Slow-Cooked Conversion Stories

I was raised in one of those white nationalist churches, passing itself off as a Christian evangelical Bible church, where "evangelical" meant fundamental and "fundamental" meant we did not interpret scripture but accepted it as God's literal trans-historical Word of universal white male dominant Bible thumping supremacy, transcendently un-changing like... like... like nothing I've ever seen or heard or smelled or tasted Which is why we call not-Him-or-Her "God" and not "SuperEgo" or multicultural "Gaia" Or anything else. It turns out "God" is a bit like not saying Valdemore's name; As Yahweh is more about the ambiguously missing vowels than their YHWH YYXY Either/Or-Both/And bicameral structure. Anyway, enough about sacred bisensory ecology. While at People's Bible Church I was told, by all the white heterosexual adults supporting and educating me that being born again is not a gradual thing, like growing into a pubescent body, but instant, like convenient oatmeal or inferior mashed potatoes. If I could not say, with one hundred percent persuasion, that I was reborn in Christ on May 8, 1964 at 2:53 PM Eastern Savings Time, Just as I was originally born on May 8, 1952 at 2:53 A.M., much to my mother's inconvenience-- finished just in time to get home to our dairy farm for an unleisurely visit with "The Girls" during her morning milking parlor gig-- Then the deviant devilish mark of Satan still clouds my not so milky white not straight enough not truly pure soul. Such instant and yet resilient grace felt unlikely to me. I did not instantly lose hope for a hot SantaDaddy sliding down our family chimney emerging from the wood-burning furnace, scorched of unnecessary and superfluous clothes to give me all the fruited manly gifts I have felt so empty without warm and wet accompaniment, accomplishment. This conversion unfolded gradually, over several years of maturing this Santa myth as cultural fantasy, I did not wake up on May 8, 1956, at 2:53 A.M. and announce to all those not listening, "I no longer believe in Santa Claus." De-mythification progress seems to take me about as long as my left-brain dominating commodification process took to grow into ***** adolescence, feeling unsafe, unwanted, with a best case possible future of invisible insignificance, hidden deeply beneath healthy humility. Just as it took awhile to comfortably acclimate to the toothlessness, perhaps gumminess, of fantasy, It took me all my development years on into late adolescence to be sure that I would never safely or resiliently convert into a monocultural state of straightness. When we were mutually experimenting grade school boys during not much sleep overs I was sure we shared the same destiny-- future heterosexuals, Mr. Cleavers, Mr. Smiths not all too fascinated with Mr. Johnsons. I didn't suddenly realize, "Oops. I failed to convert." Maybe I was a late bloomer, just as some girls get pubes and teats and mensies later on which seemed like more unfair girl pressure than just sprouting new hair in old moist places and growing at least somewhat less girlish voices. Just as there was no May 8, 2:53 P.M. of any year when I knew, "OK, that's it. It's done growing in both length and width." I had no day or night when I said, "OK, that's it. I choose to be gay" so I can be the target of hate crimes, bad jokes, from homophobic white Christian predators, bigoted employers, police and teachers and parents and siblings, and preachers Fully capable of witnessing against me the exact date and time they began their life long love affair with white male Jesus Christ, straight (presumably) Jewish carpenter's apprentice, Son of God and... and... God, who finished creating Earth, and at least our entire Solar System, exactly seven days after He started, on May 8th at 2:53 A.M., year 0000. I have developed healthy faith in win/win progressive processes. I accept that faith actively hopes in unseen relationships, unheard communications, unnoticed actions and reactions. Still, I find an always changing transparent vulnerable, courageously curious difference between left-brain statements of verbal instant faith, and right/left-brain emerging lifeskill learnings conversions healings redemptively felt economies, salvific co-relational powers, And I have trouble believing that such ubiquitous differences between slow-grown maturation process and imitative instant role-playing is only accessible to those unstraight and un-narrow, white, black, brown, red, purple, green, or ultra-violet, born on May 8, 1952 at 2:53 A.M. much to the inconvenience of busy heterosexual dairy farmers practicing abominations like planting two crops in one field, and wearing mixed fibers, wearing and not wearing head-coverings in all-white churches as required by God's unchanging Leviticus words.