It's not about praying away something
that's so authentic.
It's about Jesus
summoning how He made me.
I needed to be saved.
You know, I came to Him very divided in
my personhood, coming
out of homosexuality,
and so overexposed and subject to the
sunny sort of chaotic sensuality of
Southern California.
When I began to ache rightly for
something real and whole, I
knew it had to be heavenly.
It had to come from heaven here on earth
at a rather profound
level to make a difference.
And I just sort of
knew that at some level.
And that actually began my yes to Jesus
that started many, many years ago.
And as a result of His faithfulness and
His great mercy over and over again,
I became whole enough to begin to serve
people in my community in Los Angeles.
I was a student at that time at UCLA, and
that was the beginning of our learning,
stumbling, learning how to gather with
people effectively from different
expressions of sexual
and relational disintegration that just
needed a little extra help in their
quote, discipleship,
if you will, or accompaniment,
caregiving, to be able
to truly know this Jesus
and His saving love in areas where they
most needed it and
maybe were most tempted
to not even want to go there.
And so those were the shame, the depth,
the need for protection,
but also for power, the power of Almighty
Mercy to break some of
these strongholds that
can divide and even destroy
well-intentioned Christians.
Right.
And Marco being one of them here
alongside and learning how to mobilize in
small group settings
so that people also become a part of the
solution in other people's lives.
I'm so grateful for Andrew starting this
ministry 40 somewhat years ago.
I encountered it when
I was in the seminary.
I was starting to be a
Catholic priest in Philadelphia.
And by the time I'd encountered Desert
Stream, I'd gotten to a
point in my discernment where
I had come to grips with my need for
Jesus in an area where I felt deep shame.
Same-sex attraction, had a history of
sexual addiction, had a history of
sexually acting out with other men while
I was in the seminary.
I was pretty divided.
At the time I'd come to Desert Stream
though, I had kicked a
lot of the behavioral stuff,
but I still felt under a low ceiling of,
"Well, I'm just sort of gay,
so therefore I just
have to be a celibate.
Jesus can't do anything else for me."
It was through the mediation of Desert
Stream and encountering
this wonderful program that
what we call Living Waters, we do a few
trainings a year and I came
to a training as a seminary.
It was there that Jesus changed my life,
gave me vision for my sexual humanity,
which I never thought was possible.
The fact that I always disqualified
myself from opposite
gender relating because,
"Well, I just have this proclivity that
is just inherently disqualifying."
And Jesus, through the power of his
mercy, through the power of these
important agents of mercy in Living
Waters, helped me to see beyond my
fracture and to sort of be
reconciled to the truth of my identity as
a man, that proclivity
aside, the deeper orientation is
unto her. Through the help of virtue and
the sacraments and all of
the above, Jesus can help
me to be reconciled to that true
orientation so as to be a
good gift. And I'm married now.
If it wasn't for this man and this
ministry, I would be a grumbling priest,
trying to get by with my probably
addiction in the dark.
[Music]
I don't need to pray away the gay. I just
need to rediscover what is most
substantial about my
humanity. It's not about, "Can I overcome
my real gay self?" No, my
real self is a man created
to dignify woman through my manhood. Now,
that may mean marriage.
It may not. It simply means
that my sexuality has a direction that is
far deeper and far
clearer than my desire to sleep
with my male roommate. That may be a
compelling experience or feeling or
tendency, but deeper
still is what God placed in my being. So
it's not about praying away something
that's so authentic.
It's about Jesus summoning how he made
me. I dare say that's true
for every human being on the
planet, that there's a direction for our
sexuality that no amount
of desire or sensation or
experiences in a season of love and
coming out can erase. I
just think that's reality.
So I think that's a deeper capital R
reality than my temporary feeling of
attraction to my own
gender. And I want to be true to that.
And I want to create a holy
and merciful space where people
can explore that. And I think that's what
we're not hearing in the public sphere.
I think it's also appropriating the power
of the incarnation that
Jesus assumed a sexual human
nature to redeem us in ours, not from it.
And so the fact that
we can be reconciled to
what's true about who we are is not a
mere just praying away the gay. It's
about integration. And
that's what we're about.