One

When I was seven years old, I began the discussions that would prepare me to receive baptism into full membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. My dad took an active role in teaching me. I distinctly remember him sitting me down in the living room of our Greece, New York home, and discussing with me the importance of seeking from the Holy Spirit a witness of the truthfulness of the church as preparation for this momentous step in my life.

I remember reading with him Moroni 10:4, from the Book of Mormon:

And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Dad also explained to me how to recognize when you are receiving a revelation through the Holy Spirit. He described it as a sensation of warmth and well-being that I would feel, both in my heart and in my mind. That was a sign that the Holy Spirit was present, and was bearing witness to the truthfulness of whatever proposition I had prayerfully placed before God. When I asked him how we could tell the difference between something that was just a feeling, and between the Holy Spirit, Dad responded that I would just know. He indicated that the warmth you feel in the presence of the Holy Spirit is distinct, that it transcends the kinds of ordinary emotions we experience day to day. Then he encouraged me to pray to God and ask him if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was His one true church.

I took Dad's challenge seriously. I did ponder the question and pray about it. And I remember one Sunday morning waking up and getting ready to go to church with my parents, and being filled with a powerful sense of well-being that filled both my mind and my heart. And I took that as the Holy Spirit's first revelation to me that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its prophets and leaders, and all of its teachings were true.

And the first people I bore my testimony to were my mother and my father. I still remember as if it were yesterday, the sunlight streaming through the kitchen window, my dad sitting at the kitchen table, my mom preparing a light breakfast, as I explained to them that the Holy Spirit had born witness to me.

Two

As Latter-day Saints, we were encouraged to rely not just on a single, one-time witness of the Holy Spirit, but to seek out re-confirmations again and again. We were taught over the pulpit that it was good to "test all things," to prove every principle and doctrine we were taught individually as well as collectively. We were taught to live close to the Spirit, to live our lives in such a way that we could hear the Holy Spirit speaking to us and guiding us each day. And we were given an opportunity once every month, on Fast and Testimony Sunday, to bear our testimony publicly. Furthermore, if we were asked to give a talk in Sunday School or at Sacrament Meeting, or to teach a lesson in Priesthood Meeting, it was common practice to end our talk or our lesson with a testimony of the truthfulness of the church or of the particular principles we had just finished teaching, as witnessed by the Holy Spirit.

I bore my testimony frequently, not only in church, but to my non-Mormon friends as well. Later, at the age of nineteen, I served a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in France and Switzerland. Being a missionary meant living a life where everything you said and did was a form of testimony bearing. I bore testimony passionately, both in word and deed, at every opportunity.

I would say that over the years I received countless revelations from the Holy Spirit, confirming the truthfulness of the teachings and practice of the church.

Three

It was after my freshman year at Brigham Young University that I sought and received my call to go on a mission. One of my close friends during my years at Pittsford-Mendon High School was Bill McAlister. Bill was going to Yale University, but like me, at the conclusion of his freshman year he returned home to Pittsford, New York for the summer.

The summer before my mission was a time of intense spiritual preparation for me. I felt moved by the Holy Spirit to ask my friend Bill if he would consider receiving the missionary lessons (called "discussions"), as preparation for being baptized into the church. Much to my amazement, Bill said yes. So I and the missionaries met with him at our house, in my bedroom, and he received the discussions. By the end of the summer, Bill had accepted the gospel and expressed a desire to be baptized.

As a priest, I had the authority to perform baptisms. Bill asked me if I would baptize him, and I accepted. I remember experiencing an intense internal struggle before the baptism, because I was not sure if I was worthy to perform such an important ordinance. I prayed to the Lord and asked him if I was worthy, and I felt the presence of the Holy Spirit. So with great fear and trepidation, I baptized my friend Bill. During the baptism I could feel the Holy Spirit present in a palpable, almost overwhelming way. It was amazingly warm, like a fire heating me from the inside out. It was one of the most spiritual, joyous experiences of my life.

Four

Before leaving for my mission, there were two rites of passage it was necessary for me to pass. The first was to receive the Melchizedek priesthood and be ordained an Elder, and the second was to go to the temple and receive my endowments. It was explained to me that becoming an Elder would enable me to give the Gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands, an authority necessary to missionaries. Not much more about receiving my endowments was explained to me, except that it would help strengthen and protect me as a missionary.

As with every rite of passage in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it was necessary for me to pass "worthiness interviews," to determine if I was ready to take these important steps. First I had to pass a worthiness interview with my bishop. Then if the bishop determined I was ready, I would have an interview with the stake president. My stake president was Dale S. Dallon, the father of my brother's best friend Shawn, and a former bishop of ours.

At the time I went through these interviews, I was still struggling -- as I had at the time of my friend Bill's baptism -- with a sense of unworthiness. When I met with President Dallon, his demeanor was much more serious than I had ever seen in my relatively long acquaintance with him. He stressed to me the importance of not accepting the Melchizedek Priesthood and the temple endowments unworthily. Then he read to me a passage from the Doctrine and Covenants, section 132:3-4, a passage which, he explained to me, especially pertained to the ordinances of the temple:

Therefore, prepare thy heart to receive and obey the instructions which I am about to give unto you; for all those who have this law revealed unto them must obey the same. For behold, I reveal unto you a new and an everlasting covenant; and if ye abide not that covenant, then are ye damned; for no one can reject this covenant and be permitted to enter into my glory.

I was terrified by that scripture. It seemed to be saying to me that if I accepted the gifts of the Melchizedek priesthood and the temple endowment unworthily, I would be damned. But if I did not accept them, I would be damned. So when President Dallon asked me if I felt worthy to accept these covenants, I felt I had no choice but to say yes. In my mind, worthiness was synonymous with perfection, so needless to say, it was with much fear and trepidation that I left that interview. Shortly after being ordained an Elder, my parents and I drove from Rochester, New York to the Washington D.C. temple so I could receive my endowment.

I found the temple ceremony frankly shocking. I was guided into a locker room where I was instructed to remove all my clothes and put on a white, pancho-like sheet. Then an aged gentleman (and complete stranger) annointed various parts of my naked body with oil, pronouncing various blessings as he did so. Somehow, this brought me face to face with some of my greatest insecurities about my body and about my sexuality. I had been totally unprepared for it, and I found the experience very unsettling. To my enormous relief I was finally given a set of sacred undergarments, and after putting them on was allowed to get dressed. It was explained to me that I must wear the undergarments at all times, that they would be a shield and a protection to me.

Though it was disturbing to me at the time, with hindsight that part of the ceremony was not so bad -- though it would have been nice to have been forewarned. If that had been the only shock, I probably would have gotten over it. But as the ceremony progressed, it only got weirder, and I was introduced to elements of the ceremony that I never got over. We were shown a film in which a major character was Lucifer himself. Among other things, Lucifer was portrayed bribing a tubby, oleaginous fellow wearing a Roman Catholic cleric to teach his doctrines. At various points in the ceremony Lucifer tries to lead Adam -- the main character in the movie -- astray. When he is finally banished for the last time at the end of the film, Satan leers out through the movie screen at the gathered temple goers and promises that "If you do not keep every covenant you make in this house this day, you shall be mine!" Those words were to haunt me for years afterward.

The worst part of the ceremony was when we received a series of "tokens," each of which had a "name and penalty." We were warned that the tokens were "guarded by solemn covenants and obligations of secrecy." The "penalties" involved executing a series of motions that represented "different ways in which life may be taken." We were led to draw our right thumbs across our throats from ear to ear, presumably to symbolize having our throats slit; to draw our right hand across our chests, presumably to symbolize having our chest cut open; to draw our right thumbs across our lower abdomens and allow our hands to drop to our sides, presumably symbolizing disembowelment. We were warned that rather then revealing these secret tokens, we would allow our lives to be taken. I was horrified.¹

After the ceremony was complete, we were ushered into the "Celestial Room," where we had been informed it was acceptable to discuss the ceremony or ask any questions we might have. Perhaps I should have asked some questions. But the cumulation of shocks, culminating in the blood "penalties," was overwhelming to me. The only questions I could think to ask were questions that seemed simply blasphemous. So I slumped in a chair, relieved that it was over, and kept a stony silence, praying to become worthy to understand.

My parents had been talking about staying to go through the endowment ceremony again. But to my great relief, my dad suggested that it would be better to get an early start on the long drive back to Rochester.

After crossing the border between New York and Pennsylvania, my dad asked me if I would like to drive. I took the wheel, but as I drove, I continued to ruminate on the temple ceremony. I was becoming more and more convinced that the anguish I had experienced in the ceremony was a sign that I was deeply unworthy. The full weight of President Dallon's talk came down on me, and the best way to describe what happened to me is I entered a state of shock. My hands began to tremble; I had a sudden case of the chills. I felt extremely nauseous. My legs felt so weak, I was uncertain I would be able to adequately control the brake and gas pedals. I told Dad I needed him to drive. I shakily pulled over to the shoulder of the highway. Dad took the wheel, and Mom sat next to him in the front seat, and I spent the rest of the trip lying on the back seat in a fetal position.

This experience confirmed what I had initially suspected. I began to believe that because I had defiled the temple ceremony, the Holy Spirit had withdrawn itself from me. The day after arriving in Pittsford, I took the phone out into the garage where I could be unobserved by my parents and called President Dallon. I told him that I did not think I was worthy to go on a mission. I started to tell him about the experience I had had on the drive home. To my surprize, he angrily cut me off. Over the phone he testily snapped that my experience was just Satan trying to discourage me from serving my mission. "I order you to go on your mission," he said. Then he hung up. Again, I was stunned, though partially relieved. I decided that I had no choice but to try to put this experience behind me and go on my mission.²

Five

I experienced the Missionary Training Center as a place saturated with the Holy Spirit. The discipline demanded of me gave me an opportunity to sublimate all of the sexual tension that left me haunted with anxiety about my worthiness all through my teen years. I determined that whatever was asked of me, I would go an extra mile. We were asked to rise at six o'clock in the morning to do scripture study before our classes began. So I got up at 5:00 in the morning, and got in extra scripture study and extra French study. Physical ed class was a great opportunity to sublimate sexual tension, by pushing ourselves to the edge of our physical limits. I wasn't the only one. Another missionary (who was bound for the Paris mission), overexerted himself and dramatically collapsed on the gym floor during one of our sessions.

The sublimation more or less worked for me. In my entire eighteen months at the MTC and in France and Switzerland, I only succumbed to the temptation to "masturbate" twice. I put masturbate in quotes, because one instance of masturbation involved me having such an irrepressible erection while going to the toilet that the friction from pulling my temple undergarments on made me ejaculate. The other time it occurred similarly involuntarily while I was doing push-ups in the morning, due to the friction from my garments. I confessed to my mission president, R. Bay Hutchings, and he absolved me on condition that I "never do it again." I did not tell president Hutchings about my many frequent wet dreams, something which troubled me deeply. I had heard church leaders advise young men that they could not be held responsible for wet dreams, that it was a natural thing and God's intended method of sexual release. But it still bothered me. So many of the church's other messages about sexuality sent the opposite message. And there was a line in the temple ceremony that really worried me about keeping our temple garments "clean and unspotted from the world." I was spotting them on a regular basis, every day or every other day.

The most terrifying place at the MTC for me was the communal shower room. There were only a few private stalls where one might be sheltered from from the gaze of other missionaries. I was terrified of having an erection in front of the others, and controlling it was especially difficult in a room full of nude nineteen-year-olds. So my showers were usually extremely short, with my eyes on the shower room floor and reciting scriptures or hymns in my head. One day after our P.E. class, I caught sight of another guy with a partial erection, and I lost the control I had worked so hard to maintain. He saw my erection too, and there was a moment of terror in both our faces. To my chagrin, some of my roommates had stolen my towel and clothes, and then locked our bedroom door, leaving me soaking wet and naked, and in plain view of everybody. I was mortified.

The MTC was where I had my first vision. It was during one of the frequent devotionals. The devotionals were amazing to me. The entire assembly of missionaries at the center gathered together in one giant room to hear inspirational talks by Mormon general authorities on a regular basis, something I considered an incredible privilege. When they sang together in one voice, it was deeply moving.

One day the opening hymn was "The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning."³ As we sang, I felt the trademark "warmth" of the Holy Spirit descend on me, but more intensely than I had ever felt it. It felt like I was burning from the inside out, but not the least bit uncomfortable. I looked up, and there was no cieling in the assembly hall. I saw sky and stars and clouds, and then I saw a vision of the Earth from a distance, as God must see it, I thought. In this vision, I saw the Earth purified as a place of complete peace, love, and harmony. There were words in my head saying, there will be no slavery then, no hate, no animosity between human beings. We will all be God's family. And the voice told me, that is why you are going on this mission. That is what the Lord has for you to do. I could not sing, I could only cry uncontrollably until the song ended and the vision faded.

I thought back to that vision many times throughout my mission, when things seemed difficult to bear. I often thanked God for that.

I experienced a similar vision again after my mission, on a road trip to visit my friend Bill at Yale University.

Six

The months and years immediately following my mission were an extremely difficult time for me. I continued to struggle with feelings of unworthiness, feelings that were exacerbated by the fact that I no longer enjoyed the structured existence, the constant companionship, and the clear sense of purpose I had enjoyed on my mission. I was also finding it difficult to deny my feelings of attraction to members of the same sex. I was slowly being forced to acknowledge that these feelings, which I had been aware of since at least the age of twelve, did not seem to be going away no matter how I prayed, fasted, or plunged myself into church work and activities.

At BYU I accepted a friend's invitation to live with him off campus in an apartment with a number of other friends of his. The student ward that I lived in was led by Bishop Barry Preator. When I joined the ward, the very first thing he told me was that it was my duty to get married as quickly as possible. Bishop Preator gave a notorious priesthood meeting sex talk once a year, in which he described in lurid detail all the various sexual sins and deviant behaviors that we were supposed to avoid. In my post-mission life it was no longer possible for me to maintain the herculean effort I had sustained throughout my mission to avoid masturbating. When Bishop Preator extended a calling to me to be a ward clerk, during the interview with one of his counselors I was asked whether I felt I had any "worthiness issues." I said that I did, and so I was referred to the Bishop. When I confessed to Bishop Preator that I seemed to have a problem with masturbation, he told me that not only did that disqualify me from being a ward clerk, but that I should turn in my temple recommend (the pass that allows you to attend ceremonies at the temple), and stop taking the sacrament. He told me that until I had been able to go six months without masturbating, I would not be worthy to participate fully in the life of the church. I asked for his advice about how to overcome this temptation, and he recommended that I get married as soon as possible.

This came as a devastating blow to me. I was already struggling with my sense of self-worth, and struggling with a number of intellectual doubts in relation to the LDS faith. Being told that I could not take the sacrament and that I was unworthy of even as menial a calling as ward clerk seemed to be cutting me off from the few spiritual resources I had left.

Toward the end of my junior year, I plunged into a deep depression. All my life, I had felt a deep and lively connection to God, an immediate and personal relationship. But now I felt nothing. I stopped praying. I stopped studying the scriptures. I was not sure if I believed in God any more. I began to think a lot about suicide.

I began to be plagued by demonic attacks at night. They would start in my dreams, but then continue after I woke up. The demons would try to enter me through the top of my head. They would press down on me, trying to get inside of me. I would wake my roommates up screaming in the middle of the night.

Seven

At the end of my junior year, I had left BYU planning to kill myself. I did not follow through with my plan, largely thanks to the friendship of my parents' next door neighbor, an Episcopal priest named David A. Works. Later in the summer, I went on an internship to Helsinki, Finland. In Helsinki, I met a number of devout Christians, including a student named Olli Peltonen, Jorma Alanen, and Wayne Kriemelmeyer. Jorma and Wayne both attended the International Evangelical Church, a mission of the Lutheran Church in America. They invited me to attend worship with them, and I did.

The liturgy spoke directly to all the anguish I had experienced for so many years, my feelings of worthlessness and sinfulness. As I read the words of confession at the beginning of the liturgy, and then heard the words of absolution, tears streamed down my face. For the first time since I had begun my downward spiral at BYU after my mission, I felt the warm presence of the Holy Spirit, telling me in my mind and heart that these words were true.

After attending that service I entered an intense spiritual struggle. I prayed to God again for the first time in months, asking what this meant. Gradually, it came clearer and clearer to me that the Holy Spirit was inviting me to leave the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But leave it for what? How could I leave the church that my whole life I had been taught and had believed was the only true church? The church that had filled my whole life with meaning? The church that all my closest friends and family belonged to? Would I lose my scholarship? Would I have to leave BYU? Where would I go? How could I live?

It was the third day of this intense self-questioning that I made my decision. I sat down at the little desk in the dormitory where I was staying and began to draft a letter to my parents, explaining to them that it would be necessary for me to leave the church. I asked God to help me write the letter, and as I began to put words to paper I felt myself being surrounded and filled with the Spirit. Tears filled my eyes. The next thing I was aware of was that I was not in my body any more, but flying up, far above the Earth. Suddenly I found myself in a place that I immediately recognized as Heaven, and directly in front of me was the throne of God. I did not dare to look up into the blinding light above the throne, where God was sitting, but all around I saw hundreds and thousands of people dressed in white, facing the throne. I began to recognize some of the faces of individuals in the crowd. Many of them were members of my family, ancestors I recognized from portraits I had seen in old albums, or hanging on the walls of my Grandmother's and my Aunt Myrtle's house. I heard a voice speaking to me, telling me that I had nothing to fear, that I and my whole family would be taken care of. When I came back to myself, I was slumped over the desk, my face wet with tears. Incredibly joyful and full of warmth, I finished the letter to my parents.

The following Sunday, I returned to the International Evangelical Church. After the service, my friend Wayne and I met with the assistant pastor, Mark Sallmen, and I told him that I wanted to leave the Mormon church. He put his arms around me in a warm hug, and spoke words that have stayed with me ever since: "No matter what anyone tells you, never let anyone make you believe that anything can come between you and the love of God." I began to meet with Pastor Sallmen on a regular basis, to prepare for Christian baptism.

After my parents received the letter I sent, I received an urgent trans-Atlantic phone call from them. They were deeply distressed. I told them that I had prayed about this, and had received a confirmation from the Holy Spirit that this was the right thing to do. "How do you know it was the Holy Spirit?" Dad asked. "How do you know you are not being deceived by Satan."

"I just know," I replied.

Eight

Shortly after deciding to leave the LDS church, I went to a department store in Helsinki and bought several sets of new, secular underwear. One night, I woke up terrified. I was aware of a distinct presence in my bedroom, a spirit that was dark and malevolent. It seemed to be emanating from the closet, where I had stored my Mormon temple garments. The following morning, I packed all my old garments into a plastic garbage bag. I took my set of Mormon scriptures -- my Doctrine & Covenants and Pearl of Great Price, my Book of Mormon -- and the bag full of Mormon temple garments, and tossed them all into the dumpster out back, behind the student housing where I was staying. I was untroubled by satanic presences in my dorm room after that.

My very last encounter with Satan occurred after I had returned to the United States, and was going to school at Northern Michigan University. As a baptismal gift, Mark Sallmen had given me a beautiful, pewter crucifix to wear around my neck. It was a replica of a crucifix from an old church in Finland. One night, I dreamt that I was holding the crucifix in my hand, admiring it, when I noticed things crawling on it. I held it closer to my face, to see what they were, and then I noticed they were tiny demons, sneering and hissing at me. They had broken the crucifix into three small pieces. Then I heard the voice of Satan speaking to me, echoing the words he had spoken to me in the Mormon temple ceremony: "You are mine!" Horrified, I snapped awake to the same sensation I had experienced so many times at BYU of something pressing down on my head, suffocating me and trying to get inside of me. I tried to banish the demon by saying, "In the name of Jesus Christ, get out!" But I only managed to say the words "In the name of..." Before I could say "Jesus," I had the physical sensation of someone or something grabbing my lips and holding them shut so that I could not say anything. I tried again, and the same thing occurred. Finally, on the third try, I managed to say "Jesus Christ," and the evil presence dissipated. It has never come back to haunt me since.

I told the Lutheran Campus Pastor about this experience, and it seemed to worry him deeply -- not because he believed my story, but because he did not believe it.

Nine

Leaving the Mormon church gave me freedom to explore many different types of Christianity. During my senior year at Northern Michigan University and then later as I attended graduate school at the University of Minnesota, I attended worship at Roman Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopal, Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Evangelical Free, and Pentecostal churches. I had also discovered that even within denominations there was great variety in terms of worship and emphasis. But I had grown in the conviction that salvation was not dependent on what church we belonged to, or what works we did, or what mysteries we knew, but on what God has done for us. We had only to hold to that. ⁴

My new faith freed me to begin to come to terms with being gay.⁵ This is because I trusted that no matter what my personal sins or failings were, so long as I did my best and put my faith in God my salvation was assured. After twelve years of struggling to overcome or repress or deny my sexuality, of fasting and praying and pleading with God to change me, I began to realize that it was unlikely I would ever change. So the question now was what to do with this.

The more I pondered this, the more distressing the question was to me. I wanted to follow the will of God. So in my first year of graduate school I began the most intensive period of prayer and fasting I had ever had in my life. I began by praying to God and telling him that he "knew me inside and out." He knew me before I was "knit in my mother's womb." He knew my heart, He knew how I had struggled with this. Now I asked him, what should I do? I began a fast, vowing that I would not eat again until I had received my answer.

My fast stretched into its third day when, at the mid-point of the footbridge between the East Bank and the West Bank of the University of Minnesota, God spoke to me. God's message to me was one of deep, unconditional love and acceptance. He said to me, "Do not close yourself off from any possibilities."

This "answer" was puzzling and disconcerting to me. I wanted God to tell me exactly what to do. The following weekend, I went on a men's retreat sponsored by the Lutheran Campus Ministry and the University Episcopal Center. Two of the men participating in the retreat were openly gay men. They were the first openly gay men I had ever met. Over the weekend, I had a chance to hear bits and pieces of their stories and struggles with being gay and Christian. I wished that I could talk about my own struggles and experience, but it was still too frightening to me. But after the men's retreat was over, one of the gay men at the retreat, Paul Hummel, offered to give me a ride home. We decided to get a bite to eat and then go see a movie together, Moonstruck. While we ate dinner, I finally got up the courage to tell Paul that I thought I was "homosexual." Paul laughed. "You mean you're gay. You're gay!" That was the beginning of my coming out.

Over the next few months, I gradually came out, first to close friends and to the campus ministers and my pastor; eventually to wider circles of acquaintances at the University of Minnesota. I started to attend meetings of gay Christian groups like Dignity (for Catholics), Integrity (for Episcopalians), and Lutherans Concerned. Accepting that I was gay and beginning to be more open about it was a profoundly spiritual experience for me. I was intensely aware of the Holy Spirit's presence, affirming the fundamental goodness of my body and of my sexuality as God had created me. I was also profoundly aware of how liberating it was not to have to hide, lie, or dissemble about who I was.

Ten

God had told me not to close myself off from any possibilities. Although I had opened myself to the possibility of being more honest with others and more accepting of myself as a gay man, I had chosen to remain celibate. I seriously considered the possibility that the best choice for me would be to live a life of complete celibacy. In order to explore that possibility more fully, I contacted a man I had met during my mission in France, Jean-Marie Guyot.

I had spent many hours sharing my faith as a Mormon missionary with Jean-Marie, and though he had always been extremely respectful of that faith, he held to his own tradition. Jean-Marie made a deep impression on me because of the depth of his compassion and his faith, and because of his strong sense of spirituality. I frequently felt the presence of the Holy Spirit in my conversations with him. After my mission, we had continued to correspond with each other. He eventually joined a Catholic monastic order, an off-shoot of the Dominicans known as the Order of St. John, and took the name Frere Regis. I wrote to Frere Regis and asked him if it would be permissible for me to come spend some time at the monastery where he was staying, as I wished to explore the possibility of joining a monastic order.

I'm sure it must have struck him as an unusual request, coming from a non-Catholic, and someone who had once tried to convert him to Mormonism! But he consulted his superiors, and I received permission to come live at the monastery provided I was willing to follow all the rules set out for members of the order. I replied joyfully that I would not have it any other way. After working out the arrangements, I applied for a visa and purchased a round-trip plane ticket to Paris.

Frere Regis met me at the train station in Le Creusot. I was given a brief tour of the monastery and was shown the small, plain room where I would be staying. During the tour it was explained to me that, while I could certainly address any questions I had to any of the brothers, in general there was an expectation of keeping silence. There was a meal schedule, a prayer schedule, a work schedule and a Bible study schedule. While I was there, I helped harvest potatoes from the monastery farm and attended a study of the book of Isaiah led by a Dominican scholar. The meals were all vegetarian, except on Sundays, when we had a meat entree with a glass of wine, and a piece of chocolate for dessert.

What I found most challenging, however, were the long hours of silence and prayer. The monastery bells rang at 5:00 a.m., and we would get up and shower and dress and then head to the chapel for matins. We would kneel in the dark, cool stone sanctuary on rough mats for hours at a time. In my first few days there, I thought it would drive me crazy. But then, suddenly and mysteriously, the anxiety and the unsettled feeling vanished, and I found myself centered and joyful and in a state of total peace. And that peaceful center is where I remained for the rest of my summer there. I loved and yearned for those long hours of prayer and meditation. Even after I left the monastery, I tried to continue to take significant time for meditation and prayer, though it ultimately was impossible in the hustle and bustle of school and work and the million other demands of "normal" life.

During my stay there, I had a chance to talk to a number of the brothers about their sense of calling, and what had drawn them to this particular ministry. I also spent significant time with Brother John Thomas, the brother in charge of this particular monastery, about my own search for a life calling. I did not hesitate to ask John Thomas and a number of the brothers about celibacy, and what it meant to them, and what it might mean to me. Each in his own way responded that celibacy was a gift, that it was a way of giving one's whole life to God. Each also warned me that if I sought out monastic life as a means of running away from or denying my sexuality, that it could only be destructive.

Gradually as I prayed for wisdom to know if this was the calling for me, the voice of the Holy Spirit manifested itself again in my heart. It told me that if I wished to embrace a life of celibacy, I could, and that pursuing such a life in the context of a monastic order would probably be a way of doing it that I could live with. But I did not have to do it in order to be good with God.

Shortly before I left the monastery, I had a final conversation with my old friend Frere Regis. He talked about the ministry of his order as a ministry of prayer. He explained how he believed this to be an important ministry, one that contributed to peace and goodness in the world in ways that are not obvious but nevertheless real. I told him that now that I had experienced it, I understood exactly what he meant. "But I always imagined you having a more apostolic, a more evangelistic calling," he said, "Your place is out in the world, with the people. That is where your gifts can do the greatest good."

"I think you are probably right," I said.

Eleven

I have been blessed in the almost two decades since leaving the Mormon church and coming out publicly as a gay man with growing confidence and peace in the path I once set my foot in with fear and trembling. Now I am blessed with a good job, a home, a vital and warm church community, and a loving partner who has been my companion for more than twelve years. There have been ups and downs, certainly. I live each day knowing that it might not have ended up this way, and that certainly there are no guarantees happiness will last.

Since that time I have also not experienced any dramatic revelations: no demonic attacks, no brilliant opening of the Heavens. Far from finding this disconcerting, I am reassured. I take it as a sign that, having found my "center place," I am now free to move forward, devoting myself to peace, justice and compassion. I have had time and perspective to dig more deeply into the nature of life, and faith, and God, always to ask more questions that I might not once have allowed myself to ask.

But if there have been no lightning bolts of revelation, my essential approach to life has not changed. Have I continued to have moments where I experience the clarity and warmth I was taught as a child to recognize as the presence of the Holy Spirit? The answer is Yes, frequently. Especially in those situations where I am reminded of the imperative to seek peace and justice. Oddly enough, I most recently experienced it as I preached a sermon telling God I did not think we should believe in him because that belief seems to lead more frequently to hate than to love.

I have come to believe that revelation simply means to take time to listen, and to open oneself enough to what one hears to change course if necessary. To have faith. Over the years I have been accused of being under the control of the Devil, first by Mormons, who could only explain my conversion to historic Christianity as the result of satanic deception, then by Christians, who could not reconcile me being openly gay and a follower of Jesus. All I can say by way of response is that by being attentive and open to revelation, and by not putting limits on where it would lead me, I have found my way to a better, more centered, more compassionate place in the world.

Divine revelation is ambiguous and insoluble by its nature. No matter how dramatic or powerful our encounters with the divine -- or the demonic -- we are not freed from the basic responsibility inherited by all sentient beings of thinking critically, of analyzing, evaluating and discerning what is revealed to us. That simple question I asked my father at the age of seven about how to know whether a feeling comes from God or not came back to me sixteen years later as I followed the Holy Spirit down a path that my father never imagined. And the question is still hanging there, with no really satisfying answer. How do we know?

The revelations I have experienced in my life have come to me through the senses, through sight, through hearing, through touch and physical sensations, as well as through the more mysterious, internal processes of thought, perception, and dream. They have given me insights into my needs, my drives, my choices, and my humanity. Revelations prompt us to look beyond the immediate physical reality that surrounds us, but they do not replace that reality or invalidate the need to test what those revelations tell us against that reality. More importantly, no revelation should ever be used as justification to violate the sanctity of another human being, or to ignore the urgent, universal demands of fairness, decency and compassion.

Is it possible to be a prophet and question the existence of God? My response now is, Is it possible to be an honest prophet and not question the existence of God? And not hold every sacred text, every revelation, every claim of every so-called prophet, indeed, hold God himself to the highest standards of accountability?

Notes

A comparison between the Mormon temple ceremony before I left the church and since 1990 is available at www.lds-mormon.com, a site not affiliated with the LDS church but that is published by and for Mormons who want to discuss in a spirit of openness vital issues related to their faith.

3. This hymn, written by William W. Phelps for the dedication of the Kirtland temple, was always one of my favorite, along with William Clayton's hymn, "Come, Come Ye Saints." It was in singing the fourth verse that my vision began.

The Spirit of God like a fire is burning!
The latter-day glory begins to come forth;
The visions and blessings of old are returning,
And angels are coming to visit the earth.

The Lord is extending the Saints' understanding,
Restoring their judges and all as at first.
The knowledge and power of God are expanding,
The veil o'er the earth is beginning to burst.

We'll call in our solemn assemblies in spirit,
To spread forth the kingdom of heaven abroad,
That we through our faith may begin to inherit
The visions and blessings and glories of God.

How blessed the day when the lamb and the lion
Shall lie down together without any ire,
And Ephraim be crowned with his blessing in Zion,
And Jesus descends with his chariot of fire!

Chorus:
We'll sing and we'll shout with the armies of heaven,
Hosanna, hosanna to God and the Lamb!
Let glory to them in the highest be given,
Henceforth and forever; Amen and amen!

4. For a time, I was very interested in the ecumenical movement. One of Mormonism's main indictments against the historic Christian churches was that they could not possibly be the true church of Christ because they were so divided. I considered it something of a shame and a scandal that Christians could not be more united. Since then, I've come to believe that disunity is a strength rather than a weakness. It is a sign of honesty.

5. As a Mormon, I had been taught that there were only two sins worse than homosexuality: the denial of the Holy Spirit and murder. Priesthood leaders had warned me that while church courts had discretion in how to deal with sexual sins such as heterosexual adultery or fornication, excommunication was mandatory for being gay.