Amazing

Dear Jack,

I find it amazing how I apparently had so little friends in High School. Oddly I thought that hanging out with a crew of people in class and at school and yet another group at church, I'd have friends from that time in my life. Really I have Joy. That is it. I have tried to keep in touch with several from church, but tonight have been reminded that I really was an apostate to that crew. Jeff, Joe, and Rachel were the people I hung out with in church. Joe is the only one that is still an Episcopalian. Joe has started working on being a climbing instructor.

Jeff--I don't know much about his current life other than he is now attending a PCA church, will be doing Beach Project this summer, and likes a girl named Erin. Rachel was someone I had lost contact with who was an exceptional musician and usually tried to include me in the events and parties going on at the church. Recently I tried to contact her with her old SN, and she just seemed too busy to talk.

Well tonight Jeff confronted me about it (appearently they are really close cause aforementioned Erin is Rachel's roommate in college). He asked what it is exactly I want to talk to Rachel about, that she's concerned. And I was dumbfounded. I had no preconceived conversation in mind--just catching up and rekindling what I thought was an old friendship. Well she turns out to be too busy to chat with me. What the real issue is not that she's too busy, but she's afraid I will talk to her about my homosexuality. I know this as Jeff confronted me with that, becaue Jeff's parents and Rachel's parents (both groups which left the church), have kept too close an eye on their old congregation.

He was told that I "have really strained [my] father's relationship with [me] in choosing such a sinful lifestyle". Oddly enough this is not true. Even more oddly is that Jeff would know about my sexuality (or as he calls it "choice"), as he and his family had left the church before I let anyone else in the church know about it. He said he found out from a prayer group my Dad had been apart of...a prayer group that was supposed to be quiet about the prayers within--it doesn't matter when the prayer is about the sin of homosexuality.

It really agrivates me. I have no desire to be friends with my old friends I guess. They see me in the state they knew me in, and they add to it their own preconceived notions about what they think I am like now without even taking the time to ask about God's work in my life. Yet they are the ones harolded by the Conservative half of the Church as the "true Christians". I'm just miffed...time will heal this... and much prayer.