https://www.mlattaway.com/lamppost daily 0.75 2026-07-02 https://www.mlattaway.com/lamppost/my-relationship-is-mine monthly 0.5 2026-07-02 https://www.mlattaway.com/lamppost/coming-out-to-mom monthly 0.5 2026-06-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69fba17a64a31260362b1f34/45152ba6-6608-461f-97d3-ab0a9f6be7ae/Michael-Attaway-I%27m-Gay.png LAMPPOST LETTERS - Coming Out to Mom - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://www.mlattaway.com/lamppost/two-halves-one-soul monthly 0.5 2026-06-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69fba17a64a31260362b1f34/48597204-5698-4273-a7d6-a1e557926c20/Michael-Attaway-Flowers.png LAMPPOST LETTERS - Two Halves, One Soul - Make it stand out There was a season when I believed I had been split in two. On Sundays, I wore pressed shirts and carried a Bible. I sat upright in hard wooden pews under fluorescent lights, listening to men behind pulpits speak with certainty about sin, about righteousness, about who was in and who was out. I memorized verses. I bowed my head at the right times. I said “Amen” when everyone else did. And sometimes, in those same sermons, I heard words that did not sound like love. Abomination. Dirty. Perverse. Not welcome. The words floated down from the pulpit and landed in my lap. Because even before I had language for it, I knew. I knew I was different. I did not yet understand what being gay meant. There were no visible examples in rural East Texas. No older boys to quietly ask. No stories that felt like mine. Only warnings. Only whispers. Only cautionary tales told with lowered voices and tightened jaws. I remember sitting in Sunday school classes where laughter followed certain jokes. I remember hearing family members speak about “those people” as if they were somewhere far away, somewhere broken. And I remember the day my paternal grandmother spoke about her church friend’s son who had moved to Dallas. She said it like a diagnosis. Like a confession. Like geography itself revealed a moral failure. I could feel the disappointment she carried for someone she barely knew. I sat there, silent, thinking, If only she knew. Because what I did know was this: the same heart that knelt in prayer at night was the heart that felt drawn toward other boys. The same soul that felt waves of calm in the pasture was the soul being named unclean from the pulpit. There was a war inside me. My indoctrinated self believed I had to choose. God or truth. Belonging or authenticity. Salvation or self. But the pasture had already taught me something different. Long before I could define theology, before I understood doctrine or denomination, I had walked alone through tall grass and felt a Presence wrap around me. Not accusing. Not condemning. Loving. Steady. Wordless but clear. That Presence did not recoil from me. It did not divide me in half. It did not require me to amputate pieces of myself to earn affection. What I did not understand then was that my relationship with The Universe began before religion ever entered the room. The Voice I heard in the wind did not speak the language of exclusion. It spoke the language of belonging. But in those pews, I confused the two. I believed the Baptist faith and The Universe were synonymous. I thought if one rejected me, the other must as well. I did not yet know that institutions can misinterpret what Love never did. So I fought myself. I prayed harder. I tried to feel different. I tried to bargain with Heaven. I asked to be fixed. I promised to be better. All the while, a quiet knowing remained in my chest. The same knowing that had met me in the pasture as a child. The same calm that would wash over me when the sermons became too sharp. You are not dirty. You are not an abomination. You are Mine. It would take years to untangle faith from fear. Years to separate religion from relationship. Years to realize that conditional love is not the same thing as Divine Love. But even then, sitting in those pews, I was not alone. I was a boy trying to reconcile two halves that were never meant to be enemies. The pasture knew that. The Universe knew that. And one day, I would too. https://www.mlattaway.com/lamppost/the-pasture-where-i-first-heard-you monthly 0.5 2026-06-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69fba17a64a31260362b1f34/1b9339db-d075-4da6-81e4-ef0b33c43a20/Michael-Attaway-Pasture-in-Texas.png LAMPPOST LETTERS - The Pasture Where I First Heard You https://www.mlattaway.com/between-the-posts-1 daily 0.75 2026-07-02 https://www.mlattaway.com/between-the-posts-1/a-better-world monthly 0.5 2026-07-02 https://www.mlattaway.com/between-the-posts-1/10a monthly 0.5 2026-06-06 https://www.mlattaway.com/between-the-posts-1/twenty-minutes-before-departure monthly 0.5 2026-06-06 https://www.mlattaway.com/whispers daily 0.75 2026-07-02 https://www.mlattaway.com/whispers/the-summoning-of-the-great-experimenters monthly 0.5 2026-07-02 https://www.mlattaway.com/whispers/i-see-you-i-am-here monthly 0.5 2026-07-02 https://www.mlattaway.com/whispers/you-were-there monthly 0.5 2026-06-06 https://www.mlattaway.com/home daily 1.0 2026-07-02 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69fba17a64a31260362b1f34/94e9f856-ed4e-4704-b2bc-de705881c16e/Michael+Attaway_2026_AuthorHeadshot.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69fba17a64a31260362b1f34/1e96a78f-948e-4890-827e-f126417d76a1/Michal-Lynn-Attaway-Mimosa-Flower-1.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69fba17a64a31260362b1f34/88637848-5df8-46bb-b72c-1983f500cb74/Michal-Lynn-Attaway-Mimosa-Flower-1.png https://www.mlattaway.com/contact-1 daily 0.75 2026-06-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69fba17a64a31260362b1f34/93e20adf-48e2-4ab0-95b6-59611d022d13/Title+%281%29.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69fba17a64a31260362b1f34/93e20adf-48e2-4ab0-95b6-59611d022d13/Title+%281%29.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69fba17a64a31260362b1f34/0f5ab2c5-df52-4225-9985-5e68669a6872/Title.png https://www.mlattaway.com/about-1 daily 0.75 2026-06-15 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69fba17a64a31260362b1f34/b7a0abca-592c-452b-b079-2e32707634f7/Michael-Attaway-Photo.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69fba17a64a31260362b1f34/d6ff5fee-bdf9-4fb1-b70c-f92df2217117/Michal-Lynn-Attaway-Mimosa-Flower-2.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69fba17a64a31260362b1f34/620b1bf9-d688-45c9-8872-d02100f4996b/Michael-Attaway-and-Mom.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69fba17a64a31260362b1f34/ea5bcd2a-3b84-4956-af3e-c2ca070850cc/Michal-Lynn-Attaway-Mimosa-Flower-2.png https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69fba17a64a31260362b1f34/c5888bf4-c83d-4a79-8e03-e1a8dfd455b8/Michael-Attaway-Family-Photo.jpg https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/69fba17a64a31260362b1f34/23610417-6b6d-4864-ac0b-eac52b266247/Michal-Lynn-Attaway-Mimosa-Flower-3.png