i always cry at weddings but not because they are sweet

This afternoon one of my spiritual brothers is getting married to a girl that he's crazy in love with. I want to go, I truly want to go, to support my brother and to express to him my joy that he has found someone with whom he can share the struggles and triumphs of life. But I really can't.

I can't because I'll have to answer to probably 50 people about where my career in world missions went. They're going to wonder where spreading the "gospel of peace" went. It went back into my mouth after I had said it, down my throat and deep into my heart where I knew that the gospel of peace that brought salvation to hungry souls comes from the love that we harbor for ourselves and others.

Even the person on whom I had the most influence on during my globe-trotting spells didn't "receive christ" necessarily. What she received was the gift of knowing that she was valuable. I showered her with gifts and I listened to her concerns and genuinely tried to understand where she was coming from. When I left her, she knew that someone had loved her, if only for a moment, someone had loved her enough to turn the mirror of her self-acceptance upright, where some heart-shaking typhoon had blown it down. I showed herself to her again in a different light, hoping to bring her back to the origin of her salvation.

I think I did.

But I can't bear the thought of going to this wedding in exactly 1 hour. I'm going to feel so incredibly anxious. I'm going to want to tell them all the good news - that I have a beautiful girlfriend who appreciates me, a sometimes-handsome girl who knows how to bring me back to the origin of my salvation. I already want to, but my respect for my mother holds me back. Her fragile understanding of my way of life keeps her from telling our spiritual family. I'm not telling these people outright because she is still holding on to the hope that maybe it really is just a "phase" (yeah - a 10 year phase? right.) or maybe I'm really just bisexual and one day I'll meet a really nice boy... And you know what, I could just say "fuck you all, I'm doing my own thing" but that's not my style. I'd rather people know where I'm coming from, to see things from my heart's perspective rather than being flippant aout the ways in which I come out to people. My mother has done nothing but love me from the bottom of her heart. She has deserved the respect that I give her, and so while it may look like an easy out - just show up looking like a big dyke and talk nothing but queer politics for the entire wedding reception! - that's not how I am going to handle things, and it's not just because I'm nervous abotu saying it. I'm concerned about saying it the right way.

In the meantime, I plan to talk recipes with my chefly girlfriend and enjoy the meals that I am scheming up for her. Last night it was spaghetti - i sauteed the chicken, onions, garlic, mushrooms and fresh basil and oregano myself - with toast and pesto, and a dessert of chocolate mini cakes, strawberries sauteed in wine and brown sugar, and whip. Tonight we're looking at chicken spring rolls, jasmine rice and beef stir fry, and then tomorrow night I might do Mexican. Because my beautiful girlfriend, a graduate of Johnson and Wales University, deserves good food cooked at home, with portions that swell with my love for her.