Identify / Identity Through Observational Contrasts. Embracing / Celebrating God-Given Opportunities For Discernment Regarding Who You Truly Are.

There were so many positive attributes to working for the state of MS ('06-'12) as a Staff Architect, but one of my favorites was the opportunity to befriend / work with architects / engineers, that I'd never met prior, from all over the Magnolia State.  And I'll say it again:  All architects are very unique (before getting into specifics).

One local (Jackson Metro) architect I worked alongside on many a bond-monies funded project was +/-15 years my senior.  This elder statesmanish, laid-back sole proprietor worked from home and had recently passed the finish line pertaining to rearing his two (then young adult) children (they were more or less up and out).

This man was a closed book personally.  In other words, all business all the time.  As such, we talked a whole lotta shop.  But, because of my influential position (owner's representative), he couldn't comfortably shun my interpersonal inquisitiveness.

Therefore, I'd make calculated moves in order to query him regarding his faith, career path, upbringing.  And eventually, he even warmed up to me enough to make some (religious) book recommendations (he was one of the first Reformed Christians I've ever had the privilege to meet - in person).

And I'm so glad I took these platonic risks.  For this was one unique dude.  And so, so very sharp.

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One of the most interesting aspects of his story had to do with his own unique relationship with his faith / the "outside world".

I vividly recall him admitting to walking into a professional partnership eyes closed (very early on in his career), only to soon realize his untimely vocational mistake.  Nevertheless, he'd no easy way to walk back from this now mixed-morality marriage (his words), therefore he stayed put (in South MS, no less) 'till a clear exit path presented itself.  

His children were small during this season, and his wife, the ever-subservient homemaker.  Hence, he no doubt was in that 360-degrees-of-pressure-cooker stage of adulthood.  

All-in-all, I quickly got the sense that they'd chosen to readily own the part of the dutifully suffering, faithfully clandestine pariahs, ever determined to survive this ordeal resolute.    

As you probably already guessed, this architect was deeply religious, and prior to him packing up his young clan and moving to Hattiesburg for this shareholder role, they'd been faithful churchgoers (I'm willing to bet a dollar he was likely a young deacon / elder) within the Jackson Metro. 

Now here's where his story truly becomes insightful as to his identity.

Instead of this young family becoming a member of a local "Hub City" church (immediately following their move), they chose instead to super commute to the Jackson Metro very early each subsequent Sunday morning in order to attend (their) church - as they'd done prior to relocating.  From there, post morning church services, the children would nap on the church pews (after eating a packed lunch) in order to be "fully refreshed" for the evening church service / activities.  When that had concluded, this architect would pack up his clan and return forlornly to Hattiesburg (90 minutes by car).  

And this went on for years.

I can remember how earnest he was as he revealed this to me, and it was obvious he had no regrets therein.  I was left speechless.

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Covenant Eyes has been a lifesaver for Rob.  It's been my digital training pants for a decade now.  

When I consume gay porn, I gravitate to a laptop / desktop PC (I don't have access to a tablet PC).  On the other hand (thankfully), my pocket computer, due to its small scale, simply isn't equivalent.

Covenant Eyes, as a smartphone app, was very recently replaced by their "Victory" app, yet I haven't downloaded this successor program.

Why?

Because of what I admitted to earlier.  My pocket computer is moreso an email management, Slack, weather app, telephone, text messaging device.

And I knew this day was coming.  For as of yesterday, (9/28) my smartphone is unmonitored by CE due to this software phase out / upgrade.

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I'm very fortunate to be able to say that in spite of the countless hours of consuming gay porn, I've never had the urge to imitate / engage in what I was seeing.  Hence, Angie (my wife) is the only individual I've been sexual with.  Ever.  

And even today, with Angie's disabled, broken body as my helpmeet, I still consider the notion of engaging sexually with another man as not of interest in the least.  Conversely, my love for my physically broken wife continues to deepen.  

What this tells me is the following (& I clearly heard this commentary last night post consuming gay porn on my now "unlocked" pocket computer):  There's a huge difference in consuming porn and engaging in homosexual practices.  To be a bit more granular, if I were to encounter the gay porn models who're engaging with each other sexually, I have no doubt that I'd back away heavy hearted.  Not because of me finding myself between a rock and a hard place (sexual identity vs faith in Christ), but due to the abject brokenness / dead end that's there on full display.

Can I daresay that Jesus has clearly reminded (tempered?) me, as of late, that my appetite isn't for homosex between me and some hot guy(s).  Not at all.  And this truth has been amplified / concretized via my - now (thankfully) quite sporadic - consumption of gay porn.  

And not because I've "had my fill" (believe me, I'll never have my fill of gay porn).  No.  Instead, it's due to the very explicit www education I've been given.  One that's allowed me to come to grips with / rigorously adjudicate a practice that's now wholly celebrated / normalized throughout the entire western world.

Can I say wholeheartedly - Thanks be to God for my exposure to / struggle with gay porn?!?  Not only in line with growing my faith but with growing my understanding of myself?

I'm ruminating on these interrogative sentences even as I type this.

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When our two oldest daughters were preschool / toddlers, Angie and I warmed up to the notion of homeschooling.  Especially considering how smart my wife is / her love for our children.  And we jumped headfirst into this even though we had access to great traditional school choices (both public and private) near our home.

As such, when our oldest daughter aged into kindergarten, Angie homeschooled her.  And it went superbly.

But when we attended the homeschool co-op kindergarten graduation ceremony with our 6-year-old in tow, I was immediately struck by the air of entitlement / tremendous lack of diversity (keep in mind this was 2009).  Therefore, by the end of the ceremony, I was equal parts nauseated and livid.  For it simply felt way too much like a white bread Christian fringe group. 

As we were walking across the parking lot upon exiting the church annex, I made it very clear that there'd be no further homeschooling going forward.  From there, I asked Angie to reach out to our assigned public elementary school in order to schedule an audience with the principal (regarding 1st grade).  She did so begrudgingly, but man oh man, God used that meeting to clearly demarcate the educational path forward for our girls. 

Homeschooling, upon our research, looked so appealing.  Noble even.  But once we engaged, we quickly realized the mistake we'd made (for our particular family / identity).

(BTW, if I remember correctly, the aforementioned elder statesmen architect homeschooled their children.)

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I've taken Safari and banished it from my lower level "convenient apps" zone on my pocket computer.  My hope for this week is to simply not browse - at all - on that Internet capable device.  

Can I not piss in the bed sans training pants?  We'll see. 

Here's hoping I can hang tightly to my true identity whilst being tempted.  

I'm not sure what takes longer - finding / accepting one's true identity or recovery in general.  Molasses flow.

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A Sincere, Intelligent, Handsome, Christian Young Man (Husband / Father / Son / Brother): Dead

Our church's Associate Pastor sends emails out regarding prayer requests.  One such email landed in my wife's inbox last night.  It was fairly late, therefore there was no doubt an urgency to it.

Young Will Webb had unexpectedly dropped dead in Little Rock, AR, therefore we were being asked to pray for his family (& especially his young wife who's currently pregnant with their first child).  

Will's parents reared both Will and his brother superbly.  In fact, I'm so pleased to report that these boys' 'rents continue to be active members of Lakeside Presbyterian Church, and they fit right into our Island of Misfit Toys there on Spillway Road.  They're in attendance Every Single Sunday.

I had the privilege to befriend Will (immediately prior to the pandemic) when he was pursuing his graduate degree from Reformed Theological (both of his parents are also graduate-degreed from RTS).  He was single at the time, and he shared with me that it was his dream to counsel children (troubled teens, in particular) post-graduation.

Both of Will's parents have striking physical features combined with undeniable physical stature.  As such, both he and his brother were blessed to receive similar physical beauty / stature.

As such, Will's sweet, helpful spirit was seated beautifully therein. 

And just so you know, Will achieved his dream.  He was pro counseling within group homes in AR and loving it (up until his untimely death).

Please pray for the Webb family during this tremendously difficult time.

How very difficult it will be to attend his funeral.    

Lagniappe

I Don't Want To Be Like You / "Can I Truly Respect This Guy?"

Dreaming about my past work as an architect (intern & eventually licensed pro) between '96 and '06 (private sector job) happens often.  And these dreams are so vivid that whilst waking up, I'm so very relieved to no longer bear the burdens I once did (though I really do enjoy the heady emotions brought on by the fantastical revisit).

At that time ('96-'06), I was (almost) fresh out of college, and having never met an architect that I truly wished to emulate / look up to (high school / college experience or otherwise), I gravitated towards the man who hired me for such a time as that.   

He was a decade my senior, though due to our collective youth, still quite young (especially to be a partner within a firm).  

We hit it off immediately, and working under him was a joy.  Not to mention the projects he assigned me to design were challenging and fulfilling to work on.

Eventually though, I grew frustrated with my boss.  Especially as it pertained to who he'd chosen to align himself with (pro relations / spouse).  This mounting bad taste in my mouth only soured further as I couldn't help but observe his personal modus operandi closely (due to proximity).

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My best friend from college also worked at this firm.  In fact, he'd been there just one month prior to Rob coming onboard.  This man was a weird one (what architect isn't?) but overall, no weirder than the colleagues he was now sharing an (branch) office with (I worked in the much larger, main office).  Nonetheless, the original branch office clan of three (two minions and one partner who were there prior to my best friend and I being hired) refused to give much of any respect to my friend.  In essence, he was being singled out and mistreated.

As a result, my friend threw in the towel, doing so once he reached a point of no return.  This occurred around '00 (both of us hadn't been licensed as architects too long).

I remember going to my aforementioned architect boss, there in our main office, on behalf of my friend's situational plight (well in advance of his sudden resignation), only to receive a very glib response.  This infuriated me.  For I knew my friend well enough to know that he'd not be able to continue within such a toxic work environment for much longer.   

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I spent many a shared meal with my best friend from college (primarily during our time together in architecture school).  He was also the best man in my wedding (much to my father's chagrin).  During our fourth year at MSU, we'd also lived together amiably in Evans Hall.  As a result of all this, our mutual respect for each other was unwavering.

My friend had been reared in a complicated home, and his adolescent years had been especially tough, but man, he was a hard worker with a very sharp mind.   

On the other hand, he was weird.  Now, if you were to engage with him today (25 years into the future), almost every facet of that weirdness is no more.  But back then, it was a defining attribute, resonating clearly in regard to how he carried himself. 

Honestly, at first, I pitied him.  That was the initial centerpiece of why I served him as a friend.  And when you choose to ever support someone you truly pity (even if for a season), via a longstanding relationship, it's hard to resist defending them reflexively.

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I feel compelled to remind you that I'm a same-sex attracted man, therefore there's a really good chance that you're not in the same boat that I am.  Hence, this likely won't be, going forward, commentary you can relate to.

When I warm up to (platonic) hetero men, I put that much more emphasis on the following question:  "Can I TRULY respect this guy?"

Why?

I'm convinced it's a result of mirroring.  

In other words, I MUST FEEL CONFIDENT IN POTENTIALLY RECEIVING what I'm setting myself up to divvy out in kind.  And for so many men, especially when they get to know Rob, this is not easy to deliver on.  Nonetheless, when it does occur, I have absolutely no issue following suit.

Also, especially when I was a younger man, I was absolutely convinced that obtaining a mentor, who by definition would follow suit with this reciprocal respect, was of paramount importance / significance.

In closing, there're only two men who I can call friend today who've equally (cross pollination) respected Rob, and one of these is my oldest, aforementioned (college) friend.  And yes, I'm pleased to say that he's still architecting (public realm).

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The takeaway:  Because of my boss' refusal to advocate on behalf of my friend, there at his architecture firm, I subconsciously began to emotionally decouple from the profession as a whole.  For as I stated earlier, he had represented, in the flesh, what I might achieve as my end goal.  

Because this internal decoupling was happening of its own accord, when I resigned from his architecture firm in '06, I felt a myriad of disregulated (very confused) emotions.  Hence, during my "private sector retirement reception" (I had chosen to move into the public sector immediately following), I was speechless throughout the event.  This was beyond awkward for everyone in attendance.       

Lastly, I believe these as of late monthly dreamscapes of architecting past are my mind's attempt to make sense ofl that dysregulation.  For I'd put a tremendous amount of hope (& pressure) in the professional relationship I had with that mentor architect.  In essence, I wanted him to demonstrate what I was very, very compelled to instinctively reciprocate.  When that didn't pan out, I became tremendously conflicted internally in light of what he'd come to represent.  So many years of disillusionment followed.  Disillusionment that I had to fight hard against constantly.  Also, I see now that my chronic consumption of Internet porn at work was exacerbated via this disillusionment.

His choice to not advocate on behalf of my closest friend slowly set in motion a new vocational path forward for Rob.  A path that had nothing to do with the ideal he represented.  

That's a sobering reality.

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What Is It About Fall 2024?

I don't have a favorite season, and I believe that's because I'm from Mississippi (where Fall & Spring are miniscule).  Plus, winter here is so very mild (free air conditioning!).  Therefore, for Rob, it all just blends together month to month to month.  

But fall of 2024 is different.  Something about it...

I know I'm anticipating the Samson Summit, and primarily because of its location. 

Every "National Retreat" (as they were originally dubbed) has always been in middle TN at a pretty low rent Methodist Retreat Center.  (Last year's really doesn't count.  The venue was such an overstep due to its scale / posh.)

As such, I'm anticipating a fresh place (East Coast) and a very fresh, appropriately scaled locale.  Why?

It should bring in some fresh Samson blood.  I get so worn out seeing the same guys frequent these events (& believe me, I'm sure they feel the same about Rob).  Fresh Samson blood means opportunity for fresh relationships.

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I'm part of a volunteer board (& have been for 3-4 years now) that supports the area of the Jackson Metro that we live in.  At the beginning of 2025, my plan is to resign my post.  There're two remaining events that we're hosting this fall (both of which I'm looking forward to), and then from there, I'll be hanging up my hat.  

It took two decades for me to find out about this troupe (that supports our area), and I'm so glad I did, but all in all, I'm ready to retire.  Our meetings have grown tedious, and the volunteer work repetitive.  Nonetheless, it's been a fantastic experience for me overall.  Giving back locally is a gift in and of itself.

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This forthcoming holiday SHOULD BE the last one with all three daughters home here within our 1,550 sf abode.  

Living with four arguably ADULT women - full-time - quickly wears me down.  Especially when there's no rhyme nor reason as to their schedules (they make fun of dad / husband for not being able to expertly keep up with who's slated to do what with whom and when each & every day).  

My oldest is a senior in college.  She's very much ready to fly the coop.  Yay!  Knowing this will be her last hurrah here at our "garden home", puts a huge smile on my face.  I'm so proud of her, and I see so much of myself therein.  As such, I want to cherish this final Xmas together before saying sayonara.

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& finally, I'm a closet gardener.  As such, I have a plant that blooms on overdrive throughout October (up to the first frost).  It's a perennial, and it's about a 1/3 of the size of a full-size pickup truck (though a head or two taller).  

For some reason, this plant is a rarity in these parts yet considered an "Old Southern" plant.  I was encouraged to purchase it (county extension plant sale) +/-15 years ago prior to planting the 1/2-gallon pot adjacent to our driveway (in a small, newly prepped flower bed), and now, here we are.  It's my King Kong plant.  

The blooms are the size of softballs and interestingly enough, they open as cotton white before turning pink then crimson red over the course of the next 48 hours.  From there, the outlandish blooms die quickly and drop to the ground.  Because there're so many, the base around this native Asian plant becomes littered with slippery nastiness (think falling figs off a fig tree).

Countless people stop me when I'm outside piddling to inquire about this Confederate Rose plant.  Experiencing its show firsthand is such a blessed way to usher end the final stretch of each calendar year.  Considering the apocalyptic heat / dryness of Q3 / Q4 '23, there's all the more reason to botanically celebrate what's right around the corner.