I've told you a little about my friend Jim and his work in Boystown. Turns out he's a pretty super writer, and I couldn't resist sharing something he wrote with you all in hopes that you'll include him in your prayers as well.
Somewhere over the Rainbow
“Halsted Street” reads the signpost just around the corner from my new home. Rainbow bands cover the sign signaling to all who pass by that they have just entered the rainbow district of Boystown. It is one of the biggest LGBT communities in the world. Rainbow flags hang from the surrounding households and every business bears a rainbow sticker in their window to show their support for the gay community. Every type of person and every type of place can be found here. It is a neighborhood with its own rules and its own rhythms.
If you were to take Boystown and divide it by the color spectrum, I would live somewhere between orange and yellow, which happens to be right around the corner from a gay bathhouse. I guess that puts me in the middle of the rainbow and not over it, but the metaphor works regardless. I am truly in a different world. (Although to clarify, I have spent a good amount of time in Boystown before when I worked with Emmaus ministries, so my story is one of those that starts in the middle of the action—en media res.)
The purpose of this blog is to record my discovery of truth. I’m here learning how to live and how to love as my Savior did. I am in a search for alethic realism, the ultimate reality, what is really real. Boystown is a place of illusion. People here hide who they really are. This world wears a mask and puts on a façade of immense proportions. Yet, the smoke eventually fades and what seemed like magic is revealed to be trickery. I want to find the world that lies beyond smoke and mirrors. I want to pull back the curtain and find the man who was pulling the strings all along. God is active here and I want to find what he is doing in this dark place.
Boystown is a land of broken dreams and sleepless dreamers. My mom recently discovered YouTube and as a result, she watches Susan Boyle sing “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables. In the book/play/musical Fantine is the character who sings this song. She fell in love with a man and had a child with him. He made her promises that they would be together, but left her destitute. At this point, her factory has found out that she has a child out of wedlock and fires her because of her immorality. In order to survive, she has to become a prostitute. The song goes as follows:
There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time
Then it all went wrong
I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted
But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear you hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame
He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came
And still I dream he’ll come to me
That we will live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather
I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I’m living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.
When I heard this song in its context, it really hit me as the perfect description of the Boystown community. People are convinced that the longings of their flesh will give them fulfillment in life, but in reality, it only results in death.
I have entered a world of broken dreams. People wander around as the living dead, floating through a waking nightmare. I feel my heart and soul screaming out for this community. Those who were once strangers and guarded are now friends and brothers. Yet, they are lost. Oh God, I pray “Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Wake them up…
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