How I wish there could be someone here, of a similar position in life, with whom I could fully relate. Someone with whom I could bare my soul, with whom I could freely express brotherly intimacy – a soul brother, one could say. That is what I crave.
The "honeymoon phase" of coming out to Todd was certainly short-lived. Over the weeks meeting with him at Bible Study, I shared a few more details about my ongoing struggle. One night while I shared, he rather bluntly said, "Well, you can't be gay and be a Christian."
Tom welcomes YOBBER Alex to bask in the Hulu show Love, Victor, which follows the events of the movie Love, Simon. Alex shares why he loves this show so much, including the racial dynamic with Victor as a half-Puerto Rican, half-Columbian guy and himself as half-Thai. They also discuss one particular episode of the show that features Simon's LGBT+ community in New York. Couldn't churches learn from how this community values family, showing love to a so-called stranger in Victor? And could there ever be a Side B show like this one where Victor finds a community like YOB??
Does nice equal good? Does strong equal toxic? Commiseration is a drink that intoxicates quickly, yet we must weep with those who weep. Am I a man? Am I strong? What am I, and where is my place? What is the nature of masculine strength?
Tom welcomes back Marshall to catch us up on his pandemic-induced overworked, yet puppy-filled life on the farm! He shares what he has always enjoyed about our YOBBERS retreats and gives some context to his "bought the field" Xanga blog username of yesteryear. Finally, Marshall shares about one of his longtime single friends, now dating a girl, and the joy he finds as a "friend of the bridegroom."
Being gay has ruined large crowds for me. Something about being surrounded, seen but utterly unknown, twists my soul. And then add to that the layers of guilt I feel. All these couples I'm jealous of because they get to be here together. Or the number of attractive men I see, the number of times I don't control my lustful thoughts. Or worst of all: when I spot a gay couple somewhere out there, and I want to be them, and I wish I didn't.
Tom is joined by fellow YOB cofounder Matt to kick off a new year of podcasts! We chat about 2022 and how Matt thinks this will be the sequel year to 2020 (as opposed to 2021), and we spend the bulk of our time discussing the broiest (YOBiest??) Spider-Man movie of all-time, Spider-Man: No Way Home.
Tom welcomes back our resident Filipino Londoner, and the second Daniel in as many weeks! We catch up with Daniel on the other side of COVID as he now attends three small groups simultaneously. We mourn the loss of our international flavor at this year’s YOBBERS retreat, but we also discuss possibly holding Zoom calls more relative to European time zones? With increasing UK and European support, Tom wants to travel overseas soon to visit Daniel and all the other YOBBERS. But does even the sparrow find a spare room? Finally, the guys share how they hear from Holy Spirit. Can you believe?!
Frankly, all this relational turmoil boiled to the point that I thought: You know what? I'm sick of gay men. Tired of the super sensitive personalities, tired of the drama queens. Heck, the emotionless or stoic personalities of most straight men started to feel preferable to what I'd found lately with other gay/SSA men. Nonetheless, with our YOBBERS retreat coming up I needed to put aside my negativity as best I could.
More than anything, though, what struck me about this year's retreat was a deep sense of unity. As I looked around the room of forty brothers, I considered how what unites us all is our crazy decision to make Jesus our everything – not just to follow Christ in a church on Sunday, but to take a devotion to Him into every single second of our lives.