30 years ago tonight, I prayed

I was alone at home on August 28, 1983, working a summer job while my parents were at the cottage. It was a heavy, saturated night in Essex County, lightning capital of Canada. I was sleeping in a spare room on the ground floor, close to the only window with an air conditioner.

I was 19. First year university had been an emotional roller-coaster. I had a crush on a friend there. It wasn't the first and it wouldn't be the last, but it was one of the most intense.

He had dashing gypsy looks. He was a Christian.

So over the summer I had cracked the cover of the little red Gideon's pocket Bible given to us in grade 6. I was worried about going back to school, worried about the future, worried about feelings inside me that seemed dark and horrible (depression, and attraction to guys). Sometimes life felt unbearable.

The index of the pocket Bible suggested where to look in case of anxiety: Matthew 6.

Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, or the body than raiment?....Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they do not toil, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

It brought an unfamiliar calm. I looked up more passages. They seemed to speak to me in particular. I started talking to God, and for the first time in my life it seemed like someone was there listening and telling me what I needed to hear.

I was looking for a life line. I wanted to hear that everything would be ok.

Then I happened to turn to the very back of the Bible and found a bunch of verses outlining the idea of salvation through Jesus. Here was what I had been missing all along: eternal life!

I prayed the sinner's prayer, eagerly and with relief.

Hope in desperation characterized my inner life for the next 13 years. In an intensely religious community, I unlocked the secrets of my heart. New friends bolstered my hope that God could fix anything, even me. Vigorous joy often broke through my melancholy, especially at first.

But over time it became apparent that religion does not cure depression, and it certainly does not cure being gay. The promised hope turned out to be tied up somewhere outside space and time.

I usually forget this anniversary.

I came to regret my decision made one lonely August night long ago, but as time passes it begins to fit into something bigger. Church life taught me about the importance of community, and that what I want must be weighed against responsibility to others.

On the other hand religion did not make sense of who I am or enable me to trust myself. It did not teach me the sacredness of the present. Those lessons came along much more slowly, and would free me to find pleasure and meaning amid the unpredictable tragedy of living.

So here's to the wonder of it all, thirty years of maturing, and an air conditioned house.