Anything Is Possible

Years ago I co-produced a documentary for Global TV that even won a couple of awards, the subtitle of which was Anything Is Possible.

I know more than ever without doubt that anything is possible after lunch – and an ensuing friendship – with someone with whom I never dreamed I’d break bread.

Former same-sex marriage opponent Michael Coren explains in the current issue of The Walrus why he has quit the Catholic church, has “apologizing to do”  – and even shares what he took away from our first meal together. In my exclusive interview this weekend with him for The Shaun Proulx Show (which All-Access Passholders can hear any time they want; click here to read an excerpt), Coren says, “That had a very very profound effect on me, your story. It’s not just the major event so much that changes one, I think, it’s things like our lunch.”

I found myself shaking hands late last summer with a man who has – intentionally or not – created pain within one of my communities when I stepped off the set of a live show at the now-defunct Sun News Network. Michael caught the show on the monitors of the network lobby and as I was leaving the building he stopped to tell me he enjoyed what I had said on-air.

I didn’t clue in to who he was until he said his name, and as I shook his hand a visceral reaction raced through my body, quite contradicting what was going through my mind, which was the thought: I like this person; you know when you feel that the moment you are in someone’s energy?

Later that week Coren tweeted me a link to something he had written, and to my surprise when I took time to look (I was hesitant), it turned out that just before my city’s most recent Pride festival, Coren had actually published an article called I Was Wrong, about his in-progress epiphanies concerning his long-held negative stances about the LGBT community.

We met for lunch early that fall. I sat down, relieved to see Coren had ordered wine because I felt I could use a drink. Over my adult life I have read or heard his stances on the LGBT community especially around same-sex marriage. His take on the issues were heartbreakers, especially because Coren is an immensely talented communicator – he makes his arguments with power. I also have read and heard from other LGBT people how they too have been negatively effected by Coren’s voice.

Small talk ensued and Michael did what I find a lot of straight people do; suddenly I was looking at pictures of his gorgeous wife and beautiful children on his smart phone.

I remarked on what an attractive family he had and I meant it.

Awkward silence ensued. I took a sip of wine.

My iPhone, packed with pictures of my husband, with whom I have been in a relationship with for over eight years, and our four-legged companions, remained in my pocket.

I literally had to take hold of the moment, acknowledge within myself that a big fat issue was rising to the surface and that it was up to me to get over myself – or not – and take my phone out and show this man who had been such a force against gay marriage my gay marriage.

Which I did. And Coren was nothing but interested and asked me questions about my life with Patrick.

I felt ashamed of my own internalized homophobia, of my cowardice in meeting Michael where he was meeting me. I still cringe at not being my full self for even those long five seconds, until I forced me to keep up with me.

As I put my phone away, I asked Michael – because this was only our first conversation – if I could be frank, not in the spirit of condemnation but in the spirit of the bigger communication we were obviously both interested in having. He said of course. As Michael writes in The Walrus:

“I was hesitant to show (my family) to you. I was uncomfortable with how you might react.”

I felt ashamed and very small.

“You know,” he continued, “you had quite an effect on my life. I’d just come to Toronto—wasn’t even out yet—and I was meeting with a colleague. He went off to the washroom, and I read the newspaper he had with him. It was the Toronto Sun, and you had a column in it that was critical of gay people. Of me, really. It broke my heart.”

The two of us are friends now. But, good Lord, I still have some apologizing to do. Quite a lot, in fact.

I didn’t share the story of reading Michael’s column that day back when I was a newbie in finance with him to glean an apology. I shared it with him so he might understand the effect the likes of him and other homophobic people have on the spirit of LGBT people, how it keeps growing the ancient mountain of negative messaging LGBT people are destined at birth to climb over; many never make it even halfway up.

Which is why it has knocked my socks off that, in the months since I met Michael at the Sun studio, he has quit the Catholic church.  As recently as last Sunday, Michael Coren bravely stood in the very church that performed the world’s first same-sex marriages – which he once called “Canada’s biggest mistake” – to say he was wrong. Michael now also says that in the hate he has received from former friends, and from Catholic people around the world, he feels he has had a tiny glimpse of what it must feel like to be an LGBT person and feel the hate of strangers.

Michael Coren has had a #ThoughtRevolution. So much of one, his next book will share his pilgrimage, his epiphany, and, after that, he intends to make the next chapter of his life about love of all.

I also had a #ThoughtRevolution that day. So much of one I left that lunch almost in a state of shock. I had to buy new shoes just to calm down.

There is more beauty in this than I can express with mere words. But, I say to Michael in our hour-long one-on-one interview:

You changing your mind shows everybody, shows me that anything is possible, wherever our minds are on any subject at all. Look at this 180. So whoever you are, if you are stuck in a pattern of thought, you think this about who you are, you think that about your relationship, you think this about your ability to achieve anything. You can change – all of that. We can all change.

All it takes is one thought, one new idea, one new way of telling a story.

One #ThoughtRevolution and anything is possible.

As always, please share your ideas and thoughts in the comments below.

PS: So about Jurassic Park‘s Chris Pratt, whose rise in Hollywood is reaching epic proportions: You know that recent trend, where people shared what they would tell their younger selves? It was such a sweet exercise, but in terms of practical usefulness, looking back at what is over doesn’t hold the kind of appeal to me as what Chris Pratt shared he did before he was even close to being a star, with US magazine:

“I look through journaling entries from when I was 19 and they’re like, “Hey, where are you now? Are you looking back on this moment when you had no gas in your car? Have you ever been to New York? I bet you have.”

Pratt goes on to say, “I was doing stand-up comedy routines on the beach for my friends, but I had a feeling I was going places.”

Chris had a feeling he was going places because he created that feeling, and that’s what I talk about what anyone can do with the tool called Forward Feeling. It’s all about thinking the thoughts that serve you best.

Now share your ideas and thoughts about Michael Coren and his #ThoughtRevolution in the comments below. What subject might you have a #ThoughtRevolution about? For sure I never thought I’d have the one I’ve had – what feels impossible for you?

Don’t forget to share this post with anyone who thinks they can’t change their mind on an issue that is weighing them down.