I must start with a quote of part a prayer by Vaz Sriharan, this is from his book Sacred Prayers, “As we recognize we simply desire love, acceptance & validation, to be held in the arms of the divine, and to be told we are beautiful.  I ask for the innocence, of Source, to bathe us with your purity, and to bring love and acceptance, to how we see ourselves.  I ask for you to see yourself, as beautiful vibrant, wonderful being that you are.”

This sums up what I am about to write about myself and what I am about to write about my faith.  I so desperately wanted to know GOD, experience GOD, and accept that I am worthy and deserving of all that I will receive from GOD.  And in this process of journey and discovery… I have wrestled with Spirit.  I have wrestled with faith. I have wrestled with believing there was even a GOD, a Great Spirit, the Universe — I wrestled with GOD because I hated GOD.  Quick note:  I will skip around, and give just the highlights… please forgive me… hugs. 

I grew up with a very abusive father who physically, mentally, and spiritually dehumanized me and my siblings — all in the name of GOD.  It was GOD’s “will” that we be hit or be pushed into a table.  It was GOD’s “will” that we be called “worthless” and “good for nothing.” Religion was the basis of everything my father did to us — “children should obey their father,” he would say as he lashed out at us.  He would always quote Colossians 3:20 and totally forget about the very next verse that says, “Fathers, do not provoke your children, or they may lose heart.”

Yet, even through all the trauma of my childhood, I always held onto the feeling that GOD was out there — I just wasn’t sure how to describe “him.”  I put “him” in quotes because I do not believe GOD, Spirit, Source, has a gender, and for me, if a gender is needed, it would be SHE. 

I encountered GOD when I was about 10 or 11 years old.  The family always ended the day by saying the rosary together.  On one occasion, I was praying the words (loudly my family would say), and I was suddenly in a trance-like state.  I felt myself as being weightless and surrounded by a brilliant light.  The light felt warm and loving.  Then I came to rest in the lap of GOD, I just knew it was GOD, and she felt feminine — motherly.  GOD just held me in her lap, in her arms; I felt safe, warm, and loved.  Then, as quickly as I went into the trance, I was out of it, and in the living room of our home. 

This incident of my youth was something that always stuck with me.  I felt no matter what, I always had love from GOD.  AND then, it was ingrained within me that I had to “earn” GOD’s love! So I had a big struggle! 

There were many smaller moments when I felt GOD differently than I was taught.   I am not going to go into all of them, but there was one set of experiences that was brought back to mind when I was in the shower that I have to tell you about.  For me, I feel GOD in music.  I feel GOD in the lyrics, in the rhythm, in the harmony, in the singing.  GOD has always acknowledged her presence, especially through music.  I feel GOD in music.  I feel GOD in the lyrics, in the rhythm, in the harmony, in the singing.  GOD has always acknowledged her presence, especially through music.  

1987 Starship (aka Jefferson Starship), released a song titled “Nothing’s gonna stop us now.” When I heard this song, I immediately thought of GOD — not sure why, but I thought of GOD.  I was 16, and I didn’t know there was such a thing as “Christian Music.” This song became my GOD anthem for a long time.  When I heard the song, I would begin to sing the words to GOD, with GOD, and I would always begin to cry… even 30+ years later.  I feel GOD!

Lookin' in your eyes

I see a paradise

This world that I've found is too good to be true

Standin' here beside you

Want so much to give you

This love in my heart that I'm feeling for you

Let 'em say we're crazy

I don't care about that

Put your hand in my hand

Baby, don't ever look back

Let the world around us

Just fall apart

Baby, we can make it

If we're heart to heart

And we can build this dream together

Standing strong forever

Nothing's gonna stop us now

And if this world runs out of lovers

We'll still have each other

Nothing's gonna stop us

Nothing's gonna stop us now

Songwriters: Diane Warren / Albert Hammond — Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now lyrics © Universal Music - Mgb Songs, Realsongs, Albert Hammond Music — source, Google.com search for the words, “Nothing’s gonna stop us now” – Google cites Musixmatch.com.

I would sing this song until I could not sing anymore.  Tears rolling down my face.  Then I would remember that what I felt could not be real because GOD does not engage with us through our feelings; feelings could not be trusted — or so I was told. 

As the years went on, I considered becoming a priest and visited the seminary during my junior year.  The summer going into my senior year, I helped to pay for my mother to get divorced. The Catholic priest at our parish affirmed that he would support my mother if she sought a divorce, and the parish even paid for the annulment.  If that’s any indication of how bad my father was — when the priest recommends divorce! That summer, my whole family got into the station wagon, went to a friend's house, and hid for a month or so until a judge forced my father out of the house.  We were all afraid of what he might do to us…. 

Also, during my senior year of high school, I decided it was my father’s idea to become a priest.  When I told the priest in charge of vocations, he asked me to go to counseling and offered to pay for my counseling.  Seems I was a very angry teen. 

After all of this trauma in my late teens and early 20’s, I didn’t want to have anything to do with church or GOD.  I spent a few years, running away from anything that resembled religion. And, then, I felt forced to do the “normal good catholic boy” stuff; I married a woman and had a beautiful daughter at age 24.  

Throughout this time, from high school until the birth of my baby girl, there was another thing that I struggled with in my life, one that was a huge secret that I could not tell anyone… even myself.  

With this secret tormenting my life, I began to go back to church.  I could not go back to Catholicism, so I started to church shop.  (note: at the time I associated catholic with my father, and he had a warped sense of Catholic beliefs — as of the present day, I have no issues with Catholicism in general, I just don’t agree with some teachings) For a few years after the birth of my daughter, I began to go to the Assemblies of God church.  My main purpose for returning to church, was to “pray-away” this secret I had in my life. This so-called “abomination” had taken over my “good catholic boy” self.  I learned the Bible, and I learned about how much GOD hates people with this secret.  I learned that I had to get “right with GOD” or I would spend eternity in hell!  One thing was certain, I was not doing a great job of praying away these “feelings.”

At one point in my early 30s, I decided that I wanted to return to a more liturgical church and found the teachings of Luther compelling.  I joined the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in 2002 and began to hear sermons and bible studies that contradicted what I had learned earlier in life. I began to hear that GOD was not the “angry bitch” that I was raised to believe. I started to allow myself to believe differently, and reevaluate my life.  At this time, I also began to recapture the sense of GOD that I experienced at 10 or 11 years old when she held me in her arms. 

I became a Deacon and had keys to the church.  During this timeframe, I traveled weekly for work and had lots of time to THINK in hotel rooms.  I started to question why GOD “hated me for being gay!”  Yes, I finally named my secret.  Every Friday, when I came home from a trip, I would go to the church's sanctuary and talk to GOD.  Actually, I would literally run around the sanctuary, cursing GOD.  I asked GOD, “Why would you make me this way and then tell me you hate me? You fucking asshole!”  Oh yes, I cursed at GOD!  I did this almost every Friday for a year.

In November 2007, I was on a trip to work in Tennessee.  I was driving through the mountains and again cursing out GOD.  I decided then and there that I had two choices — 1) drive off this mountain and end my life so that NO ONE WOULD KNOW, or 2) come out!  I drove and I felt the car just keep going.  I got to the hotel and began to ball my eyes out.  I felt like GOD was saying — “I want you alive, I love you as you are!  A GAY MAN whom I LOVE!”  At that moment, I re-accepted that love I felt in the arms of GOD so many years ago.  I finally came out to myself and on January 27, 2008, I came out to the world. 

After my divorce, and some “sowing of my oats” with a few wonderful men, I found my soulmate.  We committed to each other in 2010 and were married in New York City in 2014, where it was legal for same-sex couples to marry. And I kept feeling GOD tugging at me, saying, “I want so much to give you. This love in my heart that I'm feeling for you!” I finally gave in. 

In 2015, I felt that GOD wanted me to go into ministry and become a pastor.  After lots of thinking, and thinking, and prayers, and lots of discussions with my hubby — we decided to take the leap of faith and go to seminary in Philadelphia.  I picked the 3-year track, where I did my internship along with my studies.  The usual track was 4 years, 3 years of academic studies, and 1-year of internship; I decided since I had already worked in the business for 23 years, I needed to fast track.  

When I started, the professors stated that seminary was the tool to “tear down your Yeshu, and build him back again.”  That is exactly what happened.  The Yeshu I grew up with, the angry GOD I knew as a youngster, was gone!  With each class, each essay, each sermon, each discussion — Yeshu, GOD, Spirit and I reconstructed my faith from the ground up.  

At some point, I will sit and write all that I experienced in seminary and within my 7 years of public ministry, but that will have to be for another writing.  After 7 years and COVID, I felt that GOD was calling me out of the “institutional church” to embark on a spiritual experience that would be more inclusive of the differing understanding of faith within Christianity and within post-Christian understanding — where I found myself. 

It is here where I have felt Spirit asking me to write about my faith.  I resisted — I was not ready!  I was too scared to put myself out there like that.  Now asking has turned into demand, lol. So, I am writing!  

The words written under the title, “Danny’s Faith,” are my words, my perspectives, my wisdom. I am putting into words, what I have learned, what has been growing from inside me, what I have received through my own experiences — throughout these 50+ years in this lifetime. I truly believe that GOD, Spirit, Source has helped me to see differing perspectives within the denominations/churches of the Christian tradition.  Beginning my journey in this lifetime, within the Roman Catholic tradition, seeing the good, and the ugly side of my catholic upbringing.  Then, I experienced the Pentecostal tradition, along with Southern Baptist, Missouri Synod Lutheran, and finally in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America — having full communion relationships with The Episcopal, Moravian, United Church of Christ, Reformed Church in America, and the United Methodist Church. GOD has abundantly given me opportunities to experience and meditate upon the differing traditions of Christianity.  I am also thankful for the seminary and parish ministry, which have allowed me to experience the beauty of the Jewish and Muslim understandings of GOD.  

And now, I consider myself post-Christian — a follower of Christ-Yeshu (or Jesus if prefer), and lover of the message of love Yeshu proclaimed, and freeing myself from the doctrines and dogmas that box GOD into an institution.  I will define this in other sections.  With all this said, GOD, Spirit, has asked me to write down my faith so that others may receive for themselves, the freedom to let go and let GOD be GOD! 

You have permission from GOD, to go beyond “belief,” and allow yourself to experience GOD — allow yourself to hear Spirit speak — allow yourself the ebb and flow of faith — allow yourself to receive all that Source wants to share with you NOW, not waiting for “the life to come.”