Living In The Mix

***LONG POST ALERT*** So, I've been wanting to write this post for a long time, but I haven't been able to get around to it for a few reasons: 1.) Life happens 2.) Work happens 3.) Health issues happen 4.) I had to wait for certain parts to be made public before I could talk about the experience, because it is important to the context of the full story and seeing as they were confidential it would not have been appropriate for me to share before the dates that information would be announced.  The reason this post will be so long is because it includes many events and things I've already brought up, but have to bring up again as they play a key part in the entirety of the story. The whole story spans from December 2018 to October of this year.  So, buckle up, take a deep breath, and read on! A MUSIC VIDEO In December last year Emma told me that North Star International was partnering with the More Good Foundation to create a special mus...

I'm sitting at home having missed work for two days now, because I'm sick. My throat is sore and swollen, my joints hurt, and I've completely lost my voice. Even whispering is painful. So, what do I do? Take meds, sip on hot lemon and honey water, wear sweats all day, take frequent naps, and work on the blog post I didn't get done for this week, of course. It has been almost 5 years since I came out to Emma about my being gay. As if that wasn't hard enough for her to learn, it also came with years of baggage and heartbreaking, earth shattering, trauma-inducing confessions.  It's curious how, despite the fact that I have publicly shared a lot about our marriage and my personal struggles in our Voices of Hope video and essays, I still find myself feeling nervous and vulnerable writing about it here. I think there will always be a level of those feelings when I talk about all of that. I don't think it's very easy to talk about the not-so-shiny and ugl...

Over the course of this year members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have had the amazing opportunity to study the New Testament through the new Come, Follow Me program.  One of my favorite scenes from the recorded life of Christ is when he taught the people what really mattered in life.  "Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets." This has become one of my absolute favorite moments in the scriptures. There is SO much to unfold in these verses. I feel like we could spend an entire year...

The last few weeks have been a crazy whirlwind for me and my wife. If you had told me a year ago that I'd be doing the things I am today I would not have believed you. A year ago I was not out to the general public nor to most of our family. Now, Emma and I have participated in a music video with North Star, we've come out to all of our family, we have come out to our church leaders and are working closely with them to help them learn how to help LGBTQ+ Church members and providing them with resources to learn and help (that is an ongoing process and I will probably write a blog post about that when we've gotten farther into it), I've come out to the general public and started this blog and a Facebook page to go with it, and just this last week we have officially become part of the Voices of Hope Project with our videos and essays being launched.  It is a surreal feeling to see all of this happen in such a short time when it took me and us as a couple so long to b...