Earlier this year, an elderly lady, who became my friend, died.

I had visited her each week after Sunday Mass, and we discussed the sermon which I recited to her, the parish and community news, my family life and we even strayed into world events and politics.

She was a remarkable lady and yet in all the years I knew her, she never once left her home and she lived a quite solitary but fulfilling life.

On Christmas Eve, I used to take my family to see her, and I would sing a selection of Christmas Carols to her before going to celebrate Christmas.

This year, with the permission of her sisters who live away from here, I went back into the old and empty house, letting myself in with a key which I still hold.

I ventured into the room where my friend died and I said a prayer for her.

I then moved into the kitchen where the two chairs in which we sat, aside the fire (which was lit on a low light) were situated.

I sat in my chair, and looked over at hers. I sang quietly the beautiful Christmas carol, Away in a Manger.

I was struck by the last sentence in which the carol ends “…and fit us for heaven to live with thee there” and although I had not planned it, the words felt appropriate and right for the moment, because I believe that is where she is.

I then went into the nosey part of my visit (with the express permission of her family) and I went to look around this magnificent empty old house, which has huge rooms on three floors.

It had lots of evidence, despite being largely empty of the christian heritage on which the family had left its mark, for there were crucifixes on the walls and religious pictures and pious books among the rest on the book cases.

Once these remaining items are cleared and some items sold, the empty house will be sold, a new life will transform it for the next generations to come.

As I left this empty house for the last time, I too felt transformed by the memories of the past, by my love for my dear friend, for all my hope for the future, as I entered into my own celebrations, once again, for the Birth of Christ.

My next blog will be: Changing Traditions

William Defoe

One morning last week, I had to drive to an office away from my own regular place of work, for a meeting at the start of the day.

The weather had been unseasonably cold, and as I drove along the side of a field, I caught sight of three adorable horses, wrapped in their winter coats, leaning their heads over the stone perimeter wall onto the pavement where people walked by.

At the same moment, I noticed a young man walking towards them on the pavement wearing big headphones and clearly in his own world (of music – I presume!),

But to my utter delight, after hesitating, he turned back and patted each horse on its nose, gently and unassumingly before I lost sight of that happy scene.

I think my heart was warmed by this event because the contact between man and horse(s) was not arranged or pre-determined, rather it was a set of circumstances which conspired, in the moment, for the horses to be stood at the wall and the random man to recognise their need.

Only after a hesitation, and then by going back to the horses, was their need for recognition and physical contact met which they seemed to crave.

How nice it would be if we could all try to see the need in others and respond by look, nod or touch to let them know that they are not alone.

My next blog will be: Empty Home

William Defoe

I have been in a dialogue with my wife, over how we can normalize my gay sexuality, and its effects on both of us, within our marriage.

This renewed sense of purpose, within me, has been inspired by my recent meeting with a beautiful married gay couple in London late last month.

They had recommended that I should watch a film by Francis Lee called “God’s Own Country” which is a gay love story set in Yorkshire.

One night last week, late and ready for sleep in bed, I quietly asked my wife if she would watch this film with me when it is released for public ownership on DVD next year.

I sensed her body tense at the suggestion, and she made a remark about this idea having been inspired by my trip to London.

I said that the suggestion that I should watch the film was inspired by the recommendation of these lovely friends, but that it was my own idea to suggest that we watch it together.

She responded that it was not something she felt that she wanted to watch.

It was left at that and sleep fell upon us.

Later in the week, my wife held me and said, I want to thank you for asking me if you could watch “God’s Own Country” – it felt like a trustful and brave request and I have been thinking about it and yes, you can watch the film.

The problem here was that I had not asked for her permission to watch the film, I had asked for her agreement to watch it with me when I do.

It was necessary to explain this point to her, because the nuance and difference in interpretation of our discussions needs to be given clarity, sensitivity and honesty if our  difficult situation is to survive.

My next blog will be: “Adorable Horses”

William Defoe

Five years ago, a few weeks after I had told my wife of 25 years that I was gay, and just before Christmas, I was walking down a busy street in a nearby city, when I overheard someone say to her friend “he looks gay”

I wrote a post about the impact which her comments had on me at the time, which essentially had an inner liberating effect on me, because I was able for the first time, to say to myself, “yes I am gay, and thank you for noticing”

In the intervening years, I have been supported by my coach on my journey to know and love self, including the previously exiled parts of me, which being fundamental to my identity, I had previously neglected and worse still, rejected.

In recent times, having developed a much fuller understanding and acceptance of self, I have looked for ways in which to find expression for my sexuality whilst remaining faithful to the vows I made to my wife, which I dearly want to keep.

It became clear to me, that I needed to find some way of connecting myself to the community to which I rightfully belong, but to do so in a safe space which would not compromise my integrity within my marriage.

Late last month, my coach arranged for me to travel to London to meet a young gay married couple in London.

My aspiration was to be seen, not in a casual and perhaps unkind way, as had been the case in my local city five years ago, but in an intellectual exchange which would enable me to express to representatives of the gay community, that I was a part of them, and that I sensed a need to be seen and acknowledged by them as gay.

To experience direct eye contact with gay men, who knew that I was gay, was a deeply profound and liberating experience for me, the magic of which will work within me, perhaps for the rest of my life.

The openness to discussion of my history, their histories and our respective journeys as members of the gay community  was enlightening and life-affirming to my searching soul.

It is my express wish to stay faithful to my wife whom I love, but the encounter with these beautiful men, has provoked within me, and within my marriage a dialogue, which I hope will develop and grow so that my gay sexuality is normalized within my heterosexual marriage.

The last sentence above seems ludicrous, but for me, it is an achievable and desirable aspiration so long as we are happy and fulfilled in as many ways as we can be which gives honour to our love and our commitment to each other and make each other happy.

I have sensed a shift, since my meeting with these beautiful men, for the difficult work of opening up to the reality of my gay sexuality, and how it can be expressed within my marriage through discussion; acknowledgement; humour; literature; filmography and my writing, so that my sense of isolation and my wife’s fear of what she perhaps misunderstands can be overcome.

There is a growing sense within me, since my meeting with these beautiful men of what I think of, as the possibilities of my situation, and these are very wide ranging and may mean that ultimately my life may have to take a different path, to the one on which I am currently embarked.

I sense within me a need to be open to the possibilities, to be open to the challenges, to be open to the truth, which the act of being seen by these beautiful, generous men has brought to my life.

My next blog will be: God’s Own Country

William Defoe

At about this time last year. we had installed a new and modern downstairs closet, with white furnishings and duck-egg blue walls.

We chose some trinkets to adorn the surfaces  – a photo-frame and a candle whose colour complimented the walls, and a bowl of tumbleweed or is ts potpourri?

In my often up-right state as I use the spanking new facility, I have this urge to move the frame, push the bowl and align the unlit flame, but I never do!

The resistance to this desire to be the creative one, feels important to me.

Better, I say, to be curious about the next move of the ornaments which comes, I think, at the hand of my wife, perhaps in her own organised way, or perhaps without thinking at all.

All I know is, that deep down the ornaments are not arranged as I would have them organised.

The ornaments are not aligned in a row, slightly off centre, more to the middle, or more to the left or right, I’m never quite sure.

I like the feel of my resistance.

It does not mean I agree with it.

It does not mean I accept it.

By resisting the urge to rearrange the ornaments, I am free to explore, free to imagine, free to accept those beautiful elements within me which I have grown to love with a burning passion which will never be reduced or falsely contained within my soul.

My next blog will be: Beautiful Men

William Defoe

On a recent early morning run along the side of a beautiful canal, a mist hung over the surface of it, and the atmosphere was chilled and eerie.

My face and hands, and fingers and thumbs were frozen, but the cool air was exhilarating as I ran along the straightened man-made path.

As I ran, I imagined the mist to be changed in form to steam.

I only knew it to be mist, because it was cold, but to look at it, I could easily imagine that it was steam.

Oh to jump in to the warm water and soak away my frozen skin.

This confusion and my imaginings over whether I was looking at mist or steam has helped  me to contextualize the inner dilemma of times and events in my life, when I have perceived something differently to its actual reality.

So often, I present myself in a given situation in  what I call “my old ways of thinking”, that is to say, rushing to a judgement, or an opinion, or a way of acting, without first taking the time to be curious, taking the time to explore, taking the time to play with my imaginings.

I knew all along that it was mist which hung over the canal, but somehow by imagining the cold air to be steam, I warmed my soul,  until soon enough, my fingers and thumbs were warming too.

My next blog will be: Resisting the Urge to Rearrange our Ornaments

William Defoe

I have been surprised by the extent to which the landscape on which I live my life, in the physical and environmental world, translates into my thinking and intellectual world.

For example, I am curious why a path which I take on one of my morning runs, between a river on one side, and a canal on the other side, should command from within me, a deep inner narrative about how I might tackle the problems I encounter in my conflicted soul.

This path, with river and canal side by side, is beautiful, for sure, but I am drawn inward to a place which speaks to me of a need to translate a fast pace life (my river) with my deepening capacity to find a space to be calm (my canal).

The image of the river flowing. and the canal just being, in my plane line of sight as I run, side by side, enables me to think through how I can exit the river and enter the canal for periods of calm and reflection.

Further along the path, the two separate and I find myself on the canal alone, all quiet; all beautiful; all peaceful; all waiting and then over the other side of it, a lake emerges as if it is a repository of all my past thoughts and experiences, into which I can add my latest learning; my latest yearnings; my latest turnings and draw from it the experience I have deposited before.

Soon, up ahead, the river and fast flowing pace of my life will interrupt my reverie with canal and lake, but as I enter once more the fast flowing waters, I am changed within to a deeper awareness of self; a deeper resilience; a deeper perspective; a deeper compassion; a deeper understanding to enable safe passage until once again the river and canal run side by side.

My next blog will be: Mist or Steam

William Defoe

My maternal grandmother died at the age of 54 in 1955, nine years before I was born.

She exists in my consciousness as a collection of stories about minor events which peppered her short life, which was defined by a loving marriage, several live births and several still births, her faith, her community, her humble nature.

My mother told me that shortly before she died, she started to tell people who came to visit her as she lay dying, the ways in which they had upset her and the effect their perceived unkindness had affected her.

A settling of scores  at the end of a fulfilling but hard short life.

This little anecdote does not define her life, but strangely it connects me to her with a love I can hardly explain which feels so very deep for a person I never knew in life.

Her need to express her inner-self, parts of her which she had suppressed and tolerated for the sake of family; for the sake of community; for the sake of her place in the world suddenly found a voice through her spoken words which were released from deep within her suffering soul.

I like to think, that her settling of scores brought her healing, love and forgiveness  because I know for sure, that it ultimately brought her peace and rest.

I pray to her each day as if she was a saint:-

“God Bless you my dear Grandma, may you rest in peace gentle, kind and faithful soul who gave life to so many through your frail body”

I believe that our connections are maintained after death with those whom we love, and it is through her courage to find her voice and speak her truth, that I have been inspired in some small part, to find and speak mine.

My next blog will be: Side by Side

William Defoe

Recently, I have entered into an arrangement to meet a gay couple who are known to a mutual friend, but not to me.

I have struggled to connect with the gay community because I have lived my life as a heterosexual man and I am married to my wife of thirty years, whom I very much love and care for.

I have been faithful to the vows I made to her all them years ago.

In recent years, and especially since telling my wife of my gay sexuality, I have tried to connect more fully with the person of self which encompasses my desire to remain in my marriage, but also to be gay.

My friend suggested that I might benefit from making a connection with her friends as a way of enabling me to feel “seen”.

To be in the presence of these two gay men and to be acknowledged as gay will be a very important moment in my journey to accept self.

It matters to me profoundly to be able to witness to my truth in this way, without compromising  my integrity.

Once the arrangements were made, I held within me a sense of dilemma – should I tell my wife about the arrangements I had made?.

My options : –

• Don’t tell her – she won’t understand – she does not need to know – it might worry her – but then, she might find out and that would look bad!
• Tell her, but then she might not understand, she might get cross with me – best then to wait until nearer the time to minimize the period of discourse between us.
• Leave her the clues for her to find – an email trail of clues and invite the question from her.

I chose the latter option, but the trail lead to the question sooner than I had hoped it would.

I wasn’t spared the discourse and for her it presented itself as a matter of trust.

I have not always felt supported by her on my journey to know and understand my self more fully, without judgement, without apology, without regret, without hope, but I am worthy of her trust.

I have made it clear, that my procrastination in respect of this issue was not a matter of trust, but a matter of time, a matter of fear; a matter of isolation.

I am looking forward to meeting these men, who have for no other reason than to help me, have kindly offered to give up their evening and connect with me in my need to be seen.

My next blog will be: Settling Scores

William Defoe

Two weeks ago, I had an enjoyable night out with my younger brother.

We live in different cities in the UK, so we traveled to a city in the middle-distance by train, so that we could both relax and enjoy a drink of alcohol with our conversation.

I carry some pain over what I perceive to be a lack of warmth in our relationship, and in truth I felt slightly anxious about our encounter as I went to meet him.

I had hoped that the conversation would turn, at least for part of the evening to the conflict I manage in respect of my sexuality, which he is aware of, but it did not do so, except momentarily in relation to a point he was making about a work-related issue he was describing.

I enjoyed the evening.

We got on well, and the heart of our conversation was taken up by a thorough discussion on our opposing views to Brexit.

How revealing I thought, as I reflected on the conversation on my way home, that we are from the same womb and yet we perceive the world so differently from each other.

Of course, our commonality of parentage, is a bond which I hope will provide a lasting basis for our relationship, but I know that even that is not guaranteed if we allow the differences between us to tear us apart.

From the same womb and yet, wired so differently in our attitudes to the world in which we inhabit, despite having shared a room as children and young adults, attended the same schools, and shared the same relations, neighbours and parish friends.

Our joint faith, our love for our family and our commitment to be there for each other  should the chips be down is a sign of a strong bond between us which despite our differences in political outlook, and in emotional; sexual and intellectual capacity, is I hope, something which will endure until the end of our lives.

My next blog will be: A Matter of Trust

William Defoe