And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.
—Galatians 6:9
Perseverance is vital to growing in our faith, and God wants us to persevere no matter what happens, so we have to learn how to overcome obstacles, difficulties, trials, and tribulation to triumph over adversity. We have two choices when faced with hardship – trust in God or quit and abandon hope. We all have our fair share of adversity, as gay men, we often not only question our own faith because we were told it was a sin to be gay, but we also face others questioning our faith because we are gay. We must persevere and be servants of God. It is through service that we can be stronger in our faith. We can’t grow weary of our doing good, because the reward is greater when you consistently do your best for others.
The parable of the soils illustrates the difference between those who seem, for a short time, to have faith and those who have received true saving faith which produces a changed life. Matthew 13:18–23 says, “Therefore hear the parable of the sower: When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.” This parable does not imply that a true believer’s faith will never falter or fail, but that a person who possesses true saving faith will never fully or finally fall away because God will sustain their faith.
Some days it’s difficult to rise and shine. It may not be in us to shine that day, but it won’t be every day. Good will come along, especially if we have faith. So, on those days when we can’t bring ourselves to shine, we just need to rise and grind our way through so that we can make it to another day no matter how difficult it may seem. In times of adversity, big or small, remember to have faith in God, and that faith will allow us to persevere.
On Twitter and Instagram, I keep coming across a lot of Brazilian men. They are very sexy, and I have to admit, I think I now have a weakness for Brazilians. I don’t speak Portuguese, and I don’t think I’ve actually ever met a Brazilian man in real life, but I’d like the chance, and when men look like this, who cares if you speak the same language. I think we could figure it out. I’d at least like to try. 😂
I hope y’all will all say a little prayer for me. I have been trying to get a viewing at a particular apartment complex that is in a good area, far enough away that I won’t be the closest person to the museum, but still a manageable commute. The first two times they had an apartment come open, I couldn’t get anyone to call me back. This morning when I was looking for apartment listings, one came up again, and I called almost immediately. I have an appointment to see the apartment on Sunday afternoon.
I am praying that if this is the right apartment, it will work out. I hope you’ll say a little pray for the same thing.
P.S. I love this song. While I know Dionne Warwick originally sang it, I could not find a video of her actually singing it, but I could find one of Aretha Franklin singing it.
My friend Dylan sent me this song, and I immediately fell in love with it. It seems very appropriate for a blog post. The song details Sivan’s struggle with coming out as gay. He explains “When I first started to realize that I might be gay, I had to ask myself all these questions—these really really terrifying questions. Am I ever going to find someone? Am I ever going to be able to have a family? If there is a God, does that God hate? If there is a heaven, am I ever going to make it to heaven?” I think many of us have asked these same questions, especially those of us who grew up in a religious family.
In the video, the black and white clip, shows Sivan being embraced by a man whose face is not shown, although it was later proven that it was the singer’s boyfriend, Jacob Bixenman, while being soaked in the rain and pays homage to the LGBTQ movements and accomplishments that have come before him. The clip shows assassinated gay rights leader Harvey Milk alongside footage of Pride parades and same-sex weddings. Sivan’s message that accompanied the clip read; “We have always been here. we will always be here. this video is dedicated to all who’ve come before me and fought for our cause and those who now continue the fight. in dark and light times, let’s love forever.”
A Poem for Barack Obama’s Presidential Inauguration January 21, 2013
One sun rose on us today, kindled over our shores, peeking over the Smokies, greeting the faces of the Great Lakes, spreading a simple truth across the Great Plains, then charging across the Rockies. One light, waking up rooftops, under each one, a story told by our silent gestures moving behind windows.
My face, your face, millions of faces in morning’s mirrors, each one yawning to life, crescendoing into our day: pencil-yellow school buses, the rhythm of traffic lights, fruit stands: apples, limes, and oranges arrayed like rainbows begging our praise. Silver trucks heavy with oil or paper— bricks or milk, teeming over highways alongside us, on our way to clean tables, read ledgers, or save lives— to teach geometry, or ring-up groceries as my mother did for twenty years, so I could write this poem.
All of us as vital as the one light we move through, the same light on blackboards with lessons for the day: equations to solve, history to question, or atoms imagined, the “I have a dream” we keep dreaming, or the impossible vocabulary of sorrow that won’t explain the empty desks of twenty children marked absent today, and forever. Many prayers, but one light breathing color into stained glass windows, life into the faces of bronze statues, warmth onto the steps of our museums and park benches as mothers watch children slide into the day.
One ground. Our ground, rooting us to every stalk of corn, every head of wheat sown by sweat and hands, hands gleaning coal or planting windmills in deserts and hilltops that keep us warm, hands digging trenches, routing pipes and cables, hands as worn as my father’s cutting sugarcane so my brother and I could have books and shoes.
The dust of farms and deserts, cities and plains mingled by one wind—our breath. Breathe. Hear it through the day’s gorgeous din of honking cabs, buses launching down avenues, the symphony of footsteps, guitars, and screeching subways, the unexpected song bird on your clothes line.
Hear: squeaky playground swings, trains whistling, or whispers across café tables, Hear: the doors we open for each other all day, saying: hello / shalom, buon giorno / howdy / namaste / or buenos días in the language my mother taught me—in every language spoken into one wind carrying our lives without prejudice, as these words break from my lips.
One sky: since the Appalachians and Sierras claimed their majesty, and the Mississippi and Colorado worked their way to the sea. Thank the work of our hands: weaving steel into bridges, finishing one more report for the boss on time, stitching another wound or uniform, the first brush stroke on a portrait, or the last floor on the Freedom Tower jutting into a sky that yields to our resilience.
One sky, toward which we sometimes lift our eyes tired from work: some days guessing at the weather of our lives, some days giving thanks for a love that loves you back, sometimes praising a mother who knew how to give, or forgiving a father who couldn’t give what you wanted.
We head home: through the gloss of rain or weight of snow, or the plum blush of dusk, but always—home, always under one sky, our sky. And always one moon like a silent drum tapping on every rooftop and every window, of one country—all of us— facing the stars hope—a new constellation waiting for us to map it, waiting for us to name it—together
Watch Richard Blanco read “One Today” at President Obama’s inauguration in 2013:
About Richard Blanco
Born on February 15, 1968, in Madrid, Spain, Blanco grew up in Miami, where he received a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering as well as an MFA in creative writing from Florida International University.
He is the author of the poetry collections How to Love a Country (Beacon Press, 2019); Directions to the Beach of the Dead (University of Arizona Press, 2005), winner of the 2006 PEN/American Center Beyond Margins Award; and City of a Hundred Fires (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1998), winner of the 1997 Agnes Lynch Starrett National Poetry Prize, among others.
Blanco’s first book of poetry, City of a Hundred Fires, was published in 1998 to critical acclaim, winning the Agnes Lynch Starrett Poetry Prize from the University of Pittsburgh Press. The collection explored his cultural yearnings and contradictions as a Cuban American and captured the details of his transformational first trip to Cuba, his figurative homeland. After the success of his first book, Blanco took a hiatus from his engineering career and accepted a position at Central Connecticut State University as a professor of creative writing. While living in Connecticut, he met his current life-partner, Dr. Mark Neveu, a renowned research scientist.
Driven by a desire to examine the essence of place and belonging, Blanco traveled extensively through Spain, Italy, France, Guatemala, Brazil, Cuba, and New England. Eventually, in 2002, he and Mark moved to Washington, DC, where he taught at Georgetown and American universities, The Writers Center, and the Arlington County Detention Facility.
In 2004, Blanco returned to Miami and resumed his engineering career. Engineer by day, he designed several town revitalization projects; poet by night, he began working on another collection before moving once again, this time to Bethel, Maine, where he sought the peace and tranquility of nature. While in Maine, he completed his third book of poetry, Looking for The Gulf Motel(2012), which related Blanco’s complex navigation through his cultural, sexual, and artistic identities, and received the Paterson Poetry Prize, the 2012 Maine Literary Award for Poetry, and the Thom Gunn Award.
He is the recipient of two Florida Artist Fellowships, a Residency Fellowship from the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and the John Ciardi Fellowship from the Bread Loaf Writers Conference. Blanco has taught at various schools, including American University, Georgetown University, and Wesleyan University, and has been an artist in residence at Colby College’s Lunder Institute for American Art. He is currently a distinguished visiting professor at Florida International University.
Richard Blanco is first Latino, immigrant, and gay person to serve as an inaugural poet, Blanco read “One Today,” an original poem he wrote for the occasion, at Obama’s inauguration ceremony on January 21, 2013. I’m posting this poem today in honor of Presidents’ Day (officially Washington’s Birthday), which was yesterday. Since the inauguration, Blanco has been named a Woodrow Wilson Visiting Fellow and has received honorary doctorates from Macalester College, Colby College and the University of Rhode Island. His memoir, The Prince of Los Cocuyos: A Miami Childhood(Ecco Press, 2014), is a poignant, hilarious, and inspiring exploration of his coming-of-age as the child of Cuban immigrants and his attempts to understand his place in America while grappling with his burgeoning artistic and sexual identities. It received the 2015 Maine Literary Award for Memoir and the 2015 Lambda Literary Award for Gay Memoir. He is also the author of For All of Us, One Today: An Inaugural Poet’s Journey(Beacon Press, 2013). His inaugural poem, One Today, was also published as a children’s book illustrated by Dav Pilkey (Little, Brown, 2015).
Whether speaking as the Cuban Blanco or the American Richard, the homebody or the world traveler, the shy boy or the openly gay man, the engineer or the presidential inaugural poet, Blanco’s writings possess a story-rich quality that illuminates the human spirit. His work asks those universal questions we all ask ourselves on our own journeys: Where am I from? Where do I belong? Who am I in this world?
Joe
The Closet Professor 