FROM THE FORGE OF THE DANCE FLOOR TO THE SHORES OF GNARL

The overwhelming longing to be loved and the snares laid for us

 Isaiah 61:1:  "The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord hath appointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek, hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound..."  

There are two things that fell most people in this world:  money and sex.  Both are primal, tugging desires that command our attention and fealty.  

The thief, that fallen angel, is a master marketer.  He sells lies 24 hrs a day. He extols virtues that are not there.  He paints pictures with lovely words of things that do not exist.  He builds houses made of straw.  This I know, I lived in one and watched it collapse. Straw is flimsy, it has no stability. It shelters a hunger that never gets filled. 

I had that hunger.

My friends of youth had that hunger.  

Our hearts were shattered by the dogged pursuit of the hunger that does not satisfy.

 That hunger for me was heavily forged on the dance floor. These were the weekend dances held at the National Guard Armory in my hometown of Klamath Falls in Southern Oregon, the open dance floor of a community center in  my college town of Eugene, Oregon, the dance clubs and gay bars of Seattle, Washington, including the Monastery, Boren Street and Tugs Belltown Tavern.

In San Francisco, there was the amazing Trocadero Transfer with Bobby V. as the masterful D-J,  the I-Beam on upper Haight Street and Stud Bar on Folsom and 12th St.  All of these places were forges for me,  places of free-form and frenzied dancing, a place to get the sorrow out for a few hours (usually fueled by drugs...) I enjoyed the dancing so much and it was the only place I felt "free" and could simply let down my sadness and roam.  All that dancing, however, also created arenas of sexual pursuit  that brought very negative results in various ways, including STD’s, two unplanned pregnancies that ended in abortion, financial chaos and many many broken hearts (mine.)

The sexual revolution was one big marketing gig, filled with platitudes and outright lies. It builds no foundation on the core truths of God's honorable parameters and His plan for humanity to avoid the deadly pits of the devil.  My entire Boomer generation was horrendously felled by these lies. I am spending the remaining years of my life in deep repentance and humbly writing about what I went through and hoping to help others to at least stop and consider their actions. I do not preach, I speak of my life.

My Dad was a good provider for his family but beneath the surface, I feel certain he was profane, a womanizer and likely addicted to sex. He and my Mom were NOT well-aspected in any way and no wonder the marriage failed. I have the unfortunate history of being too much my Father's daughter in areas of sexuality, in that I was very promiscuous for an entire decade, from 18 to 28.  It was not remotely good and I paid a stern price for it all. 

I stumbled out into the world with no clue and no anchor and no Guide to help me except the profane, which I do NOT recommend. Life by stumble, not the greatest.

My promiscuity placed a bad foundation on my life and I was not in a stable condition for a very long time. This is the reason God asks us to simply bring all our sorrows directly to Him rather than stubbornly trying to solve things ourselves. He knows things we do NOT. He knows the desires of our hearts and can lead us to blessings, if we allow Him to. His ways are immensely wise.  Usually we do not obey and have to learn the hard way.  I certainly did.

 I hung out with fellow rebels, first with my hippie friends in my hometown, where I learned the (yucky) craft of having sex with multiple partners. From there, Eugene, Oregon, the Univ. of Oregon college fail and more sexual rebellion (including two abortions in 1973). Then to Seattle, with steep survival economy and my first meetings with gay men in dance clubs, where I was "advanced on" from the dance floor. Talk about confusion...I thought they "liked" me, weren't they "bisexual"??  Sigh. What a maroon I was...  Over several years, I got my heart stomped and broken multiple times. I was totally innocent in these ways.

Strangely enough, I forged a bond of some friendship with a small mob of gay men and one lesbian, all highly gifted and funny. They were strong survivors, just like I was.  I became "Mother Confessor" to a good number of young gay men, who told me their troubles and repeatedly sobbed on my shoulder over their own broken romances. 

I was feeling some push to "just try women", so I did. For two years, I did try women. I didn’t like it and I walked away from it. I remained close to my gay men friends when we all began to move to San Francisco in Summer 1979. When they began to catch that dreaded disease and died one by one, I was floored, indignant and sorrowful. The party was ending and not on a happy note.  

Enmeshed through all this rowdy dancing through my twenties, was the desperate attempt at finding work I could survive in longer than a few weeks, months or years. I could reasonably call myself one of those "chronically unemployed", in that I was always in job transition of some type.  One, then another, then another. My resume was less than impressive and I later began to develop survival self-employment. I am certainly highly intelligent but just could not mesh with the blunt economic world.

I can certainly say that being restless and rebellious is not always the best temperament for success. Dad always told me "find one thing and stay with it" but I never could! I was simply a "rumbler-rambler" and felt captured, did not fit in.  I have lived in plenty of work-by-stumble for many years. The only things that I stuck with were in residential real estate, as I could be alone in my car as I drove from place to place to show apartments.  I was actually good at that. I also did “survival-well” in Personal Assistant work, tailored to individual clients (usually errands and shopping, home projects, etc.) and once again, usually done alone. 

I am just one of those who just never fit in most places and yet, with God, there is an assignment, a gift of words for me, a natural compassion that comes from Isaiah 61:1, where the Prophet Isaiah speaks of the Messiah's mission to, among other things, "bind up the brokenhearted."  So many of us are brokenhearted. We feel cast out, we feel like the oddballs living on the fringe, we feel like weirdos and loners.  1st Corinthians 1:27 is truly one of my life Bible passages, in that it explains that "God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things that are mighty."  He does the re-making of our broken selves.  He is the only One who can. I am much too scatttered to figure anything out. Why He does this, I do not know, I just know I need Him!

I hold fast to those verses, sometimes in desperation. I still do not fit in out there, not with 98% of the world.  My  ministry is essentially towards people like myself, who simply have wandered in sorrow and feel cast out and not needed. I rebuke the spirit of suicide and the despair that plops down on your couch and attempts to move in.  NO,  NO and NO.  God sits next to me even in my darkest moments. I have a lot of them right now...and yet He is there, He is comforting me through the awful storms of 2024 and He will bring me Home when my work is done.

I extend an invitation, even through my tears tonight, HOLD FAST TO GOD'S HAND and to His Son's hands scarred and savagely wounded for us!  I cannot comprehend His love, even after all these years, as I was a rebellious Prodigal for 35 years.

 That is my biggest sorrow, the struggle to let God's love in...and yet no matter how many times I have flopped at this life, He does not measure me by THIS world but by His look into my heart, which only He can see. Just sit down on the couch with God, in your spirit, pour out your heart and despair and ask Him for help. Then begin to listen. Day by day, He will bring help to you (His help, not yours) and walk you out of the valley of the shadow.  Repentance first, relationship next! Nothing like it, ever!

WEW   June 14, 2024

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