Cruising revisited

I've been reading, Someone You Know, by Gary Zebrun. This passage caught my attention:

The drivers were men, and they arrived alone and walked on paths through the scrub leading to the rocky cliff and wooden bridge over the chasm. Many left the paths, as I'd done a few times, for a small clearing where others were waiting. No one knew anyone when he arrived, and no one wanted to know anyone when he left.

It seems a well observed description of Cruising. No one knew anyone when he arrived, and no one wanted to know anyone when he left --the conflicting truth and not-the-truth of that sentence struck me.

George Michael once had to explain himself to some hapless interviewer like Regis Philbin, or Matt Lauer, or perhaps that Ryan Seacrest guy. Describing away his little indiscretion for the American Mainstream, he made the claim that Cruising, for the Gay Male, was not about necessity, but about something more mysterious, something, sub textually speaking, that the hapless het world just can't get--so let's just leave it at that.

I think that Gary Zebrun captures the moment well. And I do not think that it is beyond the grasp, really, of any of our population, Gay, Straight, or dead.

Cruising, in whatever flavor, is at the heart of every man and every woman. And, it is absolutely about necessity, about the longings of the heart, the body. It might be a vestige of the basic hunter/gatherer in us all. It might be a skewed example of that restlessness St. Augustine speaks of when he says: "Thou hast made us for thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee."

The Little Chapter from Galatians this morning speaks, obliquely, to this issue for me. St. Paul suggests that in the depths of my being God is within me, living in me, loving me, calling me to communion with himself. Rather than the anonymity of that forest clearing, God desires to be known in each of us, for each of us. Being known may be risky behavior, but being unknown is far worse.

Galatians 2:19b-20

I have been crucified with Christ, and the life I live now is not my own; Christ is living in me. I still live my human life, but it is a life of faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.