In a short elaboration of my last post, I thought I'd share another example of the kind of emotional labour queer people (and others!) have to do to exist in the church. At the end of the last post I mentioned that emotional labour still happens even when we aren't directly participating in a conversation: … Continue reading Emotional Labour Part 2
Tag: conversations
Emotional Labour
Picking up where I left off in this series of 4 Ways Christians Burden Queer People, I wanted to talk about another burden queer people disproportionately carry in the church: emotional labour. If the first burden was "1. Telling us how to speak instead of listening to what we say," the second burden Christians place … Continue reading Emotional Labour
Life After the Closet
Today marks the first anniversary of my friend T choosing to courageously invite everyone in her life to know her more personally than she’d ever done before, and it seems like a timely opportunity to reflect on what life outside the closet is like for us who've had the privilege of emerging form it. Having journeyed with T for some years and been church family together, I got to see just how much courage this took and how significant this decision to be more fully known was for her. I have so much admiration and love for her, so today I want to honour T’s story and dedicate this post to her.
4 Ways Christians Burden Queer People: Language Policing (1/4)
Today I’ve been thinking about Jesus’ warning against hypocrisy to the religious leaders of his day in Matthew 23. At one point he says, “They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.” (Matt 23:4 NIV). It’s not … Continue reading 4 Ways Christians Burden Queer People: Language Policing (1/4)
Solidarity
On Monday morning I woke up to a message from a friend that read, “I am sorry to hear about your lockdown!” I had literally just woken up moments before picking up my phone (I know, I know, I’m a millennial), so the fact that we were going into lockdown was news to me. When I’d gone to bed 8 hours earlier, I expected to wake up to another normal day. Instead, I found out from an interstate friend that Brisbane was going into a snap lockdown to control the spread of some new covid cases.
Life on Side B Podcast Episode
This week I had the privilege of being interviewed for an episode of the Life on Side B! I've so appreciated the work of Life on Side B and the way Josh Proctor has reached so many people with stories of Christian sexual minority people over the past few years, so it felt pretty surreal … Continue reading Life on Side B Podcast Episode
Eight Reasons to Consider Coming Out
I initially journaled these thoughts in 2019, but with today being National Coming Out Day, I thought I'd post them here to mark the occasion. Here's to celebrating greater authenticity and closeness!
The Myth of a Model Minority
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about the power of narrative and the way sharing stories reveals our values. Telling stories helps people understand how we experience the world, and they help us imagine what our world could—or should—look like. If you read my blog, it's no surprise to you that I think this. But lately I’ve been thinking particularly about the insidious potential for weaponising narratives: the potential for telling stories in a way that seeks to control or subvert someone else’s experience of the world. Perhaps the most subtle but powerful form of this is when people take stories that were originally told with innocence, good intent, and truth, and then weaponise those stories to control others.
How to be an Amazing Ally
Last week a good friend had me over for dinner. He and his wife were great company, and we enjoyed chatting about all sorts of things, both funny and serious; and I came away feeling really encouraged by them. In particular, I felt really seen and loved in my journey as a single gay Christian. Occasionally you have these beautiful moments of feeling the verbal equivalent of a warm hug (since real-life hugs are off limits at the moment) where a conversation just leaves you feeling really cared for—really embraced.
Be Who You Are
Or Am I Repressing Who I Truly Am? A few months ago, back when it was still normal to have parties and meet people in real life, I found myself at a party chatting with a few other gay folk from very different walks of life. It’s always fascinating meeting other gay people with different … Continue reading Be Who You Are