earlier that year and I quite enjoyed it, although I wasn't too sure I connected with anyone. I wasn't good at making friends and connecting with people, especially when they were my own age.

One night, on accident, I stumbled into the college group. The auditorium was dark and the back-half of the rows were pushed against the wall and the front half had circular table placed around the room with candles at each and every one. An attractive young man came up to me and introduced himself. His face was lit by the glow of the candles; it made him look trustworthy so I agreed and followed him to the table. I don't remember on what topic the sermon discussed, that wasn't the point. The young man who introduced himself to me changed my life.

The church was large so they organized into small groups to create a broader sense of community. They called them life groups and their catchphrase was "Knowing God is life's greatest adventure."

That life group changed my life because it taught me how to have friends. I had never been close to men before in a friendship format. The point of the group was for us to have a place for us to reveal ourselves without judgment. I knew that my sexuality would test the limits of whatever group I ended up in, and I have to say that these men, whether they always understood or not, gave me the freedom to figure out who I was. There was never, ever any judgment.

They were with me when Joe died just a few short months later, and though I didn't speak about it to anyone but Chris, the man in the candlelight, they knew there was something wrong. They were with me the first gigantic fight I got in with my mother. They were with me when I wrote, directed and starred in a musical. They knew how much I hated it even though I pretended to love it every step of the way. These guys knew me better than I knew myself.

Bender Out of the entire group, Bender is the one I got to know the least. That is only because he died on Christmas morning, 2001, a memory which still haunts me today. When I revealed my sexuality, he was the one about whose reaction I was worried. He was older, late twenties, and had seen a lot of the world. He was quiet, so I don't have too many direct memories of him, but I remember cleaning out his room after he died. We all laughed when we discovered his stash of pornography... apparently, out of the everyone in the group, Bender was the one least concerned with appearing to be someone he wasn't.

Jeremiah He has actually inspired me in a lot of ways. Jeremiah was an attractive 25 year old who was actually from the midwest. He had been married and had had a miserable divorce. The driving force of their marriage had been an awful drug addiction. He was so open, it unnerved me. I know this sounds odd, but I had spent many years at that point trying to hide everything about myself. I never felt that my sexuality was "evil" or a sin, in fact, I always thought of drug addict as a much worse label to have been given and I was very emboldened by his openness. His apartment was one of the first places I hung out at quite often. I even had my first Thanksgiving away from home at that apartment, which became a tradition. I lost touch with him shortly after our group disbanded and I honestly have no idea what happened to him. I hope he is alive and sober because he really was a great guy.

Jeremy Jeremy was Jeremiah's best friend. He was such a character. He wore glasses but he didn't wear normal glasses. He had taken some Oakley frames and put yellow prescription lenses in them and wore them all the time. His complexion was very red and his hair very yellow. He was obsessed with fast cars and put a racing seatbelt in his Acura. I remember one time when he let me ride in his car... it was very odd for me because I usually only rode with Chris or drove myself (once I had learned to drive). The most shocking thing about Jeremy was that he was the oldest one of the group. He was 30. I remember looking at him with a kind of bewilderment, he seemed so immature for a 30 year old. Now I look back and realize that I behave in much the same way he did back then. He rejected the limitations that were supposed to be placed on him and retained a youthful demeanor. We were never extremely close, but we always had each other's backs and made sure the other knew it.

James James was Chris' friend and he was one of those guys which you would call a "close-talker." But he was completely without judgment about everything. He was extremely rugged: he would go work at the ski resorts in Tahoe for the winter and live in an igloo. I'm not even joking, Chris took me to visit him. James was someone who couldn't always connect the dots and figure things out, but i have never met anyone who genuinely loved people the way he did. That's why, as much as the close-talking bugged me to death, I could never stay annoyed with him. He was genuinely perplexed about my sexuality and couldn't always wrap his head around it. He would often ask me questions that would make me extremely uncomfortable, but he was always just wanting to know and try and understand. Because, in his mind, that made him a better friend. He was not with the group for very long, in fact, he never returned from Lake Tahoe in the winter, but I have fond memories... especially because he is responsible for our first wild even together. The first night we met, he decided that he wanted to get his tongue pierced and wanted all of us to go. I had never been to a tattoo/piercing parlor before and was completely overwhelmed by all the nudity, graphic nature and color... (You have to remember that in 2001, I was still firmly in the Abercrombie camp). He ended up having to take it out and get it re-pierced because they did it wrong... it was a horrible experience. Here's a picture of him. I miss him very much.

Troy Out of everyone in our group, Troy was the one who gave me the most grief about my sexuality... but it was never a tone of judgment as much as it was just a challenge to be sure that I was living my life to God's... will, for lack of a better word. He always seemed a bit arrogant for me, but we were always friends. He would get into a lot of semantical arguments, which would annoy me... (until someone else came along) because I felt like we were wasting time having actual discussions instead of trying to figure out whether the word "love" was mistranslated from "agape" or whatever nonsense he was arguing about. Once winter hit, he began going to another Bible study. Chris and some of the other members of the group had disagreements with Troy as the whether or not this new group was really helpful. He got more aggressive to me toward the end, I think because this group had somewhat poisoned his mind against tolerance. But I have nothing but fond memories of him. He was a good, earnest young man with too much zeal for his own good. And after finding this picture, he really hasn't aged a day...

David As Bender, James and Troy slowly faded out of the group, they were replaced with a few other faces. One of those faces was David. He had hung around (you have to remember that this small group was actually a smaller piece of a larger group of friends with whom I was acquainted, and nearly all of them had a girl that they were dating) and officially joined the group in some time. He was the only member of the group with whom I quarreled. I thought he was arrogant and an asshole... something I told him repeatedly. Troy would always argue semantics with someone, which would annoy me, but then I suddenly found myself arguing with David about things. He wasn't trying to be difficult, he was just trying to make sure I thought of every side of a situation. Now I see his behavior for what it truly was... you have to remember, I was several years younger than all of these guys... David knew who he was and an argument didn't change that fact. It's something that I've grown into lately, and I see myself being accused of the same things with which I once accused David. He was a great guy and I'm glad he's happy and married. His sister was a year younger than I was, and she came over to the house and spent New Year's Eve with me listening to Madonna's Music album. I'm still good friends with her to this day.

Ralph Ralph was very quiet and didn't say much. He had a very quiet intensity that I think stemmed from an insecurity about his background. The rest of the group were in school (I was in high school, but everyone else besides Chris [who had been to a year at UCSD] was currently in school... especially Troy, with his big words), Ralph was already working. He had gone to trade school to be a mechanic and worked at a Mercedes dealership. Ralph was very simple, and what I mean by that is simply that he didn't get to deeply involved in conversation. If it was something that he was passionate about, he would dominate and it was nice to see. I really respected Ralph, although we weren't as close as some of the others, and he's one of the few people from whom I felt that respect returned.

Daniel David brought his cousin, Daniel, who was rather taciturn. But when he did speak, his voice was low and the content of his words were often dripping with sarcasm. I hadn't yet picked up my bitterness or sarcastic nature and I learned a lot from Daniel. He was very masculine, very attractive, but also one of the funnest people I've ever been with. He didn't take church nearly as seriously as someone like Troy, but that didn't mean he wasn't sincere. He and I actually remained friends for several years and he became someone very close to me. I haven't talked to him in years because he started rejecting technology and all the trappings that came with it. I really miss him.

Chris Last, but certainly not least. My friendship with Chris has been one of the most transformative experiences of my life. He is like my big brother. Ever since he welcomed me into the candlelit room, he has stood beside me as I made my choices and brought me closer to myself and the person I want to be, no matter who that is. I have so much love for him and his family. Chris was the leader of our group and I looked up to him, but he opened up to me about his faults, which was something I had never seen a church leader do. He had things that were not necessarily qualities or activities one would associate with someone in that position. He lived in a house with Jeremiah, Jeremy, and Bender (later David). That house became my second home. I spent at least three nights a week there... and he let me sleep in his bed. I had never slept in a bed with another person in my life. And I knew it wasn't sexual. Chris gave me so many things that I often find it hard to imagine what I was like before him. I didn't hug people before I met Chris, and he forced hugs on me until I looked forward to hugging. He taught me how to drive a stick shift. He took me to the snow for the first time in my life. And he accepted me and loved me for who I was. His example of how to act toward me became the standard, not just for the group, for the rest of the church as a whole.

Chris and the rest of the group are the reasons why I will not give up on the church. There are good, loving people there... they just don't happen to have microphones in front of them.

I am thankful for the church, I am thankful for these men... they took me in when I was lost and turned me into a strong young man... strong enough to stand on my own in faith when they turned their back on me.

I called this entry "The Greatest Adventure" and you may be wondering how I relate these people to "Knowing God is life's greatest adventure." These men taught me that the point of being a Christians is to reveal God's goodness, grace, indeed His personality to those around us. They taught me that and I'm forever grateful for it.