Growth

The past two months has been a period of unprecedented growth into my place in the LGBT community and into a greater understanding of my own orientation. I feel incredibly blessed to have had the opportunity to do that at Calvin, as well, because having Christian religion around me all the time - and a diversity of different types of Christians, at that - has made me much more able to keep a level head as I bound away from the restrictive environment I experienced at home. In all ways but this one, I really do consider my high school experience pretty superbly excellent: I had incredible opportunities, incredible teachers, incredible curriculum (for the most part), incredible peers (for the most part). The people at my high school are not people I could ever be resentful towards for very long at once. I love Bear Creek to pieces. Everything I'm learning and doing in regard to queer community here I store away in the back of my mind so that I might be able to synthesize it all into some cohesive, concise report when I go back to Bear Creek to press for more change, to make better one big part of that school I know needs it. So many things are changing around us as we speak, and I want to see Bear Creek face up to the challenge to engage our culture, our community, our friends and families and own personal stories, so that we can come together as a stronger body - an academic body as well as the body of Christ.