Perpetual Prayer

5th August 2019

The word “prayer” has a world history’s worth of connotations behind it. You’ve got mass, you’ve got meditation, you’ve got speaking in tongues, grace, daily prayers; you’ve got pray to this god, now that god, now this god; and if you’re like my Nana you’ve got “I’ve just really gotta pray all the time because we all really, really need it.”

Now, I’m no theologian, I’m not old or wise or experienced, and I was raised in a very white Protestant church. This means that, technically, my talking rights on the subject matter are limited to “pray for the starving children and the dirty sinners too” or “one prayer = one like”. However, I’m going to talk about prayer anyway; because, like my Nana, I do it all the time, and I feel as though that gives me some sort of metaphysical cred. 

A while ago, I wrote about what being a Christian meant for me, and since then I can tentatively say that I’ve let the Christian label go in favour of something more suited to my tailored system of faith. My new label is yet to be announced, or even fabricated, but once I know exactly where I sit on the spiritual spectrum I’ll be writing something about it, you can guarantee (because I simply love labels and declaring my personal life to the internet). For now, let’s just say that whatever I am is a sprouting mixture of Humanism, Christianity, bits of Buddhism, numerous hospital mindfulness sessions, and a lot of inspirational quotes from Instagram. 

Out of this evolving-hybrid-mutt of a personal ideology, prayer has been the steadfast pillar. 

Whenever I’m asked, “are you a Christian?” I now very simply respond with, “mm, I meditate and pray to God everyday”. It’s both concise enough to make me sound spiritually attuned, and vague enough for me sound completely clueless. Both interpretations ideally opting me out of discussing the religious pedantries of whether or not we truly need to be saved by Jesus, if God’s actually a man, and what even is an afterlife? All of which I think absolutely nothing about. I’m too busy worrying about real life things like money, my general health, and whether or not I’ve remembered to lock the back door on my way out. 

Not only is “I meditate and I pray to God everyday” an excellent conversational cop out, it’s also as simplistic as I need my ever evolving faith to be. I mean, I don’t know if you’ve seen the Bible, but it’s fucking huge. I could just appropriate a select few messages from there to suit my young, modern, female self and live my life by those rules to a T as has been done by many a white guy over the past few hundred years; but I’m a millennial with a short attention span, so I’m not even going to do that. You know us, we’re of a microwave culture where we want everything and we want it now, damnit! Thus, I’d rather just skip the fine print and get straight to the part where I’m in sync with this almighty creator and life source that everyone’s been going on about (to at least some extent) since the beginning of human consciousness. Even more than that, I’d rather just recognise that this almighty creator and life source is an intrinsic part of me and the reason I get to enjoy and endure all of what makes me human. 

Prayer and meditation instantly grant me these things; and the practise has become as easy as waking up in the morning and marvelling, however briefly and in whatever way, at the fact that there’s another day. 

To me, meditation is living in all of life’s stillness and swift, and prayer is grappling to understand that there is a time and a place for both. It is intimacy, touch, learning to be open and vulnerable, it is hurt, it is isolation and solitude, and it is learning to embrace all of these things in spite of fear. 

Prayer and meditation to me is looking up at the sky over breakfast and being both grateful and proud that I’ve made it as far as I have; it’s sitting in conversation with friends and choosing to be with them and for them in whatever moment they happen to be in; and it’s hugging the family I haven’t seen in while like I only saw them last week. 

Prayer and meditation is acknowledging that there has, is, and will continue to be a lot of pain and discomfort, and wondering if I should, shouldn’t, can or can’t do anything about it. It’s also acknowledging that for every bad thing that there is, there will always be something good: be it as extraordinary as swimming in the ocean, or as basic as having my favourite tea bags in the pantry. 

More simply put, my spiritual practice is now guided by me being curious about what it means to be alive; and this simple act of being alive is how I get to pray all the time, every day. In doing this for myself, I feel more in touch with the God I remember first being in awe of when I five years old; my capacity for love of all sorts has increased tenfold; and the more I allow myself to experience all of what it means to be to be human, the more I can see and appreciate the human in everyone else (I know I go on about empathy a lot, but that stuff truly is the shit). 

I’m not sure if this is exactly what Nana meant when she said she prayed all the time because we really, really need it; but her devotions have been an exceptional life lesson in how I enjoy and endure all of what makes me human. By choosing to be in sync with my every day, I am directly connected with some almighty creator and life source; and this has enabled resilience, strength of character, love, empathy, and pride in my identity through the very highs, the very lows, the in-the-middles, and the scary bits of life that I haven’t necessarily wanted to do.

My kind of prayer helps me to do and to know all of these things, and it’s by this sort of perpetual curiosity that I can so bravely live; which, in my own book, is well and truly worthy of a resounding amen.          

My Biphobia

22nd June 2019

As a bisexual, it’s very common for people to ask, “so, how gay are you?” Which is questionably fine, I guess, if you can give a definite answer. If you’re like me though, who lives in perpetual ebb and/or flow, it’s very near impossible to give a man-to-woman ratio on who-am-I-more-likely-to-crush-on-next. 

In fact, I’m pretty convinced that’s not how it works for any one bisexual; however, if you’re queer and that is how it works for you, I’m more than willing to be proven wrong. I’d actually love to learn how to compartmentalise my romantic wants and sexual desires; that sounds like the most erotic thing on earth. Rather, I’ve been bound to a sexuality that seems to do whatever the fuck it wants. I’ve been attracted to the masculine, the feminine, the neither, the both. If I were to place myself on the Kinsey scale, I’d make sure to bring enough lubricant so to avoid chronic chaffing as I slide my way up and down the silly thing willy nilly. 

I’m telling you, this being bi business can be hard work. 

Especially when you’re faced with the dysphoria that too often comes with such a wishy-washy identity. I don’t say wishy-washy as a way to invalidate the experience of being attracted to more than one sex and/or gender; I use the highly scientific term to legitimise the well-known experience that is: “holy hell, I love men. I LOVE men. I love men so m… IS THAT A PRETTY GIRL?” Which has proven to be rather challenging if, like me, you’ve been indoctrinated to believe in gender binaries, the nuclear family, that Jesus doesn’t like it when girls kiss girls, and that gluttony is a sin so no you cannot have both.

So, yeah, I’ve taken those little gems of bullshit into my dating life, all making for an unnecessarily worrisome time. 

When I first came to terms with how much I like women, I had to deal with the icky internalised homophobia I’d been harbouring since nine-year-old me was told, “God doesn’t really like gay people”. There was a lot of self-hate, and othering of the LGBTQ+ community, that was encouraged by the people I looked up to. I’ve spoken a bit about it here. That uncomfortable process happened a couple of years ago, and it was one of the best personal growth things I’ve ever been through (not just for my ‘bit-gay’ self, but also for my queer friends and family). Now that I’m quite comfortable with that gay part of me, I sometimes struggle with the fact that it can, in fact, coexist with the 'not-gay' part of me. As you can read, even the way I speak about it now suggests that these kinds of attractions need to be different in order to for me to understand them; I seek to categorise and to organise this beyond messy phenomenon, that is essentially love and attraction, in an attempt to, I don’t know, control an aspect of my life that was never meant to be caged. 

As I’ve said, I go up and down that Kinsey scale like no-one’s business. I can go for months without even thinking about a man, only caring for women; and just when I’m almost convinced that I might just be a complete lesbian, a man touches the small of my back and I’m writing poetry about how he sends electric sparks through my entire body. Rinse and repeat the process, with many a variable thrown in the mix. It might sound like an exciting experience with so many opportunities for love to some; but I’m highly anxious and a bit neurotic so it’s an “oh, fuck, here we go again” from me.   

All of the uncertainties of this wishy-washy identity combined with my own tendencies towards anxiety and self-doubt mean internalised biphobia is now something I experience from time to time. It’s a lot less frequent than it was when I first came out, and I’m aware enough to know that all of my attractions are valid no matter my experiences or how unusual they may seem to some; but when the internalised biphobia rears its ugly head I can feel pretty rubbish. 

It’s an anxiety that hits me the hardest when I can feel myself falling for someone. Intimacy is hard enough for me as it is; and when we take into account these self-prescribed prejudices and lies about what it means to be bisexual, I feel as though I will fall short of whatever that person needs me to be. I fear that I may abandon them in the future for someone of a different sex, as has been made of many bisexuals in nasty rumours. I fear that I may in fact just be straight or gay and this dating period shared between the two of us is an experiment where they will be left feeling worse off than me. I worry that when I date someone I may be picking a side, which leaves a whole chunk of my hard-earned identity behind; and from all of these concerns, I ultimately worry that my own insecurities, stemming from something as boringly human as who I like to kiss, could limit me from accessing something that I’ve wanted since I knew I deserved it: unconditional love from one person and one person alone.  

See? This being bi business can be hard work. 

I skim over all of that now and think, “mm, maybe you just think too much,” but they are all legitimate concerns, worries and wants. I wish I could organise the various aspects of my love life and crushes and sexy times into boxes for tidy reference; but that’s just not how my bisexuality goes. The whole thing is too fluid to be held behind bars, and it’s understandable that I should feel scared about what it is from time to time. As I get older, I’m sure a lot more will make sense; and maybe I will be able to give a man-to-woman ratio on who-am-I-more-likely-to-crush-on-next if someone were to so rudely ask “how gay are you?”

But until then I’ll just be riding the Kinsey scale, breathing through my biphobia, and kissing whoever feels right.

ps - happy pride month :)