An Old Story
1955 was a good year. The first widely available kitchen dream machine of the 20th century, the microwave oven, went on sale for the equally dreamy price of $1,295 (over $14,000 today). Civil Rights had its birth in Montgomery, Alabama, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a city bus. In Anaheim, California,, a cartoonist who made an indelible mark on the fledgling entertainment world with his drawings of a black and white mouse with a squeaky voice opened the quintessential theme park, and in a tiny town in Central Pennsylvania, I made my debut. My first review was less than stellar – my father, having never seen a newborn before, upon first viewing me in my mother’s arms minutes after my birth, exclaimed “He looks like an Indian!” Native American, Dad, Native American!
I still look like that when I first wake up every morning!
Only TSBLBITW would have a red broom and red overalls!
By all reports, I was a good baby. I seldom cried, smiled often, and slept through the night. Karma, as it often does, caught up with my mother when my sister was born two years later, but I digress. I was an equally good little boy, and I soon discovered the value of being TBLBITW – The Best Little Boy In The World. Actually, I was TSBLBITW – The SECOND Best Little Boy In The World – the real Best Little Boy In The World, Andrew Tobias, had already copyrighted the acronym when he published his first book in 1973 – a book that saved my life. But I digress yet again.
My career at Lincoln Elementary School was unremarkable. My hometown of 10,000 had several older smaller elementary schools scattered across the town, and I walked about half a mile each way to Lincoln Elementary FOUR times a day (we actually walked home for lunch every day!). Junior high was eye opening. All the kids from the several elementary schools were thrown together into one big class in one equally big junior high building, and life changed. I was still TSBLBITW but it didn’t command the same respect in junior high. In fact, it was quite a liability, but it was the only way I knew of relating to the world.
Central Pennsylvania is not known for earthquakes as is my current Southern California home, but I swear I felt one in PA when puberty kicked in. I have a fairly complete pictorial history of my life, and as I trace my childhood experience through and beyond my teen years, I swear I see two different people: TSBLBITW gradually recedes into oblivion, to be replaced by TMCLBITW – The Most Confused Little Boy In The World.
Lincoln Street Elementary shortly after its opening in 1903.
Sixth grade class photo circa 1966.
Around college graduation circe 1977.
It may not have been the Continental Divide but it felt like it to me.
By high school, I was still the smartest kid in the class – a perfect 800 score on my math SATs and a respectable 700 on my verbal SATs – but no one cared, least of all me. School was a breeze, I seldom studied, got almost all A’s, was in the Honor Society, had my own car (I think Dad was still trying to make up for that Indian comment), had a few good friends, a relatively happy family life, an active church life, and all the trappings a teenager could want in the early 1970s. But TMCLBITW was in deep trouble. There had been a split in my life. An immutable line had been drawn in front of me, not across my life’s path, but in the center of that path. It divided my every step forward such that everything that came after that moment fell on one side of that line or the other, and it was clear that the things on one side of that line dare never meet things on the other side of that line, or like the matter and anti-matter of Star Trek’s warp drive engines, my very existence would descend into obliteration. Psychologists call it cognitive dissonance. I call it Hell on earth.
I graduated from High School in 1973 (go Panthers!) and just like TSBLBITW should, I went to Bucknell University (go Bisons!), just as all the men in my family had. I began as a Business Management major, but switched to Liberal Arts early in the first semester of my sophomore year after feeling a strong calling from God to go into the ministry. But despite the clarity of my call, my four years of college are mostly a blur to me. There are several episodes from that time that stand out, and those will become chapters in my blog, but overall, the most poignant memory of that time is that the line that divided my life’s path slowly began to turn into a brick wall, and with each passing year, the wall got higher and higher, making it harder and harder to straddle. When that line first appeared in junior high, I had no name for it, I knew no one else who had it, and I had no example of anyone who had overcome it. Remember, friends, this is long before Google and YouTube!
The Quad at Bucknell University circa 2020.
My own personal brick wall, each brick precisely placed by yours truly.
January 1988, my last night in Pennsylvania before moving to California.
There's always one in every crowd...
I never knew at the time how much HIV/AIDS would change my life.
I do not know the first time I heard the word homosexual spoken, but whoever it was who uttered the word, there was an unforgivable ugliness about it. I found it impossible to even speak the word in those days. I think I feared that if I spoke the word, somehow others would know that I was one. So I carefully kept things on the correct side of the ever growing brick wall, and while I never spoke the word, my ears certainly perked up whenever I heard it. When I was around 18, I remember the kind and gentle man who delivered packages for the local department store, and how he lost his job and moved away after some incident that linked him with that word. A year or two later, I remember a confusing story of a respectable community leader whose car had “broken down” at a local park late one night, and he accepted a ride with two younger men only to be beaten and robbed and then returned to the park where he was dumped on the ground next to his car, which miraculously started and allowed him to drive himself to the local hospital. And in the early 1980s, I remember sitting in the living room one evening while my dad read the paper, my mom crocheted another Afghan, my sister was playing with the dog, and the evening news on TV began with a story about a rare cancer that was spreading quickly among homosexual men. I don’t know which shocked me more, that I had just heard an announcer on network television utter the unutterable word, or that young men with whom I shared some amorphous connection were dying faster than they could be diagnosed. No one in the living room moved during that report. In fact, I think I actually stopped breathing. Every cell in my body became rigid lest I make a move or a sound that indicated I was paying any attention to that news story.
But others were paying attention. The next day was Sunday, and the usual crowds gathered in the foyer of my hometown Baptist church for small talk prior to the service. I was with a group of other men, men who had attended this church all their lives, men who were leaders of the church and the community, men whom I considered to be my mentors. While the usual morning chat was about the Saturday sporting events, this morning it was about that TV news story the night before. There is still a scar deep in my heart from the wound I experienced when the most respected of these men said that homosexuals should be put on a rowboat and be set adrift in the middle of the ocean to die the slow painful death they deserved. And all but one of the other men agreed. And the brick wall on my life’s path grew even higher, threatening to split me in two, and as much as it pains me to say it, dear God, I wanted it to split me in two, I needed it to be over, I could take no more existential pain in silence. What I had been told must have been true: the only good homosexual was a dead homosexual.
A rowboat.
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My own personal brick wall, bigger & better than ever thanks to a rowboat.
And that's when I wrote “Lord of My Life.”
Your Story
It was 1983 and I was singing with a mixed-voice gospel quartet called Lighthouse. I wrote a four-part harmony version and a basic piano part which our brilliant pianist enhanced beautifully. We recorded the song on our first album, and if you click on the "Watch Now" button above, you can hear that original restored recording from 1983 along with some multimedia visual enhancements from 2024.
But this is not the end of my story. There is so much more to tell. On the A New Story page is the story of how "Lord of My Life" returned with new meaning for my life. and in my blog you'll find many stories that will fill in the missing parts on this page.
One of the things that I find so fascinating about sharing my story is that it always motivates others to share their stories. "Lord of My Life" is the story of my struggle with my sexuality, and you likely would not have known the details of that struggle without reading my story on this page. The message of "Lord of My Life" -- and thanks be to God, the brilliance of "Lord of my Life" -- is that all Christians can relate to the prayer of asking God to do more than just secure your eternal destiny, but to take all that you are and let it praise God's name. It would be an honor and a pleasure to read Your Story.
If you're willing to share, email me at MyStory@LordOfMyLife.online. I promise two things: First, your story will remain confidential unless you give your written consent to have it posted on the Our Stories page. And second, if your story is not yet complete, if you continue to struggle in your effort to be all God calls you to be, I will lift you up in prayer, knowing that the same God who sent Christ as our example will surely hear your prayer -- just as God heard my prayer -- and bring you one step closer to letting all that you are praise God's holy name. The Creator of the Univese can and will be exactly what your seek: the Lord of Your Life. Amen!
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