Seeking Spiritual Support

As I have been pondering what will happen for me when the unstoppable object meets the immovable force in my life, I find myself needing to reassess the priority of things in my spiritual life.  To be honest, my activity in the LDS church (how often I go, how actively I participate) has been pretty off-and-on throughout most of my 20s thus far.  Currently I am semi-less-active.  That basically means I may attend some of church once or twice a month, but not with any regularity.  My participation and interaction with others is pretty minimal, and I likely will arrive late and/or leave early.  It's not unheard of amongst membership of the Church, and a decent amount of people seem to go through such phases.  Each person has his or her own reasons.  My main reason right now is mixed and nearly impossible to explain to people without outing myself.

First, on demographics of the ward itself, I don't really fit in at all.  I'm in my late 20s, and the rest of the ward is probably around 21 on average.  There's a big gap between 1) someone who is done with college, has been totally independent from his parents for nearly a decade, has a mortgage, and has a career, and 2) someone who still lives with his parents, has only had a part time job, and is perhaps just starting college or is on break from BYU.  I'm just not likely to have any real, genuine close friends in that kind of ward.  That's just a fact of life.

Secondly, the bishopric, bless their hearts, do a great job of addressing the needs of less experienced young single adults.  However, they come across as more micro managerial to me than anything.  For example, they made a special announcement that napping with someone of the opposite gender is NOT okay.  They also told us that we need to wait until after a church lesson is done and the closing prayer has been said before we close our lesson manuals.  I can understand their reason behind this, and though I don't necessarily think these are BAD ideas per se, it basically shows that they don't trust us to make our own decisions or, more fundamentally, think for ourselves.  My own parents were never this strict and controlling, and I absolutely chafe under this kind of treatment.  There's no way I would let someone talk to me like that, and I'm about as big of a peace maker as anyone.  Those kind of things bug me, but I can still generally ignore them and move on.  However, given how complicated it is dealing with an unwanted same sex attraction, what would someone in my position expect in seeking advice and help from a bishop who works this way?  If he began trying to introduce such micro rules and telling me I need to live them, I'd go berserk.  I don't mean this to be a criticism of the bishop as an individual, nor of his calling or his capacity to follow the impressions of the Spirit, but it does make it extremely difficult for someone in my position to seek his advice or support.

Finally, I'm frustrated by the Church's approach to the issue of homosexuality.  As I mentioned before, I could understand them taking such a strong stance on the issue if they offered an alternative, a system of help and support, and answers that don't leave those who are sincerely trying to live a life in accordance with Heavenly Father's will.  That system isn't there.  As my good friend noted, the Church is not set up in a way to promote the long-term success and activity of people who have a same sex attraction unless that person has enough of an attraction to a female to get married and use the family-support system instead.  There is a reason you don't find many active members with a same sex attraction who are single and in their 30s, 40s, or 50s.  What programs are available, such as help in overcoming addictions, simply address symptoms of the issue of homosexuality.  They don't do anything about the actual attraction itself, and so there's little reason to expect success.

In all honesty, however, I miss the Spirit that I feel at church.  It's nice to be able to sit there, listen to the lessons, thoughts, or experiences of your fellow brothers and sisters and learn from them.  It's nice to hear something that prompts the Spirit to whisper to you an answer that you've been earnestly seeking.  For this reason, I really do want to go back, and that is how it has been every time I've gone through a bout where I was less-active.  It's quite cyclical, to be honest.  It's not like the Book of Mormon cycles, where I start out active, then get prideful, then wicked, then persecute people, then become increasingly wicked, then something comes along and humbles me, then I go crawling back, then I repent and become active again.  For me, it's more like this:

• [Need] I feel the need to have Spiritual guidance in my life.  My soul feels weighed down with sin.
• [Need fulfilled] I seek the Spirit, I start attending church, and I repent
• [Duty] I take a calling, I fulfill said calling, and am in attendance every week
• [Adversity/SSA] My life gets busy for whatever reason, then my attempts to lock my SSA in a box and control it result in me feeling lonely and depressed.
• [Failure to Cope] My inability to subdue my SSA leaves me feeling depressed, unintentionally engaging in self-destructive or damaging behavior (Nothing sexual nor anything that would put my life in danger.  Just things that may leave other basic areas of Maslow's hierachy of needs unfulfilled, perhaps so as to drown out SSA-related pains/frustrations)
• [Unexpected Turn of Events] I might end up moving (or getting moved to another ward), or a friendship with a girl turns overly dramatic as she opens up to me, sharing her feelings of wanting to be more than friends, then I respond truthfully by saying "it's not you, it's me" (which is true, other than the fact that she's a girl, not a guy) even though she interprets that as being "it's you".  Ends badly.  Even though I tell her she's great, and I really like being around her, and that's the truth, she still feels hurt because she doesn't know why.  She assumes I'm making excuses or saying things without saying them, like girls do so well.
• [Increasing adversity, lack of support] I fall deeper into despair, and my attendance or participation in Church drops noticeably.
• [Inactivity] I drag on for a while, even though I may appear to be doing just fine.  Heck, I got through college with a 3.8+, landed an awesome job, had a great social life, had plenty of friends, and was able to make ends meet and be fully self-sufficient.  I can obviously handle quite a lot, but it does take its toll.

I think that pretty much sums up my SSA cycle with the Church.  It's frustrating.  It's at that time where adversity starts to rear its ugly head that I need to have something that I can hold onto, but it's just not there.  As far as I know, I'm the only young single adult in the entire Denver area that is at least semi-active despite my same sex attraction.  It's really hard.  There are so many times that I wish I could just talk with someone in person, go for a walk or whatever, vent, and have that person understand or be able to relate because they've been there too.  But I don't have that.  I have my good friend across the country, and he's great.  But he and I both know the need to be able to just talk in person sometimes and be able to let it out.  As long as this need remains unfulfilled, I see little reason to hope for the cycle to miraculously be broken.  Unfortunately, this kind of support is not available within the Church.  I has had a definite negative impact on my faith in the Church itself, though my faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ is still unwavering.

I am beginning to think that I need to focus on strengthening my relationship with Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, and increasing my ability to lean on them for support during the rough times.  In particular, I am focusing on increasing my study of the Book of Mormon as I seek personal guidance and inspiration on what I should be doing with my life, where I should go, what I need to change, and what I should be planning for my future.  This is truly the first time I have studied the book in such earnestness and with such clear intent, and I am finding that the promises made in the introduction are indeed true.  I find that it is bringing me closer to my savior Jesus Christ than any other book possibly could.  I have a genuine, true testimony of that.  The Book of Mormon can give guidance, direction, and spiritual comfort to anyone, even to a gay Mormon.  So in that sense, I guess there is still hope yet.