Faith in Transition

I spent my youth sitting in Missionary Baptist pews, often wondering whether God was with me or above me. Although I always paid credence to the saying that “God doesn’t make mistakes,” I still felt out of place in church – never quite whole with my self and sexuality. I always felt imperfect, alone and often questioning why such a flawed young vessel was given such a heavy burden of being attracted to the same gender.

I was fortunate. I didn’t grow up in a church that made sexuality a focus in teaching the Gospel. Nevertheless, the undercurrent of shame was always in the shadows. With the coming of each year more and more questions arose. The more I learned about my sexual self, the more I came to question God. I questioned His purpose for me, which in turn depreciated my self-worth with each passing prayer.

I remember making mental notes of the contradictions that didn’t seem to reflect my own reality. Miracles seemed to happen for everyone else but me. Before my teenage years, I use to pray that God would bless me by changing my physical self to match my attraction to the same gender. I remember praying before going to bed for what seemed like months. Finally, after many disappointing nights, my faith in miracles subsided.

I left the church and organized religion after heading to college. The Sunday Bible School mandate I had lived with for 18 years was over. But the bonds were still there. The extended family and sense of community had unknowingly impressed upon me morals and values. Even my sense of social justice, activism and community organizing were all based on the foundation my church and family provided.

It took a while for me to learn that my faith was never in doubt, just in a state of transition. My love for Jesus Christ had never wandered; it just took more of a spiritual path. I’ve learned that it’s okay to question translations of the Bible. It’s even okay for me to question the application of Christianity to my everyday relationship with God as a same-gender-loving man of African descent.

Through this constant questioning, I admit to loving Christianity more so today than ever. No more am I worried for the souls of billions who won’t know the joy of God because they haven’t been “saved.” I no longer pray for impractical miracles to make me whole.

Today, I constantly seek God in every aspect of people by cherishing the person I see in the mirror. I know God is with me, and not some mythical deity hovering above. Hence, my faith has grown, and it has allowed me to embrace my full humanity, with all the nuances that make me unique to this earthly experience. I am a proud black, same-gender-loving man who knows that God is love. And He sure loves this flawed vessel.

(c) Johnny Jenkins Jr.

Womb (Haiku)

with every drop

she bleeds black blooms from her loins

fertile fields i lay

© JyO

Dark Honey Sonnet (Diaspora Rhyme)

Is it the fire the wind or the earth

That let us set a spell between pea green

Walls and blind windows drenched in the cloaked girth

Of shadows shuttering softly between

The trees concrete steel and us colliding

Rising and free falling I breath a scene

That never flickers from faint breeze gliding

The slow steady crest of dark honey seas

We lions chant epiphanies riding

Chariots crashing fallen leaves from trees

That have stood still longer than mans first will

Yes I should beg or shall I plead and seize

the nectar the essence of how you spill

Your will for me sweat pressed flesh making deals

With me to soothe this fire that I feel

Life, Style & Privilege

In the future, I must insist that your cease and desist in referring to me as a lifestyle. A lifestyle involves choices between a love seat and a chase; a day bed or a king sized spread. The difference between Tommy Hilfiger and Phat Farm name brands; Martha Stewart Magazine and an Oprah Show favorite or Land's End.

Although this may fall upon deaf ears, my life is not a style. A style adds no purpose to the fabric of this pile, of flesh. A style is just worthless, when stuck in the pine wood strife of other's misled materials unblessed.

Moths won't feast within my closet of tart flesh because style adds no value to the flavor of truth within my voice, nor my moral choice between right and wrong; the tenor tone to the songs I sing; the color of my skin or the love I hold within.

Keep condemning me, judge the person you think you see as decadent, a social malcontent, stuck in hedonistic cacophonies. And I'll keep uttering, my life is not a style for you to bury six-feet under a red dirt pile with other fads.

Me a man not afraid to be called a fag, so don't let the smooth taste fool you, and the moral truth that lags your naked truth. The straight privilege that serves as your unbridled proof that I'm less than a man; lets your God daunt me less than, giving you a choice to bash me upside the head with your own sexual insecurities.

My mission is to check, and dismiss the delusion, I'm okay with being terrorized by my own kind. Within the confusion I'll go down fighting, not for a lifestyle, but for my life. I peep skin-folk who act like kin-folk, but no better than Nazis' faking like a catholic Pope, pulpit prophets spewing toxic ciphers to dash my hopes.

What concerns me are your choices as straight folk. Your mob mentality entitles you to feast on assumptions while frolicking with morality at your leisure. Demonizing the wickedness within your own fleshly pleasures.

Let utterance of this phrase resonate epiphanies; my life is not a sin, nor is it a "style". My God doesn't make mistakes. I didn't choose to be gay, it choose me. I just choose not to fight it. Embrace it, and not deny it my own naked truth.

I admire your ferocity to protect your life, style and privilege. Walking hand and hand on any city street; kissing in the park; government sanctioned unions that provide your children healthcare; no preachers yelling blasphemy at you and your lover after dark; bedroom activities free from public glare.

So I fight for a life that's limited with very few privileges. Me a black gay male, in a white straight world stuck in someone else's choices to define me, a fashionable fad while straight privilege allows you simply to love like decadent nomads.

Although this may fall upon deaf ears, my life is not a style, and let utterance of this phrase resonate an epiphany when you refer to me as a lifestyle again.

© Johnny Lee Jenkins Jr. | JyObadele

Greensburg, Kansas | June 2007

On a recent trip across the United States I drove though Greensburg, Kansas. The town was recently flattened by a tornado that destroyed 95% of the town. It was horrific just driving through it. Temporary hospitals were still providing service months afterwards. We had no idea we'd drive through the center of town.

Nestled In Nooses

i am conditions

nestled in nooses

walking fences

wary of a naked truth

who whithers like

summer into fall

conditions upon a

journeys path dissolved

whithering like ivy

upon a crumbling wall

i am conditions

nestled in nooses

wary of a truth

naked anxious like a

flower begging for

the spring sunshine

refreshed with the rain

hopeful we might fall

in love again cuddled

in the tight embrace

of how it all began

how precious were we

so i held you like autumn

holds gold in maize

a blazed in indigo sky

and cinnamon haze

still i am conditions

nestled in nooses

while the seasons

keep passing us by

Mies Van de Rohe Plaza

Spring In Hart Plaza