As we sat around the dinner table at my college reunion, one of my classmates told the story of a friend who left his wife. My classmate saw what might be described as the friend’s awakening to his sexual orientation. She told her friend and his estranged wife that she thought he was gay. Something both the friend and the estranged wife denied, but soon enough, the friend came out as gay.

Another classmate at the table talked about when he came out, only to find that his friends knew before he knew. It is easy to think about this in terms of concepts like ‘gay’ or ‘straight’ and ‘male’ or ‘female’ are social constructs. It is easy to think about this in terms of others knowing us better than we do.

So, I am struggling with my own identity, not along gender or sexual orientation lines, but more on philosophical and theological lines. We do I believe?

I’ve chosen the title of this post to be ‘Coming Out as a Post Structural Christian Mystic Poet’. A high school classmate of mine who is a writer looking for ideas to write about asked her friends on Facebook for topics, and I suggested Post Structuralist Christian Mysticism.

I don’t know if ‘Post Structural Christian Mystic Poet’’ is really a label that fits me. Each part of the phrase needs so much unpacking. Is my thinking post structuralist? I just participated in #rhizo15 where we explored Deleuze and Guattari. I’m not sure my thinking is any more clearer now than it was before #rhizo15 started, but I found the ideas appealing.

Of course the concept ‘Christian’ is also a social construct. People have been fighting for centuries about what it means to be ‘Christian’. I self-identify as ‘Christian’, even though it seems less as less popular to do so these days. The same can be said about mysticism.

As to being a poet, that is a similarly slippery slope. Who really is a poet? What really is poetry? Can I call myself a poet without being pretentious?

Of course the combination of these nebulous terms creates something even more nebulous. Can some of these terms even be used together or are they contradictory?

With this, I return to the idea of coming out. When my classmate talked about coming out as gay, many people already seemed to know. So, can I call myself a Post Structuralist Christian Mystic Poet? Will some of you say, “Well, of course. That’s what you are. We always knew it.” Will others say, “No, those ideas are contradictory.”

What do you think a ‘Post Structuralist Christian Mystic Poet’ really is, and do you think it applies to me?