It is not humility to insist on being someone that you are not. It is as much as saying that you know better than God who you are and who you ought to be. How do you expect to arrive at the end of your own journey if you take the road to another man's city? How do you expect to reach your own perfection by leading someone else's life? His sanctity will never be yours; you must have the humility to work out your own salvation, in a darkness where you are absolutely alone ...

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

"How can you even claim to be a Christian and still remain in the filthy homosexual lifestyle?" This is a question that arrived in my mailbox the other day. It echos hundreds of emails I receive from people who want to tell me what path my life should take. They apparently know that I should be on a path that means moving away from this "filthy homosexual lifestyle" that I lead. I always stop and wonder in amazement at the pure arrogance of such statements.

They actually have the temerity to suggest that I should be someone that I am not. They fully believe that I should be heterosexual, and if I'm not, I should at least have the decency to stop calling myself a Christian. They've already got my salvation worked out for me: it comes purely from ceasing to be a homosexual. But how can they map my journey with God for me? How can I arrive at the end of my own journey if I take the road to another's city? Aren't I meant to go the way God has mapped for me, even if it looks totally different from someone else's way? Aren't I to work out my own salvation with fear and trembling?

Merton would answer with a resounding "Yes!" He reminds us we can't be anything except what God makes us. To do so would be to profoundly ungrateful to God for our lives. We cannot reject what God has made us to be: gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered persons. We cannot walk the path of a heterosexual or non-transgendered person. Instead, we must walk our own path and work out our own salvation.

Never let anyone tell you that you should be anything but who you are. They do not know your walk with God, and you do not know theirs. To be able to live the life God gave you, unapologetically, is what Merton calls "heroic humility" ... the strength it takes to "be yourself and to be nobody but the [person], or the artist," and I would add, the gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered person, "that God intended you to be."

Blessings,
Candace