I grew up in a village in Central Il.  I knew that I was different than the other boys but didn't know why.  In my mid teens, I understood that the God of my understanding (at that time) was a hateful God. When I joined the Air Force, I maintained my standing in the Atheist Religion, but discovered something that changed my life for the better.  I Was GAY! It was a wonderful liberation.  I immediately fell in love, but found out that the person that I was in love with wasn't the white picket fence kind of guy.  It nearly destroyed me. I became an alchoholic, in and out of relationships, until I moved to Denver.  There is where God found me.  I found myself in a church with a loving pastor (Priest) that quickly involved me in the church (Episcopal). I got sober and fell into progessive stages of lay ministry, until I was finally called by and Old Catholic Church to be a deacon and then a Priest.  It was at that same time that I met a partner that I would be with for twenty years.  Although he was a good man, he didn't have a lust or love for life. I did.  Everthing was a banquet to me.  After twenty years I finally left, and came back to Illinois, defeated and longing for a God that I had grown distant from. I finally met a man that I had been conversing on a men's dating site with, and the sparks flew!  I reconnected with the God that I had been missing and found emotion to be a good thing again. It is this man that has made these poems possible. I will l let you be the judge of my poetry

Bachelor of Arts
Master of Divinity