About

Poetry

About the blog

I’m Fin. This is not my legal name, but it’s the name I increasingly answer to. I’m nonbinary, I think, and my pronouns are they, them, and theirs.

I came out at fifteen and began learning what it means to be queer in the world. In my late thirties, I began coming to terms with gender questions I’d put off for decades. And right around forty, I became aware of a pull toward spiritual service, despite my conflicted relationship with the church.

I like to say that God and I have long talks about the degree to which we believe in one another. I don’t call myself a Christian. It’s complicated.

I left the mainstream church at fifteen as a result of coming out. I knocked around Quaker meetings on and off for twenty-five years, sure that the universe cared well for me, but not sure of much else. Then in 2019, I found a home with a reconciling Methodist church–right as the General Conference voted that my presence was neither affirmed nor welcomed. And that’s when the barrier between this world and the next one grew very thin indeed.

In short, this is a story about being called, in both the transitive and the intransitive sense. It’s about what I call myself, what others call me, how I relate to my identity and my community. And it’s also about being called in a religious sense–though to what end, I am still trying to discern.

This journal charts my attempt to reconcile my gay-ish, trans-ish self with my internal mystic. There will be camping, communion, tarot cards, and the occasional beer. And a lot of swearing.