After leaving my childhood religion and finding nothing suitable to replace that now empty place in my center, I found myself inexplicably drawn to the beauty of the cross as a symbol. I was drawn to it but unable to touch it. When I bought my first cross, a cheap and sparkly key chain, which I then hung from a rainbow ribbon off the rear-view mirror in my Subaru (Yes, I said "Subaru!" Seriously. I didn't mess around. I was a lesbian now, and I wasn't going to do it in a small way!), I slowly began to understand the draw this religious symbol had for me. I already knew that it wasn't the association with Christ that drew me. I'd worked through my conflicted beliefs about the fall, resurrection and atonement long before I'd first noticed that I was in love with crosses. It certainly wasn't a hunger for religion that drew me.
It was the taboo. To my family, the appearance of the cross in my environment symbolized the reality and the depth of my apostasy. I knew when I displayed a cross, there would be no question in their minds that I had been lost, at least temporarily. Well, as if "coming out" had not been enough to do that already? But my need for the cross in my life went so much deeper than trying to prove something to my family. And, in fact, my early hesitance to display a cross was associated with not wanting to hurt or disappoint my family any more than I already had. What hanging a cross from anywhere in my world symbolized to me was freedom, not from death as I'd been taught to believe. It represented freedom from dogma. Oddly, hanging a cross was my first real rebellion, a symbol of finally being separate enough from the beliefs of my childhood that I could own something I found to be beautiful, and it was nothing more than just... something beautiful. The negative meanings and attachments I'd associated with the cross were no longer what was dominant in my life. I could love crosses because I loved them, regardless of what anyone else chose to believe about that. It was not unlike the transition I'd already gone through with my recognition of my sexual orientation and identity. My love of the symbol, I understand now, was a small, latent reminder that popped up many years after I'd come out, to represent the reality that what I love is mine to love, no matter what anyone else teaches or believes about it. Who I love is mine to love, no matter what anyone else teaches or believes about him, or her. And how I love, and even how many I love, and when, are subjects that are simply nobody's business by my own.
When I first started to indulge my interest in the cross, I was still exclusively dating women, and in fact was in a long(er)-term monogamous relationship. Looking back, I find it fascinating that the symbol which has continued to speak to me so deeply is one that potentially antagonizes both my Mormon family and my gay friends. Of course there are exceptions, but so many of my friends in the LGBTQ community have followed the pendulum to a place far removed from Christianity. I understand the inclination to reject the groups that have first rejected us, not to mention the reality that the cross is a symbol which has been held up to justify hate and destruction for centuries. I get it. What I find so intriguing about my continued deep longing for the symbol, a symbol which for me represents beauty and love in my own life, is that I am drawn to something that is rejected by both of the predominant "families" to which I've belonged. I hang crosses in my home, while at the same time standing and telling the truth about myself, a truth which in so many ways has also been rejected by both sides. My house is full of crosses, now. My bedroom is my church. I let myself have both my essential spirituality and also my taboos, and I'm profoundly, profoundly at peace with my life, as it is.
No comments:
Post a Comment