Well, I Declare: Welcome to My World!

I have tremendous respect for Rev. Susan Russell and the many folks at Integrity who have fought tirelessly for decades to bring about full equality for all the baptized in the Episcopal Church. And, as anyone who has read this blog for any length of time knows, I owe more than a hat tip to Bishop Gene Robinson for his role in my spiritual development from the time he was running Sign of the Dove Retreat Center when I was a confirmand at Christ Church in Exeter to his brave and brilliant witness as the bishop of the diocese in my native New Hampshire.

These are the people who have been on the front lines of this struggle for LGBT equality. They know how hard it is to overcome prejudice and fear, and they have stuck it out in the face of some ugly opposition.

All of us who have had to take a stand for our rights to be treated as full members of the Body of Christ, whether it be in the context of our churches or in the secular arenas of government, have seen the hard-heartedness of those who wish to hold back the LGBT community, and make us second-class citizens. It is extraordinarily difficult, at times, to maintain your center when you come face-to-face with homophobia and hatred. I know my voice has trembled as I have learned to speak my truth living in an area of the country that has not always shown "my kind" love and acceptance.

But I am heartened when I see the chipping away at hard-line stands against LGBT people in those places where I least expect to see it.  Such was the case this summer when our General Convention approved a rite of blessing for same-sex couples paving the way for churches in those dioceses that allow for civil marriages to offer the seal of approval in the church communtiy as well.  This was a big deal for my brothers and sisters living in the more enlightened areas of the country.   For those of us dwelling in one of the 35 states where marriage equality is prohibited by law, this was another sad reminder of our circumstances.  Still, the option is there for bishops to adopt the rite approved to fit their context. 

Amazingly, some have done it.  The bishop of Southeast Florida gave the green light to the priests in his diocese to offer a blessing to those couples who were married elsewhere (since Florida bans marriage equality...or "the substantial equivalent thereof" in both the state constitution and four places in the state statutes.)  The bishop of the Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast, which begins at Apalachicola and runs along the southern part of Alabama, also gave his approval to use the blessing rite with many caveats (e.g. a lesbian or gay couple must receive his OK in addition to that of a priest and a church vestry).  Not perfect, but better than a flat out, "No!"

Now the bishop of the diocese of Georgia has finally weighed in.   Oddly, Bishop Scott Benhase has felt the need to modify what had been adopted because he contends that the language accepted at General Convention was too much like a marriage.  For him, a marriage within the context of the church is for "one man and one woman."   The one and only rite acceptable in Georgia is what is called Appendix 1 and is basically like a Prayers of the People and not actual vows spoken by the couple.  It is an odd choice and takes away from what I believe the church should be blessing: namely, a covenant between two people. 

But then, we are talking about the diocese of Georgia... which includes all the very red state areas of southern Georgia.  And sadly, Blakely, GA, is not Berkeley, CA.

Sigh.  Welcome to my world!

The upside, for me, is that at least they have approved something in Georgia that acknowledges the existence of LGBT couples in their congregations.  This is a step ahead of the diocese of Florida, the place I find myself, with its headquarters in the equally conservative Jacksonville.  Never mind that the western part of this diocese includes the much more liberal Tallahassee or the southern end that has the far more progressive Gainesville.  In the diocese of Florida, we do not discuss "the love that dares not speak its name."   We gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Episcopalians are the invisible ones who are welcome to be members of a church, contribute to the lay ministries, and most definitely to the collection plate and stewardship campaign.  But we are to assimilate and then shut up about this "gay thing."   And those actions of acceptance done in Christ's name in Indianapolis this summer?   We are to greet such news with a polite smile, a "bless their hearts,"and then we are to proceed with business as usual. 

This hodgepodge system of acceptance hardly seems like the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven to me.  But what are we to expect when we give bishops the latitude to adapt and make up their own definitions of what constitutes "generous pastoral care" to the LGBT communities in their midst?  I realize this is the only way to get some bishops to do the right, and good, and joyful thing of recognizing the Christ in me and others like me.  But it is also giving many the out to simply keep us as strangers at the gate and refuse to extend the full welcome we all desire.  When is that no longer going to be acceptable?

I appreciate that both Rev. Susan and Bishop Gene are ticked off about the response from the bishop of Georgia.  But the door is cracked open in Savannah in a way that it is not in places like Tallahassee and Orlando.

Welcome to my world.  It's time for the really Good News to reach the Deep South.

Days of Awe

Yesterday was a special Sunday in my journey.  It was Sunday, November 11, 2007, that I woke up and heard a booming voice in my head to "Show up!"  After a week of being haunted by hymns and a nagging sense that I needed to go back to "that church," the final words came to me in a command that allowed no room for debate or questions or doubt.  I got dressed in the best clothes I had in my closet and went with some trepidation and trembling back to "that church".  My experience that morning was amazing and powerful.  After a lifetime as an Episcopalian, that morning was the first time that I heard that I was a beloved child of God, that I have always been a beloved child of God, and nothing--absolutely nothing--can take that away from me.  It was in everything from the prayers to the Scripture to the music and all in that climactic moment when I received the Eucharist, the total acceptance and re-membering me into the Body of Christ.   It was awesome.

These memories were foremost in my mind as I now waited in the back of St. John's in my Eucharistic Minister vestments.  I looked around the sanctuary, privately giving thanks for the work that God had done to bring me this far along.  I never would have thought I would be back in church, let alone in the back of the church in vestments ready to process in and be an active participant in leading the liturgy.  I was assigned to read our first lesson yesterday.  In the case of St. John's, this was the alternate track from 1 Kings, the story of Elijah and the widow who only has a small amount of meal and a little jug of oil.  She is reluctant to give Elijah what little she has because it's all she has for her and her son.  She was collecting sticks, and was planning to make a meal for her and her son before they died.  As I read it, in my own ears I heard this part:

 Eli'jah said to her, "Do not be afraid; go and do as you have said; but first make me a little cake of it and bring it to me, and afterwards make something for yourself and your son.  For thus says the LORD the God of Israel The jar of meal will not be emptied and the jug of oil will not fail until the day that the LORD sends rain on the earth."--1 Kings 17:13-14

The phrase, "Do not be afraid" comes up so often and was an important directive in the beginnings of my spiritual journey.  As I read this aloud, I felt a wave go through my body and it felt like an affirmation and a recognition of what it means to take those meager bits and mix them up to make a small offering of self.  There will still be meal and still be oil to last through those periods of uncertainty and doubt, but first make an offering of a little cake, and all will be well.  

These words then combined themselves with another widow's story, the one of the widow's mite from Mark which was our gospel lesson for the morning.  Here, Jesus uses the example of the widow dropping her two coins into the Temple treasury, all that she had, as an example of one who gives from her place of having nothing versus those who have everything.

"Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on." --Mark 12: 43b-44

In my head, and in light of my own personal reflection on my journey, these two moments made for a wonderful commentary on what has become of me in these five years.  I came back to my tradition, much like St. Paul.  I had come to despise the church and seen it as my enemy and oppressor.  Then, my road of Damascus moment came in the death of my father.  It was his passing that led me, blind and staggering, into the sanctuary where God could drop the scales from my eyes... and unplug my ears to finally hear the message of unconditional Love that had been there the whole time. And, as one who doesn't enjoy having a stock portfolio to make me wealthy (and nervous), I came back as one with little to offer to the church financially.   But that wasn't God's interest.  Not for me, or for the meaning of the experience of these two widows.  

As I read them, these two lessons are about giving of our selves.  And no matter how small and insignificant we think we are or we think our gifts are, when we offer our true selves to God, we are giving a gift that is the greatest and wealthiest and the best gift ever. 

In these five years on this long, strange trip with God, I have known what it is to give more of myself to God.  I have experienced it within my participation with the congregation of St. John's, but especially in my life beyond the confines of a church building with the parents I have encountered it  in my work with PFLAG and seeing the hand of God in my massage practice.  I have noticed the change in how I approach the world which has come through both my discipline of reading the daily morning office, but also in my fledgling practice of contemplative prayer.

I stand in awe of these changes, knowing full well that my Days of Awe are not really over.  God is continuing to work God's purpose out.  And I continue to show up to keep marching in the light.

The New Archbishop--in short

I know you've all been waiting for what this blog writer thinks about the selection of the oil-man-turned-bishop-of-Durham-now-the-next-Archbishop of Canterbury. What will +Justin Welby of Durham bring to this "instrument of unity" in our Communion that has clashed and gnashed and otherwise left gashes on each other during this past decade?

In short, I don't know. Neither does anyone else, if they were really honest. His prior career in the oil industry apparently gave him exposure to Africa. His stated opinions have been in support of women as bishops. But he also has opposed marriage equality and other issues of LGBT participation in the church. This gives me concern.

But, you might recall, the outgoing ABC wrote wonderful, scholarly papers on why there should be full-inclusion of gay people in the church. And, well, a funny thing happened on the way to Lambeth Palace, apparently.

So, I'll wait and see. I pray that he will understand that what we seek is what every Christian person seeks: acceptance and support in our journeys with God, no matter where that might take us. In the meantime, to paraphrase Psalm 146: put not your trust in Archbishops or any other ruler of the world for they are temporal beings... and trust goes to the eternal.

An Election Reflection

This was the scene at the state Capitol building in Florida on November 15, 2008.  More than 350 LGBT people and their allies marched and cried out for justice against a popular vote that effectively cast me and the hundreds of thousands of others like me into the outer darkness of "No marriage equality for you!"  Florida, along with Arizona, California, and Arkansas, put the civil rights of gay people on the ballot.  And we lost.  And it hurt.  A lot.

I remember it very well.  So many of my straight friends were crying and rejoicing at the election of Barack Obama, the first African-American President and a welcome relief after eight years of the George W. Bush administration.   I, on the other hand, was crying and unable to look people in the eye for the next few days because of what 61-percent of my fellow citizens had done at the ballot box. Adding to the pain was the realization that too many of my straight friends simply did not get why I was upset.  "But Obama won!" they'd say, with a cheerful smile.   A hollow victory for those of us in the gay community of Florida.

November 15th became the day the LGBT community of Tallahassee and the nation became resolved to not take these cynical and punitive assaults on our rights lying down.  Across the country, there were Join the Impact rallies which served as places of public confession about the pain we'd suffered, the anger we harbored, and the need for us to get active to change hearts and minds so that we wouldn't keep getting clobbered every election cycle.  My partner and I were among the organizers of the Tallahassee rally, and it was truly a moment of "Wow!" to finally see a large turn out in favor of gay rights that included more than just the usual suspects of the LGBT community.

That "Wow!" became a capital letter "WOW!" last night.  What a difference four years makes!  Maryland voters said "Yes" to marriage equality.  The electorate in Maine, a state where the voters repealed a pro-equality marriage law by a "people's veto" in 2009, changed their mind and have reinstituted marriage rights.  Same in Washington State.  And Minnesotans didn't take the bait on an anti-marriage constitutional amendment.   Add to that the election of our first openly-lesbian U.S. Senator, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, and several other openly gay candidates, including two new state Representatives in Florida, and, well.... WOW!  A clean sweep of equality. 

What a difference it makes when the President of the United States declares that he has evolved on the issue of marriage equality and believes that people like me should be allowed to marry our partners.   What a change it makes when younger people stream in huge numbers to the polls to make their generation's voice be heard.  And what a softening there is when LGBT people brave rejection by family and friends and "come out", allowing the straight brothers and sisters to see us as we are and not as some ghoulish mock-ups of the incredibly fear-filled political machine.

Yes, there is much rejoicing today for how far we have come in four years.  At the same time, we can not sit contented with the outcome of November 6, 2012.  There are now nine states and Washington, D.C., with marriage equality.  But that leaves the majority of the country without it, and a federal law that still permits this discrimination to be legal.  A married gay couple from Massachusetts on vacation in Florida will have a terrible rude awakening if something goes wrong and one of them is in the hospital.  This should not be OK.  In Florida, it is still legal to fire people from their jobs, deny housing, or accomodation based on sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.  And--yes--that does happen here.  We have judges who take away children from lesbian moms purely because they are lesbian moms, and refuse to grant second-parent adoptions to same-gender couples.  We have come a long way, but in places such as Florida and much of the southern United States, it still feels a little like receiving that postcard from your northern relatives with the message, "Wish you were here!"

Perhaps what is needed now is another Love-inspired revolution such as that of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s marches or the Freedom Riders bus presence in Alabama and Mississippi.  Perhaps it is time for our northern LGBT relatives to join hands with us here and help us remove these stumbling blocks in the way of justice for all in this Deep South part of our country.  We need you all to stay on the battlefield with us.

Mr. President, last night I was finally able to celebrate your victory in the way I wish I had been free enough in spirit to do so four years ago.  But I am still not completely free from the laws that bind the LGBT community.  Perhaps, God-willing in another four years, I will enjoy my full equality under the law of the land.  

Go Vote!

Many people have already done their civic duty, and to those folks I give a nod and a "Thank you!"  There are others who prefer to wait until the day to cast their ballot.  Well, this is it!  Go forth and do what you will to give us our elected leaders. 

O God, who remains present and patient with us; guide our minds and hearts as we discern in the voting booth the best, and most compassionate course for our local, state and national politics.  Help those of us who are serving our counties on this day to remain faithful stewards of this right to choose our leadership.  And may we emerge from this season so marked by bitterness and hatred a people willing to set our sights higher in the days to come.  In your name we pray.  Amen.

“Unbind Him” and the Days of Awe

I told my spiritual director when I last met with her that I believe I am living in what might be considered my own personal Days of Awe.  My Jewish friends are familiar with this idea.  It’s that period between the exuberance of Rosh Hashanah and the penitence of Yom Kippur, a very deeply-reflective period for those willing to “go there” with their faith.   

As I’ve noted, this year is the fifth year since my dad’s passing which is also the fifth year of what I refer to as my “wake up call” (hence the name of this blog).   As we were preparing for our All Saints’ Sunday service at St. John’s, I was reflecting on the state of my mind at that same service five years ago.  I was there because my mother asked me to be there.  St. John’s, at that time, created “saint banners” to remember the family members who had died during the previous year.  Mom had wanted me to carry my dad’s banner in the processional at the service, which I did.  This was going to be my last official activity with the church, and then I could go back to coffee and crossword puzzles on Sunday mornings.  Aside from the very familiar hymns, nothing in the service particularly caught my attention.  But it would be that interim period between that Sunday and the next, and the ever-present jukebox of hymns, that would disquiet my soul and ultimately make me return for redemption and reconciliation with a tradition I had long since declared dead to me.

Which brings us to this recent All Saints service amidst my Days of Awe.  It was the story from John of the raising of Lazarus from the dead.  Many of us gay Christians love this story for the line, “Lazarus, come out!” and queer liberation theologians will find great meaning in that notion of “coming out” and Lazarus being restored from the dead.  But what I heard in that gospel lesson was, “Unbind him and let him go.”  And tears began forming in my eyes as I absorbed that phrase and let it reverberate in my ears. Just as powerful as the idea of “coming out” might be for a queer Christian to hear, the command from Christ to “unbind him and let him go,” speaks to an important piece in my own journey toward oneness with God.

The Christ I have come to know is a radical liberator of those held hostage by prisons that are imposed from inside and outside of a person.  There is the prison of self-doubt or self-consciousness that keeps us from stepping outside of ourselves to attempt to do something new or touch someone who we don’t know that well.  There is the prison of self-absorption that keeps us ignorant or unaware of the world around us and what impact we are making on it.  And there is the prison of self-reliance, that false sense that we somehow hung the moon and the stars and can do everything on our own, thank you very much.  These prisons are bad enough dwelling places, but with some willingness to do an honest self-examination, they are also ones that can become unbound.

When the prison is one imposed from the outside, that’s a stickier wicket.  In those cases, the only answer I think the prisoner can give is to refuse to be locked up by those forces that wish to contain the person.  Such is the place I found myself in on Sunday as I kept hearing the phrase, “Unbind him and let him go” repeat itself in my ears.  If I believe, as I do, that Christ is the great emancipator, then it is through Christ and faith in God that I can see my way past those attempts to keep me shackled and wrapped in the bandages of death.  When Christ uttered those words to the Jews, it was also a message being passed along for all future generations that would insist on binding people and leaving them for dead.

This includes the Church.  Still, in some parts, there is a refusal to acknowledge the gifts and full baptism of us gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender ones.  We are welcome to make beautiful music, arrange pretty flowers at the altar, and absolutely, we are to be pledging members of a congregation.  But there are limits to our full participation.  There are boundaries, and we are to be bounded.

Unfortunately for those sectors of the Church, this will not do for Jesus Christ.   Jesus keeps uttering those words, “Unbind him and let him go.”  Jesus keeps insisting that through him comes peace and perfect freedom and this includes deliverance from the fear that has bound the LGBT people who remain faithful to God, but must endure the short-sightedness of the Church around them that fears letting them be free to grow.

 In these Days of Awe I am reminded of the cynicism that once bound me and kept me from knowing Christ’s liberating ways.  But having been freed from this level of captivity, I still see my great emancipator at work to take my hand and lead me where I may not want to be led, but where I need to go, passing through the gates of fear.    

 God is working God’s purpose out as five years come to pass… 

  

This Strange (Saintly) Tragectory

I have had much to reflect on today, and lots of time to do it.  Most of this day was spent with my spiritual director in Valdosta, a good, and right, and joyful place to be on the fifth anniversary of my dad's funeral at St. John's Episcopal Church, and the celebration of the tenth anniversary of my massage school graduation.  Two very different occasions.  Two moments that have left an indelible mark on my life, and changed it forever.

The decision to leave broadcast journalism and take up massage therapy as a career was pretty radical.  That is, unless you had walked in my shoes and experienced the growing sense of the senselessness of what I was doing.  After witnessing an execution, I couldn't listen to politicians debating the issue of capital punishment in a dispassionate vacuum.  I knew what I had seen.  I knew that there was nothing painless about what that inmate, John Earl Bush, experienced.  That knowledge did nothing to lessen the horror or wrongness of the murder of Frances Slater which put him on death row.  But he was one of four involved in that crime. Two of the four were not on death row.  And all I could think about was the likelihood that this form of justice was not so much "an eye for an eye," but more likely "a fingernail for a heart."   As more mishaps occurred with executions, the cry was not to stop killing inmates; rather it was to switch the method we used.  To then hear elected officials attempt to save the state's use of the electric chair to administer the punishment was sickening.   Add to all of this the unbearable pettiness of the upper management of my radio network toward the employees, and I knew I had to either get out of this work or risk going to an early grave. 

Massage school did a lot to scrub off the crap that I'd absorbed as journalist, both on the outer layer of my being and the inner soul that had needed protection from it all.  The reconnection with my body as a receptor of good was so joy-filled.  And to learn how to transmit Love through my hands and my presence was enormous gift that I could share with others.  I thought this was the complete package of my journey. 

I was wrong.

In 2005, my mother and father made the decision at the urging of me and my partner to move temporarily to Florida.  My dad was now needing to be in an assisted living facility.  In New Hampshire, such care costs twice as much as it does down here.  Those two years with my dad were stressful, and yet wonderful in that I really enjoyed the chance to be with him and do things that delighted him like carve a Jack O' Lantern for his room or read "A Christmas Carol" to him and mom in the same way he used to do for me when I was a child.  When he died, my friends, and some of the people who had come to know and love my dad, insisted that we have a funeral service for him here.  My soon-to-be mentor, Mtr. Lee Shafer, was very kind and generous in her willingness to indulge me and my mom in a non-traditional Gospel selection for his service.  So, instead of the usual "take your pick of John" messages, we had the Prodigal Son from Luke.  It was absolutely the perfect story to capture the type of man my father had been: always including the strays, the misfits and the oddballs inside and outside our family at our table.  My brother Tom, who had practiced law with my dad, noted that our father was not the attorney for those wishing to find an easy out or pull a fast one over an estranged spouse, but rather was the guy who would become the guardian for a mentally-disabled adult child of aging clients, and would be willing to take someone's catch of fresh fish in lieu of paying their legal bills.  Dad did not turn people away.

His death, as I have noted several times on this blog, took what massage school had started in me and brought it back 'round to its logical connection with God in Christ.  Some massage therapists might be adverse to thinking that there is anything about the practice of healing touch and body wisdom that would lead a person to the Western Christian model of belief and worship.  Even I found it bizarre and unnerving.  Yet, I will never, ever forget that feeling that I had when I was summoned by an unknown voice to "Show up!" and I got myself dressed and was present for the service on Sunday, November 11th.  The unmistakable and undeniable and unending message that I was loved, and have always been loved, was just as exuberantly expressed through the liturgy as how that father in the Prodigal Son parable embraced his wayward child.   I was blown away. 

This moment in 2007 would be the beginning point of coming in closer contact with the Love that I was accessing in my massage practice.   And while I was in touch with Love, it hadn't penetrated my heart in this deep way until now.  Having this new, deeper level of contact, it could flow through me and from me in the full knowledge that the Love I was offering was beyond what I had in me already; it really was and is from a universal source that is endlessly supplying it to anyone who wants to tap into it.  This was not part of the instruction I received in massage school and it was far removed from the "truth" that I was scrambling to uncover as a journalist.  And yet it was very true.  And a good, and right and joyful thing.

My gratitude to those who have been with me on this journey and assisted me along the way.  The path is still unfolding before me.   Let's see where we go.