(Tim, w/thanks to Bill M.) After many years of pastoral relationships and Christian brotherhood with men and women tempted by or repenting of same-sex intimacy, this article is about as straight an account of the life as any I've read. It's not for youngsters, but every Christian adult should read it for more reasons than I can count--but especially because it pulls the curtain back on the reality of Western culture's rabid promotion of sodomy and what that entails. Precisely.
But more, the glorious beauty of father-hunger becoming only just slightly self-aware; then taking the first fledgling steps of repentance. May God have mercy on Patrick Muirhead.
Three excerpts to whet your appetite:
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I was in Tenterden (getting my hair cut)...
A handsome young dad entered with a small, fair-haired boy at his side. The man took a seat and hoisted the wide-eyed child proudly on to his knee. The first haircut, I speculated inwardly, as an unfamiliar fatherly glow and feeling of mild envy swept over me. I could not tear my attention away from the mirrored reflections...
From time to time, the dad leant forward as they waited and whispered close to his son’s ear, tenderly kissing his fair head. Touching stuff.
But then my eyes lowered and I became transfixed by the sight of the boy’s tiny pink fingers gripping his father’s huge, workman-like fist. And I almost wanted to burst into song.
I think my life changed at that moment.
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I once attended the nuptials of a gay male friend to a girl with whom he had unexpectedly fallen head over heels in love. It was a curious affair: the wedding party was peopled with his ex-lovers — including me, the best man and even the vicar. There is a risk that a wedding guest list of mine could have the same casting issues.
My sexuality was formed behind bike sheds and in school dormitories, a most unimaginatively clichéd pattern of pubescent fumbling. This propelled me into a lifestyle, reinforced by a social milieu of flamboyant media gays. At the BBC, where I worked for seven years, homosexuality was very nearly compulsory.
* * *
A 12th-century chronicler, quoted by the historian Christopher Hibbert in his History of England,
wrote of the homosexual king William Rufus: “All things that are
loathsome to God and to earnest men were customary in this land in his
time.” In modern times, we have become accustomed to abnormality again.
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