“I’m struggling to figure out how to live an integrated life.”
I spoke these words on a day in mid-February. It was a day that felt somewhere between winter and spring, and the early-evening sunlight poured in through the modestly grandiose window of the historic duplex in downtown Salt Lake City where I reside. My priest sat next to me on the large antique couch in my living room as we sipped from goblets of imported French wine. Father J. is a distinctively tall man in his early 30s who holds fast to the traditional appearance of an Eastern Orthodox priest. His long, brown hair is twisted and tied into a knot at the back of his head, and his beard extends to the upper portion of his chest. He is never seen in public wearing anything other than a full black cassock and a large, silver, Russian-style crucifix at his chest. At first look his face seems quite stern and sober, but in time the rich sensitivity in his eyes readily reveals itself.
It had been roughly 6 months since we had last spoken in an intimate context. About a month before our last meeting I began abstaining from Holy Communion as I struggled and continue to struggle to make sense of reality and my relationship to it. We had been meaning to talk again for quite a while, but this day he arrived with a bottle of Theophany water to bless my house, and we decided to take advantage of the time so that I might relate the status of my heart to him.
I communicated the complex interchange of conflict and confidence I have experienced over the past few months, where I have gathered experiences among the godless that have healed festering wounds in my soul, while at the same time I have wrestled with the failures of Christianity to meet my most fundamental emotional needs. Where does reality reside, within the Christian life or outside of it? How do I let my experiences in the world influence my life as a Christian, and how do I live as a Christian in the world? How do I exist in both planes without becoming a schizoid being?
I originally established this blog in 2007 while I was a Junior at Wheaton College in Illinois studying archaeology and ancient languages. I had hoped to write a naked account of my experience as an Evangelical Christian with an exclusively homosexual orientation, but it ended up being an aimless collection of hyperlinks and opinions regarding archaeology and the art of the ancient world. And there was one lonely article about being a gay Christian. I stopped posting here at the beginning of the summer of 2009.
I felt occasional tugs to return to this site and expose the inner workings of my mind and heart. I faced a number of life-changing moments that stirred up feelings and thoughts that desired articulate written expression, but which I refused to indulge. It has been a long and complicated journey over the years, but I was afraid to attempt to transfer these experiences from mental ether into the terrifying solidity of inscription. It seemed like too monumental and emotionally draining of a project.
The eventual rebirth of this blog was essentially initiated one cold night in late September 2013. I was camping in Logan Canyon, Utah with my friends Swede, Rodney, and Chase. I had been vaguely acquainted with them for some time, but became much closer to them a month earlier at the annual Utah Cavers Campout, and we had subsequently been meeting up quite regularly to go into caves or to practice our vertical techniques at some nearby cliffs. We ventured out to Logan Canyon in September in order to drop into some of the demanding vertical caves that the area is famous for. We had just completed an exhausting day in a fairly challenging cave, and back at the campsite Chase and Rodney had already gone to bed while Swede and I continued to talk by the campfire. At one point in the conversation Swede said, “I want you to write the report on this trip. Based on the way you tell stories, I suspect that you’re not a good writer; you’re an amazing writer.” I had never heard such encouraging words before, and I obeyed his request. When I finished the report and submitted it for publication in our local caving journal, those who read it lauded it extensively, and Swede has repeatedly encouraged me to write more.
(left to right: Chase, Swede, and myself)
The freedom I felt in writing the caving report and the subsequent affirmation I received invigorated my creative impulses and I felt words beginning to stir within my bowels. I knew I needed to start writing more, but primarily envisioned myself slaving away at perfecting a set of short stories, composing accessible works on archaeology or caving, or even beginning to lay out the numerous adventures of my life into an autobiography. However, in a conversation with my sister a couple of weeks ago, I was explaining an exciting opportunity I had been offered as a result of someone reading my report on the caving trip in Logan Canyon, and she rather casually mentioned blogging as something I might be good at. Several hours later I was at my workplace and a vision for reviving this blog spontaneously generated in my head. I went back and deleted all of the rubbish that previously existed in this space and I started over again.
However, I decided to keep the name “Reconstructible Vessel” as the title of my blog. I had originally chosen the title as an appropriate metaphor for my journey as a gay Christian. A “reconstructible vessel” (or alternatively “restorable vessel”) is what we archaeologists call a collection of potsherds that clearly fit together and can be reassembled into its original form. For the revival of this blog, I no longer see the rearticulated object as myself, but as the reunion of the universal divisions that exist between nous and soma. How does the way we think influence the way we live, and how does the way we live influence the way we think? How do we avoid the equally dangerous extremes of idealism that is divorced from physical reality, or the submission to emotional whims and passions* at the expense of our higher reasoning faculties? In addition, how do we transfer the truths we find in our intellect into a physical manifestation, and how do we adapt our mental frameworks to the material reality we observe?
My own struggle has been a tendency to become ideologically zealous while failing to integrate important aspects of the observable world until I eventually hit a wall of disillusionment, or to become so overwhelmed by the present reality of my emotions that I ignore the rationally-founded truths that disagree with my emotions. I know that I am not alone in struggling with this tendency toward dichotomy. It is my hope that I will be able to cover an extremely broad range of subjects here through a combination of storytelling, reflection, and hopefully some amount of research, whereby a synthetic mode of existence can be described. It is a fairly lofty goal for someone as inexperienced in such philosophical ventures as myself, but it is my hope to challenge myself and to grow through the production of this blog, and I hope that my readers will join with me in this process and examine themselves for ways that they can bring greater union between thought and life.
I have already spoken to some extent of the existence of my faith and sexual orientation. This blog will not dwell on either of those realities, neither by themselves nor in connection with each other, though they will most certainly come up as is necessary. I think the ideas I am engaging are far broader than religion and sexuality, and need to be approached as such. In addition, there is currently quite the cacophony of voices on the interplay of sexuality and spirituality, and I do not wish to add to that dissonant chorus.** However, I have some thoughts and experiences on the subject that could prove productive, and I will share those as the situation requires.
But in all honesty, I think we all know that projects such as this are self-indulgent to some extent. I want to explore the union of reason and life because I feel so divided. In the process of mining my memory and mind for these lines of interconnection, I hope at some point to begin seeing a convergence within myself.
Which brings me back to my apartment that evening several weeks ago.
I poured out my heart to Father J. regarding the struggles I have been experiencing, and he helped to balance out my strong emotions with insight and wisdom. However, my struggles are far from resolved, and I’m continuing to abstain from communion. As the conversation reached its end, he encouraged me to strive to live an integrated life, and he then gave me a hearty embrace before putting on his epitrachelion (the liturgical stole worn by priests) and preparing the water to bless my house. He handed a candle to me, and I guided him through my small apartment as he flung the holy water on all of the walls. As we walked, we chanted the Troparion of Theophany. Looking back on it, I find it interesting that I as shared my own struggle with feeling divided, and as I now make this bold attempt to trace out lines of restorable union, that we then celebrated the ultimate mystery in individuality/unity: The Holy Trinity. The words we chanted were these:
“When thou O Lord was baptized in the Jordan
Worship of the Trinity was made manifest
For the voice of the Father bore witness to Thee
Calling Thee His beloved son
And the Spirit in the likeness of a dove
Confirmed the truth of His word
O Christ our God,
Who hath appeared and enlightened the world,
Glory to Thee.”
My name is Caleb Ferbrache. At this point I have existed for 29 years. I was raised as a very traditional Quaker in an isolated rural location in the Appalachian foothills of southeastern Ohio. My father died when I was 2 and my mother died when I was 26. I have an older brother and a younger sister, both of whom I am extremely close to. I lived the nomadic lifestyle of a professional archaeologist for 4 years in some of the most remarkable locations in the country, and currently live a more stable life as a lab tech in Salt Lake City, though I may soon return to my career in archaeology. I was baptized into the Eastern Orthodox Church in 2013. I am a single gay man. I am a singer and a violinist. I create art out of wool and other fibers using a spinning wheel, dyes extracted from desert plant life, and a set of knitting needles. I am an avid explorer of the natural world, not just of the surface touched by the sun, but also of the inner depths of the earth. On these journeys into the supraterranean and subterranean wilderness, I have seen things in reality that many people only see in their dreams and fantasies.
And this is the beginning of a new adventure.
*I am including emotions as a subcategory of our physical existence since they are very real and are often deeply interwoven with the biology of our bodies, yet at the same time they often defy rational thought.
**In addition, I’m disabling the comments on this blog due to the typically inflammatory and unproductive nature of online discussion. I invite you to send me an email – I can’t guarantee a reply, but I would genuinely appreciate well-thought feedback.
