Thomas and the Wounded Jesus

Easter Sunday was so wonderful. I was feeling joy at seeing so many show up for the O'Dark Early Easter Vigil. We had a delightful breakfast and I had managed to do an honorable job of chanting Eucharistic Prayer D, a major hurdle for this priest. The wrong notes I hit at the Vigil got fixed for the prinicipal service, and so all was good and right and joyful in my head.

And then came Easter Monday morning.

Images of panic, police tape. A shooting in Louisville, KY, not far from the church where my mentor serves as the rector.

Later that night, a text message from a parishioner I knew from my days at St. John's Tallahassee. She told me to Google the name of a state legislator. And when I did, I saw the video of his tirade calling people who had come to testify before a Florida House Committee, "mutants of the earth" "demons" and "imps." I looked further to see who he was addresssing.

Trans and non-binary youth. And their parents. 

I went to bed that Easter Monday evening with so much sadness in my heart. God's dream revealed on Sunday had so quickly been marred and changed back into the nightmare.

And I thought about Thomas, who hadn't seen Jesus. And I found I could relate to him in yet another way. 

+++

I love St. Thomas!

It’s always tickled me that the congregation that took me in…and raised me up to become a priest was named for St. Thomas.

Everyone gets on him for having doubts. But I don’t know that he really “doubts” Jesus… as much as he has a lot of questions about the stories his fellow apostles are telling him about Jesus.

And why wouldn’t he?

I mean… let’s think about this for a second.

Thomas… just like the others… knew Jesus had been killed.

He knew his body was in a tomb.

And when Jesus shows up the first time… Thomas wasn’t in the room.

We don’t know where he was… we just know that he wasn’t in that locked Upper Room.

If this was you or me… wouldn’t we also think our friends were a bit delusional if they started telling us that they had seen someone we knew was dead and that this dead someone had mysteriously appeared in this locked room?

It had to be hard.

My guess is that many of us have had our own Thomas moments… those times when our faith in the unseen takes a gut punch and we’re wondering if the God of Love is for real.

I can certainly understand people who feel their faith gets tested almost on a daily basis.

Just this past Easter Monday morning… fresh off that high of celebrating the resurrection and Jesus’ victory over the grave… a man shot to death five of his former coworkers at a bank in downtown Louisville.

Only blocks away from that shooting… a college student gunned down one of his classmates on a community college campus.

And there was yet another shooting last night at a park in Louisville.

Later that same Easter Monday morning… a state legislator in Florida unleashed a verbal attack on teenagers and their parents who had come to testify before a House committee…

He called them demons, imps, and mutants. All in the name of Christ. All because they were different from him.

Not exactly the way of keeping that Easter joy alive.

It’s sad that as we celebrate Jesus’ resurrection… events in the world remind us that there are those who would rather see him buried once and for all.  

Such things can and do challenge our faith.

The Christians of the early church were living in times that were equally as turbulent and fraught as our own.

Just like us… the circumstances around them…were disturbing and unsettling.

The Roman Empire had obliterated their Temple… a grounding point for the Sadducees and others.  

And then there was the internal struggle with their fellow Jews as the people of God began to disagree about whether the Messiah had actually come or not.

These early Christians didn’t know if their group was going to survive the various pressures on them.  

Like us… they were living at a time of anxiety and uncertainty.

And so the story of Thomas… which only shows up in John’s Gospel… is a story about them…and their angst.

A story which still resonates in our world today.

It’s into this place of heightened fear that we see Jesus enter with a simple:

“Peace be with you.”

Peace be with you all you nervous, scared, anxious, concerned people who see all that brokenness and despair all around you!

Peace be with you… and receive the breath of the Holy Spirit.

That Spirit which will keep you going through these trying times.

That was great for those in the room… for those who were already present.

But Thomas wasn’t there.

He missed this moment. And now he hears all the others carrying on and having their hope renewed…and it seems all too weird and improbable.

So Jesus comes back.

Have we ever wondered that Jesus came back?

Maybe because he knew Thomas was wanting to believe but needed more empirical evidence.

Jesus wants to help Thomas with any of his unbelief.

He doesn’t dismiss Thomas for wanting to know if this resurrected Jesus is for real.

Instead, he meets him in his questioning space and invites Thomas to touch his hands…place his palm in his side.

“This is really me, Thomas!”

But Thomas doesn’t need to do it.

Having seen the risen Christ… with a body still bearing the scars inflicted by his executioners… Thomas simply exclaims, “My Lord and My God!”

Jesus showed up for Thomas…for the apostles… and for us with all his wounds visible.

This is Jesus’ way of saying to Thomas… and to us… “If you’re wounded, so am I. I know pain. I know disillusionment. I am with you in this struggle. Believe!”

The Jesus who appears in the Upper Room to all the disciples including Thomas is not a perfect Jesus.

He still has holes from the nails.

He still has a pierced side.

As the Reverend William Adams notes…the Jesus who comes back to us is a wounded Jesus.

This is a God who understands intimately the ways in which we humans hurt and destroy one another.

Whether we use weapons or words… God knows and has experienced what we’re going through.

And God keeps coming back to us…wounds and all…to meet us…greet us in peace… and offer us the gift of life built on Love.

Not romantic love.

The love that is that living hope that no matter what… the joy of Easter is not going to get locked up in a tomb.

This Love has a vision of a world where each of us can see that spark of the Holy Spirit in one another.

This is a Love that guides us into that truth that we are all the adopted children of God.

And that Love is the engine which drives us toward engaging in our community to move us away from the hatred, violence, and division that seem to be our constant companions.

St. Paul describes Love in his First Letter to the Corinthians.

He reminds us that Love “isn’t boastful, or arrogant, or rude. But bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.” (1 Cor. 13:4b; 7). 

This the Love that shows up for Thomas…for the apostles and for us…wounds and all.

In the name of God… F/S/HS.

 

"Welcome Home": Remembering Matthew Shepherd

Matthew Shepherd's remains have finally found eternal rest at the Washington National Cathedral, twenty years since a brutal murder in a Wyoming field sent his soul home to God.

I will never forget where I was when I learned the news of the attack on Matthew Shepherd. I was sitting at the traffic light at Magnolia Drive heading east on Apalachee Parkway. I was listening to NPR at the top of the hour and the news anchor announced that there had been a murder in Wyoming. A young man had been brutally killed, tied to a fence to die. His crime deserving of this gruesome death: he was a gay man.

And I wept. Twenty years later, I still weep.

Words cannot adequately capture all the emotions swirling inside me as I came to honor his life and the legacy that rose up out that act of senseless violence. To see Bishop Gene Robinson carrying Shepherd's ashes in the procession had multiple levels of powerful meaning. I found myself brought back in time to 1998. Gene Robinson was still Canon to the Ordinary in New Hampshire. It would be another five years later that he would be elected the ninth bishop of New Hampshire and my otherwise sweet and somewhat mild-mannered Episcopal diocese of my childhood would be attacked from all corners of the Anglican Communion, and +Gene would receive hundreds of death threats and have to put on a bulletproof vest every time he presided. Bishop Gene shared that on the day of his consecration in November, 2003, he received a note of encouragement from Judy Shepherd, the mother of Matthew. A connection was made. 

In 1998, I had already gone into exile from the Episcopal Church in Tallahassee. The traditional welcome signs had already disappeared at St. John's in downtown Tallahassee. In their place, an eagle that looked straight out of the Third Reich adored the corners of the church. It was truth-in-advertising: not everyone was welcome and the LGBTQ community most certainly was not. I was covering the Florida legislature where I regularly had to deal with lawmakers who had no problem telling gay teenagers visiting their offices that they were going to Hell, or looking this particular reporter in the eyes and gleefully talking of their latest piece of legislation that would attack the gay community. These were the years when I really should have been able to turn to the church.

Fast-forward to sitting in Washington National Cathedral today and being twenty years beyond that time. And all the things that have happened in between. There are far more people willing to be out and visible as LGBTQ and there are more straight people who are OK with the likes of me. Hard-earned rights such as marriage equality have been won, and lots of Fortune 500 companies were ahead of the government on recognizing the partners of their LGBTQ employees. In the Episcopal Church, there has been a sea change in the number of outwardly-queer clergy in the church, and there have been changes in the canons to live into the words spoken by former Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning: "in our church there will be no outcasts."

But progress doesn't happen without more struggle. I couldn't help but remember that Matthew Shepherd's death would be followed by one of the most deadly mass shootings in the history of the country at an Orlando gay night club on "Latin Night." And as Bishop Robinson mentioned in the sermon, Matthew Shepherd's murder was preceded that year by another grisly hate crime involving the dragging death of a black man, James Byrd, in Texas. Even though Matthew Shepherd felt welcomed and included in his Episcopal Church, not all Episcopal Churches or dioceses are equally welcoming.

I have quoted before the words from Judaism's Pirkei Avot that "it is not our duty to complete the work but neither are we excused from doing it." We owe it to the generations growing up today to break up the boulders of prejudice and hatred that keep blocking our forward progress. Those boulders are becoming larger and more formidable in today's Trump-inspired climate of trash talking and viciousness toward "the other." But that means it's time to switch out the pick ax for the heavy machinery. And we need to be willing to do it. As Bishop Robinson says that begins with the fundamental act of voting.

Matthew Shepherd's remains have now been laid to rest in a safe and public place. It is too bad his life could not be kept safe in public spaces in Wyoming 20 years ago. Let us not allow his death to be an ending but a beginning for some and a recommitment from others to equal justice for all, no matter "whose arms they're wrapped up in."* Today was a beautiful homecoming for the entire Shepherd family. May God continue to stay with them and make Love's presence known.

****
*paraphrase of Randi Driscoll's lyrics, "What Matters" sung as a prelude at the service.

Pulse: A Year Later

The bells of St. John's Episcopal Church solemnly tolled 49 times at noon today, the one year anniversary of the deadly hate crime committed against the black and Latinx LGBTQ+ community in Orlando's Pulse nightclub. Each echoing ring a remembrance of one of the people killed that night by a twisted and angry individual armed with an assault rifle. The attack shocked all of us who identify as LGBTQ+ because clubs such as Pulse have traditionally been the places that have harbored us, especially when we are young and just beginning to understand our orientation and identity.

I lit a rainbow candle and then sat quietly on a bench in the church's columbarium, closing my eyes to pray as the bells sounded. I couldn't remember all the names of the dead, but I could remember their faces. Most were so young, not even yet 30 years old. And there was the one name and face I could remember: Brenda Lee Marquez McCool, a mother of eleven children and a two-time breast cancer survivor who had gone out to the Latin Night at Pulse with her gay son. They were there to celebrate Orlando's Pride Week. When the gunman began his shooting spree, Brenda reportedly told her son to get down, and put her body in the way of the bullets. I began to sob, my tears co-mingling with the misty rain.

How much more death?
How much more grief?
How little progress have we made since that horrible night?
How? How? How?

Even since Pulse, there still have been violent shooting incidents in this country. None with same body count, but every incident--in Illinois, Texas, California, New York, Alabama--all of those killed had a family that is left to bury their dead and grieve that loss.

There was no will power to address the issue during the Obama administration. And now, we have the NRA's poster child in the White House, and federal lawmakers are actually proposing legislation to relax some of the restrictions on guns. Even Florida Congressman Neal Dunn (R-D2) has signed on to a bill to make it easier to purchase silencers. In our state legislature, there were twice as many pro-gun laws proposed to the ones that were gun control measures. Thankfully, a couple of Republican lawmakers from South Florida complained of "gun fatigue" which resulted in many of the bills dying quietly in committee.

But for Florida to have done nothing to address gun violence after Pulse is...well...repulsive. If any state should be taking the lead on limiting people's access to these weapons of warfare such as the one used at Pulse it should be Florida. I'm losing patience with politicians who want to offer their remembrances of this tragic day.  I would rather they use the power given to them by the voters to do something constructive to stem the violence. No citizen needs to own an AR-15 or any other multiple-shooting device. There is also technology in the works that will make it harder for someone other than the actual owner of a weapon to fire it. These types of technological developments deserve funding and support.

As the bells finished tolling, and I wiped away my tears, I felt a sense of peace come over me. I prayed the Lord's Prayer with special emphasis...

Our Father who art in heaven
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come 
thy will be done 
on earth as it is in heaven. 
Give us this day our daily bread
and forgive us our trespasses 
as we forgive those who trespass against us. 
And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.

The Mighty Force of Love

There's been a lot said this week and a lot shared on social media about the horrible crime at Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Many of us in the LGBTQ+ community have struggled with staying focused at work in between bouts of sobbing and the mental fog that descends when you are in grief. Grief is like that. It suspends all time, manner, and place as it puts you in an other-worldly in-between space of neither here nor there.

I have appreciated the posts where gay people attempt to explain to the straight community why we who are LGBTQ+ feel this tragedy on a personal level. It is a rare person who comes out as gay, lesbian, bi, or transgender who has not been to a gay nightclub and considers such places to be a refuge from a harsh and hating world. Every one of us could see in the faces of the victims our own selves as well as seeing the individual young and joyful eyes of so many Latinx who were embracing life and celebrating Pride Week in America's theme park city. When we expressed "We are Orlando" that's what we meant.

I also have appreciated those expressions from straight friends struggling to find words and ways to express their profound sorrow about this hate crime. For some of them, it has come in the form of wanting to offer prayers, attend the vigils, give free hugs. For others it has been to express their outrage that we've had another mass shooting in America and the demand that we not ignore the carnage or worry that "now is not the time" to talk about the growing problem of gun violence. At long last, some of my friends who are gun enthusiasts are now raising the same questions I've had forever about the wide and easy availability of certain weapons and the lobby that blocks any study of gun violence from happening. I see in these responses that effort to channel into action feelings of "What can I do?" To not feel helpless in a helpless situation.

Still, there have been those whose response to the terribleness of this shooting was to do one of two other things: attempt to turn away from the real fact that this was a targeted killing of LGBTQ+ people of color and make it about terrorism (a claim that has now been refuted by our own intelligence sources) and to otherwise not speak the name of "gay" or "queer" or "LGBTQ+" but generically refer to the 49 dead as "victims" or "humans." The other was to want to do what I call "turning the spotlight" on themselves by insisting that (fill-in-the-name) minority group has, in fact, been killed in greater numbers than what happened at Pulse in one night, as if there was something to be gained in taking the prize for "worst mass shooting ever."

For me, the biggest hurt has been in how the church and Christians specifically have responded. A hate-filled pastor in California puts up a video saying that more of us should have died. That he claims the mantle of Christ is offensive to me. And then why anyone who professes a belief in Jesus Christ would feel the need to share videos or reports about these anti-gay remarks of an off-the-wall pastor was mind-boggling. Atheists, naturally, would share such a thing so as to highlight the hypocrites in their contention that all Christians are hypocrites.

In response to those irresponsible and hateful words, I shared this Facebook video by Fr. Jim Martin, a Jesuit Roman Catholic priest to show that face of Christianity that is not homophobic. His words are of far greater value, in my opinion, and deserve to be shared. Because the true test of one's faithfulness to Christ is the ability to enter into the pain and suffering of the injured, the despondent, the grieving and the hurting person without condition and without the need to shift the spotlight onto one's self or to keep one's self aloof and apart. The words of Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew, "Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest," is the type of invitation that many of us would be happy to accept from those who profess to be followers of Christ. Shoulder this grief with us, give us the space to feel and breathe again. And above all else, refute the attempts to whitewash this tragedy by acknowledging this  was about hatred of gay people. Just like the shooting at this time last year inside Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston was about the calculated killing of black people. It's all about hate and fear of those painted by some politicians and church leaders as "others."

I am more convinced than ever that the reason the LGBTQ+ population was a target in this crime and why we are trotted out every two-to-four years to be vilified and made into demons in the political spectrum is because we are a community built on love.

Because we love we are hated and feared.

Because we love those who dwell in darkness are always attempting to douse our light.

Because we love the peddlers of destruction and death project their own brokenness unto us and then scream, "A-ha!"

Jesus, who was the queerest person in every sense of the word in the whole Bible in my opinion, knows the odds that the LGBTQ+ community faces because he, too, was killed by a world that was too scared and threatened to accept that he loved and wanted everyone to love. Obviously, the world hasn't changed that much. And yet, it is the Christian narrative of Jesus' resurrection and his power to overcome death that serves as a source of strength for me in my commitment and belief that Love is going to win. Always. Even when it suffers punches and body blows, it will prevail.

Time to commit to love more deeply and strongly than ever before.

Sins of the Past Revisited

"The repeated Johns Committee assaults on my integrity and my worthiness as a human being left permanent emotional scars.  To this day, my emotions are undergirded by dark feelings of unworthiness; of being "less than" when compared with others.  While one learns to cope with these feelings, they never truly go away.  For me, that is the true legacy of this dark period in the social history of our country.  Hopefully, enlightenment and eternal vigilance will preclude its return."--Art Copleston, one of the victims of the Johns Committee.

During this month of LGBTQI Pride activities around the country, it is fairly customary to pause and reflect on the road that we have traveled to get to the places we are now.  Such was the case last night at the Mickee Faust Club, where we screened a 30-minute documentary called, "Behind Closed Doors: The Dark Legacy of the Johns Committee."  The film, done as a thesis project by a University of Florida journalism student in 2000, tells the story of the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee headed by State Senator Charley Johns of Starke.  Johns had recently been defeated for Governor (he was serving in place of Governor Dan McCarty who had died in office), and had returned to the Florida Senate where he decided to make his legacy starting this committee of legislators, lawyers, and law enforcement officers to root out Florida's criminal element.  "Criminal element" is a euphemism for "civil rights leaders, communists and homosexuals."  
The group first went after the membership records of the NAACP.  The NAACP mounted a formidable resistance, fighting the committee in court, all the way to U.S. Supreme Court which said the organization did not have to turn over its membership list.  Having been stymied in this effort, they went to the group that had no defenders: the lesbian and gay community of Florida.  And for the period from about 1958-1965, the Johns Committee made the lives of gays and lesbians in public schools, universities and state government a living hell.  At Florida State, investigators would throw parties hoping to entrap gay male students.  They also patrolled the Greyhound bus station.  Students were either expelled or they were enlisted to become informants for the committee.  Professors were hauled out of classes by investigators and interrogated for hours in motel rooms.  It was state-sanctioned terror.

Part of what brought the committee's work to end was the publication of its infamous "Homosexuality and Citizenship in Florida" booklet, which was designed to shock the sensibilities of Floridians.  Instead, "The purple pamphlet" (so nicknamed because the cover was a swirl of purple) offended lawmakers who couldn't believe that Johns used taxpayer dollars to make a soft porn publication, complete with a glossary of terms and suggestive photos of anonymous gay sex and bondage.  

There was another factor that helped end the activities of the Johns Committee.  The population of Florida was shifting more to the south which meant there was a growing number of urban, and more urbane, up and coming lawmakers coming to the state Capitol.  And when the Johns Committee decided to go after gays and lesbians at the newly-created University of South Florida campus, legislators from the Tampa area, including former Congressman Sam Gibbons, were furious.  The committee's work came to a close in 1965, and Senator Johns moved to have the records sealed until December 31, 2028.   However, voters in 1992, passed a state constitutional amendment affirming our desire for open records which forced the release of the Johns Committee's work product, all 30,000+ pages of it.  Today, those records are maintained at the Florida State archives in the R.A. Gray building.

 As I thought about this record of past sins, I kept reflecting on the message I received above from Art Copleston, one of the students at the University of Florida who ended up on the wrong side of the Johns Committee.  He shared with me that he's soon going to be turning 82, and has lived a full and rewarding life as a gay man.  And yet, he expresses the fact that he's learned to cope with the feelings of inadequacy from that period where he was interrogated and made to feel as if he was a "pervert" in need of "help."  Those feelings are still there for him.  And it made me realize that there are many of us, perhaps even a whole generation, who, despite the confidence we have and our sense that we are good and right, we are somehow a "less than."  Even as our society evolves in its thinking on LGBTQI rights, the Governor of Texas and his state Republican Party are saying that we're like alcoholics, diseased and in need of a cure.  Our own Attorney General in Florida says to grant us the civil rights of marriage would do irreparable harm to the state.  And let's not even talk about what various faith communities, and bishops, might say about our righteous selves.  Sadly, these sins are still with us today.

When I wrote back to Art, I told him the truth as I know it:  he never was a "less than," and he still isn't today.  It doesn't matter what the committee's investigators told him.   I can only hope that when his days on earth come to an end, he will find himself standing with the other saints, Harvey Milk, Bayard Rustin, Stormé DeLarverie,and the many others and be finally freed from any lingering doubts that he is loved exactly as he is without an asterisk.  

Celebrating Pride in Faith; The Call to Action

I know what you're thinking: Pride Week? In April?   These are the accomodations the community makes in Tallahassee where there are three college campuses, and June is so hot and humid that to own a sauna is really kind of redundant.

One of the highlights of the week for me has been the interfaith service.  The one in Tallahassee is truly INTERfaith: Jewish, Evangelical Christian, B'hai, Pagan, Quaker, Lutheran, Episcopalian, MCC, United Church of Christ, and Unitarian Universalists all gathered under the roof of Temple Israel as one call to recognizing the LGBT spirituality in all of those (and many more) traditions.

Again, I participated to make sure that the Episcopal Church was present and accounted for in this assembly.  As you may recall from my post "Wanting Memories," I basically went to the mat with my clergy to be allowed to represent our parish in the service.  It was a really ugly fight, from my standpoint, and one which so deeply hurt me that I couldn't bear going through that hell again. So, rather than asking any of the local Episcopal clergy to participate, I offered that I would stand in, along with with Mtr. Phoebe of the Church of the Ascension in Carrabelle, and do a portion of the service.   I shared all of this with my spiritual director who, after many questions, finally took out the two-by-four and asked if she was allowed to "come play."

"Oh, you want to take part in the service?" the directee asked, stupidly.  And after getting whalloped by the two-by-four, offered that I would check with the group, and that I was sure they wouldn't mind.

The service had three sections.  The first was presenting and celebrating our past and standing on the shoulders of giants.  The second was our present time, and seeing where there were still pockets of resistance to the recognition and respect of all people.  And the third was lifting up the giants of our future. 

The "Episcoposse," as I like to call us, were to start the section on the present.  My charge was to lay the foundation of the section as a "call to action" or "what can people of faith do to lift up those being laid low by laws and prejudice."   Many people had enjoyed what Mtr. Phoebe and I presented last year but I didn't want us to do a repeat of the same thing.  I knew we needed something to engage the congregation; it is not the Episcopal liturgical way to let people sit and be passive.  And so, after some thought, I proposed that we steal a page out of Morning Prayer and offer suffrages with a concluding collect.  And, after some prayer and stillness, I took a first crack at what would be our offering which then my spiritual director, Mtr. Galen Mirate, spruced up and nuanced. 

Finally, and again after prayerful meditation and listening to the guidance of the Divine, I wrote out my opening "homily" which preceded the suffrages and collect.  Here's what we presented:

 

The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the broken-hearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;

These words from the prophet Isaiah were the same ones that Jesus read from the scroll in the presence of many at the Temple.  They are the call to action for all people of faith as we encounter our world of haves versus’ have-nots.  Equal rights for some but not others.  And the real dangers of LGBT people living in countries where governments, with the backing of religious authorities, enact laws that threaten our lives with imprisonment and even death.

Giants, such as David Kato in Kampala, Uganda, who led the group Sexual Minorities of Uganda, have been killed in the cause to bring freedom to the oppressed in his country.  He dared to be outspoken, and to stand up for what was his right… and the rights of all people to be treated with respect and dignity.  His death must not be in vain.

The countless numbers of transgender people who are sometimes brutally killed that we remember each November are a reminder that gender identity and living outside the binary understanding of male and female poses a threat to some.  Their deaths must not be in vain.

Immigration laws that threaten to divide binational LGBT couples are another casualty of our growing hodgepodge of laws on the issue of who can be married in this country.  Inequality under the law must not continue.

We have come a long way, but we have so much further to go.   And it will take all people of faith to put on the mantle of light and the prophet and speak truth to power… both in the houses of our government and our houses of worship.  It is our calling to allow our mouths and our bodies to become the vehicle through which Love can cast out the fear that keeps us down.

May this calling to courageous acts of Love be fulfilled in your hearing.

 

 

Mtr. Phoebe: We pray in peace and call upon the Spirit to whom all hearts are open, all desires known: silence

Mtr. Phoebe: Comfort and succor those who have suffered rejection from their family, friends and faith communities

All: May they forge new bonds of affection here on earth and be nourished by the unconditional love of the Almighty from heaven.

Mtr. Galen: Protect those who suffer violence because of their sexual orientation or gender identity, both here and abroad

All: Shield and defend them from the forces that seek to do them harm, and turn the hearts of those who would oppress them.

Mtr. Phoebe: Grant courage and strength to those who live in fear of revealing their true selves

All: Give them hope in their struggles and assurance of your great love.

Mtr. Galen: Empower those allies who stand with their lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender brothers and sisters

All: That they are uplifted and inspired by the Spirit Who drives them to cry out for justice.

Mtr. Phoebe: Preserve all people who have entered into loving and committed relationships

All: And direct the nations of the world to recognize marriage equality for all.

Mtr. Galen: Lead all of us from prejudice to truth, from blindness to clarity, from apathy to compassion

All: And melt our hearts of stone into hearts of flesh, as we strive to become instruments of Divine transformation.

A Collect for Action

Almighty God of our many understandings, you have called us to follow your example of love and bind the wounds of those who have suffered rejection in your name; place in our hearts the power to love; place in our mouths the power to enlighten; place in our minds the power to understand. Let our knowledge of your truth give us the wisdom and strength to turn bitter injustice into loving acceptance, and guide the people of the world towards the path of greater inclusivity, where all may live in peace. In the Name of your great love for us, we ask it all. Amen.

The service concluded with the Pagans leading those who wanted to do it in a chant and spiral dance to raise the energy and send it out into the world.  May that carry us forward to keep doing the courageous acts of Love that will change the hearts and minds of many more people.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Remembrance of Harvey Milk

Gay rights activist and San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk was gunned down on this day at San Francisco City Hall in 1978.  His assailant was fellow Supervisor Dan White who also shot and killed mayor George Moscone.  I was only ten years old at the time, but I was a quirky kid in that I paid attention to the news, and so I did hear about it even as I played with Legos on the living room floor.  It was shocking, and even more shocking days later when we'd hear that it was the Twinkies that made Dan White do it.

Milk, who was a firebrand, once said, "If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door."  It may not have destroyed every closet door, but his life, his passion, and his entry into the political arena, makes him one of the many saints of our LGBT civil rights struggle that has led to U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, as well as countless other openly-gay elected officials.  How sweet it is to know that the state who produced the hate-filled Save Our Children campaign of Anita Bryant now has two openly-gay state representatives!

"And the young gay people in the Altoona, Pennsylvanias and the Richmond, Minnesotas who are coming out and hear Anita Bryant on television and her story. The only thing they have to look forward to is hope. And you have to give them hope. Hope for a better world, hope for a better tomorrow, hope for a better place to come to if the pressures at home are too great. Hope that all will be all right."--Harvey Milk, March 10, 1978.

Hope is out there, it's very visible.  Let's be brave and embrace it!

Joys and Sorrows

As with any lead-in period to a holiday, it seems that time speeds up, and there's no chance to slow down and do such important things as post on one's blog! :-)

Yesterday was definitely one of those whirlwind days.   Fortunately for me, my schedule was totally clear which meant I could go here, there, and everywhere, without much trouble.  My day started with the morning realization that our new state legislature would be sworn in that morning.  Normally, I would thank God for deliverance from having to be there as a reporter.  But this day was different.  Because, on this day, Florida would finally have two openly-gay state representatives seated in the House chamber.   I got out my some of my best clothes, and trudged up the hill to the state Capitol building, quietly humming an antiphon we sing at Easter:

"On this day, the Lord has acted.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it."

And I was!  I was smiling.  I was laughing.  And I was enjoying myself in a way that I never have in all the years that I have entered that ugly structure where sausage is made at the expense of real lives.  On the way in, I met the parents of a newly-elected legislator who unseated one of the rising stars of the Tea Party-infused state Republican party. 

"Oh, thank you for having a son, and congratulations!" I said.  They laughed.

There are advantages to having once been a member of the Fourth Estate.  Namely, nobody questioned me when I fell in with the reporter pack to gain access to the House floor.  I found one of our two new gay boys, State Representative Joe Saunders and his partner Donald, and snapped a quick picture of them.  I gave Joe a big, long hug, and promised him that the community was there to help him however he needed it.

Such an amazing accomplishment as having out-and-proud members of the Florida House is a sign that "the times they-are-a-changin'."  

In stark contrast, the annual Transgender Day of Remembrance is the reminder that we have not fully realized equality here in the United States or certainly around the world.   After stopping in briefly at a church function happening at the home of our associate rector, I headed out to the local LGBT community center to listen to speakers and bear witness to the candle lighting ceremony.  With each votive candle, we heard the names, ages, and circumstances surrounding the death of a trans individual, killed in the past year.  There were 38 names in all, and those are just of the ones we know.  Many of the people had been mutilated in some way, almost as if the killers were so appalled by the person's outward appearance that they felt the need to destroy it.  As people placed their candles around the heart, I repeated in silence my own private prayers for each of these souls snuffed out by transphobia violence.   I thought about the resurgence of the "kill the gays" bill in Uganda.  I thought of trans friends I have made in Tallahassee, and the educational Voices of Witness documentary, "Out of the Box" about the transgender people of faith in the Episcopal Church.  And I thought how much further we still need to go if we are going to live into the vows of our baptismal covenant to "strive for justice and peace and respect the dignity of every human being."

So many have died and, are still dying, for the right to live and love in peace.  As we celebrate the accomplishment of LGBT people finding a place at the table of state politics, we must also continue our commitment to raise up all people and refuse to make peace with attempts to put us in an early grave.  We must stay on the battlefield, and we must have the voices of others joining us in this race after God's promise that all will be included in the kingdom and have eternal life.

Collects, and Psalms, and Chicken: Oh, My!

What a week of absurdity this has been!

I haven't had time to do much posting here, and perhaps that was for the better.  It gave me time to continue watching, marking, learning and inwardly digesting the amazing scene this past Wednesday happening at Chick-fil-A restaurants in Tallahassee and elsewhere.

Hundreds and hundreds of people, snaking their way through packed parking lots and waiting in long lines at the Drive Thru window just to make a point.  Ask some of them and they'd say their point was the protection of "free speech" or "freedom of religion."

The point they really made was: we hate gay people.

I know for some that seems like a harsh judgment.  But the president of the Atlanta-based chicken chain was not using code words for his beliefs.  He speaks of marriage equality as "shaking our fist at God" and telling God what defines a marriage.  When he was asked about Chick-fil-A's Winshape Foundation, which has bankrolled several anti-gay groups, and whether he is active in fighting marriage equality, Cathy said, "Guilty as charged."  In other words, he is not trying to hide his bias.  In response, the LGBT community and many of our supporters are not hiding our bias either.  There was a call for boycott, and even a "Kiss-in" at Chick-fil-A restaurants.  To fight back, former Arkansas Governor and one-time GOP Presidential contender Mike Huckabee called for an Appreciation Day on Wednesday.

And they came out in droves. It was a banner day for chicken sandwiches sold between two halves of a hamburger bun.  Some said they were eating there because they were standing up for this Christian businessman and his right to free speech.  It wasn't about hate.  It wasn't about being anti-gay.

Well, until my friend, Terry, showed up to exercise her free speech rights at the Chick-fil-A on Apalachee Parkway.  Crying, "Shame!" at the many cars and people in the restaurant, Terry said a group of portly white men shouted back at her, "That's right, faggot!"

No, this wasn't about hate at all.

 O god, the protector of all who trust in you, without whom
nothing is strong, nothing is holy: Increase and multiply upon
us your mercy; that, with you as our ruler and guide, we may so
pass through things temporal, that we lose not the things eternal...

I have found that keeping this particular collect in mind has been helpful throughout this whole nonsense.  Because these matters are truly temporal and the height of absurdity.  Really: must you eat unhealthy, artery-clogging food to prove you don't like gay people?

I mentioned the psalms in the title of this post because they, too, have been helpful this week.  For whatever reason, the ones assigned during the daily office have hit the perfect note, capturing the feeling that I and others felt as we saw the cars going bumper-to-bumper into the Chick-fil-As.   From Psalm 69:

 Pour out your indignation upon them, *
    and let the fierceness of your anger overtake them.

Let them be wiped out of the book of the living * 
and not be written among the righteous. 

As for me, I am afflicted and in pain; * 
 your help, O God, will lift me up on high.

It has been quite helpful to have these words running around in my head as I have dealt with insensitivity to why gay people might be just a wee-bit offended by the words and deeds of Dan Cathy and his chicken shack chain.  I think about how many other countless struggles have been fought for equality throughout world history, and how many of those folks turned to these same words as a security blanket of "At least God gets it!"

Naturally, I am aware that the people on the "other side" read these same words as the same security blanket against the likes of me.  And I figure where God sits is in the middle, waiting for us to spit out all the insults and anger until we exhaust ourselves into a heap of realizing that we've worked ourselves into a froth over matters that are, at the end of the day, temporal bullshit. 

We don't have to eat their food.  And those who do support bigotry are welcome to go gobble up as many waffle fries as they want.  And in another forty years, this is going to look as stupid and hatefully absurd as the pictures of the crazy, angry white people exercising their free speech rights against desegregation.

I think the young son of my friends, Sharon and Ed, said it best when he announced to his parents that he
"likes Jimmers and Ben better than Chick-fil-A."    I do, too!

Point of Personal Privilege

Bishop Gene Robinson has had enough.

Yesterday, he rose on a point of personal privilege and called on his brother and sister bishops to cease and desist in the constant sniping and backstabbing that he has had to endure for nine years.

I am not there in Indianapolis, so I don't know what it was that two other members of the House of Bishops have said or done to undermine Bishop Gene's credibility this time, but I really don't have to be there because anyone who has followed this man's career, especially during these past nine years, are all too aware of how nasty and mean-spirited and downright ugly people have been.   Particularly the people in the purple shirts.  It is disheartening and it is a dishonor to the One whom these bishops say they serve.

Bishop Gene has had to endure more crap from all corners than anyone should ever have to take.  Pointedly excluded from the decennial Lambeth Conference; daily death threats; endless interviews in which he must answer questions about the bad behavior of others toward him in the Anglican Communion rather than talk about his true passion, which is God.  What's his "gay agenda?"  Answer: Jesus Christ.    

It is fascinating, in that incredible God way, that Bishop Gene's statement to basically, "Get off my case!" came on the same day that the House of Bishops approved resolutions to widen our welcome in the Episcopal Church to transgender people, and adopt liturgies for the blessing of same-sex unions.  It is the perfect display of where we are as the Episcopal Church.  On the one hand, we are ready to embrace the differences in our human sexuality and see them not as divisions but more of the wondrous biodiversity of God's good creation.  HOWEVER...

There always seems to be a "however."  While most of the Episcopal Church is basking in the glow of the sun (or is that S-o-n), there are many more of us living in dioceses that have overcast skies and in, some cases, a forecast of endless rain.   No matter what happens at the national level, there always seems to be the fine print that says, "This offer is null and void in [fill in the blank]."  For those of us living in places where the sun isn't shining yet, it can be depressing to see the postcards from elsewhere with the implied message of,"Wish you were here."

In the realm of God, there is no fine print.  There are no black-out dates, no exceptions, no exclusions.  Christ's love for the world is for all, everyone, and given out freely with plenty to go around.   It is only in the church, a human institution with human beings running it, that suddenly some travelers are left stranded at the gate.  And why is that?

It is fear.  Fear of the unknown, of what may or may not occur if we allow people who are living in society's margins to have a seat inside the church, inside the rail even, and give them the chance to rest and bask in God's love story and participate as active members in its telling and re-telling to the world at-large.  Fear, the very thing that throughout Scripture God is saying, "do not be afraid! I am with you!"   Fear, the direct opposite of faith, the roaring lion that is on the prowl ready to devour everything and anything in its path.  I heard it expressed again and again when I read the testimony given on the same-sex blessing resolution.  Clergy and bishops talking of their fear of what granting full membership in the Body of Christ to LGBT people will do to Christians and churches half-way around the world.  Do these same bishops and clergy ask themselves about what happens when the church doesn't recognize us as fellow Christians in those same countries?

That whole argument about what is happening... and could happen to Christians... in predominantly Muslim countries is a red herring.  The tension between the cousin religions has been going on for millennia, I would even argue from the moment that Abraham turned to Hagar and said, "Sorry, babe.  You and Ismael have gotta go."   Dangers have faced Christian minorities long before the Episcopal Church began embarking on a call to allow all of God's children access to the sacraments of the church.  Seriously, folks: crack open your copies of "Holy Women, Holy Men" and read all about the various martyrs throughout our history.

I can be sensitive to the difficulties inclusion may pose for some members of the body.  But I can not allow my sensitivity to their pain to become my pain as well.  Because I am not in pain.  I am in joy.  I can not allow their fears to become my fears because I am not afraid.  I have faith that God will continue to spread out a feast of Love before us every day with the open invitation to those who want to come to the table to pull up a chair and break bread and have wine and be happy.

I have had enough of the bickering, and the clouds and the rain.  It is time for the sun to shine.  Everywhere.

Yom HaShoah

Today we remember all those who were victims or were killed in the Holocaust in Europe during the reign of Adolf Hitler.  I encourage you to follow THIS LINK to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and watch the video, "Why We Remember the Holocaust."  

I say we remember the victims because the type of mass murder carried out by the Nazis has left permanent scars on the psyches of millions.  It makes the Biblical admonitions about the sins of one generation affecting those after a very real truth.  Even though we are now a few generations removed from Hitler's rule in Germany, the suffering he inflicted on Jews and non-Jews who were viewed as "others" to be exterminated (gypsies, gays, disabled, communists, even Free Masons...), not to mention the bombings of other countries, has touched the lives of those who were not yet born during those years.   I will never forget the first full-blown conversation I had with my German exchange student as we sat next to each other in the back seat of my parents car.  She asked me if I knew who Adolf Hitler was.

"Ja, natürlich,"  I said.

"Not all Germans are like that," she told me.  The fact that she felt the need to explain this made me realize the devastation that had been done to more than Jewish people, but to the generations of Germans since the end of World War II.

As the video notes, we still as a species struggle with prejudice that has led to horrific crimes against humanity.  Bosnia. Rwanda.  Dafur.  And those are the ones that the media has exposed.

We must never make peace with oppression.   We must never look away from how we contribute to the degradation of others through our silence.  This Day of Remembrance must be a day where we again commit ourselves to never allow fear and hatred of the "other" to destroy and disrupt humanity.

Out of a Death Comes Resolve

Yesterday, many marked the one year anniversary of the brutal beating death of David Kato Kisuule, the leader of Sexual Minorities Uganda. Sidney Nsubuga Enoch was convicted in November of murdering Kato in his apartment and sentenced to 30 years in prison. The investigation and the trial seemed to be more about perpetuating sterotypes about gays and lesbians than actually punishing someone for swinging a hammer into the head of this gay activist. The prosecutor reportedly made much of Nsubuga's claim that he killed Kato because he said Kato was trying to push him into having sex.

Kato's murder outraged many of us in the LGBT international community. We who pay attention to not only the "gay news" but also the "Anglican news" were all-too-aware of the dangers facing Kato and others in Uganda as the church and state conspired to craft the noxious Anti-homosexual legislation, which threatens execution of LGBT people and severe punishment for anyone who doesn't report someone who is lesbian or gay to the authorities. There were emails, phone calls, and letters sent to the secular and religious leaders of the world to speak out against this atrocity occuring on the African continent. When Kato, an outspoken and visible member of Uganda's LGBTI community was executed, our concerns were sadly realized, and it ratched it up the global concern.

We must remain aware of the precarious position African LGBT people face. They're lives are in real jeopardy. They face imprisonment, beatings, and lesbians in particular are often victims of what some call "corrective" rape.

U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton this fall took a huge step up to tell the international community it is time to protect LGBT people from discrimination and the lynch mob mentality that comes with such legislation as was proposed in Uganda. If only now our religious leaders would be equally as bold!