“Socks that save LGBTQ lives.” This message greeted me as I ripped open the wrapping paper around it on Christmas Eve. Small rainbows dotted the gray fabric of the pair, and each sock carried one small pride flag emblem.
Rest assured, the socks do not save LGBTQ+ lives only or primarily by keeping feet warm. (Besides, those of us in the community know that our innate speedwalking abilities negate the need for heavy socks.) Part of the proceeds from the purchase of these socks go to the Trevor Project, an organization focused on providing safe spaces for LGBTQ+ youth and reducing the suicide rate among this population. The company that produces them, Conscious Step, partners with various charitable and justice organizations to sell socks and other clothing items that support these organizations and are made sustainably and ethically.
This isn’t a pitch for Conscious Step (though it does seem like a good company from a perusal of its site). Rather, it’s a pitch for my mom and for God. My mom purchases most, if not all, of the presents my parents get for special occasions, meaning that she bought these socks for me. (As I recall, she said she was in the checkout aisle at a Kohl’s when she saw them. This is also not a pitch for Kohl’s, although its clearance racks are a treasure trove….) She also bought a pair of socks for my boyfriend, who spent this Christmas with us. His pair’s proceeds went to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
Six years ago during winter break from my sophomore year of college, my mom asked me why I didn’t think I was going to get married. I gave an evasive answer, hoping she’d return all her attention to the snowy road she was driving on. She pressed however, asking if the reason I didn’t think I’d get married was because I was attracted to men. A couple of months after I had come out to my friends in college, then, I came out to the first member of my family.
This was a nerve-wracking experience for me. I am a self-proclaimed mama’s boy, and if you meet either my mom or me you have basically met both of us. We both have a sweet tooth; we both love books and libraries; we both are highly interested in and devoted to our Catholic faith; and we’re both attracted to men. Those last two similarities are what caused me so much consternation when my mom asked me about my sexuality. We both knew and know the Catholic Church’s stance on being anything other than straight and cisgender and being in any romantic relationship other than that between two straight, cisgender people.
When I came out, I had no intention of entering any romantic relationship and said as much to my mom. She fully supported my decision. In fact, she had hoped for it. In our eyes, such a move constituted a step on the wrong path, a step away from God, a sin. Her acceptance of me, my acceptance of myself, and our conception of God’s acceptance of me were all conditional.
As time went on and after I took a theology course on marriage and family life, I discerned that my vocation involved having a family, even if it wasn’t the type of family deemed licit and sacramental by my church. My mom was alarmed by my gradual shift in beliefs, and we had several heated discussions about sexuality in general and in my particular case. She never shut me down or refused to listen to me (more than many other queer people can say about their parents). Rather, she listened to me and tried to see my point of view, even when she did not understand or agree with it. She challenged me to extend the same listening and respect toward her, a serious challenge given that I have a tendency to condescend to her, a woman without a college degree, as a man with higher education.
My mom and I journeyed together in our understanding of the human search for God and love. She was wary of my first boyfriend – not him himself but rather the notion of me being in a romantic relationship with another man. In my relationship of over a year with this man, my mom became more comfortable with the reality of my desire and vocation for family life alongside theological study and religious practice. Honestly, I did, too. I came to better understand what it was to be a gay man, to carry a lot of privilege as a cis white man in the diverse LGBTQIA+ community, to use that privilege to empower and support marginalized people in that community rather than ignore or demean them, and to fully live out my chosen identity as a Catholic by embracing my inherent identity as a queer person. Studying theology in a relatively safe space for queer people helped with this education, too.
A few months after my first relationship ended, I decided to try a dating app for the first time. I didn’t talk much with my mom about the various first and several second dates I went on due to the stigma I perceived around dating apps, but if I did mention them she was neutral. When I told her I would be meeting my current partner after months of virtual dating, her biggest worry was that he would be different in person than on the app. When I showed her a photo of him after that date, she said he was handsome (I concur). When he stayed with us in the summer, she welcomed him cheerily and later told me that she really liked him. When I met his family a month later, she wished us safe travels. When he stayed with us for Thanksgiving, she made sure he was well-fed and warmly provisioned with flannel sheets (a novelty for him as a Southern Californian). When he stayed with us for Christmas, she made him a welcome basket with pecan cookies (he and she are big fans of pecans) and gave us both socks. The pair for me clearly related to my sexuality; the pair for my boyfriend reflected my mom’s support of my decision to see a therapist for my mental health challenges (a topic for another ramble).
All this writing is to say that my mom is great and that God is far, far greater. These Christmas gifts of socks – the Christmas gift to lightheartedly tease – would not be imaginable or welcome to either my mom or me six years ago. My mom knows who I am, accepts who I am, and encourages and challenges me to fully be who I am and who God calls me to be. None of this would be possible without God’s overflowing love and the grace God has given both my mom and me to open up to, receive, and share this overflowing love. Neither of us do this perfectly with each other or the other people in our lives. We are both human; we are both sinners; we are both still journeying toward and with God. It’s the fact that we both keep walking, sometimes running, often stumbling, that gives me hope for us and for other people – queer, straight, religious, spiritual, Catholic. In our striving and in God’s grace, we keep moving closer to God. Better, we recognize more and more often how close God is to us both, to us all, already.
The journey is lifelong and has many twists and turns, rough spots and dead ends. It’s a blessing to have a good pair of socks on as I go. They save lives, after all. Even more so does the mother who loves me and the God who is love that offered them to me.
The Catholic Errant 