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1824 HALF STREET SW 488-1205

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Inn

A FULL RESORT HOTEL featuring the DISCOLOUNGE, the CARVERY, the poolside PUKALANI TERRACE, and now the FRONT PORCH for American style meals with a French influence.

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Lifestyle

Coming Out

INTO THE LIGHT

Fifty-six-year-old Arthur was a success-

ful professional man. His world was abruptly shattered one day when someone said to him, "You like boys don't you?"

That question was all it took to crush Arthur, crush him under the weight of all the fear he had carried for so long. He feared not only for his profession, but for his loving, caring wife (who never quite understood the private unshared mystery in Arthur's personality) and his three now mostly grown children.

This gentle sounding man spent a month following the devastating question getting up the nerve to pick up the phone and cry "Help!" Building any kind of relationship with another person over the phone is really difficult, yet Ma Bell provided the only link between Arthur's deep fears and some sense of calm and rational reality.

"How will my wife and children handle the truth about me?" Arthur wondered agonized really as he fled from the sting of that question: "You really like boys don't you?" "I wanted to shout 'Yes!' but I laughed it off and buried the pain deep inside with all the other pains I have stored up all my life." All those pains, so carefully concealed were waiting to be activiated by the next insensitive comment or question.

For the first time, now, Arthur heard the voice of someone not condeming and insensitive, and he gained the courage to say, "I'm a homosexual, and I never told a single person in my entire life until this moment. What do I do? I am so alone and frightened. I can't continue to live in this darkness."

That phone call was just the beginning. There were many more calls afterward, many in the middle of nights of

pain and great darkness, and others in the midst of days of darkness. Later Arthur and I had what was for him a real

first-person, face-to-face meeting. Arthur was talking with another person who was unafraid to say "I'm a homosexual."

Now Arthur began the long, hard walk down the road into the light of being honest, of standing in the truth. The walk was not easy, but Arthur was walking it on his own.

Next, Arthur met with several people who were gay, and he experienced the joy of discovering that they were really quite a lot like him, and that they faced many of the same problems.

Finally, with his newly gathered strength, Arthur shared who he really was with his wife and family. "I began to feel that life had new meaning. I knew I wanted to share the wonderful revelation that is now my very own: No one has to live in darkness; there is light enough for everyone." Arthur experienced real joy on that day when he discovered his new light was also light for his wife and family, as they uncovered the deep love for each other found in shared honesty.

Arthur wondered how many others were still trying to work up the nerve to pick up the phone or walk into a meeting with other gay people. He began to think he could be on the other end of the phone to listen to someone's else's cry for help.

After 56 years, Arthur felt really good. He was just beginning to like himself, to love himself. Arthur didn't even worry about finding a relationship with another man. He had found one with himself. Rev. Larry J. Uhrig