Opening up: A Jesuit and his Mentor

From: Renita*

Date: Thu, Aug 2, 2012

Subject: Letter

To: Andy Silveira

Dear Andy,

I thought about you today, a lot. Quite apart from the fact that I've been meaning to get in touch and ask how you were. And now I'm about to bore you to tears, so is might be a good time to stop reading what may turn out to be a pretty long message.

A couple of weeks ago, one of my students came to talk to me. He's a novice sent here to do his science undergrad. We got to talking, and for the first time I saw among my students a Jesuit who wasn't afraid to ask questions, who reads and thinks for himself. You get the picture. So I did what we do in the English department here with people who want to talk. I took him out for coffee.

He talked. A lot. About growing up, becoming a Jesuit, falling in love and not being certain about being a Jesuit. A lot. Mailed me after to tell me it was the first time in two years here that he could talk to someone. So I told him anytime he needs someone to talk to he should feel free. Which he did. So feminism happened at some point, and race, and sexuality. Which is when he asked me, over an email, if I was gay.

I met him today, a couple of hours ago. Wasn't sure whether to tell him or not and then he brought it up again. And somehow I felt I wasn't comfortable with the dishonesty of not telling him, though I couldn't see what difference it would make. So I told him.

It was one of the saddest things I've ever done. Suddenly, this human being, who seemed perfectly comfortable around me, turned to me with a mixture of disappointment and pity and told me 'but you can't be, you're too good to be that.' So I asked him what he meant. He meant I seemed like such a nice person, intelligent, could talk philosophy, could talk oppressive systems, and here I was, betraying it all by being gay. So I asked him why it was a betrayal, why it was a bad thing. And he replied with the view of the Catholic Church on it. Same person willing to otherwise question imposed views, same person willing to risk disobedience, now tells me that for normal people it's easy to disagree. But a Jesuit knows that the church takes these issues seriously, considers all the social implications, and therefore whatever decisions it arrives at are final and they're good enough for him.

I sat there feeling bad for him. I could see that he wanted to continue liking me, being comfortable with me, but the knowledge of my being lesbian was hanging between us, giving him a look of unadulterated misery. So I did the only thing I could do. Told him to think things through and make up his mind for himself what he thinks.

And now I reached home and I don't know what I feel. I spent an hour there trying to figure out how to make it easier for him, but what I feel is something I didn't have time for. What words do you use to describe what you feel when someone looks at you with pity, as if you are genetically deformed? I mean, my dad told me it was abominable, it was a disease, and nobody in my family had it, so I couldn't either. And that made me angry. It was easy. This makes me infinitely sad and something else. I don't know what. Like having swallowed a ball of fur and feeling it in the pit of my stomach.

Why am I telling you this? Cause I don't have the need to juggle faith and sexual identity, mine or anyone else's. It's easy, cause what I believe in is freedom and trying really hard not to hurt people. I can't begin to imagine what it's like trying to reconcile gayness with god, for someone who for twenty five years has been secure in the belief that they won't ever need to.

I'm sorry I made this so long. If you've reached this far, thank you. Hugely.

Be well,

Renita

From: Andy Silveira

Date: Fri, Aug 3, 2012

Subject: Re: Letter

To: Renita

Renita,

I can only imagine what you might be feeling. However, I'm sure that the current discomfort that both of you are experiencing is a growing experience. You'd be feeling angry and hurt because the response you anticipated backfired. And he'd be feeling angry and hurt because you were exactly what he didn't want you to be. (An avatar of Beelzebub in human form!) But, I'm sure for a guy like him, what you told him was exactly what he needed. You struck the right chord by opening up yourself to him and challenging him to take his own stance.

People of faith often regard themselves as self-righteous which is bolstered through their relationship with "their" immaculate, omniscient god. And by this equation, those who do not share a similar relationship with "their" god only evoke pity or, at best, their concern.  A person who is grounded in faith may not call into question anything that threatens her belief. Questioning her faith, which she has been constantly absorbing since childhood is a process. And being ready to position herself against the echoes of her church’s teachings involves risking her comfort zone of familiarity and apparent security.

And more so, for someone like this young Jesuit, who has decided to live his entire life by the dictates of his faith. For him to reconcile your sexuality with his god, would also involve rethinking his own sexuality which he has assumed as given. And this might open unforeseen possibilities for him which, at this moment, he might not be prepared for. Also, you have challenged the horizons of the Others in his life whom he considers worthy of his recognition. This would involve making changes within his personal world. What you have shared has made him realize that there are fissures within the foundations of his own belief. I believe it will take time for him to sort this out. A week, month/s or perhaps years! However, I do hope it'd happen soon. And even if it doesn't happen, I sure that this experience would make him realize the limits of his fragile belief system.

Renita, you should be feeling shamelessly wonderful about yourself. Without this Jesuit knowing it, you have been an angel in his life. A messenger of hope and promise. You have challenged him with an invitation which he would either have to accept or deny. Irrespective of what he decides, you should consider yourself fortunate, because at some level, by making yourself vulnerable to him, you have grown stronger and, hopefully, wiser in understanding the way people act and react.

Thank you so much for sharing this experience with me. And you don’t have to be apologetic for sharing this. This is your own story, your own reality, which is infinitely more arresting than the ideal possible lives that we seek.

Love,

Andy

* Name changed in order to protect the identity of the persons involved. 

Seeing More LGBT Faces

Since last week, while I’m here in Hyderabad, and reading about Anderson Cooper and Frank Ocean coming out and the flurry of emotions it’s caused, I’m bewildered. I have always been enthralled by those who dared to love themselves at a time when they were given to understand that they were obnoxious. Especially those who dared to affirm themselves at the risk of their own ostracism. And yet, through it all, they honored their own humanness.

Each coming out story is a testimony of how beautifully diverse we all are. Despite our loves, attractions, ages, skin colors or castes, each one of us has a unique narrative weaving itself among a myriad of others.  Yet what makes everything even more intriguing is the way in which each of them is influenced by the others, rubbing their traces onto the others, thereby altering them.

My own coming out took twenty nine long years. Coming from a Catholic background, where gay is synonymous with shame and guilt, I chose a life of celibacy for eleven long years.  Ensconced within my own pseudo- religious closet cocoon, I had admitted only within the confines of the confessional as well as over some pins-and- needles sharing sessions with some of my closest friends that I was attracted to men.  I always sought clarity as to why God made me the way I was, and His only reply was that He carved me in the palm of His hands, fashioning me in His image. Undoubtedly, He made me unique and perfect! And in His perfection, He also gave me my sexual orientation. Three years later, as I look back at myself, I’m surprised at my streak of rebellion while I was in the Jesuit order. There was some part of me that always questioned authority; some part of me that often gnawed at the veneer of convention. 

Yet nothing prepared me for the day, when my own twenty-year-old sister attempted to share her life with me. It was an afternoon while I packing my stuff to get to Chennai, where I was doing my philosophy.

“I’d like to share something with you,” she said.

“Go ahead, Ancy,” said I, making myself comfortable while reclining on the bed rest. 

“I don’t ever want to get married.”

The moment she uttered the words, “I don’t ever want to get married,” I shuddered and grew pale, realizing the highly volatile ground she was navigating. I had always known where my sister’s leaning were towards. Her sexuality was conspicuous, though none of us in the family dared to admit it. 

 Umpteen times earlier I served as a confidant to several friends. Yet, that day, I was scared. I was really scared. Instinctively, I knew that the same fears I hedged myself from through my choice of being in the religious order were beckoning me and, worse still, were mocking me.

“Why would you say that? Perhaps you’re confused!” I lied, steering away from the direction this conversation was gravitating towards. 

I continued, “You have a long way to go, Ancy. In time, you’ll think differently.” 

I could see the light of hope waning in her eyes. The yearning of wanting to open up to somebody getting bleaker by the moment.  She looked crushed. And yet, through the moments of silence between our words, I knew she hoped this conversation would end differently.

And then, not wanting to give up on my sister, I said, “Ryan* is a nice guy. He likes you very much.”

“I don’t like him. He’s a liar.” Then she goes on to narrate an incident when she caught Ryan red-handedly spinning a yarn. 

“Oh, come on, Ancy! All of us tell lies once in a while. Cut some slack on the poor guy. But he likes you very much. It doesn’t matter if he takes a drink once in a while. All of us tell white lies.”

She looks at me quizzically and admits it. Perhaps she just caves in, knowing that it was useless. 

After a while, she gives me that smile, playfully mischievous. She says that she’ll talk to Ryan and give him a chance.  She makes me believe that things will get better. And two hours later, while I was at the railway station on my way to the seminary, Ryan and she have a little moment together when I was chatting with my parents. Seeing the two of them together, I hoped that day I was some help to my sis.  

Now, whatever possibilities I might think, I know it would only be conjecture. I can never fully fathom what must have gone through her mind those few hours when she decided that everything was over for her. Planning every little detail of her last minutes of life to prove to her confidant (a particular nun) that the nun mattered to her, Ancy had managed to take her own life by taking her last breath in the river where she often swam in. Like Virgina Woolf, she had stones on her lifeless body when it was recovered hours later. 

I didn’t have an opportunity to speak to her at length, after that day when she was about to open herself to me. But I rue the fact that I didn’t do what I ought to have done.  To open myself to her and listen to her, keeping aside the false sense of propriety that my family, society and religion had instilled in me. 

Something which I discovered about my sister after her death was that she had a good hand at writing. I read her diary entries about her feelings of confusion, desire and guilt mixed with her overbearing desire to be faithful to God. Through her writing, she wanted to break even from her inner tumult and come out honestly. Her death has taught me the importance of being honest to myself. 

Though she wasn’t as fortunate as I was, I, myself, am grateful to all those who came out before me. It made me realize that I’m not alone. There are so many of us in the midst of our uncertainties, careers, relationships and the everyday humdrum activities of our lives, who have to deliberate whether we can afford to come out. Each time we come out, we change a little of the world we live in. We do our bit in making a difference. Sadly, while in some places in some countries more people are coming out and making progress in terms of LGBT rights, we in India are still in a rudimentary stage when it comes to LGBT rights. Though some amazing things have happened over the last three years after the Delhi High Court judgement, we have a very long way to go.

People need to see more LGBT faces. They need to see more of us in our ordinariness, doing our daily chores at homes, pursuing our goals in our universities and our work places, speaking about our lives, hopes and disappointments and, most importantly, being comfortable about ourselves.

*Name changed