The Journal of Theo

It can't be an easy thing to grow up in a world where many people do not accept your sexuality. I used to be among those who didn't tolerate it. Unfortunately, the religious people who ought to be the most loving and knowledgeable are often the most ignorant. I have only some idea of what it must feel like to be neglected, gaslighted, and preached to. If you feel indignant when someone preaches to you or tries to change you, just know that the person talking to you is ignorant on this subject. The truth is that God made homosexuals. You are God's child. You don't have to the option to refuse speaking to someone. You may be able to educate them but some people don't want to be educated. I recommend leaving them alone. I want to tell you my thoughts on the Gay Pride movement and Gay Pride parades. I know it is common for people, because of past trauma, to overcompensate in the opposite direction of their pain, in the hopes of crushing it and making it disappear. I...

When I was just a boy, my father and I were shopping in a convenience store on the corner of the major intersection in my small town. I was browsing the aisles when my eye caught a toy car in a matchbox container. Just then, a thought came into my mind. What was to stop me from taking it and putting it in my pocket? I felt a nudge. I couldn’t walk away. What a question that was. Of course, that was stealing and everyone said that was bad. But I knew some people did it. To do or not to do. That was the question. It didn’t strike me in that moment what the moral decision would have been. I only wondered if I could get away with it. The next few minutes were a daze. I felt thrilled. But it was a gnawing thrill. I had to do it. I wasn’t fast about it. Any sudden movement might alert someone. I took it in my hand and spied to see if anyone was looking at me. Another customer had just left. It was just the cashier, the father, and little old me. I put the toy in my poc...

I’ma tell ye what some might call a sad story. Sad for me anyhow. I’ma tell ye the few words what were written out te me and which I read - words what rubbed me so as to make my flesh raw - words that cut right down to the very bone marrow. I tell ye what those words imparted te me - I tell ye just what they did. They rubbed me raw and they cut me deep. The man in question wrote te me just before the sun comes up around my region of the world. He says te me that I lost the plot and broke touch with reality and sorry bud and so on. It matters not just exactly what he said. It was the meanin’ behin’. A meanin’ I could see clear as a lamp. They meant that I was lost, delirious, and in quick need of being sequestered. I tell ye just exactly what it did to me to read those words. It rubbed me raw, and it cut me deep - right down te the bone deep. And what’s more, the cowardly man I might have called my friend, deliberately severed contact. He made me out to be some contagious leper, to be i...