A Poem By: @joseluisgandara
YL
it’s been hard
looking back on memories of
serving tables at Malibu
cleaning cabins at Creekside.
I’ve got to say they were some of the best months of my life.
I’d remember,
because the photos were plastered on my dorm room walls
all around me as I cried
because I thought another summer at work crew
was the only thing that could make me happy
after half a year of feeling
alone on the farm.
I wanted to go back so bad,
but I don’t think they want me now.
I was a poster boy,
though they never took any photos of me
for their calendars and magazines.
Queer and Christian and Out.
A lot of people fought for me to serve those tables at Malibu,
some people whose names I never learned
because I didn’t even know
there was a rule.
They didn’t talk about it.
But my leader told me
before I left for the Princess
that my presence there meant more
than I realized.
As far as he knew,
I was the first to serve there and be
Queer and Christian and Out.
I had a great time.
I had to do a lot of talking
but I was good at that.
With guys in my cabin late at night,
with friends as we walked to the outer dock,
with the woman who herself was a first
and it turns out she fought the hardest to get me there.
I did so much talking but so often the topic was about me being
Queer and Christian and Out.
I wrote an essay on that first summer
I spent on that rock on an inlet in Canada.
It got me into Stanford.
I talked about how much meaning I found in
being the person who pulls people together,
how it made me feel purpose
as I made sense of the incongruences in me.
It was my
Divine Purpose.
My heart breaks for that teenage Jose
who ran around thinking he had to be the one
to educate,
to forgive,
to fix everything for everyone because he was
Queer and Christian and Out.
I realize now I was trying to
build myself a future
in a ministry that
didn’t want me in theirs.
It didn’t hit me until I got back from Malibu
and told my leader
how badly I wanted to
bring my own students there someday.
I cried hard when he told me that probably wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
I spent months working for free
to provide others with an experience
I’d never be able to fully enjoy.
I thought it was selflessness,
but for a 17-year-old it’s hell.
There’s a kind of humor in it.
There weren’t any slurs—
I didn’t hear any until Creekside, at least.
But it’s funny they considered putting me in my own room,
to make everyone more comfortable,
only for it to be the other guys who were
making me feel that discomfort
as they laughed and showered naked
half a dozen guys crammed in one stall
and I was just trying to sleep.
There were three shower stalls by the way.
Boys will be boys,
but the boss’ primary concern was about me being
Queer and Christian and Out.
I felt like I was changing hearts.
My leader had told me about how my mere existence had done it before.
But I didn’t know what to say
when one guy told me about their leader,
who has kicked out of his church,
banned from serving and leading,
cut off from his family,
and yet this guy still believed he was in the wrong for deciding to be
Queer and Christian and Out.
My heart breaks for that leader, too.
But my presence there,
at Malibu and Creekside,
I guess it did something.
I remember after I gave my testimony one week—
they made sure to let me know what I couldn’t bring up—
I felt called to stick around.
I sat at a table and wove my bracelet,
an expert at Hydro flask weaving.
After a while, someone came up,
told me they liked my testimony and wanted to talk.
When I mentioned I was queer, their eyes lit up before they confided in me that they were
Queer and Christian. But not Out.
To them, my existence was a miracle,
a hope they could cling to
and I was happy to hold on.
Another time I was at a fire pit,
reading my Bible and reflecting on my day,
when some summer staffer came up.
We talked.
It turns out he, too, was
Queer and Christian. Not out.
There was spiritual warfare in my future,
he told me.
I didn’t know what that meant.
Maybe it’s the struggle I dealt with
when I got to campus that fall
only to find there wasn’t a single ministry
that could love me the way my area’s YoungLife had.
Maybe’s it’s the depression that gnawed at me
as I felt more alone at that school
than I ever had before.
Maybe it’s the hurt that crushed me
when my leader told me I was choosing to be a victim.
All I know is I haven’t been involved in YoungLife since then.
My story is imperfect.
My happiest memories tied inextricably with YoungLife.
My deepest hurts are, too.
In the almost two years
I’ve spent away from that community,
I’ve felt like I’ve lost a part of myself,
and I want it back so bad.
I feel like I’m no longer capable of producing the love I once was.
What’s scary is I don’t know if that’s true or if YoungLife just taught me that I’m not loving if I’m not trying my best to get everyone else to love me.
In YoungLife it was absolutely exhausting to be
Queer and Christian and Out.
But as I showed up,
fully embracing all of myself,
it left an impact on others.
It made it easier for some people to love others,
and some people to love themselves.
I don’t want to go back,
I have no future there.
But I’m glad my presence
meant something to someone.