Are right and wrong in the way?

Is it possible that narratives about right and wrong, good and evil, make it harder to have intellectually honest conversations about what is true about ourselves?

And if that’s true, do we really know each other? Can we? How can we ever truly love each other if we don’t feel completely safe being seen?

Totally seen.

At least for me, my own beliefs about right and wrong, good and evil, have mostly inspired me to judge myself, shame myself, and hide parts of myself from those around me.

My body turned 53 in April. Over the course of this life, I’ve held many beliefs about right and wrong. About good and evil. About God.

I trusted that Christ’s crucifixion and His shed blood meant payment for my sins. That it washed them away, leaving me in robes of brilliant white. But in all the versions of that story that I have believed, I never felt I could stand in front of my church family and confess how much I masturbated, or what I fantasized about, or what kind of porn stirred my sexual energy the most. That was the old man, the flesh, something I was supposed to have died to. Something we all agreed was sin.

Except it was very much alive in me.

Still.

I never really stopped feeling ashamed of it. Never stopped feeling like it was something filthy I had to hide.

I might share in a small group of men. Or in one-on-one with another spiritual brother. I had experiences where I felt some momentary relief from shame in those confessions.

But I never believed the relief meant I was ok just like I was.

My purity and my filth.

All of it.

Loved.

The only time I felt that was in the most profound spiritual experience I’ve ever had.

I was in my last semester of college, and I had hit rock bottom. Most of my friends, including my college girlfriend, gave me the gift of distancing themselves from me. It brought me face to face with the reality that I’d been an asshole. Judging everyone around me, nit-picking them in the name of my faith. They all tired of it and backed away.

Mind you, I was also compulsively masturbating. And fantasizing. I remember walking through the Vanderbilt bookstore, seeing the latest issue of Playboy’s Blondes, Brunettes, and Redheads on the top shelf tucked behind other magazines. I felt a burning curiosity to see what was inside, but I wouldn’t dare buy that magazine at the Vandebilt bookstore where other students might see me. So, I searched near my apartment and found a convenience store with bars on the windows. They had the magazine, and I bought it.

And then I danced with that magazine and those pictures.

Masturbated, threw it in the trash. Apologized to God. Called my new accountability partners from church, confessing what I had done. They prayed for me to have strength to resist the devil.

The next day, I fished the magazine out of my trash.

Another call. More prayer. More repentance. And this time, I carried the magazine in a plastic bag out to the garbage dumpster and threw it into the far corner so it would be impossible to retrieve.

Until the next day when I climbed into that dumpster under the cover of night, dug through soggy sandwiches, pizza boxes, and broken beer bottles, and retrieved it.

But I went back to church on Sunday. I sat in the front row so I wouldn’t see women in the congregation and be tempted with lustful thoughts about their bodies in the flattering dresses they wore.

What peace I felt was in the constant self-talk that all of that was the old man, the flesh, the sinful nature. That my identity rested in Christ at the right hand of God.

I felt some peace in those thoughts. Peace mixed with torment. Separation from, and a righteous war with, a part of myself. The part I fought to believe I had died to.

I didn’t attend my college graduation. After all, I had alienated all those friends. Instead, I started working a telemarketing job, making very little money, renting an apartment in southeast Nashville, attending church, and pinching every penny.

Twila Paris’ song “God Is In Control” released on Christian radio. I loved the song and wanted the CD, but I believed I couldn’t afford it.

After all, I’d spent my spare dollars on a Playboy magazine.

Something deeper spoke to me, though. A knowing—I would have called it the Holy Spirit—that I was going to have that CD. So, when I got an inner nudge to go to the nearby Christian bookstore, I went. I walked around, thinking everything was out of my budget.

Until I saw the CD sitting in a clearance bin. In a thick paper sleeve. No plastic gel case. Priced $1.99. The album was brand new. It had to be a fluke.

But I knew it was meant for me, so I bought it.

I took it home, and that afternoon, as I stood in my bedroom listening to it, I had a vision. The room around me dissolved into blackness, and all I saw in front of me was the face of Christ. He put his hands to my face and held it. His eyes were brilliant white light, and that light poured into me like a cascade of golden water, touching every part of my insides.

Places I didn’t know existed.

I felt so seen and so loved.

Completely naked and unashamed.

And I felt whole.

When the vision ended, I fell back on the bed and involuntarily, my mouth spoke with the voice of my inner child, “Jesus, you make it all better.”

I have thought of that experience many times as, over the years, I’ve peeled back new layers and discovered deeper parts of myself. All parts Christ saw on that day. Wounded parts. Filthy parts. Parts my younger self would have condemned.

Christ did not. Does not.

And I no longer believe the love I saw in His eyes was only possible because His shed blood hid or washed away my filthy parts.

It was a pure, unflinching, eternal love. And I still have those filthy parts.

He’d always seen and known every part of me.

Before I was baptized with a sprinkle of water as an infant by a Catholic priest.

Before I had gone through the rites of Catholic first Eucharist or Confirmation.

Before I prayed to accept Jesus into my heart at a Protestant Christian summer camp.

Before I read about the “baptism of the Holy Spirit” sitting in the hallway of my high school, prayed the prayer in that book, and felt every inch of my body tingle as I began speaking in angelic tongues.

Before my twenties, when I stood in front of a church, confessed my faith, and was again baptized, this time through emersion.

He knew me before all of that. Saw all of me. And all He felt for me was a boundless, unconditional love.

I also no longer believe Divine love only shows up in the form of Christ.

After all, no matter what you believe, there’s a major religion somewhere on this planet teaching its followers to believe that your beliefs are wrong, even evil.

Think about that.

But if Divine love has shown up for you in your life, you likely remember it, no matter what form it came in.

I feel the inner call to lean in to honestly. To be transparent. To show all my parts, especially the ones I have long shrouded in secrecy, shame, and judgement.

Because I believe none of that threatens Divine Love.

Not my filthy secrets. Not yours.

And if that’s true, then I don’t need to hide anymore.

I am seen.

I am loved.

I am safe.

And so are you.