After spending 40 days blogging on religious/spiritual/theological matters, I have discovered that I miss doing it. Rather than continue this blog, which served a particular purpose, I've created a new blog. Those of you who have been following this one, I hope you might come over to the new one. you can find it at:
http://crumbsatthefeast.blogspot.com/
I've also decided that I will spend the rest of the Easter season not blogging. (Seems fair after lent, eh?) So while there's nothing up at the above site besides the name, expect some activity around Pentecost. Do not, however, expect an entry every day. Lent is lent, and no need to inflict it on everyone year 'round. :)
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Sunday
A reading from the Gospel of Mark, the 16th chapter, verses 1-8
(NRSV)
When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. 2And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. 3They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” 4When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. 5As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. 6But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” 8So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Saturday
If you've lost anyone close, really close to you---a person who crosses your mind several times a day with thoughts like, "I'll have to tell ______ about this"---you know the feeling after the funeral.
What next?
How next?
It can be that way with any loss. Or victory, for that matter. Sometimes there's not much difference between the two. A new absence, a new presence---both bring a change in your life. The old has passed away. All things are new.
But right after the funeral, right after the final goodbyes, the new is not so wonderful. Old patterns, old normal is gone. We just can't see how the next day will make sense. We can't see . . . . That's just it. We just can't see.
We walk by faith, not by sight.
A surprising new normal is coming.
What next?
How next?
It can be that way with any loss. Or victory, for that matter. Sometimes there's not much difference between the two. A new absence, a new presence---both bring a change in your life. The old has passed away. All things are new.
But right after the funeral, right after the final goodbyes, the new is not so wonderful. Old patterns, old normal is gone. We just can't see how the next day will make sense. We can't see . . . . That's just it. We just can't see.
We walk by faith, not by sight.
A surprising new normal is coming.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Friday
It is finished. A lifetime, a ministry, an attempt to tell something of God's love, mercy, and grace. Take up my cross and follow? Are you kidding me? Look where it gets you. Isn't there another way?
When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He knew what he was talking about, I guess.
What does it mean to die to yourself? What does it mean to give your life for another?
Abba Poemen said, "When you hear someone complaining and you struggle with yourself and do not answer him back with complaints; when you are hurt and bear it patiently, not looking for revenge; then you are laying down your life for your neighbor."
I take this stuff seriously. It mostly paralyzes me, but I take it seriously.
I sometimes wonder what it would look like for the church to die. What would it look like if the corporate church were to put on the mind of Christ who, though he was in the form of God, did not take equality with God as something to be grasped at but emptied himself, taking on the form of a slave. What if the church sold all its buildings and furniture and real estate, gave it to the poor, and followed Jesus to the cross? It doesn't even seem possible, does it? Because all those buildings and furniture and real estate are useful. They can be used to further the work of God. They can also become the whole reason for the church existing. So much goes into the upkeep of the physical plant. So much of the church's resources go into self-preservation and its sometimes hard to see the emptying out.
But, as we were told to sing years ago, we are the church. And I'm not so good at emptying myself. I don't personally know anyone who is. It's no wonder that collectively we fail to do it as well.
But Christ calls us, and there is dying involved in the call. Dying to self. To put others before us takes a little out of us, is a small death. To give to charity when you want some shiny new toy is another death. To help someone on the side of the road when we're in a hurry to get somewhere, that's a little death. We might manage those. Sometimes. It makes small differences.
I heard someone say recently---I can't recall where---that death is a miracle. I can go along with that. It seems unnatural to stop breathing. It seems unlikely that it'll happen to us. It's hard to believe.
But there's something in our faith that speaks of death as a choice. Not as a suicidal thing, not as a killing sort of thing, but as a sacrificial sort of thing. Love takes something out of you. It is also sustaining and rejuvenating, but let's not fool ourselves, it also takes something.
There is an argument to be had as to where or not Jesus went willingly to the cross, but I'm not interested in that argument, not tonight. What I think is more interesting is that Jesus made choices that he had to have known would make powerful people angry. He did this even though he knew it could cost him his life. He taught, healed, helped even when he knew it would rub people the wrong way. And as much as I trust in the resurrection, I have to say---I'm often quite afraid to do that. I'm not willing to put myself out there in the same way that Jesus did.
I'm not willing to empty myself. Not often. Hardly every.
Jesus ended up on the cross---what a failure! I love the business books that speak of success in terms of how Jesus became a success. They read a different Bible than I do. Jesus did what was right, did everything right, and still ended up on a cross, a victim of a state sanctioned execution.
I'm not willing to be that big of a failure. I'm afraid of dying that big a death.
But that's our story today. Follow Jesus, get a cross. Follow Jesus---he calls you to die. Follow Jesus and learn to not hold grudges, to forgive, to take no revenge.
"Teach me to live that I may dread the grave as little as my bed.
Teach me to die that so I may rise glorious at the awesome day."
This is serious stuff. This is deathly serious stuff. And, to bring it around to the supposed topic of this blog, it bothers me that all sides of the argument around GLBT stuff (or just about any argument within a church, for that matter) are defending themselves, speaking ill of othe other side, not willing to die for the other. I'm in the thick of that. I'm not entirely sure how to die to myself in this argument. I'm not sure how to give my life for someone with whom I fundamentally disagree.
God, save us by your grace. We're certainly not going to get saved by works here.
Follow Jesus. Take up a cross and follow Jesus. Be willing to do what Jesus did, even though you know it will create powerful enemies. it will get ugly, maybe even bloody, and it'll likely be your own blood.
It was Jesus's own blood. And after all of it was done, Jesus gave up his spirit and said, "It is finished."
But in each ending, there is a beginning . . .
When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die. Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He knew what he was talking about, I guess.
What does it mean to die to yourself? What does it mean to give your life for another?
Abba Poemen said, "When you hear someone complaining and you struggle with yourself and do not answer him back with complaints; when you are hurt and bear it patiently, not looking for revenge; then you are laying down your life for your neighbor."
I take this stuff seriously. It mostly paralyzes me, but I take it seriously.
I sometimes wonder what it would look like for the church to die. What would it look like if the corporate church were to put on the mind of Christ who, though he was in the form of God, did not take equality with God as something to be grasped at but emptied himself, taking on the form of a slave. What if the church sold all its buildings and furniture and real estate, gave it to the poor, and followed Jesus to the cross? It doesn't even seem possible, does it? Because all those buildings and furniture and real estate are useful. They can be used to further the work of God. They can also become the whole reason for the church existing. So much goes into the upkeep of the physical plant. So much of the church's resources go into self-preservation and its sometimes hard to see the emptying out.
But, as we were told to sing years ago, we are the church. And I'm not so good at emptying myself. I don't personally know anyone who is. It's no wonder that collectively we fail to do it as well.
But Christ calls us, and there is dying involved in the call. Dying to self. To put others before us takes a little out of us, is a small death. To give to charity when you want some shiny new toy is another death. To help someone on the side of the road when we're in a hurry to get somewhere, that's a little death. We might manage those. Sometimes. It makes small differences.
I heard someone say recently---I can't recall where---that death is a miracle. I can go along with that. It seems unnatural to stop breathing. It seems unlikely that it'll happen to us. It's hard to believe.
But there's something in our faith that speaks of death as a choice. Not as a suicidal thing, not as a killing sort of thing, but as a sacrificial sort of thing. Love takes something out of you. It is also sustaining and rejuvenating, but let's not fool ourselves, it also takes something.
There is an argument to be had as to where or not Jesus went willingly to the cross, but I'm not interested in that argument, not tonight. What I think is more interesting is that Jesus made choices that he had to have known would make powerful people angry. He did this even though he knew it could cost him his life. He taught, healed, helped even when he knew it would rub people the wrong way. And as much as I trust in the resurrection, I have to say---I'm often quite afraid to do that. I'm not willing to put myself out there in the same way that Jesus did.
I'm not willing to empty myself. Not often. Hardly every.
Jesus ended up on the cross---what a failure! I love the business books that speak of success in terms of how Jesus became a success. They read a different Bible than I do. Jesus did what was right, did everything right, and still ended up on a cross, a victim of a state sanctioned execution.
I'm not willing to be that big of a failure. I'm afraid of dying that big a death.
But that's our story today. Follow Jesus, get a cross. Follow Jesus---he calls you to die. Follow Jesus and learn to not hold grudges, to forgive, to take no revenge.
"Teach me to live that I may dread the grave as little as my bed.
Teach me to die that so I may rise glorious at the awesome day."
This is serious stuff. This is deathly serious stuff. And, to bring it around to the supposed topic of this blog, it bothers me that all sides of the argument around GLBT stuff (or just about any argument within a church, for that matter) are defending themselves, speaking ill of othe other side, not willing to die for the other. I'm in the thick of that. I'm not entirely sure how to die to myself in this argument. I'm not sure how to give my life for someone with whom I fundamentally disagree.
God, save us by your grace. We're certainly not going to get saved by works here.
Follow Jesus. Take up a cross and follow Jesus. Be willing to do what Jesus did, even though you know it will create powerful enemies. it will get ugly, maybe even bloody, and it'll likely be your own blood.
It was Jesus's own blood. And after all of it was done, Jesus gave up his spirit and said, "It is finished."
But in each ending, there is a beginning . . .
Thursday, April 9, 2009
Thursday
Peter, Peter . . . so zealous and so mercurial. I know what you were thinking. If you reveal what you know, you'll be arrested, too and that won't help anyone. I bet Jesus even knew that, even understood that. Jesus probably forgave that even as it was happening.
I'll tell you I go to church and then almost apologize. You know how those people are that go to church. And you understand, I'm not that type of church-goer, okay? I mean, if they think I'm that kind of Jesus follower, that won't help evangelism---it's important to know that there are many kinds of people who call Jesus "Lord," right? And if I'm a bit embarrassed by my church, or certain factions of it, that's understandable, right? It just does no one any good to always be shouting, "I follow Jesus."
* * * * *
I'll tell you I go to church and then almost apologize. You know how those people are that go to church. And you understand, I'm not that type of church-goer, okay? I mean, if they think I'm that kind of Jesus follower, that won't help evangelism---it's important to know that there are many kinds of people who call Jesus "Lord," right? And if I'm a bit embarrassed by my church, or certain factions of it, that's understandable, right? It just does no one any good to always be shouting, "I follow Jesus."
* * * * *
It sometimes feels like . . . You know, I want to follow Jesus. I find Jesus so compelling, so much like how I wish I could be. Willing to speak truth to power. Willing to trade the facade of power for servanthood. Able to reach out to the undesirables of society and make a difference in their lives. But there's an awful lot of people between me and Jesus at this points. Crowds and crowds, and sometimes I can't see over them to see Jesus. Sometimes there is confusion about where Jesus is leading. "This way," says one person. "No, he went thataway," says another. Some of them are clearly wrong, some are less so. Worst of all, the crowd that is actually following Jesus is sometimes indiscernible from the ones who only think they are. Plants the seed of doubt in my brain as to who I'm actually following.
It sometimes feels like . . . You know, I want to follow Jesus. I find Jesus so compelling, so much like how I wish I could be. Willing to speak truth to power. Willing to trade the facade of power for servanthood. Able to reach out to the undesirables of society and make a difference in their lives. But there's an awful lot of people between me and Jesus at this points. Crowds and crowds, and sometimes I can't see over them to see Jesus. Sometimes there is confusion about where Jesus is leading. "This way," says one person. "No, he went thataway," says another. Some of them are clearly wrong, some are less so. Worst of all, the crowd that is actually following Jesus is sometimes indiscernible from the ones who only think they are. Plants the seed of doubt in my brain as to who I'm actually following.
* * * * *
Peter, I want to shake my head at you, tsk-tsk at you and your unwillingness to speak up for Jesus. I want to berate you for proclaiming your undying allegiance one minute, denying you even know the man a few hours later. But clearly Jesus loved you, even after all the times you got things wrong, even after all the times you missed the point. Jesus loved you enough to know you, really know you, know you well enough to predict exactly what you would do. That is some kind of love. So if I make zealous proclamations one minute and embarrassed apologies the next---could it be that Jesus still loves me, too? Peter, there aren't any of us really worthy of being a role model, except that maybe we might learn the depth and breadth and width of Jesus's love by watching you?
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
Wednesday
It's been a busy month here, but I think I can breathe for the Triduum. An article I was assigned is written and with the publisher. A book group that I facilitate at a retirement home was today, so I can let that slip from the forefront of my mind. I have music to still learn for services, but I'm not too stressed about that. I choreographed a foot-washing and the rehearsal went well tonight. I have to carry a huge cross (with two other men) on Friday, but I've done that procession before, too, so nothing to stress about.
Each year, I take the Triduum off from work. I've come to look at it a bit like a religious retreat for which I don't have to travel. I go to all the services my church offers (yes, even the 3-hour 7-last-words service on Friday afternoon). I assist at the Saturday vigil (I savor the chance to read the story of the three young men in the fiery furnace again---perhaps the funniest story in all the Bible and I read it so that people know they can laugh and still learn from scripture). But I also try very hard to take time to breath, be still, RETREAT. I don't slow down well, and although I know it is a busy busy time for clergy everywhere, I take advantage of the chance to stop and think and pray and reflect. It's weeks like this that I'm glad that I didn't just go ahead and get ordained after seminary. Besides being ill-suited for ordained ministry, I would come to resent this time, which is truly my most favorite time of the year.
It's Wednesday in Holy Week and I just realized how . . . not quite right it seems to say I find these days as days to slow down and breathe. Jesus would surely be feeling the heat by now, even as his disciples remain somewhat clueless. Judas, perhaps, has already made his deal, or is on the verge of it, but the rest of the twelve appear unaware. They surely sense some tension, but maybe they just experience it as excitement. Maybe they think this is the time for Jesus to assert his Messiah-dom, to bring in his kingdom, to take back Jerusalem from the Romans. It's all coming to a head and I want to be still and reflect.
Well, that's the benefit of having read ahead in the story, I suppose, the benefit of living in a post-Easter world.
Except, of course, we all live in this space of uncertain expectations, maybe even false expectations. We all wish for some things that just aren't going to materialize. And the excitement we feel? Maybe it's just stress from the people around us who are paying closer attention.
Apply that, as you see fit, to the current situation that's going on in the ELCA.
It's Wednesday in Holy Week. How are you feeling?
Each year, I take the Triduum off from work. I've come to look at it a bit like a religious retreat for which I don't have to travel. I go to all the services my church offers (yes, even the 3-hour 7-last-words service on Friday afternoon). I assist at the Saturday vigil (I savor the chance to read the story of the three young men in the fiery furnace again---perhaps the funniest story in all the Bible and I read it so that people know they can laugh and still learn from scripture). But I also try very hard to take time to breath, be still, RETREAT. I don't slow down well, and although I know it is a busy busy time for clergy everywhere, I take advantage of the chance to stop and think and pray and reflect. It's weeks like this that I'm glad that I didn't just go ahead and get ordained after seminary. Besides being ill-suited for ordained ministry, I would come to resent this time, which is truly my most favorite time of the year.
It's Wednesday in Holy Week and I just realized how . . . not quite right it seems to say I find these days as days to slow down and breathe. Jesus would surely be feeling the heat by now, even as his disciples remain somewhat clueless. Judas, perhaps, has already made his deal, or is on the verge of it, but the rest of the twelve appear unaware. They surely sense some tension, but maybe they just experience it as excitement. Maybe they think this is the time for Jesus to assert his Messiah-dom, to bring in his kingdom, to take back Jerusalem from the Romans. It's all coming to a head and I want to be still and reflect.
Well, that's the benefit of having read ahead in the story, I suppose, the benefit of living in a post-Easter world.
Except, of course, we all live in this space of uncertain expectations, maybe even false expectations. We all wish for some things that just aren't going to materialize. And the excitement we feel? Maybe it's just stress from the people around us who are paying closer attention.
Apply that, as you see fit, to the current situation that's going on in the ELCA.
It's Wednesday in Holy Week. How are you feeling?
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Tuesday
What does one do on a Tuesday? The week is started, no Monday excuses. Maybe the excitement of Sunday is beginning to fade, maybe you're beginning to question your own commitment, maybe you've got a cynical streak that says it was just mass hysteria and you're sorry you were caught up in it. You've spent a lot of chronos waiting for the Messiah, but now you're wondering if this is the kairos.
I'll admit to something: at this point on the timeline, I don't fully believe that the ELCA Churchwide Assembly will pass the documents before them regarding human sexuality. I also can't believe that they'd vote it down. I have faith and doubt in vascillating measures. Well, Frederick Buechner once said that doubt was not the opposite of faith, but a component of it. Yea, verily.
I've spent a lot of chronos waiting for validation from the church. I wonder if that's always been my "problem," the root of my constant involvement at church throughout my life. I want to be told that I'm okay. This goes beyond sexuality. It's probably pathological and deserves some serious couch time.
I'm also waiting for kairos. I have some sense of God's timing, I do. I'm also increasingly aware of passing chronos. Will my chronos intersect with the church's kairos? In some ways it's too late.
I speak of the importance of these documents, so that another generation of children doesn't grow up think GLBT folk can't be pastors. This is important, but today I was reflecting on all the ways allowing openly GLBT folk be pastors can affect a young person's vocational choice---it doesn't have to be about becoming a pastor.
Back in college, as a theater major, I took dance classes. I apparently had some ability. I had dance teachers asking me to declare a double major or at least a dance minor. I might have been able to justify a few classes---they fulfilled P.E. credits, at least---but I couldn't see myself pursuing dance. It just had too many perceptions of being gay. I simply could not allow myself to be perceived as gay (not that not pursuing dance stopped anyone from perceiving me as gay!). The church had told me gay was bad and I wanted to please the church. I don't think this was a conscious thought process, but in retrospect, it was there. There's a part of this fear of being gay that led me to give up acting when I did. I kept being around all these gay people. Guilty by association---or just plain guilty. I needed to get away from it. Would it have made a difference if the church had been supportive of gay folk 25 years ago? Would I have stuck with a performing arts career instead of careening around for my adult life, still not having much of any kind of career at 45? Well, we all look for scapegoats, and again, this might require serious couch time, which I'm not likely to pay for at this point. So perhaps we'll never know.
The point being, the right time for me to have been told it's okay to be perceived as gay was 25 years ago. It's too late, at least for the dance career (although I seem to be building a resume as a dance writer---not a bad substitute, but substitute all the same). But it could be just in time for some good Lutheran boy who is in his teens, looking at clothing design, or visual arts, or any number of things that is seen as "too gay" and thinking, "I don't want to be seen as gay." Or a nice Lutheran girl who is being told that working on cars or pursuing sports is a little dyke-y.
This affects everything. And chronos is always running out for someone. When will there be kairos?
It's Tuesday and there are doubts and the euphoria is passing and there are rumblings about sinister plans afoot. On Tuesday, it's difficult to know what to think with any real conviction.
I'll admit to something: at this point on the timeline, I don't fully believe that the ELCA Churchwide Assembly will pass the documents before them regarding human sexuality. I also can't believe that they'd vote it down. I have faith and doubt in vascillating measures. Well, Frederick Buechner once said that doubt was not the opposite of faith, but a component of it. Yea, verily.
I've spent a lot of chronos waiting for validation from the church. I wonder if that's always been my "problem," the root of my constant involvement at church throughout my life. I want to be told that I'm okay. This goes beyond sexuality. It's probably pathological and deserves some serious couch time.
I'm also waiting for kairos. I have some sense of God's timing, I do. I'm also increasingly aware of passing chronos. Will my chronos intersect with the church's kairos? In some ways it's too late.
I speak of the importance of these documents, so that another generation of children doesn't grow up think GLBT folk can't be pastors. This is important, but today I was reflecting on all the ways allowing openly GLBT folk be pastors can affect a young person's vocational choice---it doesn't have to be about becoming a pastor.
Back in college, as a theater major, I took dance classes. I apparently had some ability. I had dance teachers asking me to declare a double major or at least a dance minor. I might have been able to justify a few classes---they fulfilled P.E. credits, at least---but I couldn't see myself pursuing dance. It just had too many perceptions of being gay. I simply could not allow myself to be perceived as gay (not that not pursuing dance stopped anyone from perceiving me as gay!). The church had told me gay was bad and I wanted to please the church. I don't think this was a conscious thought process, but in retrospect, it was there. There's a part of this fear of being gay that led me to give up acting when I did. I kept being around all these gay people. Guilty by association---or just plain guilty. I needed to get away from it. Would it have made a difference if the church had been supportive of gay folk 25 years ago? Would I have stuck with a performing arts career instead of careening around for my adult life, still not having much of any kind of career at 45? Well, we all look for scapegoats, and again, this might require serious couch time, which I'm not likely to pay for at this point. So perhaps we'll never know.
The point being, the right time for me to have been told it's okay to be perceived as gay was 25 years ago. It's too late, at least for the dance career (although I seem to be building a resume as a dance writer---not a bad substitute, but substitute all the same). But it could be just in time for some good Lutheran boy who is in his teens, looking at clothing design, or visual arts, or any number of things that is seen as "too gay" and thinking, "I don't want to be seen as gay." Or a nice Lutheran girl who is being told that working on cars or pursuing sports is a little dyke-y.
This affects everything. And chronos is always running out for someone. When will there be kairos?
It's Tuesday and there are doubts and the euphoria is passing and there are rumblings about sinister plans afoot. On Tuesday, it's difficult to know what to think with any real conviction.
Monday, April 6, 2009
Holy Week
Yesterday, we commemorated Jesus' entry into Jerusalem. It's an odd beginning to the last week on earth for Jesus. A crowd welcomes him as king. By Friday, that crowd is dissipated and disappointed.
Did the dissipation begin on Monday? Probably. We're fickle that way. The TV show, the pop song, the actor we admire and laud on one day is out of favor almost as soon at the peak in popularity is attained. I'm sure it wasn't quite that way in first century Jerusalem---the 21st century seems especially efficient in disposing it's heroes---but I doubt human nature has changed all that much over the centuries. We keep looking for the person who will make everything better for us---save us---and when we find that person lacking in anyway, we blame them for letting us have unrealistic expectations.
The ELCA council has passed the resolutions and statements for inclusion in the Churchwide Assembly this summer. This is a great hurdle for those of us hoping for full inclusion in the church. It is not the final hurdle. It is, in fact, painful news to some in the church. We're all looking at this moment and we're not sure where it will end and those greeting the news with palm branches may still be mourning---or worse, simply disillusioned and cynical---by Friday. Those who are fearful now my be celebrating soon.
I hope I've made it clear by now, over the course of this blog, how much it pains me that there is this great divide, this great confusion over whether or not the news is good news.
But it's only Monday in Holy Week. Who can see what Friday will bring? Much less the following Sunday . . .
Did the dissipation begin on Monday? Probably. We're fickle that way. The TV show, the pop song, the actor we admire and laud on one day is out of favor almost as soon at the peak in popularity is attained. I'm sure it wasn't quite that way in first century Jerusalem---the 21st century seems especially efficient in disposing it's heroes---but I doubt human nature has changed all that much over the centuries. We keep looking for the person who will make everything better for us---save us---and when we find that person lacking in anyway, we blame them for letting us have unrealistic expectations.
The ELCA council has passed the resolutions and statements for inclusion in the Churchwide Assembly this summer. This is a great hurdle for those of us hoping for full inclusion in the church. It is not the final hurdle. It is, in fact, painful news to some in the church. We're all looking at this moment and we're not sure where it will end and those greeting the news with palm branches may still be mourning---or worse, simply disillusioned and cynical---by Friday. Those who are fearful now my be celebrating soon.
I hope I've made it clear by now, over the course of this blog, how much it pains me that there is this great divide, this great confusion over whether or not the news is good news.
But it's only Monday in Holy Week. Who can see what Friday will bring? Much less the following Sunday . . .
Saturday, April 4, 2009
This Violent Present
My mind is elsewhere tonight, not on gay schtuff. These United States are more fragile than I might have suspected, or rather the residents are.
In the middle of this "economic downturn," it seems people are taking up arms and randomly killing other people before killing themselves. It's a response to hardship that I don't particularly understand, but it is one that bears prayer and vigilance. Do I know anyone who, upon losing a livelihood, is likely to barge into some public place and open fire? Do I know anyone who will feel such a failure at providing for family that s/he will murder the whole family rather than ask for help? No one comes to mind, but if I did, what would I do?
I just read an essay speaking of the failure of the American dream, of people buying into the land of opportunity and feeling angry at not getting their piece of the pie. But this has always been true. Isn't this the story of the 1930s? Didn't Steinbeck write about that? What has happened to us as a culture that we turn to violence so quickly and easily? It's an old story for a failed businessman to take his own life---what is it that makes someone takes his (and let's face it, this appears to be a male phenomenon---no need to work so hard at inclusive language) own life, but not before taking out a dozen (give or take) others first?
Is it a sense of entitlement? We're Americans and we can pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and if we can't, then we're taking it out on as many people as we can? Is this the rugged individualism that has been warned about for decades, suddenly taken to it's most violent extreme?
It's easy to point to our fascination with violence in our entertainment. Violent movies and video games continue to make a lot of money and it's easy to blame the makers of these things for desensitizing us to violence, for making us violent. I think, however, that the fact that violence has become such a big part of our entertainment is only symptomatic of the violence that is exploding around us these days. Maybe it's simply a chicken/egg question: Which comes first, the violent entertainment or the hunger for violent entertainment?
A gay tangent---back in November, when California voted to repeal the right for same-sex couples to marry, there was immediate responses with rallies of protest, some of which reported some property damage and violent speech. (I don't know of any physical attacks on humans, much less killings.) This worried me. I understood the anger, but not the expression of it in property damage and threats. I don't know how this ties in, other than this blog is supposed to be about GLBT and religion and it seems that there is a certain segment of the GLBT population that is getting fed up with what it sees as religious people interfering with their lives.
I guess the connection is that we're all so . . . tightly wound, I guess. Everyone is feeling betrayed, belittled, disenfranchised . . .
The most disheartening thing is that people are getting angry and violent when they are affected. We're not getting angry when someone else is getting disenfranchised in some way. It does, in fact, seem to be an "every man for himself" scenario. Live and let live until you're the one being affected.
We've lost the humility, perhaps, to say, "It can happen to someone down to street, it can happen to me." Instead, we have only the pride to say, "This can't be happening to me and someone has to pay."
I'm at a loss, and this isn't why I started this blog, but this is where my mind is tonight.
Let us pray for our nation, our neighbors, our vigilance in watching and caring for our neighbors, and our own state of mind should misfortune befall us. We're very sick. Pray for healing.
In the middle of this "economic downturn," it seems people are taking up arms and randomly killing other people before killing themselves. It's a response to hardship that I don't particularly understand, but it is one that bears prayer and vigilance. Do I know anyone who, upon losing a livelihood, is likely to barge into some public place and open fire? Do I know anyone who will feel such a failure at providing for family that s/he will murder the whole family rather than ask for help? No one comes to mind, but if I did, what would I do?
I just read an essay speaking of the failure of the American dream, of people buying into the land of opportunity and feeling angry at not getting their piece of the pie. But this has always been true. Isn't this the story of the 1930s? Didn't Steinbeck write about that? What has happened to us as a culture that we turn to violence so quickly and easily? It's an old story for a failed businessman to take his own life---what is it that makes someone takes his (and let's face it, this appears to be a male phenomenon---no need to work so hard at inclusive language) own life, but not before taking out a dozen (give or take) others first?
Is it a sense of entitlement? We're Americans and we can pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and if we can't, then we're taking it out on as many people as we can? Is this the rugged individualism that has been warned about for decades, suddenly taken to it's most violent extreme?
It's easy to point to our fascination with violence in our entertainment. Violent movies and video games continue to make a lot of money and it's easy to blame the makers of these things for desensitizing us to violence, for making us violent. I think, however, that the fact that violence has become such a big part of our entertainment is only symptomatic of the violence that is exploding around us these days. Maybe it's simply a chicken/egg question: Which comes first, the violent entertainment or the hunger for violent entertainment?
A gay tangent---back in November, when California voted to repeal the right for same-sex couples to marry, there was immediate responses with rallies of protest, some of which reported some property damage and violent speech. (I don't know of any physical attacks on humans, much less killings.) This worried me. I understood the anger, but not the expression of it in property damage and threats. I don't know how this ties in, other than this blog is supposed to be about GLBT and religion and it seems that there is a certain segment of the GLBT population that is getting fed up with what it sees as religious people interfering with their lives.
I guess the connection is that we're all so . . . tightly wound, I guess. Everyone is feeling betrayed, belittled, disenfranchised . . .
The most disheartening thing is that people are getting angry and violent when they are affected. We're not getting angry when someone else is getting disenfranchised in some way. It does, in fact, seem to be an "every man for himself" scenario. Live and let live until you're the one being affected.
We've lost the humility, perhaps, to say, "It can happen to someone down to street, it can happen to me." Instead, we have only the pride to say, "This can't be happening to me and someone has to pay."
I'm at a loss, and this isn't why I started this blog, but this is where my mind is tonight.
Let us pray for our nation, our neighbors, our vigilance in watching and caring for our neighbors, and our own state of mind should misfortune befall us. We're very sick. Pray for healing.
Friday, April 3, 2009
What Draws Us Toward God
A reading from the first chapter of Paul's letter to the Romans:
18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
After my post last night, I've been thinking about what has drawn me toward God. The ironic answer has been the fact that I'm gay. For many gay people, this sends them away from God, or at least the church, God's representative to many people. True, my initial disgust and shame at being gay is what sent me to God in intense prayer, asking for change, cure, redemption. It is the intense prayer that, in turn, brought me to an understanding of the wideness of God's mercy, love, redemption.
I also thought of these famous verses from the first chapter of Romans. These are well known to GLBT Christians, as they are one of the handful of "clobber" passages used against us. Setting aside the fact that this is in the first chapter of Romans and that in the eighth chapter, Paul goes to some length to tell us that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ (making me think that maybe Paul was setting up the problem in chapter one and solving it in chapter eight), let's look at what these verses actually say.
"For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another."
Here, Paul clearly sets up a cause and effect situation. The effect is turning people over to sinful desires, to sexual impurity. The cause was people not glorifying or giving thanks to God.
As I struggled to find peace with my own sexuality, this made no sense to me. From as early as I could say so, I wanted to go to church. I was the kid who wanted to go to Sunday school and looked forward to it. I never had a "rebellious" stage in college but was very involved in Lutheran Campus Ministry the whole time I was there. (My mother once joked that I got my degree in theater, but I majored in campus ministry.) I searched my life for a time where I was not part of a worshiping community or not seeking out a worshiping community. I'd spent my entire life, to the best of my ability, glorifying and giving thanks to God.
Why had God turned me over to "sinful desires" and "sexual impurity?"
I won't belabor the point, as I believe it's right there. I suppose there are people who would argue that I had not worshiped, glorified, or gave thanks in the proper manner, not "in spirit and truth." It's why there are some people who pray for a million dollars and get it while others don't.
But I'm not hear to debate a prosperity/"name it, claim it" theology. I'm here to simply say that if God turned me over to sinful desires, God also used it to draw me closer and to ultimately convince me that the desires weren't inherently sinful anymore than a straight man's desire for a woman is inherently sinful (although I confess that I know something about the sinful desires, too---perhaps we all do).
Being gay is a thorn in my side. It is also my blessing. It is not the same for all people. For some it's never a thorn, for others it's never a blessing. But this is my story and it's sticking to me.
18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
After my post last night, I've been thinking about what has drawn me toward God. The ironic answer has been the fact that I'm gay. For many gay people, this sends them away from God, or at least the church, God's representative to many people. True, my initial disgust and shame at being gay is what sent me to God in intense prayer, asking for change, cure, redemption. It is the intense prayer that, in turn, brought me to an understanding of the wideness of God's mercy, love, redemption.
I also thought of these famous verses from the first chapter of Romans. These are well known to GLBT Christians, as they are one of the handful of "clobber" passages used against us. Setting aside the fact that this is in the first chapter of Romans and that in the eighth chapter, Paul goes to some length to tell us that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ (making me think that maybe Paul was setting up the problem in chapter one and solving it in chapter eight), let's look at what these verses actually say.
"For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another."
Here, Paul clearly sets up a cause and effect situation. The effect is turning people over to sinful desires, to sexual impurity. The cause was people not glorifying or giving thanks to God.
As I struggled to find peace with my own sexuality, this made no sense to me. From as early as I could say so, I wanted to go to church. I was the kid who wanted to go to Sunday school and looked forward to it. I never had a "rebellious" stage in college but was very involved in Lutheran Campus Ministry the whole time I was there. (My mother once joked that I got my degree in theater, but I majored in campus ministry.) I searched my life for a time where I was not part of a worshiping community or not seeking out a worshiping community. I'd spent my entire life, to the best of my ability, glorifying and giving thanks to God.
Why had God turned me over to "sinful desires" and "sexual impurity?"
I won't belabor the point, as I believe it's right there. I suppose there are people who would argue that I had not worshiped, glorified, or gave thanks in the proper manner, not "in spirit and truth." It's why there are some people who pray for a million dollars and get it while others don't.
But I'm not hear to debate a prosperity/"name it, claim it" theology. I'm here to simply say that if God turned me over to sinful desires, God also used it to draw me closer and to ultimately convince me that the desires weren't inherently sinful anymore than a straight man's desire for a woman is inherently sinful (although I confess that I know something about the sinful desires, too---perhaps we all do).
Being gay is a thorn in my side. It is also my blessing. It is not the same for all people. For some it's never a thorn, for others it's never a blessing. But this is my story and it's sticking to me.
Thursday, April 2, 2009
Time Well Spent and Wasted
As I"m in a crunch period this week with a deadline and church committee meeting and foot-washing choreography all falling within one week---not to mention the usual 40-hour/week job---I find myself short-changing this blog, my lenten discipline. I'm also finding that I have really little to say about being gay and Lutheran other than what I've already said, sometimes more than once.
But as I feel all these other pressures on me these days and wondering what to write about here . . . I'm coming to the conclusion that there really are more important things than talking and talking and talking again about being gay in the church. All the time, energy, and resources we put into studying and discussing . . . is this really time well-spent?
Okay, so some think that the fact that I respond emotionally and physically to people of my sex is inherently sinful. I used to think that, too. Spent a few hours wailing and praying. A few hours? It was a few years, but I can't claim I spent all that time wailing. Some of it was spent just numb. But a lot of praying.
I suppose here is the irony, and one that I wish I could, as I said a couple of posts ago, download into a flash drive: it was all those years praying and listening for God that finally gave me rest about my sexuality. Maybe "rest" is too strong a word for it, but some measure of peace. I'm not going to recount it all now, and early on somewhere, I linked a Whosoever piece I wrote over 10 years ago that outlines that experience. What I mean to say is that after years of struggle and even some years of no struggle, but numbness, God intervened and said, basically, you have bigger things to worry about.
I honestly do believe the church has bigger things to worry about, too. We do some good things on the hunger front, but there are still hungry people. We do some good things on the caregiving front, but there are still people in need of care. We do some good things on the education, evangelism, and worship fronts---and we do a lot of dissemination of lies and half-truths about any number of things, not only in regard to homosexuality.
Is all this talk and talk and talk time well spent? Maybe. If it draws us close enough to God to hear that we have more important things to deal with. (I'd like to keep open the possibility that God does think all this wrangling over sexuality is worthwhile, but I just don't believe God does. But if we draw close enough to hear God, maybe we can know for sure on that, too. )
In an illustration from a 4th or 5th century preacher (I'll try to look up the name---I have it here somewhere, but I post it in a reply another time), we are told to think of God as in the center of a circle and we're all on the edge of the circle. As we move closer to God, we cannot help but move closer to each other, as the circle gets smaller and smaller.
I don't even know what that might mean for the decisions to be made this summer at Churchwide Assembly. I just believe it to be true. I'm clinging to the hope that all this talk and talk and talk might actually draw at least some of us closer to God and we'll all end up closer to each other.
But as I feel all these other pressures on me these days and wondering what to write about here . . . I'm coming to the conclusion that there really are more important things than talking and talking and talking again about being gay in the church. All the time, energy, and resources we put into studying and discussing . . . is this really time well-spent?
Okay, so some think that the fact that I respond emotionally and physically to people of my sex is inherently sinful. I used to think that, too. Spent a few hours wailing and praying. A few hours? It was a few years, but I can't claim I spent all that time wailing. Some of it was spent just numb. But a lot of praying.
I suppose here is the irony, and one that I wish I could, as I said a couple of posts ago, download into a flash drive: it was all those years praying and listening for God that finally gave me rest about my sexuality. Maybe "rest" is too strong a word for it, but some measure of peace. I'm not going to recount it all now, and early on somewhere, I linked a Whosoever piece I wrote over 10 years ago that outlines that experience. What I mean to say is that after years of struggle and even some years of no struggle, but numbness, God intervened and said, basically, you have bigger things to worry about.
I honestly do believe the church has bigger things to worry about, too. We do some good things on the hunger front, but there are still hungry people. We do some good things on the caregiving front, but there are still people in need of care. We do some good things on the education, evangelism, and worship fronts---and we do a lot of dissemination of lies and half-truths about any number of things, not only in regard to homosexuality.
Is all this talk and talk and talk time well spent? Maybe. If it draws us close enough to God to hear that we have more important things to deal with. (I'd like to keep open the possibility that God does think all this wrangling over sexuality is worthwhile, but I just don't believe God does. But if we draw close enough to hear God, maybe we can know for sure on that, too. )
In an illustration from a 4th or 5th century preacher (I'll try to look up the name---I have it here somewhere, but I post it in a reply another time), we are told to think of God as in the center of a circle and we're all on the edge of the circle. As we move closer to God, we cannot help but move closer to each other, as the circle gets smaller and smaller.
I don't even know what that might mean for the decisions to be made this summer at Churchwide Assembly. I just believe it to be true. I'm clinging to the hope that all this talk and talk and talk might actually draw at least some of us closer to God and we'll all end up closer to each other.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Mystery
You have to be of a certain age to remember when no one knew the sex of a baby until the baby was born. For decades now, science has taken away that bit of mystery from our lives. We know within weeks of a pregnancy if it will be a boy or a girl and names are picked out well before the arrival.
Science has not yet come to a place of predicting sexuality, in part because it hasn't been able to pinpoint a cause for sexuality. Latest studies suggest that while sexuality is set very early in life, it might be determined by a few different things, or perhaps the right combination of a few certain things. We don't know of a gay or straight gene. We don't know that hormone levels in a mother at a precise moment in gestation determines sexuality. We do know that for some it appears to have a genetic component and for some it appears to have to do with a mother's hormones or maybe even birth order. The problem is that there are exceptions to every pattern (which is the most we have---patterns), and the patterns are different between gay men and lesbians.
So, since we no longer have the anticipation and wonder about the sex of a child, could we replace that with anticipation and wonder about the child's sexuality? Who will s/he have a crush on as puberty sets in? Who will s/he take to the prom? Seems like there should be some wonder and mystery about children.
Okay, I'm only half serious about this post. (The other side of that is it's only a half joke, I suppose.) It's not really intended as an April Fools post, but I'm just really swamped with other things right now (must remember next year to not take on a writing assignment that will be due the week before Holy Week!) and this was the best I could do for today. That makes two not so serious posts in a row. The lent police will be after me before long.
We'll see if tomorrow is any better.
Science has not yet come to a place of predicting sexuality, in part because it hasn't been able to pinpoint a cause for sexuality. Latest studies suggest that while sexuality is set very early in life, it might be determined by a few different things, or perhaps the right combination of a few certain things. We don't know of a gay or straight gene. We don't know that hormone levels in a mother at a precise moment in gestation determines sexuality. We do know that for some it appears to have a genetic component and for some it appears to have to do with a mother's hormones or maybe even birth order. The problem is that there are exceptions to every pattern (which is the most we have---patterns), and the patterns are different between gay men and lesbians.
So, since we no longer have the anticipation and wonder about the sex of a child, could we replace that with anticipation and wonder about the child's sexuality? Who will s/he have a crush on as puberty sets in? Who will s/he take to the prom? Seems like there should be some wonder and mystery about children.
Okay, I'm only half serious about this post. (The other side of that is it's only a half joke, I suppose.) It's not really intended as an April Fools post, but I'm just really swamped with other things right now (must remember next year to not take on a writing assignment that will be due the week before Holy Week!) and this was the best I could do for today. That makes two not so serious posts in a row. The lent police will be after me before long.
We'll see if tomorrow is any better.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Weddings
You know, I've been to a few weddings in my life, not really believing the people saying "I do" should. They did anyway.
Should I live so long as to find a man I want to marry and the sentiment is mutual (and I suppose that's the tricky part, eh?), I'm perfectly fine if some people don't approve. Wouldn't it be nice for those who disapprove (for whatever reason) to have a ceremony at which to officially disapprove?
Or something like that.
Sort of short on thoughts tonight. And long on other things to accomplish before I lay my head down. Perhaps I'll be pithier tomorrow . . .
Should I live so long as to find a man I want to marry and the sentiment is mutual (and I suppose that's the tricky part, eh?), I'm perfectly fine if some people don't approve. Wouldn't it be nice for those who disapprove (for whatever reason) to have a ceremony at which to officially disapprove?
Or something like that.
Sort of short on thoughts tonight. And long on other things to accomplish before I lay my head down. Perhaps I'll be pithier tomorrow . . .
Monday, March 30, 2009
In Memoriam
Yesterday, our "gathering hymn" was "Lift High the Cross." Ever since the summer of 1983, I've had a particular image with that hymn. I'm in Bozeman, MT, with some few hundred other Lutheran college students for a Lutheran Student Movement National Assembly. It's a closing worship, and we've had a great week, and many of us are on that sort of spiritual high you can get at retreats or other intensive, focused religious gatherings. I have an image of this one student, from Texas Lutheran College (now University) carrying the processional cross.
He was not a close friend. He was a senior (maybe he'd just graduated, I'm not sure) and I'd just completed my first year in college. I went to Southwest Texas State University (now simply Texas State University) so I only knew him because he'd picked up a few SWT Lutherans on the way to a regional retreat that previous spring.
By that time, he knew he was going to seminary, probably was on a pre-sem track at TLC, although I don't know that. He was clearly pastor material. He had a natural leadership style that drew people to him, he clearly cared about people, and had a sense of humor that made him likeable. He was not showy about any of that, but a nice, quiet Lutheran boy.
Years later, I reconnected with him, if only superficially. By this time, he was a pastor in Louisiana and I was working in Austin, TX, at Augsburg Fortress, back when AF had a regional distribution point there. I went to Synod Assemblied for AF, setting up the assembly bookstore and such. We chatted some there. He talked a bit about his parish, how much he loved it, how well they treated him. No details except for that mutual love between a pastor and his congregation. When I teased him about staying in a first call for so long, he cited this love as the reason why he's never looked for a second call.
Then one day at lunch (I lived half a block from work at the time), I called my mother and after we'd talked about whatever it was I called her for, she said, "Didn't you talk about a _________." I said, yeah, he's now a pastor in Louisiana. He had some familial connection to someone in my hometown and there was a notice in the weekly paper that he had died. It was a bit shocking to say the least.
I don't remember how I found out he had died of AIDS related causes. I do know that I called around to other LSM friends, people who knew him better than I did, and it turned out everyone was as shocked as I was. He'd told no one that he was HIV+. Through the years, I kept running into people who knew him and slowly I pieced together the story that he'd known his HIV status for some time, but that he had promised himself that he wouldn't tell anyone until he had worked up the nerve to tell his mother.
This was before the current therapies that make HIV more manageable. This was back when a HIV+ diagnosis was a ticking timebomb and anything could be the last illness. He finally got up the nerve to tell his mother he was HIV+ when he was suddenly hospitalized with something. (I don't remember what---I want to say it was some stomach or intestinal infection that went ballistic in no time.) He died shortly thereafter, within weeks as I recall. It was especially fast, given how so many people with AIDS had extended, lingering deaths at the time.
This was my first personal AIDS related death. There was much that no one knew about his circumstances. He had, in fact, had a blood transfusion at some point and he was, in fact, gay and had a secret partner in the town where he pastored. Trying to figure out where he picked up the virus, however, is more about our desire to place blame somewhere than it is about the final outcome, which is that this pastor was dead, no one had known he was sick, and he left behind someone who was treated as "only a friend."
Understand, this was back when I was still not gay-positive. This was even before I'd gone to seminary, and I've already confessed that I wrote a papter in seminary about why GLBT folk shouldn't be allowed to serve in the ministry. Even feeling as I did about that, I still understood that there was someone who was more like a family member who could not sit on the family pew at the funeral. He was invisible to everyone except for maybe one or two people, and he was, reportedly, bitter toward the church about this.
What did I feel? I can't really remember, not exactly. I was sad for his death. I felt that he was very likely a very good pastor. And I probably felt he shouldn't have had a boyfriend and if he got the virus through sexual behavior, he shouldn't have been having that sexual behavior. All that feels very cold to me now, very judgmental and lacking in compassion, but I at the time I'm sure I felt plenty compassionate. I felt badly for the partner, who felt abandoned, invisible, unable to express his grief as a widower, but at the same time, I probably felt something like, "well, but he shouldn't have put himself in that position anyway, he shouldn't have been a pastor's boyfriend."
Even now, I don't use his name (although I'm sure there are people who could read this and know who I'm talking about) because I'm not sure if his mother ever knew about his partner. I don't know if his mother ever knew that he was gay. You'd think by now, she'd find out. But, you know, he would be approaching 50 at this point, and who even knows if his mother is still alive? All I'm saying is I don't want someone to be googling him and find my blog and have that as the source for "outing" him.
That's not the most important thing right now.
He remains on my mind today because we sand "Lift High the Cross" yesterday and on Friday we had a Lutherans Concerned meeting that is organizing to see to it that there are no more secret partners left behind (although I imagine there are some secret heterosexual partners left behind here and there, too---secret lovers are not the exclusive domain of homosexuals). He remains on my mind because his presence in my mind spans my pre-coming out days, my days of actively stating he shouldn't have been a pastor despite his many gifts for it, and my current days of being something akin to an activist (although I think activists are much more active than I am and I shouldn't use the term for my feeble efforts to the cause). He becomes a symbol of a personal journey and a symbol of how things used to be and a symbol of why things must change.
But before I make him only a symbol, I have to remember he was a man who picked up some Lutheran students for a weekend retreat one spring, who went on to seminary, and became a beloved pastor. He was a person with all the strength and frailty of any human being.
And he remains on my mind tonight because we sang "Lift High the Cross" yesterday.
He was not a close friend. He was a senior (maybe he'd just graduated, I'm not sure) and I'd just completed my first year in college. I went to Southwest Texas State University (now simply Texas State University) so I only knew him because he'd picked up a few SWT Lutherans on the way to a regional retreat that previous spring.
By that time, he knew he was going to seminary, probably was on a pre-sem track at TLC, although I don't know that. He was clearly pastor material. He had a natural leadership style that drew people to him, he clearly cared about people, and had a sense of humor that made him likeable. He was not showy about any of that, but a nice, quiet Lutheran boy.
Years later, I reconnected with him, if only superficially. By this time, he was a pastor in Louisiana and I was working in Austin, TX, at Augsburg Fortress, back when AF had a regional distribution point there. I went to Synod Assemblied for AF, setting up the assembly bookstore and such. We chatted some there. He talked a bit about his parish, how much he loved it, how well they treated him. No details except for that mutual love between a pastor and his congregation. When I teased him about staying in a first call for so long, he cited this love as the reason why he's never looked for a second call.
Then one day at lunch (I lived half a block from work at the time), I called my mother and after we'd talked about whatever it was I called her for, she said, "Didn't you talk about a _________." I said, yeah, he's now a pastor in Louisiana. He had some familial connection to someone in my hometown and there was a notice in the weekly paper that he had died. It was a bit shocking to say the least.
I don't remember how I found out he had died of AIDS related causes. I do know that I called around to other LSM friends, people who knew him better than I did, and it turned out everyone was as shocked as I was. He'd told no one that he was HIV+. Through the years, I kept running into people who knew him and slowly I pieced together the story that he'd known his HIV status for some time, but that he had promised himself that he wouldn't tell anyone until he had worked up the nerve to tell his mother.
This was before the current therapies that make HIV more manageable. This was back when a HIV+ diagnosis was a ticking timebomb and anything could be the last illness. He finally got up the nerve to tell his mother he was HIV+ when he was suddenly hospitalized with something. (I don't remember what---I want to say it was some stomach or intestinal infection that went ballistic in no time.) He died shortly thereafter, within weeks as I recall. It was especially fast, given how so many people with AIDS had extended, lingering deaths at the time.
This was my first personal AIDS related death. There was much that no one knew about his circumstances. He had, in fact, had a blood transfusion at some point and he was, in fact, gay and had a secret partner in the town where he pastored. Trying to figure out where he picked up the virus, however, is more about our desire to place blame somewhere than it is about the final outcome, which is that this pastor was dead, no one had known he was sick, and he left behind someone who was treated as "only a friend."
Understand, this was back when I was still not gay-positive. This was even before I'd gone to seminary, and I've already confessed that I wrote a papter in seminary about why GLBT folk shouldn't be allowed to serve in the ministry. Even feeling as I did about that, I still understood that there was someone who was more like a family member who could not sit on the family pew at the funeral. He was invisible to everyone except for maybe one or two people, and he was, reportedly, bitter toward the church about this.
What did I feel? I can't really remember, not exactly. I was sad for his death. I felt that he was very likely a very good pastor. And I probably felt he shouldn't have had a boyfriend and if he got the virus through sexual behavior, he shouldn't have been having that sexual behavior. All that feels very cold to me now, very judgmental and lacking in compassion, but I at the time I'm sure I felt plenty compassionate. I felt badly for the partner, who felt abandoned, invisible, unable to express his grief as a widower, but at the same time, I probably felt something like, "well, but he shouldn't have put himself in that position anyway, he shouldn't have been a pastor's boyfriend."
Even now, I don't use his name (although I'm sure there are people who could read this and know who I'm talking about) because I'm not sure if his mother ever knew about his partner. I don't know if his mother ever knew that he was gay. You'd think by now, she'd find out. But, you know, he would be approaching 50 at this point, and who even knows if his mother is still alive? All I'm saying is I don't want someone to be googling him and find my blog and have that as the source for "outing" him.
That's not the most important thing right now.
He remains on my mind today because we sand "Lift High the Cross" yesterday and on Friday we had a Lutherans Concerned meeting that is organizing to see to it that there are no more secret partners left behind (although I imagine there are some secret heterosexual partners left behind here and there, too---secret lovers are not the exclusive domain of homosexuals). He remains on my mind because his presence in my mind spans my pre-coming out days, my days of actively stating he shouldn't have been a pastor despite his many gifts for it, and my current days of being something akin to an activist (although I think activists are much more active than I am and I shouldn't use the term for my feeble efforts to the cause). He becomes a symbol of a personal journey and a symbol of how things used to be and a symbol of why things must change.
But before I make him only a symbol, I have to remember he was a man who picked up some Lutheran students for a weekend retreat one spring, who went on to seminary, and became a beloved pastor. He was a person with all the strength and frailty of any human being.
And he remains on my mind tonight because we sang "Lift High the Cross" yesterday.
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Stories Beget Stories
I've been thinking all day about the random snippets of stories that arose in the LC meeting last night. I've been thinking about how impossible it is to convey the story in the same way that we experience it, how we each live a different story and even when two are present at the same event, two stories often emerge in the recounting of the event.
I can't plug in a flash drive and download my experience into your experience. However many ways we're alike, that will always make us all "other." Language, culture, genetics . . . these might bind some of us, but push far enough, and you're going to find someone not "me" in the other person's skin.
I keep searching for ways to tell my coming out story so that it makes sense for those who are not gay. I can understand that. Try as I might, I don't quite understand what it means to be heterosexual. The problem in not fully understanding comes when we use that lack of understanding to prohibit one another just because we lack that understanding.
I think I mentioned the friend who took me seriously when I asked him when he first realized he was straight. Of course, he didn't have the same experience of "coming out" as straight as GLBT folk have, but as I talked about how, post-coming out, I could look back and make more sense of different events in my life, that triggered something for him. Of course he wouldn't have said "oh, I realized I was straight when . . . " but he did say, "you know, I think I must have been straight as a preschooler, too, because I remember thinking this one girl was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen and I couldn't stop looking at her."
I am so thankful for his taking my life and my story seriously enough to think about his own. How does someone know if one is gay or straight? Maybe we don't know how we know, but once we are able to name it, several things in life begins to line up and make sense. We begin so see patterns in our life that has to do with our attractions, which goes beyond body and sexual organs. I have great rapport with women, generally, I'm attracted to their company. In the same way, straight men are attracted to other men in the sense they often seek out spaces without women---sports bar, poker games, hunting trips. These attractions aren't sexual, but neither are they complementary. Straight men and women often speak of feeling like the opposite sex completes them, even as they also desire interaction with their own sex.
Gay men speak of seeking that sort of completeness with another man. Lesbians speak of finding a connection beyond physical with another woman. It doesn't "make sense" in the same way that you can say a man and a woman being completed by each other "makes sense." But if the world made sense, there wouldn't be a duckbill platypus, either.
Another way to describe what happens. I presume (and have observed) that there is am attraction between men and women that is just something that happens, isn't planned, isn't thought out. In the vast majority of cases, this is not acted upon in any physical way, it just is, and it may not even be acknowledged most of the time. At some point, this attraction can cross a line into lust or even obsession, but for the most part, it's just attraction.
So often, homosexual desire is dismissed with "that's not love, that's lust." Well, in some cases it may be lust, but for the most part, it's just attraction. In the course of a day, I'll see any number of men I find attractive, but I don't lust after them, I don't become obsessed with them, I certainly don't have sex with them. More often than not, it's a passing thought, "oh, he's handsome." I don't ever have that sort of passing thought about women, although I assume (and have observed) that straight men do. It's just attraction. It's how were wired. It's only as interesting or disturbing as you want to make it.
I've long since drifted into rambling, so I'll give it up for tonight. I guess what I'm saying is that "understanding" may be overrated and looking for similarities is useful only to a point. We share many things, but ultimately we're all different. I believe this is part of God's plan, maybe in part so that we can better relate to God, who is Really Different from us. And I guess I'm trying to say that while we're hardwired for attraction, our attractions are different. (Gentlemen prefer blondes---except for the ones who prefer brunettes. Or balding.) It seems really far fetched to say that attraction is neutral or even a gift from God, except when we don't understand the attraction or don't have the same attraction.
That's all. For tonight.
I can't plug in a flash drive and download my experience into your experience. However many ways we're alike, that will always make us all "other." Language, culture, genetics . . . these might bind some of us, but push far enough, and you're going to find someone not "me" in the other person's skin.
I keep searching for ways to tell my coming out story so that it makes sense for those who are not gay. I can understand that. Try as I might, I don't quite understand what it means to be heterosexual. The problem in not fully understanding comes when we use that lack of understanding to prohibit one another just because we lack that understanding.
I think I mentioned the friend who took me seriously when I asked him when he first realized he was straight. Of course, he didn't have the same experience of "coming out" as straight as GLBT folk have, but as I talked about how, post-coming out, I could look back and make more sense of different events in my life, that triggered something for him. Of course he wouldn't have said "oh, I realized I was straight when . . . " but he did say, "you know, I think I must have been straight as a preschooler, too, because I remember thinking this one girl was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen and I couldn't stop looking at her."
I am so thankful for his taking my life and my story seriously enough to think about his own. How does someone know if one is gay or straight? Maybe we don't know how we know, but once we are able to name it, several things in life begins to line up and make sense. We begin so see patterns in our life that has to do with our attractions, which goes beyond body and sexual organs. I have great rapport with women, generally, I'm attracted to their company. In the same way, straight men are attracted to other men in the sense they often seek out spaces without women---sports bar, poker games, hunting trips. These attractions aren't sexual, but neither are they complementary. Straight men and women often speak of feeling like the opposite sex completes them, even as they also desire interaction with their own sex.
Gay men speak of seeking that sort of completeness with another man. Lesbians speak of finding a connection beyond physical with another woman. It doesn't "make sense" in the same way that you can say a man and a woman being completed by each other "makes sense." But if the world made sense, there wouldn't be a duckbill platypus, either.
Another way to describe what happens. I presume (and have observed) that there is am attraction between men and women that is just something that happens, isn't planned, isn't thought out. In the vast majority of cases, this is not acted upon in any physical way, it just is, and it may not even be acknowledged most of the time. At some point, this attraction can cross a line into lust or even obsession, but for the most part, it's just attraction.
So often, homosexual desire is dismissed with "that's not love, that's lust." Well, in some cases it may be lust, but for the most part, it's just attraction. In the course of a day, I'll see any number of men I find attractive, but I don't lust after them, I don't become obsessed with them, I certainly don't have sex with them. More often than not, it's a passing thought, "oh, he's handsome." I don't ever have that sort of passing thought about women, although I assume (and have observed) that straight men do. It's just attraction. It's how were wired. It's only as interesting or disturbing as you want to make it.
I've long since drifted into rambling, so I'll give it up for tonight. I guess what I'm saying is that "understanding" may be overrated and looking for similarities is useful only to a point. We share many things, but ultimately we're all different. I believe this is part of God's plan, maybe in part so that we can better relate to God, who is Really Different from us. And I guess I'm trying to say that while we're hardwired for attraction, our attractions are different. (Gentlemen prefer blondes---except for the ones who prefer brunettes. Or balding.) It seems really far fetched to say that attraction is neutral or even a gift from God, except when we don't understand the attraction or don't have the same attraction.
That's all. For tonight.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Lutherans Concnerned
Went to a Lutherans Concerned meeting tonight. Locally, the organization has been fairly non-functional, but we're trying to rally the support for the upcoming season of synod assemblies and, eventually, churchwide assembly. Mostly, it looks like a lot of work for the next few months.
But the gathering of people was very much encouraging. Some specific tasks were outlined and people were stepping up to take them on.
Most heartening was to hear stories. Some were, of course, very sad. The story of the teenager who blew his brains out because he was homosexual, went to the church for counsel and was rejected. The ending to this story was that a pastor was turned to being more open because he realized that he did not want to be part of a church that drove kids to suicide. Another story was of a woman who felt rejected by the church and was on the verge of suicide until she saw a Reconciling Lutheran congregation run an ad on cable tv. She claims to this day that this church saved her life. There were happier stories, of how a gay or lesbian pastor influenced someone's life, or how a gay member had a positive impact on a congregation. These were stories told just in passing---we weren't about the business of telling stories tonight, but they just happen spontaneously. It appears to me that there is so much already happening in the church with GLBT folk in the middle of it, positive things, life-saving things---It appears to me that God is already moving. The church needs to catch up to God.
If you're Lutheran or in any way closely affiliated with Lutherans, one way you can help the effort is to go to the Lutherans Concerned page and click on the Reconciling Lutherans link. This is a page where you can make a public statement of welcome to GLBT, even if your congregation is not Reconciling. That's a national effort and we need names from all 50 states. Spread the word as you see fit.
(And for those who don't support the effort---I'm sure you can find the other side's efforts easily enough. I say get involved and follow your conscience. I'm sure that whatever happens this summer won't be the last of the conversation. I do hope our---note first person plural---conscience is guided by some real study and prayer and the church will catch up with God sooner than later. )
I'm mostly bouyed by the number of heterosexual folk at the meeting tonight. I am thankful, so very thankful for them. As I said before, it'd difficult to be your own advocate, but it's easier to feel energized when you feel the support of advocates.
Work to be done. Work to be done. So much work God has already done.
But the gathering of people was very much encouraging. Some specific tasks were outlined and people were stepping up to take them on.
Most heartening was to hear stories. Some were, of course, very sad. The story of the teenager who blew his brains out because he was homosexual, went to the church for counsel and was rejected. The ending to this story was that a pastor was turned to being more open because he realized that he did not want to be part of a church that drove kids to suicide. Another story was of a woman who felt rejected by the church and was on the verge of suicide until she saw a Reconciling Lutheran congregation run an ad on cable tv. She claims to this day that this church saved her life. There were happier stories, of how a gay or lesbian pastor influenced someone's life, or how a gay member had a positive impact on a congregation. These were stories told just in passing---we weren't about the business of telling stories tonight, but they just happen spontaneously. It appears to me that there is so much already happening in the church with GLBT folk in the middle of it, positive things, life-saving things---It appears to me that God is already moving. The church needs to catch up to God.
If you're Lutheran or in any way closely affiliated with Lutherans, one way you can help the effort is to go to the Lutherans Concerned page and click on the Reconciling Lutherans link. This is a page where you can make a public statement of welcome to GLBT, even if your congregation is not Reconciling. That's a national effort and we need names from all 50 states. Spread the word as you see fit.
(And for those who don't support the effort---I'm sure you can find the other side's efforts easily enough. I say get involved and follow your conscience. I'm sure that whatever happens this summer won't be the last of the conversation. I do hope our---note first person plural---conscience is guided by some real study and prayer and the church will catch up with God sooner than later. )
I'm mostly bouyed by the number of heterosexual folk at the meeting tonight. I am thankful, so very thankful for them. As I said before, it'd difficult to be your own advocate, but it's easier to feel energized when you feel the support of advocates.
Work to be done. Work to be done. So much work God has already done.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Lacking
I find myself completely lacking for words today (or tonight). I just got the latest issue of the Lutheran out of the mailbox after work tonight and read the one-page story on the proposal that will go to the Churchwide Assembly this summer, and it's not moving me. Does a post stating I have nothing to post about count for keeping the lenten discipline?
Here. Here's what I'll post. I've said earlier that spending this blogging time everyday takes me to some darker places that I like to think I've left behind. Reading the Lutheran article, especially that the committee constructing the document couldn't come to any kind of consensus, and that the tentative document that they gave us basically says, "well, if we're going to do this, this is the first step, but we're not sure we should take it" . . . along with my ongoing lack of understanding of how we can spend so much time on so few verses that barely address our current understanding of sexuality while glossing over text after text about wealth . . . along with hearing the story from my co-worker the other day (see previous post) . . . I feel a bit numb.
It's nights like this that I wonder why I bother with the church at all. Mind you, I tried leaving the church. Sort of. For a few weeks here and there. I joke that my baptism seems to have taken an especially tight hold upon me that I keep getting called back to the church. Or else I enjoy being the center of negative attention. I'm at peace with God. You'd think that would be enough. But it's God who is doing the calling, nudging me back to church when I've tried to leave. God wants me in the church, as near as I can tell, but it feels too often like all I am to the church is a problem. That's more melodramatic than I like to be, but I'll let it stand.
I'm tired, and this is too much typing for having nothing to say. Nothing new, anyway. Maybe tomorrow will be more substantive.
Here. Here's what I'll post. I've said earlier that spending this blogging time everyday takes me to some darker places that I like to think I've left behind. Reading the Lutheran article, especially that the committee constructing the document couldn't come to any kind of consensus, and that the tentative document that they gave us basically says, "well, if we're going to do this, this is the first step, but we're not sure we should take it" . . . along with my ongoing lack of understanding of how we can spend so much time on so few verses that barely address our current understanding of sexuality while glossing over text after text about wealth . . . along with hearing the story from my co-worker the other day (see previous post) . . . I feel a bit numb.
It's nights like this that I wonder why I bother with the church at all. Mind you, I tried leaving the church. Sort of. For a few weeks here and there. I joke that my baptism seems to have taken an especially tight hold upon me that I keep getting called back to the church. Or else I enjoy being the center of negative attention. I'm at peace with God. You'd think that would be enough. But it's God who is doing the calling, nudging me back to church when I've tried to leave. God wants me in the church, as near as I can tell, but it feels too often like all I am to the church is a problem. That's more melodramatic than I like to be, but I'll let it stand.
I'm tired, and this is too much typing for having nothing to say. Nothing new, anyway. Maybe tomorrow will be more substantive.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Anger Management
I've had a bit of an angry week and I've been trying not to post while in that state. I had a pretty good day today, so I think it's safe to post without getting vitriolic (which, I'm told is not as vitriolic as some people's vitriol, but I don't like it all the same).
My church is doing a version of the Book of Faith initiative, which (for the non-ELCAers) is a national push to get everyone reading and studying the Bible. There isn't a national program per se, and each congregation is free to work out how they're going to do it (if they do it) and at my church, we have a retired engineer who along with a committee, has set up a daily reading schedule for us, with very short readings so as to not be overwhelming. It's not like those "read the Bible in one year" programs, where if your miss a day, you have enormous reading to do to catch up again. This is manageable, even if you have to catch up a couple of days at once. Then we have several different groups meeting throughout the week that members can attend to discuss what they're reading. We're about halfway through Luke right now.
The readings this week include the "lilies of the field" section, among other teachings on money and "security." I found myself getting worked up over how easily we read these sections and say, "well, Jesus didn't mean this literally," or "that's just impractical, you have to plan for your retirement" or other such comments.
And it seems just very unbalanced that we are able to do this with quite a few teachings from the Bible, most of them having to do with money or the poor, and yet we hold inviolable the handful of verses that refer to homosexuality, even if none of them address a committed, faithful relationship much less a scientific understanding of sexuality. We can make excuses for storing up goods, and even for other things like really strong teachings about divorce, but we can't quite bring ourselves (speaking for the whole institutional church) to make excuses for a sexual attraction that occurs naturally, has nothing to do with choice, and could be lived according to all the other rules of the Bible. This makes me angry.
Then yesterday, I heard a coworker, a young woman, a lesbian, talk about how she grew up in a church, and is feeling like God is calling her back to church, but she keeps hearing the condemnations of the church. She told the story without anger or bitterness, but a matter-of-factness that was even more heartbreaking than if she'd been fuming mad. Every church appears to her as if she'll be condemned if she enters the door. Or if she enters the door, she has to keep a big part of herself "private" or, rather, secret. It wasn't a situation where a long conversation was possible and the company wasn't really conducive to a serious conversation. So I wrote down my church's website and gave it to her, told her where we were located, and said to give us a try sometime. And maybe I'll follow up with her in the coming days.
But her story is just so common and so . . . well, heartbreaking is the best word I have for it. She feels like she's done nothing wrong, that she can't help but be attracted to women, but she still feels condemned by the church. And how much does my voice weigh against the weight of all the voices she's heard from the churches she's known? I don't know, but I told her how I'd been there and found some level of peace, if not with the church, then with God, and services are at 8 and 11 every Sunday morning. Come as you are.
My church is doing a version of the Book of Faith initiative, which (for the non-ELCAers) is a national push to get everyone reading and studying the Bible. There isn't a national program per se, and each congregation is free to work out how they're going to do it (if they do it) and at my church, we have a retired engineer who along with a committee, has set up a daily reading schedule for us, with very short readings so as to not be overwhelming. It's not like those "read the Bible in one year" programs, where if your miss a day, you have enormous reading to do to catch up again. This is manageable, even if you have to catch up a couple of days at once. Then we have several different groups meeting throughout the week that members can attend to discuss what they're reading. We're about halfway through Luke right now.
The readings this week include the "lilies of the field" section, among other teachings on money and "security." I found myself getting worked up over how easily we read these sections and say, "well, Jesus didn't mean this literally," or "that's just impractical, you have to plan for your retirement" or other such comments.
And it seems just very unbalanced that we are able to do this with quite a few teachings from the Bible, most of them having to do with money or the poor, and yet we hold inviolable the handful of verses that refer to homosexuality, even if none of them address a committed, faithful relationship much less a scientific understanding of sexuality. We can make excuses for storing up goods, and even for other things like really strong teachings about divorce, but we can't quite bring ourselves (speaking for the whole institutional church) to make excuses for a sexual attraction that occurs naturally, has nothing to do with choice, and could be lived according to all the other rules of the Bible. This makes me angry.
Then yesterday, I heard a coworker, a young woman, a lesbian, talk about how she grew up in a church, and is feeling like God is calling her back to church, but she keeps hearing the condemnations of the church. She told the story without anger or bitterness, but a matter-of-factness that was even more heartbreaking than if she'd been fuming mad. Every church appears to her as if she'll be condemned if she enters the door. Or if she enters the door, she has to keep a big part of herself "private" or, rather, secret. It wasn't a situation where a long conversation was possible and the company wasn't really conducive to a serious conversation. So I wrote down my church's website and gave it to her, told her where we were located, and said to give us a try sometime. And maybe I'll follow up with her in the coming days.
But her story is just so common and so . . . well, heartbreaking is the best word I have for it. She feels like she's done nothing wrong, that she can't help but be attracted to women, but she still feels condemned by the church. And how much does my voice weigh against the weight of all the voices she's heard from the churches she's known? I don't know, but I told her how I'd been there and found some level of peace, if not with the church, then with God, and services are at 8 and 11 every Sunday morning. Come as you are.
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Old Thoughts
Nothing new today, just a link to some old thoughts. I think they're still worth exploring, still a bit at the heart of what role GLBT Christians can play in the church and world today. I wrote this about 10 years ago, I guess.
Read it here.
Read it here.
Monday, March 23, 2009
A Lesson From Physics
The argument about light, among physicists (and any physicists will likely point out that this will be highly simplified), has long been whether light travels in particles or in waves. For the most part, it depends upon what you look for. If you're looking for evidence of particles, you'll find it. If you look for evidence of waves, you'll find it. And maybe, light even responds to what you're looking for.
I've often used this illustration with the performing arts. You can't control what the audience sees because you can't control what the audience is looking for. And sometimes, the audience does influence the performance, whether they're finding what they're looking for or not. (It works both ways with performance, of course. Sometimes the performers get the audience they're looking for.)
Similarly, I find it one of the great mysteries of my religious life that some people read the Bible and grow in judgment while others read the Bible and grow in grace.
I think I'll just leave it at that today.
I've often used this illustration with the performing arts. You can't control what the audience sees because you can't control what the audience is looking for. And sometimes, the audience does influence the performance, whether they're finding what they're looking for or not. (It works both ways with performance, of course. Sometimes the performers get the audience they're looking for.)
Similarly, I find it one of the great mysteries of my religious life that some people read the Bible and grow in judgment while others read the Bible and grow in grace.
I think I'll just leave it at that today.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
One More Go at This
The last couple of posts have felt scattered and not exactly to the point. Here's one more attempt, from an illustration a pastor used some time ago, in regard to GLBT folk and the church.
Being gay is a bit like being an Israelite slave in Egypt. The Israelites were told to make more bricks and faster, but without the materials to make them.
For gay folk in the church, it's like this: We're told we're promiscuous, that we don't form lasting relationships, that for these and other reasons, we are denied full access to leadership in the church. At the same time, the church gives us nothing to help us create lasting relationships, to help stabilize our lives. We are not given a rite to make public our relationships, we are not given the opportunity to ask the community to pray for our relationships and support them. We're told that if we're going to do these things, then don't mention it too often or in certain circles---which, again, leads to secrets and shame.
The crazy thing is that, like the Children of Israel who made bricks without straw, GLBT folk are also making lasting relationships and are finding ways to stabilize their lives so that they can have some measure of security that any other marriage has. We do this without the straw of rites or public support.
If the story continues as in the Bible, I believe that GLBT folk will also one day be free. Whether this means leaving Egypt (the church, or at least a specific denomination like the ELCA) or if it means finding some way to live peaceably with the former oppressors---this remains to be seen.
God is always doing a new thing. Not every retelling (or re-living) of a Bible story has to end the same way.
Being gay is a bit like being an Israelite slave in Egypt. The Israelites were told to make more bricks and faster, but without the materials to make them.
For gay folk in the church, it's like this: We're told we're promiscuous, that we don't form lasting relationships, that for these and other reasons, we are denied full access to leadership in the church. At the same time, the church gives us nothing to help us create lasting relationships, to help stabilize our lives. We are not given a rite to make public our relationships, we are not given the opportunity to ask the community to pray for our relationships and support them. We're told that if we're going to do these things, then don't mention it too often or in certain circles---which, again, leads to secrets and shame.
The crazy thing is that, like the Children of Israel who made bricks without straw, GLBT folk are also making lasting relationships and are finding ways to stabilize their lives so that they can have some measure of security that any other marriage has. We do this without the straw of rites or public support.
If the story continues as in the Bible, I believe that GLBT folk will also one day be free. Whether this means leaving Egypt (the church, or at least a specific denomination like the ELCA) or if it means finding some way to live peaceably with the former oppressors---this remains to be seen.
God is always doing a new thing. Not every retelling (or re-living) of a Bible story has to end the same way.
Friday, March 20, 2009
Attraction
This is a fairly non-religious post, but I don't think this gets discussed enough.
We're wired for attraction. This seems to be true for all of us, although I've heard of people who claim to feel no attraction for other people. I think I've maybe met an asexual person or two, but not entirely sure. I know I've met some repressed people (takes one to know one!), which is not exactly the same thing.
Anyway. So we're wired for attraction. Sexual attraction, yes, but emotional attraction, too. Personally, I don't like it. I sort of wish I was one of those asexual people, who just has friends and the feelings never get more complicated than that. I wish that sex was something that people just sort of decided to have when they were ready to procreate and I wish it didn't feel so good so that we want it even when we weren't ready to procreate.
But attraction seems to be about more than procreation. People who can't procreate, whether as a result of genetics, medical history, surgical history, or being attracted to the "wrong" gender, still experience attraction.
Shortly after I came to terms with my sexuality, I had a very distinct "aha!" moment. It happened as I was walking to the HEB (which is a Texas grocery story chain, for those reading outside of Texas), and suddenly a mystery that I'd pondered all my life became clear. I understood why there was a "battle of the sexes" and why it was such a difficult transaction when women started moving into the workplace and not only as secretaries and such. It was sexual attraction. All my life, I'd always thought, "what's the big deal, why can't men just get along with women, why all this friction between the sexes?" I'd grown up in the '70s of "women's lib" and all of it just made sense to me. It never seemed shocking to me that women would want to aspire to the same positions as men---and be compensated in the same way.
At the same time, all my life, I'd always gotten along better with women, had always had better relationships with women supervisors and bosses (with a couple of notable exceptions). Almost all my best friends in school were girls and while I definitely wanted to be the boyfriend of a particular girl in high school, I realized it was more out of a desire to be "normal" than out of, well, desire. Grant you, I still hadn't realized, consciously, that I really was watching boys more than girls, so the desire to be normal wasn't about consciously avoiding being gay (although I'd been called gay from junior high on---funny how the straight cowboys and jocks I went to school with knew who I was before I did!), but I just wanted a girlfriend and to date like you're supposed to in high school. I mean, I did learn something from years of reading Archie Comics!
But despite some clear opportunities, I never so much as kissed a girl in high school. I didn't want to. I just wanted a girlfriend. (Okay, here's the religious aspect of this: I assumed I was not kissing girls---or picturing them naked, or daydreaming about getting them naked or whatever it is that teenage boys supposedly do---because of my superior morality. I assumed the other boys were simply not exercising will power or proper prayer or whatever I imagined I was doing to not notice girls breasts.)
But there, on my walk to HEB, I suddenly understood what it was I felt around women that made it so easy for me to get along with them. No sexual tension! I was completely at ease with women because I wasn't interested in their breasts or much of anything else about their naked bodies. On the other hand, I had very few male friends because---guess what---I was experiencing sexual tension! I may not have been picturing them naked, but quite often, I was studying their faces in ways I didn't with women. And, okay, full disclosure, I realized after the fact that while I never tried to look down a girl's shirt, I was always curious about the presence and amount of chest hair on a man. There were reasons I loved The Six Million Dollar Man that went beyond the action/adventure that we boys discussed on the playground.
All of this was unconscious. Until I came out, that is. Now that I was finally acknowledging my attractions, I finally understood what the tension was between something like 90% of the men and women of the world. I also understood why there are "girls' nights out" and men's poker nights. Just as we're wired for attraction, we're also wired to be with people for whom we do not feel attraction.
I don't know if any of this is making sense or not. One thing about blogging is that it feels very off-the-cuff and I certainly couldn't blog everyday if I did a rough draft, edits, rewrites . . . so these entries are rather rough and maybe too stream of consciousness.
Here's my point: I'm not attracted to women. There are studies that show that this is even more than a visual thing. Studies show that straight women and gay men respond to men's sweat in similar ways. Likewise, lesbians and straight men respond to women's sweat in similar ways. I've always built strong emotional ties to women, but never have I been drawn to kiss them.
I'm drawn to kissing men.
It seems to be a part of who I am, something that I can look back on in my life and see places where I've always felt this way. An early memory: Watching some dance number on Lawrence Welk and being fascinated by the male dancers tight, black trousers. I just had no idea what that was about, but it was there as a preschooler. I once had a straight male friend who, after I told him that story, thought for moment and said, "I think I must have been heterosexual as a preschooler, too. I remember thinking one girl in particular was just fascinating to look at, even if I couldn't put my finger on why." (I've always felt blessed by that man---the first straight man I'd met to take seriously the question "when did you realize you were heterosexual?")
So if I (and most GLBT folk, I suspect) can look backward on their lives and find these points of attraction even before they knew what attraction was, before the hormonally crazed years of adolescence, doesn't that suggest that attraction is innate? And doesn't it suggest that you just can't "choose" to be otherwise?
We can choose to be sexually active or celibate. This is true, and honestly, I would that more people chose to be celibate, or at least monogamous. With the exception of some notable lapses in judgment or restraint, I do choose celibacy. (All bets are off as soon as Harrison Ford comes out of the closet, though.) I'd like the next man with whom I have sex to be the last man with whom I have sex---I also hope to have recurring sex with him for a very long time. This may or may not happen. I make no predictions for the future as the past has proven that life has some disappointing episodes.
What I and many other gay Christian GLBT folk are asking is this: If we didn't choose this state, why does the church give us only one choice: celibacy? I could probably have sex with a woman, just as most men could probably have sex with another man (as happens in prisons), but that doesn't mean I would suddenly be attracted to the woman, any more than prison rape suggests attraction between the men involved. The church asking a gay man to marry a woman is unfair to everyone because the woman is likely to feel unattractive---which she will be to the man---and the man will likely not give her the attention she should have in a marriage relationship. I mean, I know a marriage is hardly all about sex, but I think most people would say it's a part of it, and doesn't everyone want to feel desired by their mate? I just don't believe God, who wired us for attraction, would then command us to act counter to our attraction. (Not that, as they say, attraction requires action, but . . . I won't belabor the point.
Which I've probably already done.
Something I wrote above---about feeling morally superior to all those boys whe were trying to look down girl's blouses---reminds (as so often happens) of a saying from the Desert Mothers (in this case):
"The holy Syncletica said, 'I think that for those living in community obedience is a greater virtue than chastity, however perfect. Chastity carries within it the danger of pride, but obedience has within it the promis of humility.'"
I know what Amma Syncletica is talking about here. Boy was I proud of not being attracted to the girls!
Of course, that saying opens a can of worms about "obedience," doesn't it? Well, perhaps another time. I've typed in my rambly way enough for this entry . . .
We're wired for attraction. This seems to be true for all of us, although I've heard of people who claim to feel no attraction for other people. I think I've maybe met an asexual person or two, but not entirely sure. I know I've met some repressed people (takes one to know one!), which is not exactly the same thing.
Anyway. So we're wired for attraction. Sexual attraction, yes, but emotional attraction, too. Personally, I don't like it. I sort of wish I was one of those asexual people, who just has friends and the feelings never get more complicated than that. I wish that sex was something that people just sort of decided to have when they were ready to procreate and I wish it didn't feel so good so that we want it even when we weren't ready to procreate.
But attraction seems to be about more than procreation. People who can't procreate, whether as a result of genetics, medical history, surgical history, or being attracted to the "wrong" gender, still experience attraction.
Shortly after I came to terms with my sexuality, I had a very distinct "aha!" moment. It happened as I was walking to the HEB (which is a Texas grocery story chain, for those reading outside of Texas), and suddenly a mystery that I'd pondered all my life became clear. I understood why there was a "battle of the sexes" and why it was such a difficult transaction when women started moving into the workplace and not only as secretaries and such. It was sexual attraction. All my life, I'd always thought, "what's the big deal, why can't men just get along with women, why all this friction between the sexes?" I'd grown up in the '70s of "women's lib" and all of it just made sense to me. It never seemed shocking to me that women would want to aspire to the same positions as men---and be compensated in the same way.
At the same time, all my life, I'd always gotten along better with women, had always had better relationships with women supervisors and bosses (with a couple of notable exceptions). Almost all my best friends in school were girls and while I definitely wanted to be the boyfriend of a particular girl in high school, I realized it was more out of a desire to be "normal" than out of, well, desire. Grant you, I still hadn't realized, consciously, that I really was watching boys more than girls, so the desire to be normal wasn't about consciously avoiding being gay (although I'd been called gay from junior high on---funny how the straight cowboys and jocks I went to school with knew who I was before I did!), but I just wanted a girlfriend and to date like you're supposed to in high school. I mean, I did learn something from years of reading Archie Comics!
But despite some clear opportunities, I never so much as kissed a girl in high school. I didn't want to. I just wanted a girlfriend. (Okay, here's the religious aspect of this: I assumed I was not kissing girls---or picturing them naked, or daydreaming about getting them naked or whatever it is that teenage boys supposedly do---because of my superior morality. I assumed the other boys were simply not exercising will power or proper prayer or whatever I imagined I was doing to not notice girls breasts.)
But there, on my walk to HEB, I suddenly understood what it was I felt around women that made it so easy for me to get along with them. No sexual tension! I was completely at ease with women because I wasn't interested in their breasts or much of anything else about their naked bodies. On the other hand, I had very few male friends because---guess what---I was experiencing sexual tension! I may not have been picturing them naked, but quite often, I was studying their faces in ways I didn't with women. And, okay, full disclosure, I realized after the fact that while I never tried to look down a girl's shirt, I was always curious about the presence and amount of chest hair on a man. There were reasons I loved The Six Million Dollar Man that went beyond the action/adventure that we boys discussed on the playground.
All of this was unconscious. Until I came out, that is. Now that I was finally acknowledging my attractions, I finally understood what the tension was between something like 90% of the men and women of the world. I also understood why there are "girls' nights out" and men's poker nights. Just as we're wired for attraction, we're also wired to be with people for whom we do not feel attraction.
I don't know if any of this is making sense or not. One thing about blogging is that it feels very off-the-cuff and I certainly couldn't blog everyday if I did a rough draft, edits, rewrites . . . so these entries are rather rough and maybe too stream of consciousness.
Here's my point: I'm not attracted to women. There are studies that show that this is even more than a visual thing. Studies show that straight women and gay men respond to men's sweat in similar ways. Likewise, lesbians and straight men respond to women's sweat in similar ways. I've always built strong emotional ties to women, but never have I been drawn to kiss them.
I'm drawn to kissing men.
It seems to be a part of who I am, something that I can look back on in my life and see places where I've always felt this way. An early memory: Watching some dance number on Lawrence Welk and being fascinated by the male dancers tight, black trousers. I just had no idea what that was about, but it was there as a preschooler. I once had a straight male friend who, after I told him that story, thought for moment and said, "I think I must have been heterosexual as a preschooler, too. I remember thinking one girl in particular was just fascinating to look at, even if I couldn't put my finger on why." (I've always felt blessed by that man---the first straight man I'd met to take seriously the question "when did you realize you were heterosexual?")
So if I (and most GLBT folk, I suspect) can look backward on their lives and find these points of attraction even before they knew what attraction was, before the hormonally crazed years of adolescence, doesn't that suggest that attraction is innate? And doesn't it suggest that you just can't "choose" to be otherwise?
We can choose to be sexually active or celibate. This is true, and honestly, I would that more people chose to be celibate, or at least monogamous. With the exception of some notable lapses in judgment or restraint, I do choose celibacy. (All bets are off as soon as Harrison Ford comes out of the closet, though.) I'd like the next man with whom I have sex to be the last man with whom I have sex---I also hope to have recurring sex with him for a very long time. This may or may not happen. I make no predictions for the future as the past has proven that life has some disappointing episodes.
What I and many other gay Christian GLBT folk are asking is this: If we didn't choose this state, why does the church give us only one choice: celibacy? I could probably have sex with a woman, just as most men could probably have sex with another man (as happens in prisons), but that doesn't mean I would suddenly be attracted to the woman, any more than prison rape suggests attraction between the men involved. The church asking a gay man to marry a woman is unfair to everyone because the woman is likely to feel unattractive---which she will be to the man---and the man will likely not give her the attention she should have in a marriage relationship. I mean, I know a marriage is hardly all about sex, but I think most people would say it's a part of it, and doesn't everyone want to feel desired by their mate? I just don't believe God, who wired us for attraction, would then command us to act counter to our attraction. (Not that, as they say, attraction requires action, but . . . I won't belabor the point.
Which I've probably already done.
Something I wrote above---about feeling morally superior to all those boys whe were trying to look down girl's blouses---reminds (as so often happens) of a saying from the Desert Mothers (in this case):
"The holy Syncletica said, 'I think that for those living in community obedience is a greater virtue than chastity, however perfect. Chastity carries within it the danger of pride, but obedience has within it the promis of humility.'"
I know what Amma Syncletica is talking about here. Boy was I proud of not being attracted to the girls!
Of course, that saying opens a can of worms about "obedience," doesn't it? Well, perhaps another time. I've typed in my rambly way enough for this entry . . .
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Rumors and Stereotypes
(Caveat: Candace, if I'm confusing you with someone else, let me know!)
I remember Candace Chellew-Hodge telling a story once about someone (I think a family member) stating their opposition to GLBT folk with a litany of awful things GLBT did. I think Candace's friend/relative had heard these things on a talk radio program. Things like promiscuity, recruitment of children, drug use, alcoholism, and who knows what all.
Candace replied something to the effect, "Why are you believing what they say on the radio over the life you see me lead?" Or something to that effect.
I thought it was an excellent comeback.
I mean, despite ample evidence, no one believes that all straight people hang out at sports bars, are constantly on the look-out for their next hook-up, practice serial monogamy, are involved in domestic violence, and procreate more by chance than design. It's ludicrous to see it in print, isn't it?
GLBT folk get these sorts of generalizations all the time. And while I've known some church-going queers who were also regulars at the bars, the same is true of a bunch of church-going straight folk. I mean, does everyone really believe that the straight, single male is at the bar merely to drink a couple of beers? Well, maybe, but it's just as likely he's there to meet someone to take home.
But no one seems to be talking about that. I mean, the document that outlines the celibacy requirement for ELCA rostered professionals (briefly known as Visions and Expectations for the non-Lutherans out there) states that single straight pastors are to be celibate until marriage. And while that may happen sometimes, I know of plenty of situations that this was not true. In other words, no one is taking a survey and asking around to find out if the straight, single pastors are virgins or if they're remaining chaste with their betrothed before the wedding night.
So, it seems that there are many places where double standards are applied here.
And so much of the discussion seems to be about what "they say" GLBT folk do. Well, okay, let's have that discussion, if it's pertinent to someone's ability to serve as pastor---but you can bet I'll start asking the straight clergy about their sexual history.
Is that harsh? I don't mean it to be, but honestly, Visions and Expectations is one of the most tread upon documents (at least as far as sexual conduct goes) and everyone looks the other way except when it's a pastor who is attracted to someone of her/his own sex.
So, can we put aside all the things "they say" about GLBT folk---and maybe even about straight single men (especially)---and get to know one another? Maybe we'll discover that we're all fragile, broken people living under grace and not up to anyone's vision or expecation.
I remember Candace Chellew-Hodge telling a story once about someone (I think a family member) stating their opposition to GLBT folk with a litany of awful things GLBT did. I think Candace's friend/relative had heard these things on a talk radio program. Things like promiscuity, recruitment of children, drug use, alcoholism, and who knows what all.
Candace replied something to the effect, "Why are you believing what they say on the radio over the life you see me lead?" Or something to that effect.
I thought it was an excellent comeback.
I mean, despite ample evidence, no one believes that all straight people hang out at sports bars, are constantly on the look-out for their next hook-up, practice serial monogamy, are involved in domestic violence, and procreate more by chance than design. It's ludicrous to see it in print, isn't it?
GLBT folk get these sorts of generalizations all the time. And while I've known some church-going queers who were also regulars at the bars, the same is true of a bunch of church-going straight folk. I mean, does everyone really believe that the straight, single male is at the bar merely to drink a couple of beers? Well, maybe, but it's just as likely he's there to meet someone to take home.
But no one seems to be talking about that. I mean, the document that outlines the celibacy requirement for ELCA rostered professionals (briefly known as Visions and Expectations for the non-Lutherans out there) states that single straight pastors are to be celibate until marriage. And while that may happen sometimes, I know of plenty of situations that this was not true. In other words, no one is taking a survey and asking around to find out if the straight, single pastors are virgins or if they're remaining chaste with their betrothed before the wedding night.
So, it seems that there are many places where double standards are applied here.
And so much of the discussion seems to be about what "they say" GLBT folk do. Well, okay, let's have that discussion, if it's pertinent to someone's ability to serve as pastor---but you can bet I'll start asking the straight clergy about their sexual history.
Is that harsh? I don't mean it to be, but honestly, Visions and Expectations is one of the most tread upon documents (at least as far as sexual conduct goes) and everyone looks the other way except when it's a pastor who is attracted to someone of her/his own sex.
So, can we put aside all the things "they say" about GLBT folk---and maybe even about straight single men (especially)---and get to know one another? Maybe we'll discover that we're all fragile, broken people living under grace and not up to anyone's vision or expecation.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Compromise
I'm using the title word in the worst and best possible ways. I'll leave it up to you to decide how bad or how good it is.
It seems to me that there are many evils in the world, like war, that we tolerate and sometimes even get behind. We "support the war effort" and "support the troops." On one level, we know war is a terrible, horrific thing but we send young men and women into it out of some sense of patriotism or because it is the lesser of two evils or it's expedient.
There are teachings in the Bible that are just nearly impossible to follow. Love your enemies. Give to whoever begs from you. Sell all you have, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow Jesus. Yet we own stuff---from TVs, stereos, libraries of books and CDs and DVDs to cars, boats, houses. Our churches are sometimes among the richest properties in a neighborhood, with some having physical plants that rival small colleges. We make excuses for these possessions---my treasure isn't really bound up in these things, need a place to live, so I may as well take advantage of tax breaks home ownership brings (I can give more to the church that way!), we have to meet somewhere for worship and so it may as well evoke some grandeur of heaven. Let's just not discuss who our enemies are and how we might "love" them.
I've discussed throughout this blog that I feel that barring GLBT folk from church leadership inhibits evangelism, creates undue stress to GLBT folk who are called to church leadership, and sends a message to GLBT folk (especially our youth) that "you're not good enough, you're broken and unworthy, you're God's mistake."
Even if you're uncomfortable with the idea of having a GLBT pastor, can you maybe add it to the list of things that you accept in the world? Say something like, "well, I'd rather all pastors were heterosexual, but since they're not, let's just make it all above board and support them in their relationships. It's better than making them keep secrets, and maybe it'll makes us look better in the media."
I don't know. Something like that.
I can't tell you how uncomfortable it makes me to compare being gay to war. But out of all the things that we just go "well, what are ya gonna do?" it feels really disingenuous to draw the line at issues of sexuality. I mean, I really wish the ELCA could make a social statement that denounces war and join in with the Quakers and Mennonites as a "peace church." On that issue, I really am a Quaker (and, full disclosure, if I could find a "peace church" that was sacramental, I probably would already be there, but for me the emphasis on baptism and eucharist are big things that keep me in the ELCA) and it irks me that we aren't more proactive in preaching peace. I'm fairly certain that it's demonstrable that wars do a great deal more damage to families, communities, EVERYTHING, than a couple of women who live together in legal, spiritual, and physical covenant.
So if I can remain a part of the ELCA and accept that there are pro-military members, can the people who don't want GLBT pastors remain in the ELCA even if there were?
It seems to me that there are many evils in the world, like war, that we tolerate and sometimes even get behind. We "support the war effort" and "support the troops." On one level, we know war is a terrible, horrific thing but we send young men and women into it out of some sense of patriotism or because it is the lesser of two evils or it's expedient.
There are teachings in the Bible that are just nearly impossible to follow. Love your enemies. Give to whoever begs from you. Sell all you have, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow Jesus. Yet we own stuff---from TVs, stereos, libraries of books and CDs and DVDs to cars, boats, houses. Our churches are sometimes among the richest properties in a neighborhood, with some having physical plants that rival small colleges. We make excuses for these possessions---my treasure isn't really bound up in these things, need a place to live, so I may as well take advantage of tax breaks home ownership brings (I can give more to the church that way!), we have to meet somewhere for worship and so it may as well evoke some grandeur of heaven. Let's just not discuss who our enemies are and how we might "love" them.
I've discussed throughout this blog that I feel that barring GLBT folk from church leadership inhibits evangelism, creates undue stress to GLBT folk who are called to church leadership, and sends a message to GLBT folk (especially our youth) that "you're not good enough, you're broken and unworthy, you're God's mistake."
Even if you're uncomfortable with the idea of having a GLBT pastor, can you maybe add it to the list of things that you accept in the world? Say something like, "well, I'd rather all pastors were heterosexual, but since they're not, let's just make it all above board and support them in their relationships. It's better than making them keep secrets, and maybe it'll makes us look better in the media."
I don't know. Something like that.
I can't tell you how uncomfortable it makes me to compare being gay to war. But out of all the things that we just go "well, what are ya gonna do?" it feels really disingenuous to draw the line at issues of sexuality. I mean, I really wish the ELCA could make a social statement that denounces war and join in with the Quakers and Mennonites as a "peace church." On that issue, I really am a Quaker (and, full disclosure, if I could find a "peace church" that was sacramental, I probably would already be there, but for me the emphasis on baptism and eucharist are big things that keep me in the ELCA) and it irks me that we aren't more proactive in preaching peace. I'm fairly certain that it's demonstrable that wars do a great deal more damage to families, communities, EVERYTHING, than a couple of women who live together in legal, spiritual, and physical covenant.
So if I can remain a part of the ELCA and accept that there are pro-military members, can the people who don't want GLBT pastors remain in the ELCA even if there were?
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Advocate
I've always said I find it very hard to be my own advocate. I've always found writing, speaking or otherwise drawing attention to myself and the injustices I feel as a gay man to be very difficult. In part, I have a keen understanding that my level of persecution is minute compared to so many persecutions in the world. It's really hyperbolic to call anything I've experience "persecution," especially when placed next to the various genocidal campaigns practiced in just the last decade or so. In that light, it's really ludicrous to call any experience in my life "persecution."
But I will stick with "injustice." I think there are many ways that I've been taught that I'm intrinsically bad (disordered, mentally ill, whatever euphemism you might prefer) that has unjustly hindered my life in many ways, from career choices to things more subtle that are harder to discuss.
Despite this being the case, however, has not made me one to "stick up for myself" or defend myself in the way that many activists do. When I've tried to be an advocate for anyone, it's generally for poor or hungry people. The charities to which I donate most often tend to be charities that work for the poor and hungry of the world (one of my favorite being the Lutheran World Relief, and not just because it's Lutheran---they have a remarkably high ratings when it comes to how far they take a dollar to the people they serve). In fact, I tend to find being an advocate for the poor and hungry to be much more important than being an advocate for myself. I'm hardly wealthy, but I've gone hungry without choosing to.
So this blog, as we approach the midpoint of lent, is becoming harder because I really find this difficult to do. I may have said it in this blog (I know I've said it somewhere), but I'll repeat it. The reason I'm doing this blog now---as well as trying to do some other more activist sorts of things in preparation for the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in August---is because it suddenly occurred to me that if the measures before the assembly fail, it could mean another generation will grow up in a church that gave the same contradictory messages I received growing up. GLBT ordination and same-sex weddings are almost beside the point. GLBT kids growing up in the next 20 years really shouldn't have to feel like they're second class Christians in this church. It isn't that they'll all want to be ordained or even get married---it's about being told that if you felt called to that life, it was available to you because you're acceptable to God and acceptable to the church. Finding that acceptance is key to the next generation of GLBT youth growing up with fewer terrors of losing their faith or family or life for something they didn't choose.
So, the reason I'm doing this blog is less about me and my sexuality, it's about the kids who are being born right now who will grow up to be GLB or T.
And for that reason, consider this blog entry a plea to any straight people reading. This is about the children you'll be/are creating (seeing as how I'm not going to procreate). This is about kids who need more than very special episodes of sitcoms or even whole TV series starring gay characters. They need a spiritual home that the larger culture can't give them. They need a place to meet potential mates and a community that will support their relationships---just like the straight kids get---so they don't turn to communities that offer little spirituality and promote serial relationships, if not outright disregard for relationships.
So the plea is---becomes advocates for GLBT people. As we approach the Churchwide Assembly, find out who the representatives are from your synod and write to them polite, reasoned letters, asking them to be advocates, too. Before that, do the same with your individual synod assemblies.
This affects me less and less as I get older. This matters very much to the kids who don't even know it matters to them yet.
But I will stick with "injustice." I think there are many ways that I've been taught that I'm intrinsically bad (disordered, mentally ill, whatever euphemism you might prefer) that has unjustly hindered my life in many ways, from career choices to things more subtle that are harder to discuss.
Despite this being the case, however, has not made me one to "stick up for myself" or defend myself in the way that many activists do. When I've tried to be an advocate for anyone, it's generally for poor or hungry people. The charities to which I donate most often tend to be charities that work for the poor and hungry of the world (one of my favorite being the Lutheran World Relief, and not just because it's Lutheran---they have a remarkably high ratings when it comes to how far they take a dollar to the people they serve). In fact, I tend to find being an advocate for the poor and hungry to be much more important than being an advocate for myself. I'm hardly wealthy, but I've gone hungry without choosing to.
So this blog, as we approach the midpoint of lent, is becoming harder because I really find this difficult to do. I may have said it in this blog (I know I've said it somewhere), but I'll repeat it. The reason I'm doing this blog now---as well as trying to do some other more activist sorts of things in preparation for the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in August---is because it suddenly occurred to me that if the measures before the assembly fail, it could mean another generation will grow up in a church that gave the same contradictory messages I received growing up. GLBT ordination and same-sex weddings are almost beside the point. GLBT kids growing up in the next 20 years really shouldn't have to feel like they're second class Christians in this church. It isn't that they'll all want to be ordained or even get married---it's about being told that if you felt called to that life, it was available to you because you're acceptable to God and acceptable to the church. Finding that acceptance is key to the next generation of GLBT youth growing up with fewer terrors of losing their faith or family or life for something they didn't choose.
So, the reason I'm doing this blog is less about me and my sexuality, it's about the kids who are being born right now who will grow up to be GLB or T.
And for that reason, consider this blog entry a plea to any straight people reading. This is about the children you'll be/are creating (seeing as how I'm not going to procreate). This is about kids who need more than very special episodes of sitcoms or even whole TV series starring gay characters. They need a spiritual home that the larger culture can't give them. They need a place to meet potential mates and a community that will support their relationships---just like the straight kids get---so they don't turn to communities that offer little spirituality and promote serial relationships, if not outright disregard for relationships.
So the plea is---becomes advocates for GLBT people. As we approach the Churchwide Assembly, find out who the representatives are from your synod and write to them polite, reasoned letters, asking them to be advocates, too. Before that, do the same with your individual synod assemblies.
This affects me less and less as I get older. This matters very much to the kids who don't even know it matters to them yet.
Monday, March 16, 2009
Community
"Abba Antony said, 'Our life and our death are with our neighbor. If we gain our brother, we have gained our God; but if we scandalize our brother, we have sinned against Christ.'" (Daily Readings with the Desert Fathers, edited by Benedicta Ward, p. 36)
If you do a web search on my name and "Desert Fathers," there's probably a few hits. Maybe not a lot, but few. I say this so that it is less surprising that I'm currently using the above book as devotional reader.
The quote reminded me of something Dietrich Bonhoeffer said in Life Together (and if I could find my copy, I'd quote it exactly but tonight my paraphrase will have to do). In effect, he said Christian community is a reality and a gift and it exists whether or not we are with other Christians. It is a reality and a gift even when we don't feel very loving to the community we have. The communion of saints simply is.
These things come to mind as I've been thinking more and more about how this struggle we're in is about community, who is in, who is not, who has full privileges, who is relegated to crumbs from the table.
I had a conversation with someone recently (and I won't identify him because I love him and he's not here to give his full side unless he's following this blog and wishes to comment) who said he wished I saw the church less institutionally and more as the one, holy, catholic church, what he said they used to call the "invisible church." In come circles, we might speak of "the mystical body of Christ."
It is a good reminder. It is a good reminder and still it is the institution that is denying full access to GLBT people, just as it once denied women full access (and still does in some institutions bearing the name of Christ). It is good to think of the church as transcending the institutions that build walls around altars, even as we see through the walls to what some of us can't approach.
What does it mean to have our life and death belong to our neighbor? What does it mean to belong to the mystical body of Christ, whether we feel a part of it or not? What does it mean to trust our baptism into Christ as being all there is to belong to the church when some powerful voices tell some of us that we can't belong fully?
I don't have answers. Not tonight. I'm merely thinking "out loud" and exposing where some of this blogging has led me in time when I'm not at the keyboard.
I see the church as the mystical body of Christ I believe to belong to my neighbor and my neighbor to me transcends any institution's decrees. I believe I belong to the body Christ even when I've tried to leave the church, even when I sit angry and hurt by an institution that says it represents that body.
But what happens when my presence, my existence in this body scandalizes my neighbor? Can I ask my neighbor to not be scandalized? Do people who wish to keep the status quo of the current policies agonize over scandalizing me, their neighbor? And how can we stop that? How can we belong to one another when we disagree about something that is at the core of a minority's identity? Bonhoeffer would say it happens whether we feel it or not.
I'm beginning to think we're all about to simply lose our neighbor and sin against Christ.
Who is my neighbor? How can I bind up the wounds of the homophobe when I seem to be the one causing the wounds? How can the homophobe bind up my wounds, wounds caused by homophobes? (By the way, I dislike the word homophobe---is there another one to use? The "anti-gay"?)
Who is my neighbor? Can people on each side of this divide promise to be the other side's hated, but good, Samaritan?
If you do a web search on my name and "Desert Fathers," there's probably a few hits. Maybe not a lot, but few. I say this so that it is less surprising that I'm currently using the above book as devotional reader.
The quote reminded me of something Dietrich Bonhoeffer said in Life Together (and if I could find my copy, I'd quote it exactly but tonight my paraphrase will have to do). In effect, he said Christian community is a reality and a gift and it exists whether or not we are with other Christians. It is a reality and a gift even when we don't feel very loving to the community we have. The communion of saints simply is.
These things come to mind as I've been thinking more and more about how this struggle we're in is about community, who is in, who is not, who has full privileges, who is relegated to crumbs from the table.
I had a conversation with someone recently (and I won't identify him because I love him and he's not here to give his full side unless he's following this blog and wishes to comment) who said he wished I saw the church less institutionally and more as the one, holy, catholic church, what he said they used to call the "invisible church." In come circles, we might speak of "the mystical body of Christ."
It is a good reminder. It is a good reminder and still it is the institution that is denying full access to GLBT people, just as it once denied women full access (and still does in some institutions bearing the name of Christ). It is good to think of the church as transcending the institutions that build walls around altars, even as we see through the walls to what some of us can't approach.
What does it mean to have our life and death belong to our neighbor? What does it mean to belong to the mystical body of Christ, whether we feel a part of it or not? What does it mean to trust our baptism into Christ as being all there is to belong to the church when some powerful voices tell some of us that we can't belong fully?
I don't have answers. Not tonight. I'm merely thinking "out loud" and exposing where some of this blogging has led me in time when I'm not at the keyboard.
I see the church as the mystical body of Christ I believe to belong to my neighbor and my neighbor to me transcends any institution's decrees. I believe I belong to the body Christ even when I've tried to leave the church, even when I sit angry and hurt by an institution that says it represents that body.
But what happens when my presence, my existence in this body scandalizes my neighbor? Can I ask my neighbor to not be scandalized? Do people who wish to keep the status quo of the current policies agonize over scandalizing me, their neighbor? And how can we stop that? How can we belong to one another when we disagree about something that is at the core of a minority's identity? Bonhoeffer would say it happens whether we feel it or not.
I'm beginning to think we're all about to simply lose our neighbor and sin against Christ.
Who is my neighbor? How can I bind up the wounds of the homophobe when I seem to be the one causing the wounds? How can the homophobe bind up my wounds, wounds caused by homophobes? (By the way, I dislike the word homophobe---is there another one to use? The "anti-gay"?)
Who is my neighbor? Can people on each side of this divide promise to be the other side's hated, but good, Samaritan?
Sunday, March 15, 2009
A Non-Post Post (Housekeeping)
Just a gentle reminder that if you're going to post a response to this blog, please be sure you use your full name. I really am not approving posts---even supportive ones!---that are not using real names. This may have been a poor decision on my part, and may act to silence people who would otherwise join the conversation, but I've seen too many conversations on this topic descend quickly into ugliness when participants can hide behind perceived anonymity.
So if you've tried to post a response to this blog and you have not seen the response appear, email me at neilellisorts (at) yahoo (dot) com to identify yourself and I'll approve the post. So far, all the responses have been friendly, but I'm going to be a bit legalistic on this point. I hope everyone understands.
Having said all that, responses are heartily encouraged. It's a lenten monolog without responses!
So if you've tried to post a response to this blog and you have not seen the response appear, email me at neilellisorts (at) yahoo (dot) com to identify yourself and I'll approve the post. So far, all the responses have been friendly, but I'm going to be a bit legalistic on this point. I hope everyone understands.
Having said all that, responses are heartily encouraged. It's a lenten monolog without responses!
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Civil Rights
I'm just going to write about this tonight because I'm not sure I can sort it out any other way. And because I'm still sorting it out, I hope I will write carefully.
GLBT activists talk about civil rights all the time. Some miles have been covered. I believe police antagonism at a gay bar is much more difficult now than it was at the Stonewall Inn before 1969. I believe it is much harder for the judicial system to dismiss violence against GLBT folk because they were just a bunch of queers. It is much harder for TV personalities to make accusatory, inflammataory, or just plain desultory blanket statements about GLBT folk just on the basis of them being GLB or T. This sort of forward movement in GLBT civil rights is the result of many activists who targeted these inequties, brought them to light, and convinced more an more people that GLBT people should not be treated so inequally on the basis of their sexuality or sexual identity.
In many ways (and here's where I must tread carefully because this is so controversial), this forward movement is much like the the Civil Rights movement of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks. They---and obviously not only they---stood up to injustices, called them unjust, and said the justice system must do something about them. Police harrassment, indifferent court systems, and derogatory stereotypes are much harder to perpetrate---not impossible, but much harder---than they were half a century ago.
In this way, our movements have been very similar, and I know that many of the African American community don't like to see similarities, but I think these are fairly plain to see. I will agree with some in the African American community that there are enormous differences between the two movements, most of them having to do with the very nature of our identities. I'm fairly certain that there are many situations where I "pass" for straight, and so appear merely as a white male, and I do believe that I benefit from the slippery spectre of white privilege. On the other hand there are not many African American people who can pass for white, although there is a history of light skinned people working very hard to do just that. Just in that way, in the way that we are able to be identified when we walk into a retailer, the differences between the struggles of the GLBT and the African American communities is very different. I think it is very misleading and very condescending to make statements like "Gay is the New Black" (as I believe at least on GLBT magazine did on its cover).
But here is another way in which the two civil rights movements are very different. The black community in the 1950s and 1960s had a religious community where their leaders organized and made it a religious issue as much as a civil rights issue. The GLBT is not so strong in that area, in part because so many GLBT folk have experienced the opposite--they have been tossed out of their religious communities, by and large, and even when they formed new religious communities like the Metropolitan Community Churches, those communities were too busy bandaging the wounds of their membership to organize for civil movements. That's not to say that they've done nothing in that arena, and there is Soulforce, which tries to model itself after the work of MLK and Gandhi. So far, their efforts have failed to catch the media attention that the black churches were able to get in the middle fo teh 20th Century.
And part of that is the result of not having a traditionally gay church in the same way there were traditionally black churches. Part of that is because being GLBT is being from every layer of society. We are not from one traditional anything. We rise out of all traditions. This is our strength and it is our weakness. It is our strength because this means that no subculture can say "we have no gay people here" (despite efforts to say just that). It is our weakness because when we try to organize, we come from so many different organizational traditions that we have a hard time organizing.
So before this new civil rights movement can get a religious community to make it a religious issue as well as a civil issue, we need a large religious body with a uniform tradition of organization to say with one voice, "denying GLBT folk full access to any part of our civil and religious lives is wrong."
Being a member of the ELCA, I of course hope we might be among the first national religious church bodies to say just that. We won't be the first, but if we start taking steps, we will be the largest. And in this instance, numbers matter, since we seem to be at a place where we're still taking popular votes on who can fully participate in the freedoms and responsibilities of this nation.
That's what I'm hoping for, anyway. If the Presbyterians get there first, that would be great. The UCC is there, but they're too small (although they are doing remarkable things in trying to be heard and I honor that). The Episcopalians are still too divided on the issue, and really, they're not a huge religious body, either, just often more influential. Of course, if the ELCA passes the measures this summer, there will still be divisions---this is still a journey and the destination is still across Jordan---as is the the African American civil rights movement despite there now being a black man in the White House.
But it would be an enormous step forward. This is what I'm praying for.
(Brief civil rights history lesson: While it's certainly no secret, it's also not well known, but an important advisor and confidant of MLK was Bayard Rustin---a gay Quaker who brought to MLK nonviolent options of opposing injustice. It is generally acknowledged that had Rustin be straight, he would be honored alongside MLK, but since he was openly gay, his contribution to the civil rights movment is often ignored.)
GLBT activists talk about civil rights all the time. Some miles have been covered. I believe police antagonism at a gay bar is much more difficult now than it was at the Stonewall Inn before 1969. I believe it is much harder for the judicial system to dismiss violence against GLBT folk because they were just a bunch of queers. It is much harder for TV personalities to make accusatory, inflammataory, or just plain desultory blanket statements about GLBT folk just on the basis of them being GLB or T. This sort of forward movement in GLBT civil rights is the result of many activists who targeted these inequties, brought them to light, and convinced more an more people that GLBT people should not be treated so inequally on the basis of their sexuality or sexual identity.
In many ways (and here's where I must tread carefully because this is so controversial), this forward movement is much like the the Civil Rights movement of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rosa Parks. They---and obviously not only they---stood up to injustices, called them unjust, and said the justice system must do something about them. Police harrassment, indifferent court systems, and derogatory stereotypes are much harder to perpetrate---not impossible, but much harder---than they were half a century ago.
In this way, our movements have been very similar, and I know that many of the African American community don't like to see similarities, but I think these are fairly plain to see. I will agree with some in the African American community that there are enormous differences between the two movements, most of them having to do with the very nature of our identities. I'm fairly certain that there are many situations where I "pass" for straight, and so appear merely as a white male, and I do believe that I benefit from the slippery spectre of white privilege. On the other hand there are not many African American people who can pass for white, although there is a history of light skinned people working very hard to do just that. Just in that way, in the way that we are able to be identified when we walk into a retailer, the differences between the struggles of the GLBT and the African American communities is very different. I think it is very misleading and very condescending to make statements like "Gay is the New Black" (as I believe at least on GLBT magazine did on its cover).
But here is another way in which the two civil rights movements are very different. The black community in the 1950s and 1960s had a religious community where their leaders organized and made it a religious issue as much as a civil rights issue. The GLBT is not so strong in that area, in part because so many GLBT folk have experienced the opposite--they have been tossed out of their religious communities, by and large, and even when they formed new religious communities like the Metropolitan Community Churches, those communities were too busy bandaging the wounds of their membership to organize for civil movements. That's not to say that they've done nothing in that arena, and there is Soulforce, which tries to model itself after the work of MLK and Gandhi. So far, their efforts have failed to catch the media attention that the black churches were able to get in the middle fo teh 20th Century.
And part of that is the result of not having a traditionally gay church in the same way there were traditionally black churches. Part of that is because being GLBT is being from every layer of society. We are not from one traditional anything. We rise out of all traditions. This is our strength and it is our weakness. It is our strength because this means that no subculture can say "we have no gay people here" (despite efforts to say just that). It is our weakness because when we try to organize, we come from so many different organizational traditions that we have a hard time organizing.
So before this new civil rights movement can get a religious community to make it a religious issue as well as a civil issue, we need a large religious body with a uniform tradition of organization to say with one voice, "denying GLBT folk full access to any part of our civil and religious lives is wrong."
Being a member of the ELCA, I of course hope we might be among the first national religious church bodies to say just that. We won't be the first, but if we start taking steps, we will be the largest. And in this instance, numbers matter, since we seem to be at a place where we're still taking popular votes on who can fully participate in the freedoms and responsibilities of this nation.
That's what I'm hoping for, anyway. If the Presbyterians get there first, that would be great. The UCC is there, but they're too small (although they are doing remarkable things in trying to be heard and I honor that). The Episcopalians are still too divided on the issue, and really, they're not a huge religious body, either, just often more influential. Of course, if the ELCA passes the measures this summer, there will still be divisions---this is still a journey and the destination is still across Jordan---as is the the African American civil rights movement despite there now being a black man in the White House.
But it would be an enormous step forward. This is what I'm praying for.
(Brief civil rights history lesson: While it's certainly no secret, it's also not well known, but an important advisor and confidant of MLK was Bayard Rustin---a gay Quaker who brought to MLK nonviolent options of opposing injustice. It is generally acknowledged that had Rustin be straight, he would be honored alongside MLK, but since he was openly gay, his contribution to the civil rights movment is often ignored.)
Friday, March 13, 2009
Not So Seriously, Folks
Okay, in order to get a blog posted before midnight (in order to keep my self-imposed rule about posting everyday in lent---sorry to make you suffer my self-imposed rule), I'm just going to be silly for a moment. (During lent? I know . . . )
So, given that the real issue with the ban on gay and lesbian clergy is on the expression of their same-sex attraction (because, technically, you can be an out gay man or lesbian and still get ordained so long as you promise not to have sex, ever), I want to just ask some questions.
How far does this go?
I think it's a given that any genital activity is forbidden. I think that's clear.
But how about holding hands? Could two men hold hands? How about those handshakes where the clasping lasts a little too long?
Or say two women rent a movie and watch it together at one's house. Can they sit on the love seat together? Can they sit closely, leaning on each other? Would putting an arm around a shoulder while watching a romantic comedy be enough to get one removed from the ELCA roster?
Can a man gently caress another man's cheek?
Can a woman nuzzle another woman's neck during a hug?
Does one have to shut down emotionally around people of their own sex and never look lovingly at them? Does a clergy person have to report a crush?
Because, frankly, all of the above is expressing my sexuality and none of it has to involve nudity, much less genitalia.
If I found a man who would sleep in another room, never let me see or touch him (and vice versa) while he was nude, but might touch my cheek tenderly now and then . . . could I have that and be on the ELCA roster?
Just asking.
(and the little clock in the corner of my computer screen tells me it's 12:03. Rats. Didn't make it, even by being less serious.)
So, given that the real issue with the ban on gay and lesbian clergy is on the expression of their same-sex attraction (because, technically, you can be an out gay man or lesbian and still get ordained so long as you promise not to have sex, ever), I want to just ask some questions.
How far does this go?
I think it's a given that any genital activity is forbidden. I think that's clear.
But how about holding hands? Could two men hold hands? How about those handshakes where the clasping lasts a little too long?
Or say two women rent a movie and watch it together at one's house. Can they sit on the love seat together? Can they sit closely, leaning on each other? Would putting an arm around a shoulder while watching a romantic comedy be enough to get one removed from the ELCA roster?
Can a man gently caress another man's cheek?
Can a woman nuzzle another woman's neck during a hug?
Does one have to shut down emotionally around people of their own sex and never look lovingly at them? Does a clergy person have to report a crush?
Because, frankly, all of the above is expressing my sexuality and none of it has to involve nudity, much less genitalia.
If I found a man who would sleep in another room, never let me see or touch him (and vice versa) while he was nude, but might touch my cheek tenderly now and then . . . could I have that and be on the ELCA roster?
Just asking.
(and the little clock in the corner of my computer screen tells me it's 12:03. Rats. Didn't make it, even by being less serious.)
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Shame
Years ago, when I was first coming out, a friend was doing her own work of dealing with some childhood sexual abuse. As I was telling her some of my story, she responded with a spontaneous, "That's like being abused!"
She then started to apologize, saying she shouldn't equate abuse with sexual orientation, but I understood what her response. We talked some more and came to realize that we were both given situations over which we were powerless to do anything about (forced sex, minority sexual attraction), that we were both coming to terms with our powerlessness over those situations, even coming to terms with our own individual "okay-ness" despite these circumstances, and, perhaps most importantly, we were both learning how to talk about them despite a lot of feedback, verbal and nonverbal, that a lot of people just didn't want to hear to about it.
"Well, okay, so that's how it is for you, but can you just not talk about it? It makes us uncomfortable."
Shame is such a subtle, complex thing. Dorothee Soelle said she believed Germany needed to hold onto it's national shame over the Holocaust, as she felt it was a logical response to that event and it would hold off the national pride that led to it. Having felt shame over something I have no control, I might argue with her, that generations that were not alive for the Holocaust maybe ought not to be held responsible for it, or at least should not be made to feel shame as if they were present at the event. (Although, as I type that, I wonder if this isn't a big part of traditional lenten spirituality---accepting responsibility for the crucifixion of Jesus because of our sins. Hmmm . . . .)
All I know is that I have felt the shame that comes from being told I shouldn't feel the attractions I feel, even when I spent a good many years trying very hard not to feel them. I know my friend felt the shame of being taken advantage of by a powerful member of her family. We both know the shame of finding out that even well-meaning, otherwise supportive friends telling us we shouldn't talk about it so much. "It's not anyone's business," we're told.
Except those type of comments are ultimately not supportive. They say, "If someone uses that information against you, it's your fault for putting it out there." I know, as I was coming out and making my first public statements of who I was at about the same time Matthew Shepard was murdered, I heard "If someone beats you up, it's because you wouldn't remain silent."
Keeping secrets is a very stressful, shame-creating thing. We all keep them, some of them are indeed keep for good reason and I know I have kept them for the sake of other people. (A saying from the Desert Fathers teaches that when we hide the sin of a brother or sister, God also covers our sins, but when we expose another's sin, so will God reveal our sins.) There have been careers and families that I have protected by keeping secrets.
But in my case and in the case of my friend, the secrets we keep are not the result of our sin, even though we are often made to feel it is so. It took me until my 30s to understand that what I felt was really no different from what many men felt---I just felt it toward a different gender. It took my friend until her 40s to understand that having her virginity stolen from her didn't make her a dirty, damaged girl.
I bring this up because I've been a little surprised by how some of these feelings are resurfacing as I'm actively thinking about being gay and Christian, more actively writing about it than I have in years. I'm finding keeping this lenten blog is taking me back to some rather dark times of my life, times I'd rather leave behind, I'd rather not talk about, I'd rather keep secret and hidden. They make me uncomfortable.
Internalized homophobia is alive and well and playing in my head.
I bring this up despite an internal urge to keep silent about it (ah Neil, your life has been so much easier than most, stop yer whining!) because I'm finding this blog is costing me something more than the time to write it everyday (save Sundays). I'm finding that digging around in some of my history and my feelings about being a member of the ELCA are becoming something of a weight on these forty days.
And this reinforces why I need to do it. What better time to do it than lent?
It certainly increases a desire for resurrection.
She then started to apologize, saying she shouldn't equate abuse with sexual orientation, but I understood what her response. We talked some more and came to realize that we were both given situations over which we were powerless to do anything about (forced sex, minority sexual attraction), that we were both coming to terms with our powerlessness over those situations, even coming to terms with our own individual "okay-ness" despite these circumstances, and, perhaps most importantly, we were both learning how to talk about them despite a lot of feedback, verbal and nonverbal, that a lot of people just didn't want to hear to about it.
"Well, okay, so that's how it is for you, but can you just not talk about it? It makes us uncomfortable."
Shame is such a subtle, complex thing. Dorothee Soelle said she believed Germany needed to hold onto it's national shame over the Holocaust, as she felt it was a logical response to that event and it would hold off the national pride that led to it. Having felt shame over something I have no control, I might argue with her, that generations that were not alive for the Holocaust maybe ought not to be held responsible for it, or at least should not be made to feel shame as if they were present at the event. (Although, as I type that, I wonder if this isn't a big part of traditional lenten spirituality---accepting responsibility for the crucifixion of Jesus because of our sins. Hmmm . . . .)
All I know is that I have felt the shame that comes from being told I shouldn't feel the attractions I feel, even when I spent a good many years trying very hard not to feel them. I know my friend felt the shame of being taken advantage of by a powerful member of her family. We both know the shame of finding out that even well-meaning, otherwise supportive friends telling us we shouldn't talk about it so much. "It's not anyone's business," we're told.
Except those type of comments are ultimately not supportive. They say, "If someone uses that information against you, it's your fault for putting it out there." I know, as I was coming out and making my first public statements of who I was at about the same time Matthew Shepard was murdered, I heard "If someone beats you up, it's because you wouldn't remain silent."
Keeping secrets is a very stressful, shame-creating thing. We all keep them, some of them are indeed keep for good reason and I know I have kept them for the sake of other people. (A saying from the Desert Fathers teaches that when we hide the sin of a brother or sister, God also covers our sins, but when we expose another's sin, so will God reveal our sins.) There have been careers and families that I have protected by keeping secrets.
But in my case and in the case of my friend, the secrets we keep are not the result of our sin, even though we are often made to feel it is so. It took me until my 30s to understand that what I felt was really no different from what many men felt---I just felt it toward a different gender. It took my friend until her 40s to understand that having her virginity stolen from her didn't make her a dirty, damaged girl.
I bring this up because I've been a little surprised by how some of these feelings are resurfacing as I'm actively thinking about being gay and Christian, more actively writing about it than I have in years. I'm finding keeping this lenten blog is taking me back to some rather dark times of my life, times I'd rather leave behind, I'd rather not talk about, I'd rather keep secret and hidden. They make me uncomfortable.
Internalized homophobia is alive and well and playing in my head.
I bring this up despite an internal urge to keep silent about it (ah Neil, your life has been so much easier than most, stop yer whining!) because I'm finding this blog is costing me something more than the time to write it everyday (save Sundays). I'm finding that digging around in some of my history and my feelings about being a member of the ELCA are becoming something of a weight on these forty days.
And this reinforces why I need to do it. What better time to do it than lent?
It certainly increases a desire for resurrection.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Picking and Choosing Verses
Jesus looked at him and loved him. "One thing you lack," he said. "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." Mark 10:21
Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Luke 6:30
Where is the moral outrage (not to mention thousands of dollars and hours spent agonizing) over the non-literal observation of verses like the above?
(An easy target, I know, but all I have time for today. And still pertinent to the discussion, I say.)
Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Luke 6:30
Where is the moral outrage (not to mention thousands of dollars and hours spent agonizing) over the non-literal observation of verses like the above?
(An easy target, I know, but all I have time for today. And still pertinent to the discussion, I say.)
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Not My Words Today
Back when I was in seminary, I remember one day when Dr. Floyd explained some things about biblical prophecy that cleared up some things for me and made a whole lot more sense than the Hal Lindsey school of prophecy that I'd previously bought into. (Yes, I was a teenage fan of The Late Great Planet Earth---so many shameful things in my past.) I raised my hand, feeling the world changing even as I did so. I said to Dr. Floyd, "I've been an active member of the church from the time I could walk. Sunday school, confirmation, Luther League, Lutheran Campus Ministry, continuous church attendance. Why is this the first time I'm hearing this?" I was a bit indignant and Dr. Floyd admitted he didn't know why this information didn't make it to the pews, but it had been taught for a very long time.
Yesterday, my friend Candace Chellew-Hodge wrote a piece for Religion Dispatches that addresses this similar phenomenon. So today, I offer a link to her words. I think they are pertinent to what I'm trying to get at throughout lent.
http://www.religiondispatches.org/blog/religionandtheology/1203/clergy_cowardice/
(Candace is the author of Bulletproof Faith, which I referenced a few days ago, and also the editor/founder of Whosoever, an online webzine for GLBT Christians.)
Yesterday, my friend Candace Chellew-Hodge wrote a piece for Religion Dispatches that addresses this similar phenomenon. So today, I offer a link to her words. I think they are pertinent to what I'm trying to get at throughout lent.
http://www.religiondispatches.org/blog/religionandtheology/1203/clergy_cowardice/
(Candace is the author of Bulletproof Faith, which I referenced a few days ago, and also the editor/founder of Whosoever, an online webzine for GLBT Christians.)
Monday, March 9, 2009
Run for the Hills
I'm on a listserv of GLBT Christians (well, maybe more than one), and one day someone posted this bit of verbal self-defense. I don't remember now if it was original with the poster or if it was something she had seen elsewhere.
But it went something like this: Someone starts railing about how GLBT folk are going to bring down fire from heaven, that God was going to send wrath and destruction upon whatever community the railer was defending from the evils of GLBT presence. So the GLBT person replies, "Then why aren't you running for the hills?" Sort of stops the railing short, but to follow up, we might ask, "If you've received a word from the Lord that wrath and fire are about to rain down upon us, why aren't you packing up like Lot and his family and getting the hell out of Sodom? Could it be that you don't believe your own threats?"
I think it's a pretty clever response.
And it brings up the question: What's the worst that can happen? What are we really afraid of, as a corporate body, that will happen if we start ordaining GLBT folk who are in committed same-sex relationships? What's the fear of holding marriage ceremonies in our worship spaces? What do we think will happen?
I don't say that opponents to this idea are expecting fire raining down from heaven. I suspect the fear is something much more subtle, and may simply be a fear of something unusual. I don't think anyone really believes that people will start demanding legal marriage status with their poodles (although people do make provisions for their pets in wills---something that gets contested in same-sex relationships, so maybe we already recognize a closer bond between people and their pets than we do between same-sex couples? I'm being---a little---facetious).
I've heard people ask, "what do we tell the children?" I say, "what do you tell children when a man and a woman get married?" I mean, the smallest kids get marriage without knowing the mechanics of it all, from legal responsibilities to bedroom activities. I think kids can understand, "most men marry women and most women marry men, but sometimes a man marries a man and sometimes a woman marries a woman." That's all the explanation that needs to be made, it seems to me. I certainly don't hope adults are explaining male-female marriage with descriptions of the honeymoon! Or even by outlining the legal ramifications of the marriage contract.
But back to the point of this post: What is really the fear? Angering God? Well, okay, I suppose if your God is an angry, punishing God, I can see that, but, you know, we seem to be less concerned about angering God when we trade in a perfectly good car for the latest model simply because we can afford the latest model---while hungry people live in the community. So why do we believe God is angrier about a woman marrying a woman than about hungry neighbors?
Why aren't we all running for the hills?
But it went something like this: Someone starts railing about how GLBT folk are going to bring down fire from heaven, that God was going to send wrath and destruction upon whatever community the railer was defending from the evils of GLBT presence. So the GLBT person replies, "Then why aren't you running for the hills?" Sort of stops the railing short, but to follow up, we might ask, "If you've received a word from the Lord that wrath and fire are about to rain down upon us, why aren't you packing up like Lot and his family and getting the hell out of Sodom? Could it be that you don't believe your own threats?"
I think it's a pretty clever response.
And it brings up the question: What's the worst that can happen? What are we really afraid of, as a corporate body, that will happen if we start ordaining GLBT folk who are in committed same-sex relationships? What's the fear of holding marriage ceremonies in our worship spaces? What do we think will happen?
I don't say that opponents to this idea are expecting fire raining down from heaven. I suspect the fear is something much more subtle, and may simply be a fear of something unusual. I don't think anyone really believes that people will start demanding legal marriage status with their poodles (although people do make provisions for their pets in wills---something that gets contested in same-sex relationships, so maybe we already recognize a closer bond between people and their pets than we do between same-sex couples? I'm being---a little---facetious).
I've heard people ask, "what do we tell the children?" I say, "what do you tell children when a man and a woman get married?" I mean, the smallest kids get marriage without knowing the mechanics of it all, from legal responsibilities to bedroom activities. I think kids can understand, "most men marry women and most women marry men, but sometimes a man marries a man and sometimes a woman marries a woman." That's all the explanation that needs to be made, it seems to me. I certainly don't hope adults are explaining male-female marriage with descriptions of the honeymoon! Or even by outlining the legal ramifications of the marriage contract.
But back to the point of this post: What is really the fear? Angering God? Well, okay, I suppose if your God is an angry, punishing God, I can see that, but, you know, we seem to be less concerned about angering God when we trade in a perfectly good car for the latest model simply because we can afford the latest model---while hungry people live in the community. So why do we believe God is angrier about a woman marrying a woman than about hungry neighbors?
Why aren't we all running for the hills?
Saturday, March 7, 2009
Ecumenical Dialogs
One of the harder realities of the GLBT presence in the church---any church---is the line we seem to draw in the sand for so many people. Questions about GLBT full participation quickly creates a "for" and an "against" camp, with a small camp of undecided.
There has been some concern expressed about how full participation of GLBT folk in the ELCA will affect ecumenical dialogs. The ELCA has long been an active participant, often instigator of discussions with other church bodies. Here in the U.S.A., I'm not convinced that this is a huge concern. Most churches likely to engage in dialog with us are also struggling with the issue---call me optimistic, but we might be leaders for other such denominations. Two bodies with whom we are in full communion, the United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church, are already ordaining openly GLBT folk. There is controversy there, to be sure, but it's already happening (in which case, we would be following their leadership). I have to express some real doubt that ordaining GLBT folk will have little effect on ecumenical dialogs with churches like Roman Catholic Church or the Orthodox Churches. Neither really fully recognizes anyone but their own kind and things like our ordination of women are already stumbling blocks between us. That we have any kind of friendly relationship with them is a grace, but I don't think there's much use in pretending that, short of our entire denomination turning to Rome or one of the Orthodox bishops, we're not likely to be in full communion with them anytime soon anyway. And as for other American Lutheran bodies, we might share a few social services in some parts of the country---and I that is significant cooperation---but we can't worship together, can't even share a prayer meeting together, and I don't believe that refraining from ordaining GLBT folk will improve those relationships anytime soon, either.
The place that is troubling for ecumenical relations in regard to GLBT folk is internationally. One of the most troubling things I read in Gene Robinson's book, In the Eye of the Storm, is that he was told (in what country, I don't recall just now) that Gene Robinson was equal to George W. Bush---arrogant Americans just doing whatever they pleased no matter what anyone else thought. In a discussion with my pastor, he pointed out that there would be strains on relationships with some Lutheran bodies in Africa and Asia, where Christianity often takes a hard line on many social topics.
These are more than just troubling to me. They grieve me. As I've said more than once, just in these blog entries, it doesn't make sense to me that I (and it's hard not to take it personally) am a divisive presence in the church.
At the same time, I don't know how to just simply say, okay, for the sake of unity, I'll be a second class participant in this church. Actually, I'm rather capable of doing that to myself---but I cannot say it for everyone, certainly not for the qualified candidates for ministry whose only detractor is that they're attracted to people of their own sex. I cannot say it for the next generation of GLBT Lutherans who will grow up in a church that doesn't regard them as worthy of full church participation. In fact, I have to say loudly, if with all the respect that I can muster, that for the sake of Asian and African GLBT youth, there needs to be a church somewhere in the world that models full acceptance.
Because there are GLBT youth in Africa and Asia, in the Lutheran churches in Africa and Asia, and if the ELCA's acceptance of GLBT folk into the ministry rosters damages relationships with those Lutheran churches, then at least there is a Lutheran witness for the youth (and maybe not so youthful) of those churches.
Because I'm sure most any gathering of GLBT folk will contain stories of teenage depression if not suicide attempts because they felt God did not love them, because they felt condemned by the church, because there were not voices in the world to say "you're okay, God loves you, God wants you." The ELCA might be very far from these churches in Asia and Africa and whatever other setbacks there might be in relationships with them, I'm optimistic enought to think we can be a light of hope to individuals in those churches until such a time that those churches might come around to full acceptance of GLBT folk.
Is this an arrogant American, doing what he wants, regardless of what anyone else thinks? I hope not. That's not my intention. (Hey, I was in Daley Square in Chicago the week before we invaded Iraq, saying with thousands of others that we don't want to be that sort of American!) But if God is calling us forward to full inclusion of GLBT folk in the life of the church, we have to move forward with humility and awareness that this will cause some trouble among church bodies---but do so with the hope and intention (and the work that has to go behind those hopes and intentions) that we are bringing Good News to the world.
There has been some concern expressed about how full participation of GLBT folk in the ELCA will affect ecumenical dialogs. The ELCA has long been an active participant, often instigator of discussions with other church bodies. Here in the U.S.A., I'm not convinced that this is a huge concern. Most churches likely to engage in dialog with us are also struggling with the issue---call me optimistic, but we might be leaders for other such denominations. Two bodies with whom we are in full communion, the United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church, are already ordaining openly GLBT folk. There is controversy there, to be sure, but it's already happening (in which case, we would be following their leadership). I have to express some real doubt that ordaining GLBT folk will have little effect on ecumenical dialogs with churches like Roman Catholic Church or the Orthodox Churches. Neither really fully recognizes anyone but their own kind and things like our ordination of women are already stumbling blocks between us. That we have any kind of friendly relationship with them is a grace, but I don't think there's much use in pretending that, short of our entire denomination turning to Rome or one of the Orthodox bishops, we're not likely to be in full communion with them anytime soon anyway. And as for other American Lutheran bodies, we might share a few social services in some parts of the country---and I that is significant cooperation---but we can't worship together, can't even share a prayer meeting together, and I don't believe that refraining from ordaining GLBT folk will improve those relationships anytime soon, either.
The place that is troubling for ecumenical relations in regard to GLBT folk is internationally. One of the most troubling things I read in Gene Robinson's book, In the Eye of the Storm, is that he was told (in what country, I don't recall just now) that Gene Robinson was equal to George W. Bush---arrogant Americans just doing whatever they pleased no matter what anyone else thought. In a discussion with my pastor, he pointed out that there would be strains on relationships with some Lutheran bodies in Africa and Asia, where Christianity often takes a hard line on many social topics.
These are more than just troubling to me. They grieve me. As I've said more than once, just in these blog entries, it doesn't make sense to me that I (and it's hard not to take it personally) am a divisive presence in the church.
At the same time, I don't know how to just simply say, okay, for the sake of unity, I'll be a second class participant in this church. Actually, I'm rather capable of doing that to myself---but I cannot say it for everyone, certainly not for the qualified candidates for ministry whose only detractor is that they're attracted to people of their own sex. I cannot say it for the next generation of GLBT Lutherans who will grow up in a church that doesn't regard them as worthy of full church participation. In fact, I have to say loudly, if with all the respect that I can muster, that for the sake of Asian and African GLBT youth, there needs to be a church somewhere in the world that models full acceptance.
Because there are GLBT youth in Africa and Asia, in the Lutheran churches in Africa and Asia, and if the ELCA's acceptance of GLBT folk into the ministry rosters damages relationships with those Lutheran churches, then at least there is a Lutheran witness for the youth (and maybe not so youthful) of those churches.
Because I'm sure most any gathering of GLBT folk will contain stories of teenage depression if not suicide attempts because they felt God did not love them, because they felt condemned by the church, because there were not voices in the world to say "you're okay, God loves you, God wants you." The ELCA might be very far from these churches in Asia and Africa and whatever other setbacks there might be in relationships with them, I'm optimistic enought to think we can be a light of hope to individuals in those churches until such a time that those churches might come around to full acceptance of GLBT folk.
Is this an arrogant American, doing what he wants, regardless of what anyone else thinks? I hope not. That's not my intention. (Hey, I was in Daley Square in Chicago the week before we invaded Iraq, saying with thousands of others that we don't want to be that sort of American!) But if God is calling us forward to full inclusion of GLBT folk in the life of the church, we have to move forward with humility and awareness that this will cause some trouble among church bodies---but do so with the hope and intention (and the work that has to go behind those hopes and intentions) that we are bringing Good News to the world.
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