Part V:
“Mission trips and painful hand jobs”
If there's one thing I've learned by now about life it's this: you'll figure
out whatever it is your supposed to do once it has happened, and just like
everything that's happened in life to this point, everything will happen.
Trying to control your future is as futile and blasphemous as trying to control
your past.
My first taste with racial discrimination, (a theme I would become
very familiar with in the Middle East and in Cyrpus) came during a family trip
to Mexico. We went with my grandfather to provide medical services and food to
an orphanage he adopted a long time ago. I must have been six; it was my first
exposure to true poverty, unlike anything we know in America. Children my age
were working in intersections, selling news papers for their families as young
as. I remember meeting orphans who had
been burned with cigarettes, irons and skillets. They were so beautiful and so
kind, they were too young and innocent to know any bitterness or hatred. They
were also too young to know anything else about life other than the pain that
seems targeted toward the innocent and righteous. But this shouldn’t be surprising,
in all my years of studying the religions and philosophies of the world, I had
never found such a righteous and true set of teachings as Jesus’ and he warned
us the world would hate, persecute and torture the righteous and who’s more
righteous than children? It seems fitting we should bear the pain of other’s
evils, the evils of adults. Like little lambs, I guess that’s why Jesus said
“let the little ones come to me”, they’re the only ones who can really understand
His pain, being made to suffer for some one else’s evil; Jesus the sin of the
world who rejected Him, children the abuse of evil parents. Fortunately we can
find healing in the only man who can understand such needless suffering, Jesus.
Food for those who suffer. Which reminds me, if we hadn’t had gone to Mexico at
that time, the orphanage wouldn’t have been able to feed it’s children that
month, and many would have died of starvation. I’m blessed to have been a part
of something so eye opening, so young. It defiantly changed my view of the
world.
So I told a lie earlier, I guess I’m not completely celibate. When I returned to America, I met a girl, or rather a girl met me. She gives me hope that someday I’ll love a girl enough to endure sex in order to satisfy her needs. We met at my second attempt to join a youth group (the place I was also introduced to drugs) and she gave me a lot of attention from the start. My self esteem was so low that I didn’t know how to respond. I was seventeen, but I didn’t have a driver’s license (that’ll be relevant later on). I was gifted with music; I could pick up pretty much any instrument and harmonize with whatever noise was around me. So the youth minister quickly got me involved in the worship team at this youth group. I was terrified of him though, because he was single and in his upper 40s and had a way of touching, hugging and caressing us that made me feel violated, though he never seemed to overtly cross any line. But later I would learn that he often hosted sleep over’s for the boys of the youth group and kids from New Orleans who would come and visit, this all lead me to distrust him severely. After a while I got invited to join a mission trip to New Orleans, and it was during our training for this trip that we became “boyfriend and girlfriend”. I mostly went to youth group to see her and to play music, and get a hold of weed, I didn’t want to have anything to do with God at that point. My physical relationship progressed with this girl progressed as rapidly as my role in the youth group did. People would cheer my name when I went off on a guitar solo and I ate it up. And later I would drive my girlfriend home. I asked her if I could kiss her, she said yes. From then on I was her bitch. I feel like she really cared about me, and thought she was doing this to me out of love. But I hated all of it, it was physically painful to engage in any kind of intimacy, but I was so afraid that she would call me gay, tell the youth group I was gay, and dump me, that I went along with everything. I know she meant to please me, and I gave her little reason to think otherwise, but it was miserable. But one light hearted story is that I stole my parent’s car, without having a license, and made the long drive to her mother’s house, and knocked on her window and we had a midnight rendezvous. (I was pathetically romantic hearted when I was young).
I played soccer with the local kids at the Mexican orphanage and something happened that ruined my heart for these kids who needed love so badly. They circled around me and made fun of how my face turned read from the heat, talking about how white people were weak and how white people change colors. I know there are worse racisms in the world. But I was young and humiliated and angry. I cried and stomped off the playing field. It’s just that I wanted their approval so badly, and was only six years old, I didn’t understand. I wish I had been mature enough to laugh with them. But I wanted to leave immediately. Later on in life I would be spit on and beat up for being white and for being American by Arab kids who said I was an infidel. Or Greek kids who thought I was European. Or Turkish kids that thought I was European. But fortunately by then, my parents had taught me that people who persecute us are how God allows us to give God glory by turning the cheek and loving them anyway. I must’ve been ten when I got spit on my some local Arab teen agers and 14 when I got beat up by a gang of Arabs during our second stint in the Middle East (after our year in Cyprus when I was 13). Either way, I had a lot of hate in my heart because of my martial arts teacher who repeatedly raped me and broke my testicle. It was a lot of a 14 year old to have stored up inside.
Soon I was asked to be a team leader on the group’s yearly service trip to New Orleans, it was a year after I came and was my second trip to New Orleans, Katrina had struck between my first and my second trip. It was on the bus ride to this trip that our relationship went to the next level. She put a blanket over us, while most of the rest of the bus was sleeping and began groping my groin. It hurt me terribly, but I didn’t want her to think I wanted her to stop. When she finally did, I tried to seem like I didn’t want her to. I know this seems terribly twisted, and I hope she never sees this, but hopefully no one will ever see this. I don’t want to give the wrong impression, I was helplessly addicted to feeling close to someone, and loving someone and having someone to love me, I just didn’t know how to communicate that physical intimacy was painful for me. I cared deeply for her, and she for me. It was because of this that I felt like I couldn’t tell her I didn’t want to be touched, I thought it would hurt her too much and end what we had. It gives me hope that maybe someday I’ll find someone like me, who will be content with emotional and mental intimacy. But this encounter destroyed my involvement in helping the post Katrina New Orleans folk, I was so consumed by guilt and shame and pain that I forgot all about why I was there. It didn’t help that our youth leader behaved strangely with the black boys in New Orleans (at one point some of them visited us in Austin and he would host slumber parties, which may have been innocent, but for someone with my background this seemed incredibly suspicious), seemed to have a problem with me. On the one hand, I’m sure he couldn’t understand why I seemed so uncomfortable around him, but on the other hand I don’t think that’s fair grounds for getting angry with me without cause. It made the whole trip feel like a losing battle. Except for the kids. I fell in love with the special needs children that I met there and was paired with them for our trip to the zoo. My mother teaching special needs children, and I guess her patience rubbed off on me, because they took to me immediately and I was the only one patient enough to take care of them. Which I guess was rooted in that I actually just enjoyed being with them and loved them I even found a school for special needs children in New Orleans and introduced our group to their leader. But another guy got all the credit, and this made me really angry and rebellious for the rest of the trip. God damn my fucking pride, it’s such an ugly demon… It has ruined so many opportunities to serve people. I should have supported him, I was already thought of like a golden boy at youth group, he needed it the positive attention way more than I did, I should’ve supported and encouraged him. Instead I began to shun him after that and play the rebel for the rest of the trip. Which lead our youth leader to call me out and scold me. He heard about me and my girlfriend’s actions on the bus and gave me a good tongue lashing for something that had made me cry the whole night previous through. Obviously when he released me from my punishment, I locked myself in the bath room and cried. I had been humiliated for something I didn’t want to be involved in. It’s was kind of like getting called a whore for getting raped; except being molested isn’t nearly as big of a deal as rape is. But if you’ve been raped before, it doesn’t matter to what degree your sexual boundaries are violated, it all feels like rape. Either way I hate it when people say that, it’s so evil.
Your hair was red, in the fall, when we met
and returns, now, to blond, as words are said.
You always consulted that beige daily planner
even though you always seemed to be free.
We were often Sunday dressed, hiding pasts long
repressed, but that Oasis scene liberated me
even though you didn’t seem to see, what I saw
so painfully: Futures, a math simple enough to
mistake. The result of a childhood cast in
an infinite well. My only coin glimmered boldly as it
fell. Eyes contact and flirt, classily, dangerously.
We could be a seventh of what I write of your
allure. With patience that tests my sincerity
and demure, while I write poetry you’ll never read
and confess the destiny in-between fourteen
So I told a lie earlier, I guess I’m not completely celibate. When I returned to America, I met a girl, or rather a girl met me. She gives me hope that someday I’ll love a girl enough to endure sex in order to satisfy her needs. We met at my second attempt to join a youth group (the place I was also introduced to drugs) and she gave me a lot of attention from the start. My self esteem was so low that I didn’t know how to respond. I was seventeen, but I didn’t have a driver’s license (that’ll be relevant later on). I was gifted with music; I could pick up pretty much any instrument and harmonize with whatever noise was around me. So the youth minister quickly got me involved in the worship team at this youth group. I was terrified of him though, because he was single and in his upper 40s and had a way of touching, hugging and caressing us that made me feel violated, though he never seemed to overtly cross any line. But later I would learn that he often hosted sleep over’s for the boys of the youth group and kids from New Orleans who would come and visit, this all lead me to distrust him severely. After a while I got invited to join a mission trip to New Orleans, and it was during our training for this trip that we became “boyfriend and girlfriend”. I mostly went to youth group to see her and to play music, and get a hold of weed, I didn’t want to have anything to do with God at that point. My physical relationship progressed with this girl progressed as rapidly as my role in the youth group did. People would cheer my name when I went off on a guitar solo and I ate it up. And later I would drive my girlfriend home. I asked her if I could kiss her, she said yes. From then on I was her bitch. I feel like she really cared about me, and thought she was doing this to me out of love. But I hated all of it, it was physically painful to engage in any kind of intimacy, but I was so afraid that she would call me gay, tell the youth group I was gay, and dump me, that I went along with everything. I know she meant to please me, and I gave her little reason to think otherwise, but it was miserable. But one light hearted story is that I stole my parent’s car, without having a license, and made the long drive to her mother’s house, and knocked on her window and we had a midnight rendezvous. (I was pathetically romantic hearted when I was young).
I played soccer with the local kids at the Mexican orphanage and something happened that ruined my heart for these kids who needed love so badly. They circled around me and made fun of how my face turned read from the heat, talking about how white people were weak and how white people change colors. I know there are worse racisms in the world. But I was young and humiliated and angry. I cried and stomped off the playing field. It’s just that I wanted their approval so badly, and was only six years old, I didn’t understand. I wish I had been mature enough to laugh with them. But I wanted to leave immediately. Later on in life I would be spit on and beat up for being white and for being American by Arab kids who said I was an infidel. Or Greek kids who thought I was European. Or Turkish kids that thought I was European. But fortunately by then, my parents had taught me that people who persecute us are how God allows us to give God glory by turning the cheek and loving them anyway. I must’ve been ten when I got spit on my some local Arab teen agers and 14 when I got beat up by a gang of Arabs during our second stint in the Middle East (after our year in Cyprus when I was 13). Either way, I had a lot of hate in my heart because of my martial arts teacher who repeatedly raped me and broke my testicle. It was a lot of a 14 year old to have stored up inside.
Soon I was asked to be a team leader on the group’s yearly service trip to New Orleans, it was a year after I came and was my second trip to New Orleans, Katrina had struck between my first and my second trip. It was on the bus ride to this trip that our relationship went to the next level. She put a blanket over us, while most of the rest of the bus was sleeping and began groping my groin. It hurt me terribly, but I didn’t want her to think I wanted her to stop. When she finally did, I tried to seem like I didn’t want her to. I know this seems terribly twisted, and I hope she never sees this, but hopefully no one will ever see this. I don’t want to give the wrong impression, I was helplessly addicted to feeling close to someone, and loving someone and having someone to love me, I just didn’t know how to communicate that physical intimacy was painful for me. I cared deeply for her, and she for me. It was because of this that I felt like I couldn’t tell her I didn’t want to be touched, I thought it would hurt her too much and end what we had. It gives me hope that maybe someday I’ll find someone like me, who will be content with emotional and mental intimacy. But this encounter destroyed my involvement in helping the post Katrina New Orleans folk, I was so consumed by guilt and shame and pain that I forgot all about why I was there. It didn’t help that our youth leader behaved strangely with the black boys in New Orleans (at one point some of them visited us in Austin and he would host slumber parties, which may have been innocent, but for someone with my background this seemed incredibly suspicious), seemed to have a problem with me. On the one hand, I’m sure he couldn’t understand why I seemed so uncomfortable around him, but on the other hand I don’t think that’s fair grounds for getting angry with me without cause. It made the whole trip feel like a losing battle. Except for the kids. I fell in love with the special needs children that I met there and was paired with them for our trip to the zoo. My mother teaching special needs children, and I guess her patience rubbed off on me, because they took to me immediately and I was the only one patient enough to take care of them. Which I guess was rooted in that I actually just enjoyed being with them and loved them I even found a school for special needs children in New Orleans and introduced our group to their leader. But another guy got all the credit, and this made me really angry and rebellious for the rest of the trip. God damn my fucking pride, it’s such an ugly demon… It has ruined so many opportunities to serve people. I should have supported him, I was already thought of like a golden boy at youth group, he needed it the positive attention way more than I did, I should’ve supported and encouraged him. Instead I began to shun him after that and play the rebel for the rest of the trip. Which lead our youth leader to call me out and scold me. He heard about me and my girlfriend’s actions on the bus and gave me a good tongue lashing for something that had made me cry the whole night previous through. Obviously when he released me from my punishment, I locked myself in the bath room and cried. I had been humiliated for something I didn’t want to be involved in. It’s was kind of like getting called a whore for getting raped; except being molested isn’t nearly as big of a deal as rape is. But if you’ve been raped before, it doesn’t matter to what degree your sexual boundaries are violated, it all feels like rape. Either way I hate it when people say that, it’s so evil.
Your hair was red, in the fall, when we met
and returns, now, to blond, as words are said.
You always consulted that beige daily planner
even though you always seemed to be free.
We were often Sunday dressed, hiding pasts long
repressed, but that Oasis scene liberated me
even though you didn’t seem to see, what I saw
so painfully: Futures, a math simple enough to
mistake. The result of a childhood cast in
an infinite well. My only coin glimmered boldly as it
fell. Eyes contact and flirt, classily, dangerously.
We could be a seventh of what I write of your
allure. With patience that tests my sincerity
and demure, while I write poetry you’ll never read
and confess the destiny in-between fourteen
(that go on
endlessly.)
I always thought love was service, self-sacrifice
and helping to carry someone else’s hell, and if those are the terms, girl, I
love you damn well.
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