A minister’s confessions through coming out

By Brian Henderson

My coming out journey, like anyone’s, is a continuing process. At one level so many of us share similar stories, experiences and emotions, and I know mine isn’t unique. But as I’ve walked out of the proverbial closet, I’ve stepped into realities that have made my journey a humbling one.

The initial sense of “freedom, finally” has passed and I now find myself discovering the ongoing steps of what it means to be who I am: A man who is gay. A man who was once a husband. A man who is a father. A man who is a son, grandson and sibling. A man who is as human as you. A man who is clergy. 

It’s this last role and sense of identity that has been an immense challenge.

Like any person who comes out, like many men who have walked this daunting and delicate labyrinth of humanity, I’ve made my share of mistakes — at least as I perceive them to be, and as my moral upbringing would cause me to believe they’ve been.

But, honestly, in some ways, like a teenager who is exploring her or his adolescent, emotional, and sexual rollercoaster of feelings, I too — even as a member of the clergy who suppressed for many, many years my own sexual identity — have experienced the need to explore a known but disregarded frontier of my humanity.

Some of this frontier has been amazingly wonderful and affirming, and some of it has left me wondering, “What am I doing?” “Why did I do that?” “How could I have allowed myself to be so drunk?”

This isn’t what people expect from clergy, “Is it?” “This isn’t how clergy are to be, right?” “Aren’t clergy to be forever an example of moral and ethical fortitude that should cause others to feel guilty and self-conscious of their own
human needs, desires, and dreams?”

Consciously or subconsciously, this is what I learned, or at least allowed myself to believe for too many years. I lived in a dream world of what I thought should be as close to perfection as possible. I wanted people — family, friends, seminarians, colleagues and congregants — to believe I had it all together. I put pressure on myself because I didn’t want anyone to know what really stirred inside me. I kept my sexual identity a secret as long as I could until I could no longer stand the pressure or live the facade.

Times may be changing, but I’m just old enough to have been cut from the seminary cloth that reinforced the notion that clergy really do live on pedestals, not just glass houses.
Members of the clergy were expected to be model, superhuman individuals who can allow others to imagine themselves being better than they think they really are.

In truth, clergy, like any other people, are folk who must find their way in life. Folk who must walk that daunting and delicate labyrinth of humanity. Clergy, like any other people, are not exempt from being the fully sexual humans they are. Though we may like to be the person behind the curtain like the Wizard of Oz, and though we may not want folk to believe we really are humans with questions about faith and life, clergy are as human and real as every human is — complete with hopes and dreams and fears and doubts.

There are no exceptions.

Early on, while I was attempting to stay behind that wizardly curtain, when I was trying to be a clergy-person who is more than human, one of my therapists simply said, “Brian, face it, you’re human. How does it feel?”

My therapist was right. I didn’t want to accept the fact that my mind, heart, and being had all kinds of feelings, emotions, dreams, disappointments, regrets, and fantasies that didn’t meet the expectations of what folk “thought” clergy should have. I was to be different. I was to be what everyone else wanted me to be. I was to be, in a god-like way, what others thought they could not be. These are the myths I allowed myself to believe.

I confess: part of my coming out journey has been a story of what it is to be human — of what it’s like to be human and gay and filled with human needs, desires, faults, and hopes. To live with the dream of finding a male partner with whom to spend my days and the heartache too that comes when Mr. Right isn’t Mr. Right.

I recently shared some of my journey with a congregation in a homily. I said that one of the shortest words I ever had to spell out seemed like one of the longest words I’d ever written. In writing, I told my therapist that I was g-a-y.  Following the homily, I believe a genuinely good, older woman asked me, “What did you say?” “Are you happy or are you a homosexual?”

With some sympathy for this older woman’s innocence, and yet with some anger, I proudly said, “Yes ma’am, I’m happy and I’m a homosexual.” She was aghast. I felt good.

I was true to myself. And to be true to one’s self may not be what other’s want to hear. But to be true to ourselves is what we must always seek to be if we are to be the humans we are. Daily, I’m still learning to be true to myself. It’s an amazing feeling when I kick back, relax, and let the little hair that I have down. To enjoy some of life’s pleasures. To drink. To enjoy the intimacy and beauty of another. To appreciate the splendor of the mountains. To take a walk in rustling leaves. To serve a faith community and to create community partnerships that allows others to do together what can not be done alone. To be a dad, son, brother and friend. To wrestle with matters of faith, purpose and identity.

As you live life — as you turn the page of one year to another with me, will you allow yourself to be the human you are? Will you grant yourself enough grace to accept your humanity for what it is? And no matter where you are or how you feel, instead of being down on yourself, allow yourself to learn from what you’ve known and experienced. Live life. I’m going to keeping giving it a shot knowing full well there’ll be moments in which it seems that the stars above are in alignment and that in others it may seem those very same stars are spiraling out of control.

Brian Henderson has been an ordained minister with American Baptist Churches, USA, for 14 years. Brian holds a doctoral degree in family-systems theory. He is the lead minister of First Baptist Church of Denver, located at 14th and Grant St., where Sunday services are held each week at 10:30 a.m.