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At 14 I read in a newspaper men who had sex with men were hated by God and that anyone who killed such a person was doing the work of GOD.

When I was six my five year old cousin and I walked by some boys naked in the bushes behind my father’s family’s house doing things I had no idea one could do.

I asked my cousin, “What are they doing?”

When he told me I said, “What’s that?”

Saying, “Let me show you,” he pulled out his equipment.

I thought I had a growth.

After I read that newspaper I went into trauma time.

There was no one I could dare talk with. Anyone could kill me.

To see our self hated by GOD as a kid is a terrible thing.

Edmund White, who died this month, wrote in the intro to his biography of Arthur Rimbaud, “As a fourteen year old homosexual filled with self hate…”

I grew up believing, like millions of kids gay and straight, I was hated by GOD.

I believed I was a monster. Believing it, I became a monster.

In 1970 a friend invited me out to Hollywood. I had only a Toronto Public Library Card for identification (that is how much freedom we have lost). I went by bus taking only a pocket sized copy of THE NEW TESTAMENT to force myself to read it.

By the time I got to Hollywood I had read it cover to cover five times through.

“Know what was in that sandwich you just now ate,” said a man who thought himself a guru, adding, “We gave you an elephant knock out pill. In a few moments you won’t be able to move.”

I used those few moments to compose myself. I wrote a letter to film star Mae West, put it in an envelope, walked down to where she lived, dropped it off and then found a park bench where I could let what I had been given pass through me.

I had decided to trust in Mark 16: 17 “And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

Frankly, I did not care if I lived or died. I just wanted to see if this was true.

I had a wicked night. At dawn I decided to let the wind* lead me as I walked.

Wound up in front of a shop that sold home movie gear. A fellow around my age (24) was trying to buy a projector. The clerk could not answer his questions.

I said, “I work with those. That’s the best one.”

He said, “Would you like to come with me.”

He showed me a porno.

We had fun. Lots of fun.

Then he said, “Would you care for a coffee? Have a seat in the living room.”

As he put the coffee in front of me my eye was drawn to a copy of the Wilhelm/Baynes edition of THE I CHING.

“Don’t you want to take that with you?” said the friend with whom I had left my copy in Toronto. I said, “No, if I need it it will be where I am”

I said to the fellow who had given me the coffee, “Are you into that?”

He said, “No, a fellow who was staying here left it. We asked, ‘Don’t you want to take that?’ He said, ‘No, if I need it it will be where I am. There is someone coming who will want it.”

I knew that someone was me.

I spent the next few weeks in Hollywood Cemetery at the grave of Douglas Fairbanks meditating on the ideas I had found in THE NEW TESTAMENT and THE I CHING.

I can now say with full authority queer people are not hated by GOD and that those who persecute and kill them are.

Nonetheless, be good to them.

A few days later I got a letter from Mae West inviting me to come up and see her. As I had decided to head back to Toronto to become part of Rochdale College I wrote her a thank you giving Rochdale as the forwarding address.

When I got to Rochdale waiting for me in the office was a tiny perfumed letter from Mae West. I opened it. She had written, “If you are out this way again come up and see me.”

I tell this story and much more in my self-published THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED ROCHDALE.

I now know the words I had read are 100% true.

I am here.

Mark 16 17 “And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; 18 they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

People who come to me get well.

I don’t do anything. I don’t even lay my hands on them.

They just get well.

Dare to become the monster you are are.

–Reg Hartt

*Note: The word “SPIRIT” is Latin for breath, for wind.

Without knowing it I let the Spirit lead me.

It is still leading me.

Jesus said, “The truth will set you free.”

It sure as Hell does.

 

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