Horoscopes and Such...

I like to think that God has a sense of humor.

I think that’s why we all have varying degrees of it in our lives.

When I was younger, I loved to laugh. I also lived for the moment of making others laugh. Sadly, as I have grown older, I think I forgot how to laugh due to the many dramas I’ve had to face in my adult life.

It’s returning though – slowly. I’m so happy about this.

I see God’s sense of humor in very subtle and gentle ways. Sometimes they are nothing more than slight nudges that happen at the most unexpected times. So slight in fact that they can be easily missed or dismissed.

I’ve always been sensitive to the unknown and the supernatural. Lovey wrote in her journal entry (the one that I found while cleaning her junk out of my house) about my apparent “fixation” on these ungodly pursuits as one of her many reasons for our incompatibility. In her mind, it exemplified my lack of overall spirituality.

I always liked to ask her questions that sometimes challenged her faith. Such questions tended to make her uncomfortable because I often asked questions she couldn’t answer.

Lovey didn’t like to be in situations for which she didn’t have an answer.

Lovey thrived on being the most spiritual being in our household. She was always so pious and serious. She was always so busy living up to this notion that she never noticed that the ONE thing I never lost in my marriage was my spirituality.

I just never wore it on my sleeve or felt the need to beat my chest and scream “I AM SPIRITUAL” at the top of my lungs. Besides, that would have only triggered a contest as to who was more spiritual: me or the good reverend herself!

I just don’t do well at contests.

In my Christian upbringing, I was taught that reading one’s horoscope was akin to communing with the devil himself. But, being the inquisitive person that I am, I have always read that column of the newspaper…not to guide my life by it….not to conduct a séance or to consult a Ouiji board to guide my footsteps or to be turned onto a life devoted to the black arts.

This was for fun…ONLY.

One day in high school, for example, my horoscope said that I would have a good day, but that I should be careful in cross walks. At lunch that day, I wasn’t paying any attention to what I was doing and was nearly run over by a car while I was in – you guessed it – a crosswalk.

While I’m confessing my secret sins to you, dear readers, I think I should also tell you that I have fun reading personalized license plates. Perhaps this is nearly as evil as communing with the devil, although I’ve never read a commandment against this in the Bible.

Sometimes though, these personalized messages touch me at special moments quite profoundly. For instance, one day I was beating myself up internally about being a gay married man.

A sports car veered out of no where and merged in front of me…..the license plate read:

GWM RU12

A few days after Lovey lowered the boom on me and announced our separation, I felt unwanted and like damaged goods. Tears had welled up in my eyes.

A mini-van whizzed by with tags that read:

LOVED
Or, the day that I took #1 to the airport for her year abroad in Spain, I cried all the way from the terminal out to my car in the garage. The convertible parked directly in front of my car had tags which read:

BOO HOO

I could go on and on….

I count these moments as my little special moments from God – nuggets that let me know He’s watching…and that I’m not alone.

As you know, I’ve struggled with a host of issues this past year. If you’re new t this blog, you can read about all my fears and insecurities in the past articles in the archive. You will also know that I’ve also wrestled with my gayness and my own internal homophobia and my feelings of being “different” from everyone else.

Well, today I had another one of those special moments from God. Yes, at lunch time I read my horoscope in the Washington Post.

It read:

“As different as you feel from that person standing in line behind you, sitting in the cubicle in front of you or driving next to you in traffic, there is much that we all share.”

So simple, yet profoundly me.