I'm looking at the man in the mirror.

Have you ever caught yourself in the act of oppression? I have several times in the past week.

One of the less mundane aspects of my job at Wal-Mart involves completing purchase orders for companies, charities, and the government. Today, at work, there were many purchase orders that I had to write up. One of the more recent ones involved two young women, one a mother, both First Nations. They were purchasing school supplies, with money from the Ministry of Social Services.

The first of the women had some money left over, so she ran off to collect some pens and use as much money as possible to fill out her purchase order. This took her about 10 minutes. And my line grew very quickly in this ten minutes to be approximately 10 people deep. My computer was hung up, waiting for her to come and complete the transaction.

And so I began sharing my frustration with my co-workers - "how long does it take to get pens when they are only twenty feet away?" Some of the customers heard me, including the second of the young First Nations women. She approached me, with her child, and said, "Don't talk about my friend like that."

Now, I'm a prideful prick. And when I am in a situation where I have the power, my prideful prickness pops up at an extreme.

So I said to my co-worker. "I think this woman is threatening me. I can't imagine why. Does she actually expect me to redeem her purchase order when she does that?"

In that instant, this woman was reminded of what it is like to be Indian in a world where white people have the money and power, and where men are not to be questioned by women. This woman was reminded that she was powerless. She was reminded that she was poor, and that she was accepting charity from somebody else (the government) in order to purchase something as simple and everyday as school supplies. This young woman, with child in hand, was reminded of her everyday existence, in the midst of a moment of excitement - the purchasing of school supplies.

And this was because of me.

The events that took place afterwards were of no. I was able to fulfill my duty, and feel charitable in doing it. She was able to fulfill her duty, and feel ashamed for being dependent. She was reminded, because of my body language, because of my privilege to have a job, and because of my willingness to "help" her, of how much more power I have than her.

Not that she needed reminding. Or that I needed reminding. We both know it, we just call this existence, "reality", and make it acceptable because it is "the way things are."

I have felt the scar of oppression - it is because of this scar that I am still in the closet and protecting myself from more direct attacks upon my identity. I rage about oppression - it discusses me when I can dissect interactions and recognize it. But I am an agent of it; I have been contracted out to oppress the poor, the women, the racialized, and the "other". I don't know it, but I am complicit in it.

My behaviour must change.

And everytime that I write about and discuss the oppression that I experience, I must be reminded that I am an oppressor. If my sympathies are limited to superficial ideals that don't affect my behaviour, or to the protection of homosexuals from social harassment, then I am not worthy of any protection or kindness myself.

Desmond Tutu says this: "A person is a person because he recognizes others as persons."

The audacity of hope, and how to become immortal.

The title of this blog is Reflections on Majdanek, a reference to one of the most unbelievable moments I have ever experienced. Let me share this moment with you, and then offer some reflection on it.

Majdanek is the site of death incarnate. It is the home of despair. If there is a hell, it is one of its many manifestations on earth. I have visited three of these manifestations with the intention of finding Hell, many more without realizing what hell was; of them all, Majdanek stands out. It is a particularly dark place in hell.

Majdanek is the last place I cried.

Majdanek, pronounced My-donn-ick, is a Nazi concentration camp on the outskirts of Lublin, Poland. It is incredibly preserved, with few signs of destruction as the Soviets "liberated" the camp before the Nazis could destroy the camp and its many records. Lives were not as fortunate as the buildings that once housed them.

I was there at the end of June 2008 with my brother and many friends from across the vast country of Canada, all of teachers, all of us eager to learn. We had spent days in Poland and Germany, attending ceremonies, visiting Polish Jewish graveyards and memorials, entering the gates of death at Aushwitz-Birchenau. Walking until the rotated "B" of Arbeit Macht Frei - work will set you free.

If there is a hell, it has many manifestations on earth.

But Majdanek is where I cried.

Right next to the burning chambers of Majdanek, which could be once again functional in 24 hours, was the image at the top of this post. Only in three dimensions; it could be walked around, it could be scaled. If the rain fell, it could be smelt in a new way. This building is called the Mausoleum. In it are the remains - ashes, bones, skulls, teeth - of some of the camps more than 70,000 victims. It is located on the site of death; where, on 3 November 1943, 18,000 Jews were killed by their persecutors. This event was known as the Harvest Festival to the Germans, as Bloody Wednesday to all else. It was the largest, single-event of mass killings of the entire Holocaust.

Majdanek is where I cried. And where I sang, with friends, a Canadian folk song of hope.

That as sure as the sunrise
As sure as the sea
As sure as the wind in the trees
We rise again in the faces
of our children
We rise again in the voices of our song
We rise again in the waves out on the ocean
And then we rise again

A message of hope. A daring message of hope, at the site of death, in the heart of Hell. Where 18,000 single lives, stories, masses of experience, of knowledge, were ended. Audacious.

Majdanek is where I cried; it is where I sang. It is where I was comforted. It is where the story of Hope transcended understanding and became a belief, despite all evidence otherwise.

Hell does exist. It is humanity at its worst. God is debatable. It may also be humanity at its worst.

Here is my reflection - how dare I feel overwhelmed, lacking in hope, when the nations of Jews can encounter Hell and survive, and then call themselves, Israel, the "home of Hope." How pathetic of me. Self-serving, human.

Go read Halina Birenbaum's Hope is the Last to Die.

Shame

Shame.

It is one of those few words that we all know, and we all understand. Everybody I know can associate some experience, some memory with this feeling. And we all know how entirely inadequate the word is in expressing the moment that one feels it. Shame; it is far too small, easily said and easily forgotten and we only know the reality of it when we are reminded of its existence. And that doesn't happen with the word, but only with experience. Five letters is nothing. Shame is everything.

Tonight I had an experience of shame, developing out of extreme confusion and anger. Intense shame, that has lead me to this bottle of Millers Genuine Draft.

I received an e-mail from a close friend; a man that I love a great deal. I admire him for his love of humanity, of people, or the possibility of hope - he is a man of inspiration. In the e-mail were contained the following words:

"Do you really think I didn’t know?

I’ve known for a very long time and I’ve been waiting for you to tell me."

My 8-hour response process has involved intense shame. I have asked myself so many times what gave me away. Was it a glance? I glitter in my eye, revealing something that my mouth would never admit? Was he uncomfortable, and did he want to confront me on it? Did it distract him? Did he enter every dialogue with me as frustrated as I entered them with him, wondering if the time of confession had arrived?

Most of my shame developed out of a sense that I made this friend immensely uncomfortable with my dishonesty and my lacking integrity. I was ashamed that perhaps he felt, in any way imaginable, even remotely violated by me - had I ever "checked him out", and had he ever caught me doing it? Had he ever seen me admire other men, been urged to ask me, and then stopped himself?

How many times did I deny him of a conversation he may have wanted to have?

Who else am I doing this to?

Is this why people want to talk about homosexuality around me? Do they want me to step out of a dream and stop pretending?

Are they actually ok with it, or are they just accepting the idea of it?

Maybe that is a question I need to ask myself more often.

My parents don't know. But they do. They are just waiting to be told.

Enduring success

Royal Sporting Goods

Frisbee: $7.95

Taxation: $0.80

Total not going to Wal-Mart: $8.75

Channing Tatum concerns me...

It is amazing the things that can happen when you encounter magazines.

Wal-Mart. This past week. I was working. This magazine was brought to me as something that had been misplaced on a shelf somewhere by a customer. These things get brought up to me all the time.

Just not with Channing Tatum on the cover.

It is my responsibility to reorganize these items (hundreds a day) so that they get taken to their proper departments.

But I didn't do that with this magazine, because it had Channing Tatum on the cover. And there is a rumour that he is bisexual. And I am like a 12 year old girl whose dream in life is to marry Justin Timberlake. Or Channing Tatum.

Back to Channing Tatum being bisexual.

A co-worker comes behind my desk and we start hanging out. This woman is middle-aged, but definite a sexual prowler. She says I wear nice pants. She isn't the only person at work who says it, but she is the oldest. And maybe I do wear nice pants. They get the job done.

I tell the co-worker that this guy on the cover is bisexual.

She says, "Thats too bad. He's going to die young."

My response. "Huh?"

She says, "He'll get AIDs from the guys."

Moments like this hurt more than I can show. Not only because this is a completely secular person who has shown some degree of prejudice, but because I know that once I am "out" people will still have these feelings, and have them about me. And they won't tell me about them, because they don't want to hurt my feelings.

Moments like this make me more aware of why some First Nations want to be white. Why some women wish they were men. Why the poor wish to be rich. And why the Quebecois never want to be English. Why I wish I was straight, but never like that.

Its easier to be powerful. To relate to the people who are powerful. You just don't want to be like the scum of the earth.

One day I am going to have to give up this false power that I have, and have people talk about me behind my back.

for the Bible tells me so...

I've come to the conclusion that revolution is necessary. I'll feel differently tomorrow. But revolution can be nothing but good. Right?

I just watched the recently released documentary "for the Bible tells me so." It felt like the story of me - a story that I want to share with the world. I cannot recommend it enough. If you want to view a copy, let me and I will get it to you - I've e-mailed the maker and asked for a digital copy. If that doesn't go through, I will get several copies.

Then the revolution can begin. It has to. The church cannot be a part of hate, hate that leads to suicide, suicide that leads to death and pain. This is not God. God cannot accept this. As I have said before, this is because God is everything but Hate.

If he exists.

I wonder what my life is like in a post-gay existence; where it is simply part of me rather than the central aspect of my thought. My everyday, simple, natural existence. I cannot wait for the fact that women don't make sexual sense to me to be open.

But it isn't going to happen right away. Can you imagine this conversation? This is the conversation parents know is coming, that parents don't want to have. This is the conversation that children know is coming, but that children know they have to have - this is the moment at which one admits that one is NOT the same. For biological reasons. For reasons that cannot be recognized by sight, but for biological reasons.

A couple nights ago I couldn't sleep. My parents had been out of town, and coming home the day after. I was crippled with fear, feeling that the moment for this conversation had come. (I realize this moment has been coming for 22 years, and still hasn't materialized. I'm working on that. Give me time, and a couple shots of tequila at a coffee shop.) I stayed up late, writing a series seven of spastic poems. I don't do this. Write, or write poetry. Music is my method. But words tortured me.

This is intimate stuff. It can get intimate. But I am going to retype it here for you. You may not like it - I'm not Leonard Cohen, William Blake, or Shakespeare. I'm only Neal Robert Adolph. And I don't really know what I am saying, except that there is truth in it.

I. Misery makes sense to a gay man, because nobody knows his name unless they read his birth certificate.
And even then they only know his name.

Happiness confuses me.
It is unfamiliar and frightening.
Misery feels like home.

II. I'll sit around my home, reading about God,
and wishing that my friends were not so inspired by him.
Because I am impressionable and lonely.
What inspires them can temporarily inspire me.
Because I am lonely.

Even when I am inspired, I know God doesn't exist.
Why would he want to.

III. I am so capable of allowing fear to paralyze me.
I can't imagine what it is like to feel somebodies lips on yours.
I propose it is like encountering God for the first time.
Like heroin. So damn good. So false. fleeting. Never to be captured again.

I want somebody to play with my arm hair.
Caress the hair on my thigh.
Is it actually electrifying? Does it paralyze? Will I even like it?
These thoughts arrest me. Why be something that I am not convinced I will enjoy?

IV. A confession is always on one's mind, but never on one's lips. The fear of rejection prevents words to form in the mouth that they have lived in for years.
They are nesting.
They aren't interested in learning how to fly.
Because escape from prison is only tempting when the sun is out, and a rainbow is in the sky.
And even then the nesting cage is familiar. Safe, dark and lonely, but familiar. It makes sense. Just like misery.
Misery makes sense to a confession.

V. Nobody hates a gay man quite as much as he hates himself.

VI. I've written novels about myself a dozen times. The first one was written in 2003. I was 17, and I was about to commit suicide. The words never materialized, but the novel was written.

In the style of a disappointing romance novel. Lots of lust. No sex.

VII. I say to you, O protector of children from freedom their parents do not desire,
to you, O protector of adults from freedoms their God does not desire,
to you, O protector of mine, sitting in your fortification north of Saskatoon.

You are bastards for letting me lie.
I'm sorry for blaming you.



I may have fallen in love with Bishop Desmond Tutu. A man, across an ocean, and of elderly blood. He says this, and it is sexy. "I can't, for the life of me, imagine that God would say, 'I will punish you because you are black. You should have been white. I will punish you because you are a woman. You should have been a man. I punish you because you are homosexual. You should have been heterosexual.' I can't - I can't for the life of me believe that is how God sees people."

The God of Desmond Tutu is sexy.

Hugh Jackman inspires me.

I won't deny my vanity, though I think I try to cover it up with no degree of success. I work at Wal-Mart, as a customer servicer nowadays, and sometimes it gets really boring. Sometimes when this happens, I grab a magazine to read. Once I read a magazine specifically for the reason that Hugh Jackman was in it, and I was getting really excited for the upcoming Wolverine film. In the magazine, he was asked about his perspective on homosexuality, because apparently he has played roles in theatre where his character was gay. He said this:

"Homosexuality is only a part of the whole. I like to think that sexuality doesn't determine the entire person."

Ok, that isn't a direct quote. Don't go searching for it - you won't find it. But it was similar to that. And I loved it. I probably wrote it down and lost the piece of paper at some point.

I like the idea that this blog can act in some format as a venting piece for my interactions with my emerging homosexual existence. I want it to exhibit the dialogue that I need to start having with the world around me. But, as per Hugh Jackman, I need to include other parts of my dialogue with the world.

Thus, this post, where I begin to share some of my concerns with the world, responding to events. Maybe you'll get a better sense of the whole of me. I am more than just gay.

I was at a friends wedding last weekend - a wonderous event, as weddings always are. This friend is an inspiration amongst men; an intelligent man, who is passionate about God and God's people. He is also a communist. I cheer for him.

And he hasn't walked into a Wal-Mart in 3 years.

I work at Wal-Mart, as a customer service desk employee. And I am well aware of why this man refuses to shop at Wal-Mart. They treat employees poorly, choosing to understaff stores and giving people insufficient hours or wages to allow for a living. They don't treat customers well, because there is not enough staff to care for their needs. They don't have expectations for how the employees of their producers are treated. They encourage people to spend beyond their means by making purchasing easy. They have poor environmental policy. They direct enormous volumes of money from the communities where money is earned to a head-quarters and into a corporate bank account. Money leaves communities because of Wal-Mart.

I don't like Wal-Mart. I enjoy my job though. And I enjoy the people that I work with; they are good people, with great humour, great hearts, and great intentions that just have the unfortunate experience of working at Wal-Mart.

And so I have plans to never shop at Wal-Mart again. Which is hard, because I tend to buy a lot. I am a Wal-Mart consumer - impulsive, dangerous, unconcerned with my bank account or how my purchases are affecting people around the world.

So I am going to start a system, online, with this blog, displaying my non-Wal-Mart purchases.

Canadian Tire. 2 Items

- A Key cut. $2.99
- A Hidden key kit. $2.99

- Taxation. $.060
Total not given to Wal-Mart: $6.58

I'm looking forward to living out my morals rather than merely discussing them.