A Pentecost Story: The Spiritual Side of Being Bi

I confess, I cringe a bit at the identification of being “bisexual,” not because it is incorrect. It is very true that I have the capacity to be attracted to both women and men.

The problem is how limiting “bisexual” is as a description of who I am as a “bi” person. For me, it is more complex than the word suggests.

Being bi is as much about my spirit as it is about my body. Let me try to explain what I mean.

Since seminary, coming on forty years ago now, I have been active in the liberal wing of the church. These decades have been volatile ones for us, particularly in the area of treatment of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. However, unlike many progressive Christians I know, I have always reached out a hand of friendship to those who disagree with me.

It’s not that I mute my voice on LGBT inclusion or prefer to change the subject to safer ground, which is often what we think will hold us together in the church. Everyone knows where I stand.

What I do that surprises many is to seek out those who disagree with me and invite a conversation.

Frankly, I love a discussion with someone who thinks differently from me. I love the challenge of putting myself in their shoes, trying to see things the way they see things. In other words, empathy – the ability to understand or be aware of the feelings or experiences of another – is a powerful human experience that gives me immense joy.

I enjoy the way this tests my strong convictions, forcing me to reassess in light of what the other sees. Sometimes my views change. If I return to my previous conclusions, I feel refreshed.

I think this has everything to do with being bi. Many people experience attraction in a way that allows them to check a single box: “I’m attracted to women,” or “I’m attracted to men.” I have the capacity to check both.

There is a comfort that comes with being able to check one box. Likewise, living outside of an either/or paradigm can cause discomfort for many. I am happily and faithfully married to my husband of 32 years. At the same time, it doesn’t bother me that I am unable to check one box (nor has it bothered my husband for that matter). What I see in myself is how this extends to my spirit, giving me this ability to delight in empathy.

Where there are sides, as there are in the church on serious matters, I approach the tension from a place of empathy—even as I know I live on one side.

Really, it’s not that different from being bi and married to one person. Even though my reading of Scripture and my walk with Jesus lead me to be liberal, I know there are devout Christians who are conservative. I yearn to be in dialogue with them. This arises from a quality of my spirit and is an important aspect of my knowing myself as a bi person.

I propose to you that God, known to us through the Holy Spirit, empathizes with all the various facets of our complex world.  This definition of empathy from the Merriam Webster dictionary captures best what I experience in the Holy Spirit: “The imaginative projection of a subjective state into an object so that the object appears to be infused with it.” To be infused—this is one way we can understand how the Holy Spirit works.

The description of Pentecost in the Acts of the Apostles captures this aspect of God.

Pentecost is the moment, forty days after Jesus’ Resurrection, when the Holy Spirit fell upon the disciples and the church began to take shape.

Most astounding to everyone there, Jesus’ Galilean followers suddenly were able to speak in ways everyone could understand, even “Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes.” (Acts 2:9-10) Despite so many differences, the Holy Spirit was able to inspire the disciples’ witness to God’s power in Jesus Christ so that all these people understood.

The power of empathy continues for Peter and Paul in their efforts to form a church that includes both Jews and Gentiles, a divide as contentious then as the one we face over sexual orientation now. Peter concludes his description to the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem of the Holy Spirit falling upon the Gentiles, “If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” (Acts 11:17) Exactly. The Holy Spirit is able to hold together – empathize with, if you will – what are opposites for most of us.

Being bi has given me what seems to be an unusual way to engage the world and empathize with those who see things differently.

For me, that is a quality of spirit given by God. And I encourage you to open yourself to the empathy of the Holy Spirit when you celebrate Pentecost this year. After all, it’s part of the Pentecost story.

Image via flickr user Waiting For The Word