Working On My Book

In 2018, after returning from a pilgrimage to Assissi, La Verna, and Rome in Italy, I was inspired to write my autobiography. While traveling from Assisi to Rome, my spiritual director and I stopped in a town called Orvieto to visit The Cathedral of Orvieto, where a host that bled after the Consecration and the Corporal the Blood dripped onto are displayed. On the way to the city, we went through a cutback, and on the side of the road, a woman was standing dressed like she was prepared for a night on the town. I asked my spiritual director if there was a bus stop nearby, thinking she was waiting to be picked up. My director told me she was waiting to be picked up but not by a bus. She was prostituting herself. We went through another cutback, and there was another woman dressed similarly. We went on to Orvieto and enjoyed our time before heading off to Rome. I could not get these women out of my head.

Upon returning, when I was asked what was most memorable about my trip, these women stuck with me most. I wanted to help them because it seemed the right thing to do and because I felt a connection to them. In my mind they had been snatched away from the life they knew, my spiritual director said they were likely trafficked, and given the identity of sex worker. My identity of heterosexual, white male was similarly taken from me. They were left on the mountain to live as prostitutes. I was left to live as a gay, feminine, wanna-be black person. I could not do anything to help those women, but I could help others who feel stuck in an identity that doesn't match who they are as sons or daughters of God. I mentioned this to a friend who suggested I write a memoir.

Six years later, I am working on the final editing and adding a few more thoughts. Then, it is off to see if anyone wants to publish a book that touches on issues related to sexual attraction, sexual identity, and race. There are no hot-button issues here! The title of the book is Becoming a Good Man. Once I find a publisher or self-publish, if no publisher is interested, I will make an announcement here and through my YouTube channel of the same name.

That is what has been keeping me from posting here regularly. I should finish writing by the end of November and will return to my normal posting pace. Until then...

Written 11/8/24 AD

Human-written, AI-edited

Image by Garrett D Johnson