Closets of safety and refuge.

I chose to go back into the closet today.

I found myself in a little general store in my community. Walla Walla/College Place, WA. An elderly man on one of those scooter thingies looked at me and asked me if I worked there. I said no. He needed help with something.

There was something about his voice. It was rattling dormant synapses deep within me.

A few minutes later, I met him again. Again, he was alone in an aisle. I asked him if he had found someone to help him, for I was ready to go off and find assistance for him. But he assured me that somebody was now helping him.

I moved on.

But that voice. And then it hit me who he was.

I remembered him from my Dad's funeral back in 2001. This elderly gentlemen was one of the "characters" featured in my Dad's diary from Canadian Junior College days from 1941 to 1945.

I went back to him and introduced myself. His memory is fading, as he explained, and so it took awhile for him to connect who my Dad was, who my mother was, and who I am. But it finally came together.

The conversation focused around those 1940's days and some of the people involved. He is a retired SDA minister now.

At one point of the conversation he looked at me and stated, "You are a Seventh-day Adventist." He needed an affirmation just to be sure, because he was talking about the imminent end of time because of global warming thing he had watched on TV at day or so ago. He was emphatic that the Lord was coming very quickly.

I simply responded, "No, I was a SDA, but no longer."

That set him off. "You need to return to the Lord. Shame on you. You need to study your Bible. You need to find someone who can give you good Bible studies. You need to return to the Lord."

I didn't respond.

His end of the conversation continued about how God created all these animals to live in different habitats, and now the habitats were changing because of global warming. And how evil Darwin was. And how I needed to study Genesis and to get ready for the Lord's return.


I listened to him.

He was sincere.

And I did not challenge him. I did not agree with him. I did not disagree with him. I did not want to evangelize to an 88 year old man who is so firmly anchored in his belief system.

But if he only knew I was studying the Bible. Like I have never studied it before.

If he only knew that I was gay, (that would have evoked a volcano of righteous eruption), and that I choose to no longer associate with a homophobic church that discriminates.

If he only knew that I have made a serious study of science dealing with biology, and that now I fully accept and endorse the scientific field of molecular biology and genetics that is commonly known as evolution as a unifying theory of all things living.

If he only knew that I now understand Genesis to be a Mesopotamian myth that was the prolog to a history that had its purpose to justified the House of David as the Righteous Church . . . to be destroyed by Rome . . . that evolved into a Roman form of Christianity.

So I had to force myself back into the closet.

For him.

Not for me.

Because it would be too "in-your-face" for him.

But then, posting this experience on Kinnet is an "in your face" thing as well.

The catacombs in a religious community sometimes become closets of safety and refuge.

The Refectory Manager