Faith, belief, and finding community

Yes, I have been gone too long. Yes, I have some catching up to do. Sorry, it's going to have to wait....

A friend of mine recently decloaked as a fellow blogger, Ravenmoon at Becoming A Perfect Mom. Her post Not beliving, a lonely business brought me a flashback from my Church History experience with Dr. Kurt Hendel at LSTC. Here's my flashback word, with its Wikipedia reference:

Adiaphoron (plural: adiaphora from the Greek ἀδιάφορα "indifferent things") was a concept used in Stoic  philosophy to indicate things which were outside of moral law – that is, actions which are neither morally mandated nor morally forbidden. [emphasis added]

Adiaphora in Christianity refer to matters not regarded as essential to faith, but nevertheless as permissible for Christians or allowed in church. What is specifically considered adiaphora depends on the specific theology in view.

(And yes, I know - some of my seminary friends could do a whole sermon series on what's wrong with that definition. But it's close enough for the purpose at hand.)

I love this concept. One of the best ideas I got from seminary. It's "the stuff we agree not to argue about." It doesn't mean we agree on how we do it - only that this thing (whatever it is) will not separate us, in faith, friendship or fellowship. The opposite, I guess, of "adiaphora" is "anathema" - the stuff that is utterly rejected or "beyond the pale," as they used to say. It put names to things that I'd felt all my life.

Being a closeted gay man in the church meant that I was always the "other" in the group. I often found myself reading the Bible and looking for the Scripture passage that would somehow "vote me off the island" of salvation. (It's not a good way to read it, by the way.)

I knew, from the way I heard God's supposed words preached, that God liked "us" and didn't like "them," and while I knew that I loved God and I wanted to be like "us," I also knew that at rock-bottom, I was "them."  (Trust me, I have since learned much differently, and found great acceptance for the "thems" among us).

First, I was a former Catholic in a Lutheran church. This was definitely an us-vs-them thing! However, I received a pure inspiration one day, when someone said, "But you weren't BORN Lutheran! How can you preach effectively to life-long Lutherans?!?" The gift I believe God gave me was simply this: "Correct me if I'm wrong - but I thought Martin Luther was a former Catholic - and somehow he turned out OK..."

I was also a childless, profane and divorced man and a recovering alcoholic in a church full of happy and polite families (or so they would have had us believe). But as I threw myself into service, they came to love me despite my "rough edges" and "unfortunate earlier life."

The gay thing, though, was one from which I could never get free. Looking back over the wreckage, I'm not entirely sure that the only reasons for me to go to seminary was so (a) I could find a group of accepting and loving people in some of my professors and theologians, and (b) that the God of my misunderstanding could drop me 750 miles away from my guilt community, into a world in Hyde Park that was richly populated with faithful, celibate, deeply devout and thoroughly-gay priests, as well as faithful gay ministers and lay people.

[Note to reader: insert your own favorite "gay lay people" pun/joke here.]

They taught me the difference between "who I am" and "who or what I sleep with." They taught me alternate ways of understanding the holy words that I felt condemned me for years. And they showed me a way of being a faith-community in which homosexuality itself was adiaphora. "You love God? You enjoy the community and the ceremonies? Then come along - our God is big enough to sort all the rest of it out in the end."

We are ALL different. Some of you might well think I'm an idiot, madman, fool and free-thinker because I choose not to spend a lot of time around children! (My favorite prayer for children comes from the late storyteller Gamble Rogers: "Let them that want none have memories of not gettin' any.") That may be a difference between you and I - but it does not separate us. I value motherhood and fatherhood, even though I would not choose to participate in it.

The very fact that my friend Ravenmoon even deals with diapers - regardless if they are cloth, paper, or some future atomic-force-field variety - makes her a MUCH better person than me. (Please note: gay men have nothing on new-parents when it comes to the "ick factor"!) She also mentions a not-often-mentioned taboo - women who do not shave. For me, I could give a rat's patootie about what parts of her that do or do not get shaved - because all of these things are adiaphora to me - they do not show me her soul, and they certainly do not separate us in our beliefs.

Even the Buddhist thing just doesn't faze me. When it comes to being excluded from "the body," I have never felt from any other faith group the kind of apart-from-ness  that I have felt from wide swaths of Christianity - so their moral mandates about being "THE way and THE truth" ring more than a little hollow.

Buddhist practices and beliefs may not jive with all of mine - but I find much of the Buddhist tradition that shares ground with what I have come to know, as well. A Catholic, Father Roy D. of New York, talks about how much of the experiences he had sitting-lotus in ashrams and temples in Southeast Asia reminded him of the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius (founder of the Jesuit tradition in Catholicism).

Mama Cass Eliot, more than 40 years ago,  sang the words that started to set my soul free:

You're gonna be knowin'
The loneliest kind of lonely
It may be rough goin'
'Cuz to do your thing's
The hardest thing to do...


So if you cannot take my hand
And if you must be goin'
I will understand...

You gotta
Make your own kind of music
Sing your own special song
Make your own kind of music
Even if nobody else sings along!

(Can I get an "amen..."?)

I've found this thing about so-called "people of faith" (especially in the Christian variety - and yes, I tend to lump your Mormon friend into that category, Ravenmoon). As a large group, I've found they tend to subjugate the way they feel and are to the way they are supposed to feel and be. Or, to put it better, they want the way that they try to feel and be to correspond with their ideal of how a "true believer" ought to feel and be. (Again, thankfully, I have found hundreds, if not thousands, of exceptions to this broad and sweeping generalization. But I think I'm not far off the mark here.)

My experience is that the rare people-of-faith who are honest about their faith find it just as cracked and flawed as my faith seems to me. I "identify" with them, because they are broken toys too - yet they consider themselves "believers," too. So I guess that if they qualify, so can I....and that's good enough for me.

None of us are the same...in appearance or beliefs. All of us have hangups and "baggage," to be sure (I sure do, anyway). But, as the song from "Rent" says, "I'm lookin' for baggage that goes with mine." To be real, to be honest about who and what I am, always runs the risk of rejection. It also runs the risk of finding community and building relationships - which is almost always worth the risk.

Back in 1997, in one of my several copies of Richard Nelson Bolles' classic What Color Is Your Parachute?, there is an appendix of advice for "special populations" - ex-offenders, gays and lesbians, stay-at-home-moms, ex-clergy, you name it. He gives specific advice to each group - but then tells them that (other that the specific advice), their drill is the same as for the rest of us. Then he concludes each section in exactly the same way - forgive me, my copy is packed away, so I'm doing this from memory:

In your job search, you will encounter two groups of people: those who will not be bothered by [insert your issue here] and those who will be bothered by it. Your job is to say "Thank you very much, have a nice day" to the second group of  people - and then go on and find the people in the first group.

That has become my mantra, in these later years.

Back in the 60's, they actually allowed advertising for cigarettes, and one memorable campaign was for Tareyton cigarettes. It featured people with artificially-blackened eyes and the slogan "I'd rather fight than switch."

I am finding that I have become somewhat of an Anti-Tareyton-Man - I would much rather switch than fight. If you can find common ground with me, let's walk the road together. If not, then be on your way without me - don't let me hold you back from your appointed rounds; you surely shall not hold me back, either.

You also need to know that there have been remarkable instances of grace in this journey, as well. There is a man named John who I know from the recovery community here. He's a family man, a man of faith, a hail-and-well-met fellow, and a pleasure to be around. He tends to be more politically-conservative than I, and I suspect (but never have confirmed) that his church might be more than a little uncomfortable (both theologically and socially) if I showed up arm-in-arm with Chris to services on a Sunday morning.

But here's the deal: John has come to know me.  And my partner Chris. And John has come to see us as people, and I have come to see him as a friend. No, we will probably not be in the same line at the voting booth; I probably wouldn't join his church (though I'd be happy to visit, and I'd sing right along with him in the hymns of faith). But we can share large parts of our life and our recovery - because we find, and focus on, the parts of our lives that are common. And that, as they say, is close enough.

/end epistle/  :-)

I'm grateful to get to share the road with you, Ravenmoon. I would gently suggest that your beliefs are as powerful, and as deeply rooted, as any of those who have a building, creed or hymnbook - and I trust you will continue finding those fellow travelers whose baggage goes quite well with yours. Here's a music cue for both of us, filled with smiles, from my favorite bear and frog combo...

Just something to consider...

Someone to need you too much
Someone to know you too well
Someone to pull you up short
And put you through hell
And give you support
For being alive...
(Stephen Sondheim, "Being Alive," from Company)

It was 8:10 PM Saturday, well after dark, as I drove through our development towards home. And as I came up to our duplex, my heart sank and panic set it.

It was after dark, and Chris hadn't made it home.

My mind started racing. Chris had left at 6:20 PM to go for a short hour's ride on his bicycle. His black road bike. When I saw him leave, he was dressed in an orange biking shirt and black shorts, and he was only going to be gone for an hour - because he knew sunset would be at 7:30. He went on his way; I went off to Office Depot to get some supplies, and then off to Godfathers Pizza for our typical motocross-watching feast (a large sausage pizza).

The plan was that I'd meet him back at the duplex at around 7:30. But they messed our order up (mushrooms - ick), and so I waited while made us a new one. I called and left him a message on his cell, but figured he was showering after his ride. No big deal.

But then I came home, and Chris wasn't there. And I panicked.

You see, Chris has been riding bikes a long time. And he knew not to ride bikes after dark - especially since his bike didn't have a front or rear light. And yet, his truck was here, his bike was gone and so was he - and it was after dark. That could only mean trouble.

I did the first sensible thing - called his cell. No answer. Called again - two-calls-in-a-row is our signal for "trouble - pick up." I left the inevitable "call me AS SOON as you get this!" demandment, then hung up - and started to pray for direction. Because if he was (by then) 50 minutes overdue, and not responding, I knew he had to be really in trouble.

So I picked up and pressed the three hardest numbers to dial when you're thinking about a loved one - "9-1-1" - and waited. I told the 911 voice that my housemate was out on a bicycle in the fields between Urbana and Rantoul, uncharacteristically overdue, and unresponsive. "Have there been any... reports of trouble ... involving a bicyclist in this area in the last hour? ..." I forced out.

"We haven't had any reports of any accidents or incidents regarding a bicycle anywhere in the area in the last two hours, sir," the 911 operator said. His tone of voice was meant to be calming, conveying that "I'm sure this is nothing to be worried about" message.

But the voices in my head weren't hearing it. Instead, they were screaming, "Well, then - send your people OUT there and FIND him, for God's sake! He's NEVER late without calling, EVER! He's already been hit once on a bicycle, two years ago, and left for dead in a ditch! Don't you understand?!? This is Chris, the man I LOVE we're talking about here!"

Instead, the one shred of level-headedness still resident in my brain said, "I'll try retracing his route - I'll call back if I need to," thanked the man and hung up.

About thirty-five voices in my head started shouting all at once; if they were strung all together, it would've sounded something like this:

Are you over-reacting?
Of course I'm not over-reacting, you moron! HE KNOWS better than this.
Wouldn't he call if he was in trouble?
But what if he can't call?!? What if he's lying in some ditch, with his cell phone underwater, or smashed?
What if he's unconscious, or worse?
Dear God, you can't just have brought this guy INTO my life and dragged us clear to ILLINOIS, of all places, just to have you take him back OUT of my life, could you?
And what the HELL am I doing, still standing here listening to myself blithering, for God's sake?

With that I left a note that said "GONE TO FIND YOU - IF YOU GET THIS, CALL ME IMMEDIATELY!" and raced out the door.

I had my hand on the door-handle of his pickup when the phone rang. When I saw it was Chris' caller-ID, I shouted "OH THANK YOU, JESUS!" then punched the answer-button and yelled "WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!?"

Ten-minutes-that-seemed-like-an-hour later, when he pedaled his way up to the garage, I gave him a minute to dismount and catch his breath before I grabbed him and hugged him. Hugged him and gave thanks to God that he was back with me and safe.

It took a minute before I let him start to describe what had happened - one wrong turn and then another; listening to that silly voice that says, "Oh, no problem, I can handle this;" and a desperately bad estimate of how fast the sun would set - and more than a little panic on his part as well. I could see how it could happen - how I could have been in the very same place myself...

So we ate some lukewarm pizza, and talked about how the first sign of trouble for either of us should trigger the "E.T. syndrome" - phone home - and how the bike will not go back out on the road without marker-lights fore and aft. All was forgiven, all was comforted, and smoothed over with three hours of motocross racing, courtesy of the Speed Channel. And I drifted off to sleep with prayers of thanks for the safe return of the man I love.

Now normally, I wouldn't even bother to share this. After all, it was just an hour of drama in the otherwise boring life of two reasonably contented, average men. However, in the aftermath of the comments around the ELCA's vote about same-sex partnered clergy, I needed to give this testimony...

You see, I've known for a quite a while now how much I love Chris, and how much he loves me. Not "lusts after," not "desireth the same flesh," but love. Real love. There is a lot more agape and filios than there ever was of eros, folks.

I am reasonably certain that if the spouse of any married person reading this would turn up inexplicably missing, their thoughts might well parallel those I've described. Even the possibility of living without the love of your life would be no more tolerable to you and yours than it was for me and mine.

If I were feeling theological, I would say that your relationship and mine are homoousios - of the same substance and essence. Not homoi ousios (similar in nature), but homo (which has to be some kind of cosmic pun). Same ingredients, same stuff. Love, commitment, affection, interdependence.

I believe that the taboos that the ELCA has called its churches to reconsider regarding men like Chris and I are no less challenging than those that the apostle Peter faced in Acts 10. It was absolutely unlawful for Peter to even TALK to those Gentiles; yet he heard the call to share the Good News with them. And then made the Spirit-led decision to baptize them into the fellowship of the Spirit!

They got over it; they got past it. Why is it so hard for us to do the same?

How terribly different is it for the Church to see us? The Gentiles were outcast, despised, against the moral standards and sinful in the eyes of The Church at the time. And yet, in so many ways, the Gentiles were not so different. And in the end, they heard the Word from Peter, and the Spirit moved.

Am I so different than you? I love my partner as you do yours. I am committed to be faithful to him, just as you are committed to be faithful to yours. Perhaps more committed – because there is plenty of social and religious pressure for me to abandon this man, and forsake this relationship. And yet I can’t even consider it. For half an hour, I stared into the abyss and had to consider what life without this man might be – and I couldn’t face it.

My faith has not changed; my hunger to reach those who need Christ has not changed. It has, in fact, sharpened – because I see the spiritual wounding in the gay/lesbian community that has separated so many people from the faith communities of their families and loved ones. I am the same man who stood in a church and Overland Park, Kansas and wept at the memorial service for my faith mentor and pastor. I am the same man whom faithful, praying saints of the church urged to pursue leadership in the church.

In many ways, I have little vested interest in what happens to the ELCA – after all, they rejected me, and the gifts I offered five years ago (including, I might add, a willing commitment to celibate ministry). So if others reject the ELCA, there’s an icky little part of me that doesn’t feel all that bad.

But I guess I have to ask those of you who plan to leave the ELCA: are you sure - I mean, really, really certain – that what Chris and I represent is enough to sunder the unity of The Church Universal that I’ve heard you preach about for years? Are you really, really sure that this is the absolute, number-one, sheep-and-goats issue that you need to divide the church over?

To be honest, I don’t even need to know the answers – I’m way past that point. I just had to ask the questions. Regardless which path get taken, I wish everyone involved well.

As for me, I have already said the words I have heard at so many ceremonies before:

But Ruth replied, "Don't urge me to leave you or to turn back from you. Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. (Ruth 1:16, NIV)

Here I stand ... I can do no other.

A place of healing, a place of hope

Oh, there's nothing as sweet as fellowship
As we share each other’s hearts...
Sweet, sweet fellowship...
- the group Acappella

It's been a long, long time since I could say that about a church. Thanks be to God, I can say it today.

For the last four years, I have been waging a 3-sided internal battle. On one side, I've been wanting to again be a part of a fellowship of Christian believers. On another side, I've not wanted to go any place where I am not wanted (having become an "I'd rather switch than fight" kind of fellow). And on yet another side, I've not wanted to end up the one round peg in a set of otherwise square pegs.

In my search, I found churches where I could be active, but closeted; I found churches where I could be out, but the theology was way too watered down. And I found churches who were accepting of anyone, because they were just desperate for live bodies - anyone with a pulse was welcome as long as they were willing to pitch in.

Then for the last year, Chris was working until midnights on Saturday and then he was working again on Sunday afternoons. I was simply too jealous of our one-morning-a-week-to-sleep-in to give it away looking for a potential church home, so the idea sat on hold.

Then the move to Champaign came, and we were both finally on the same Monday/Friday schedule. Once we got settled in, I went to the GCN "Welcoming Churches" website, and instantly one church stood out among the rest. Their website, the person we talked to on the phone, everything about them shouted "welcome."

What sold us both was the welcome, and the worship...

We came in the door, and someone immediately welcomed us with a cheery “Hi, have you been here before?” When I introduced myself "and my partner Chris,” the response was “We’re SO glad to have you here!...” We were ushered into the sanctuary and plied with coffee, banana-nut bread, and then led over to see the church's beautiful stained-glass windows. Specifically, the newest one… this one:

If you note, the top of the window has the pink-triangle that was both a symbol of shame in World War II as well as the symbol of the early gay community. Below it are rainbows, symbols of the GLBT community from the 70's until the current day. There is red-ribbon which is the reminder of HIV/AIDS sufferers world-wide, and the heart with tongues of flame symbolizing the presence of the Spirit resident in the hearts of believers. The peaceful, pastoral scenes symbolize a place of peace and rest, while the hands of the community supporting the clasped hands of two men and two women symbolized the support this church wanted to give the GLBT community. (You can see it more clearly over here...)

Down at the bottom, there are two scriptures - I don't remember the first, but the second is Galatians 3:28 - "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."

The lady who greeted us told us proudly that to the best of her knowledge, this is the only GLBT-affirming stained-glass window in a church the US. (I'm sure it's the only one in a Presbyterian church in America.) The bottom line, she said, was that this church wanted us (and people like us) to feel welcomed and affirmed.

It was all I could do not to weep tears of joy....that anyone would make a commitment in the very structure of the sanctuary to share that message. How could we not feel at home?

This next item will sound ridiculous and trivial, but it's worth mentioning, especially to my Lutheran friends. I've been in churches which fought tooth-and-nail about having coffee in the sanctuary, or even in the narthex. Not this congregation...they have no narthex to speak of, so when the church was being remodeled, they put nooks on both sides of the back of the sanctuary, for coffee-pots and coffee-mug racks (no styrofoam cups here; this congregation believes that "being good stewards of the earth" means not filling up landfills!). A group of members provide fresh baked goods to go with the coffee every Sunday, and it's just expected that responsible people will (a) take their coffee and sweets to their pew, (b) clean up after themselves, and (c) wash their own mugs afterwards! And a stone sanctuary floor means no carpet to get stained...

The church was built in 1911. Back 15 years ago, the massive roof beams were found to have some sort of rot problems, and the church was all but condemned to be bulldozed. A way was found to re-strengthen the beams with some hardening resin, and the church interior was remodeled as well. The seating is now in the form of a T, with seating on either side of the beautiful wooden altar, which is on the floor-level with the congregation. The former altar space is now occupied by a small but respectable pipe organ, and a beautifully restored stained-glass figure of Christ looks down from above the organ.

Chris came from a very relaxed, family/house-church style of worship - where the "prayers of the congregation" were actually done by the congregation, where there were no bulletins, no order of worship, just a retired pastor and his flock gathered in folding chairs and couches around a piano in a community center. I had come from a congregation that regularly had 1,000 people a Sunday for worship, with a pre-printed liturgy in a bound bulletin, multiple hymnals - while not hardly as lock-step as many Lutheran communities are wont to be, it was hardly spontaneous worship.

But I had also come from a group of people who'd introduced me to Taize' (teh-ZAY) singing, to Maranatha's worship-n-praise, and to all-night prayer-vigils locked-in at the church sanctuary. I'd been through the "worship wars," the our-way-or-the-highway worship committee meetings, and encountered people who either believed that synthesizers were of the devil, or people who believed that they'd rather stay home than listen to one more organ prelude. As a result of all that (not to mention the emphasis on high liturgy at seminary, I've generally concluded that more diversity in worship meant more ways to experience God. But it had been a long time since I'd experienced that diversity.

Until we walked into McKinley Presbyterian Church.

Our first Sunday, I was greeted by some of the same Taize' songs I had sung back nearly a dozen years ago - the memory of which literally brought tears of joy to my eyes. As we sang we looked around the congregation - taking in the physical beauty of the sanctuary and the peace of the community. Chris and I were astonished that we were just one among many same-sex couples present, surrounded by a congregation for whom it was just no big deal in such a way that we instantly felt both welcomed and accepted.

As the Christ candle was lit, the congregation was invited to come forward and light candles symbolizing their prayers for peace - something which the congregation has done since the Sunday before the current Iraq war began. The beauty of the pipe organ did not overwhelm the congregation, but seemed to lift it up and support it. The prayers of the congregation were "popcorn-style" (whatever popped up, so to speak), and even the Lord's Prayer was said in a format that came from Tanzania or another African group of believers.

In short, everything was familiar, everything was similar - but nothing was the same.

My ELCA Lutheran friends will understand this image ... you know the kind of worship services that you have at the regional Synod conferences? Where everything's a little edgy, everything's in somewhat the same location, but nothing's exactly as you've known it at your home church and it all feels new and a little strange, but somehow cool?

Welcome to our worship - each and every Sunday.

Today, the Gospel reading was the woman who was bleeding, and touched Jesus' robe. The sermon dealt with healing and restoration - and talked about how the women who bled and the girl who died were both ritually unclean and untouchable. Their healing was not only physical healing, but social restoration - being returned into the community from which they had been excluded.

Today, as communities around the world celebrate Pride Week with parades and marches and so much more, Chris and I simply celebrated being home - being healed and restored to a sense of community in new and powerful ways. It is not so much that we are in a gay-friendly church - it's that we can worship here, and no one really gives a rat's patootie what we are. We are simply two among many of the Children of the Heavenly Father in ways that I have never before experienced - and as the old song says, it's a good feelin' to know....

I am looking forward to the ways in which God will use this community in both our lives.

Synchro Blog - Bridging the Gap, and loving our neighbours

And yes, I spelled "neighbours" correctly - specifically for some friends I've never met in Canada....

New Direction Ministries is a former Exodus ex-gay ministry based in Canada. Earlier this year they left Exodus because they disagreed with the direction and rhetoric of Exodus, which cost them a lot of support and funding. Since leaving Exodus their goal has been to be an important voice in trying to "bridge the gap" between gay people and religious people.

I heard Wendy Gritter, the director of New Directions, interviewed on Gay Christian Network's GCN Radio (you can hear the whole interview by going here, going to the May 29, 2009 show and click on "Listen to this show"), or you can also download an MP3 recording of it there.

I was so touched with her commitment to building bridges between all the parties in the gay/Christian/gay Christian issue that when she mentioned the idea of a concerted effort to blog together about how to "bridge the gap" I couldn't help but participate. You can see more on their Bridging the Gap SynchroBlog project here as well as the "day of the Synchro" post here.

If there was one thing I'd like to share with my fellow Christians on this Bridging The Gap day, is would be this: please, please - listen to your gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered neighbors. Listen to what we have to say - about our lives, our faith, our doubts, and our fears. Please don't assume that because you know we're gay, that you know everything you need to know about us - because you don't.

There is only one way we will ever bridge this gap between the gay community and the Christian community - and that's when men and women on both sides stop shouting at each other, and start listening. When Christians start to hear the woundedness and loneliness in the gay community, when they can see gay persons as human beings, and not as stereotypes - and when people in the gay community stop to listen beyond the "going to hell" chanting to see that there are people of great heart and great love in the Christian community, that is when we will start to grow closer.

As part of this listening effort, I make this gentle request to my straight Christian sisters and brothers. When someone speaks to a gay person like me, the one thing they don't need to do is tell me about those seven bible texts - so infamous in the gay community that they are known as "the clobber passages," because we keep getting clobbered with them by church folks. So many of us GLBT people have been told by well-meaning Christians that their homosexuality is the one sin that will keep them out of heaven - as if there were such a thing!

Let me start this "getting to know you" conversation. Let's face it - it's impossible to "know" a person from a few paragraphs of writing on one day. So I invite you, gently, to get to know me a little more....or maybe a lot...

After I'd left seminary, I started a post-seminary blog called Ragamuffin Ramblings. Even after I left seminary, it was more than a year before I could face coming out to my Christian friends, especially those who had supported me in my ministry quest. This blog post was that coming-out.

In response to Peterson Toscano's question on a GCN forum, I wrote "What I wish straight Christians knew." You may be surprised at what you find there...

For a year before I came-out in that first post above, I had been blogging about my coming-out process on "A Rainbow Flag in Narnia," to keep my "outing" process separate from my "after-seminary" process. During that time, I had a "close encounter" with a former pastor, who tried to liken homosexuality to alcoholism (just say no, in so many words), and out of that came this posting about how homosexuality was much closer to "being a Gentile in Bible times" than "being an alcoholic."

In response to a request from Christian Cryder (a fellow bloggger, church planter and minister in Montana) I wrote this - which is definitely "get a fresh pot of coffee and a donut or two" posting. It is a response to a bunch of questions that brother Cryder had about my faith and my understanding of homosexuality.

Five years ago, I wrote this post asking the church what was really incompatible with Christian teaching. Only two people had the guts to respond to this post in five years of blogging...

My prayer in spilling all of this digital ink is simply this - to give you, the reader, an insight into my life and faith. My hope, throughout this exercise, is that stories will be shared and heard, and people who are concerned about issues of faith and homosexuality will hear common voices.

For now, I leave this effort in God's hands, and leave you with my favorite prayer from the Lutheran Book of Worship, which I have used throughout my journey of faith:

Lord God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us and your love supporting us. Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen. (LBW page 137)

Amen, indeed.


(Credit where credit is due: The image of cross at the beginning of this post is a drawing by my friend and talented Ohio artist Jason Ingram. The image of the cross surrounded by the rainbow is the logo from Affirm United, a GLBT-welcoming ministry within the United Church of Canada. Thanks to Peter Fergus-Moore for the hat-tip!)

Getting back on the bicycle

I have been struggling, since getting to Ohio, with a number of things. One of the things I struggled with that never really ever floated to the top was the idea of finding a new "church home." In fact, to be honest, I struggled with it from the time I left my real "church home" in Kansas in 2003.

In seminary, we were always going where we were told for church. This visitation, this "ministry in context" site, this special project. Seminary was a place where I started falling in love with most of the theology of Martin Luther, even as I was falling out of love with the traditional ELCA Lutheran church. I saw worship as rote performance, worship as theatre and showmanship, but somehow had missed sincerity and humility in all the places I'd tried going.

I know it's a sad commentary for a man who intended to spend the rest of his life in church on Sunday morning - but except for Christmas and Easter, I've been hard-pressed to get fired up about going to church. In a way, I've felt the pull of demanding work and demanding family, and Sunday morning was the one morning I didn't have to be anything for anyone. No demands, no nothing. It felt pretty good.

And, to be honest, it seemed that the whole "committed to serve" thing that I had for the church just kind of flamed-out when I had to drop out of seminary. So many times, becoming a member of a church means becoming fresh meat for the church activity meat-grinder. Sunday mornings - sometimes all morning. Choir, Sunday school teacher, church council, prayer team leader - as a dear professor of mine once said, "The church is an addictive institution, and their drug of choice is over-commitment and overwork..." I have to admit a certain fear of being sucked back into the co-dependent "they need you there, Steve" syndrome.

And, to be honest, I haven't wanted to deal with finding a church that I can attend with my significant other and feel welcome. It's a tragic thing to say, but I really didn't want to be bothered with the struggle. Call it being conflict-averse, call it avoiding church closets, I don't know. Any more, my feelings about church has been a take-off on the old cigarette commercial: "I'd rather switch than fight."

Two things have kicked my church-aversion in the pants. One was the incredible richness of worship at the GCN conference at the beginning of January. I was completely overwhelmed by the power of the worship, and sense of being "a part of" that it brought me. Deep inside, I'd missed that sense - even though the blossoming relationship I'm in has brought a great deal of that back for me.

The other thing happened on Wednesday. I was at the Budapest Restaurant in Toledo Wednesday night, at a "145th anniversary" party for a friend. He turned 70 late last year, celebrated 45 years as a Catholic priest in December, and passed his 30th sobriety anniversary on Tuesday. So he invited all his friends to dinner on his dime to celebrate all 3 anniversaries. And after that, I went to an AA meeting downtown at a GLBT-friendly Episcopal church.

As we were walking up to the church, one of my fellow AA's said, "What's happening at the church tonight? Why's it so busy on a Wednesday night?" And that's when it hit me.

It's Ash Wednesday - that's why. The start of Lent. The beginning of the countdown to the Three Days and Easter. The church would be busy on Ash Wednesday, wouldn't they?...

And for the second year in a row, I wasn't in church on Ash Wednesday.

How the hell did that happen? How did I manage to ignore the ads, the big push to sell pazckis (Polish pastries sold before Lent, pronounced "poonschki," for reasons not readily apparent), and all the other signs of Mardi Gras and impending fasting?

How did it turn out to be Ash Wednesday, and I'm not there?

The enormity of it about blew me away. Something just cracked - just enough to let the idea of going back to church back into my head. And when I talked about it with a friend, he said, "Well, it's a lot like riding a bicycle - once you get back on, you'll remember how to ride..."

So we're going to try, this Sunday. There's a "church for people who don't like to go to church" not far from us. So I think Chris and I will try there, first. We won't go in waving the rainbow flag or anything - but we'll see what happens. And I'm trying to focus on what we heard so much at Christmas: "the reason for the season." The central reason why people should go to church, rather than all the other BS reasons we often come up with.

I know we'll have to deal with a bunch of Christians when we go. My hope is, we'll find some followers of Christ too.

Room at the table for everyone

Jesus started off with 12 people. Twelve misfits, following a Messiah who said impossible things like "love your neighbor" and "blessed are the meek" and "I am come that you might have life - and have it abundantly!" We know what they did...

This weekend, I watched what the Spirit of God did with two hundred eighty-five gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered Christians. In the mix were at least a half-dozen gay pastors who have been thrown out of mainline churches, and about a dozen gay music directors and worship leaders (although some would say "gay music directors" is repetitious...).

Imagine Christians who have been shunned by the rest of the Church world, who still have a heart for Jesus Christ - persecuted, shut out, rejected, ignored. And then take 285 voices who can't say enough about Jesus - and just imagine what it would sound like worshiping with them. Every session began with GLBT people worshiping - in some cases, participating in worship for the first time since they had been asked to leave their church. Worshiping out of every tradition - Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant of every variety, and no tradition at all.

And, oh my God, the music...

The theme of the conference was set to the tune of the praise song "How Great Is Our God." But this was not a group of Johnny-One-Notes - we sang praise music, the great hymns, even Taize' chant. Songs that I hadn't sung since my days as a worship team leader at Faith Lutheran in 2001 poured out of me. Sunday's worship set included the wonderful Taize' song Ubi Caritas, How Great Is Our God, Amazing Grace, I Love You Lord, Holy Holy Holy, How Great Thou Art, I Am A Friend of God, Beautiful Savior, and wrapping up with an amazingly synthesized pipe organ belting out A Mighty Fortress Is Our God.

As the last note of that mighty hymn floated away, one of the liturgists (a young Southern guy who is well-known in the group as a deeply devout Catholic) came up to pray. Surveying the crowd, he smiled and said, "If anyone doubts the inclusiveness of this organization, just think that this ol' Catholic boy is coming up here to pray after singing Martin Luther's hymn!"

It was electrifying.

And the speakers...we managed to miss JR Finney Friday morning, but Kelly Fryer's presentation Saturday morning was incredible. Kelly, a former Lutheran pastor who resigned before the church removed her, wrote the Christian beginner's book No Experience Necessary and a wonderful little volume for the Lutheran (ELCA) Church called Reclaiming The "L" Word - Renewing the Church from It's Lutheran Core. (The humor of the author of Reclaiming the "L" Word having to resign because of the other L-word was not lost on the crowd...). She poured affirming Scripture over the conference - telling each of us, "There is nothing more that you need for ministry; no permission slip, no special blessing! You have already received everything needed....ministry isn't a "right" than an institution can give you (or take away from you)!"


Jay Bakker, pastor of Revolution Church NYC and son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, shared the incredibly powerful witness of a straight man with a heart for the amazing unconditional love of Christ. His message of affirmation, and his memories of his mom (Tammy Faye, who died this last year, had a great heart for the GLBT community). But more than that, he gently addressed several of the so-called "clobber" passages that the church uses to try to exclude us, and pointed us back, every time, to the Cross.

That was the message, time and time again. Look to the Cross, no matter what the world, or the Church, or anyone tells us. The same Savior who welcomed the good thief into Paradise welcomes us, as well. The world needs what we have to offer, regardless whether the Church wants it or not. There is a place at the Table for us, our partners, and our families - we only have to step up and claim it. As my partner and I left the conference, arm in arm, the chorus of one praise song kept echoing in my ears...

I am a friend of God
He calls me "Friend"...

What have you done today to make you feel proud?

I look into the window of my mind
Reflections of the fears I know I've left behind
I step out of the ordinary
I can feel my soul ascending
I'm on my way
Can't stop me now
And you can do the same

Chorus
What have you done today to make you feel proud?
(It's never too late to try)
What have you done today to make you feel proud?
You can be so many people
If you make that break for freedom
What have you done today to make you feel proud?
(Heather Small, "Proud")

Today is National Coming Out Day - a day when gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered individuals are encouraged to "come out," to share our identity as GLBT persons with the rest of the world.

By acknowledging on this day that I am a gay man, I am not "flaunting" what I am. I am not "recruiting" others to some mythical "gay lifestyle" (whatever that mythical thing is). I'm not saying that I have a boyfriend, or a promiscuous sexual life, or that I am a drug-using club-hopping playboy.

In fact, it means exactly the opposite.

"Coming out" means that I am all the things that I was before - as well as gay. I'm still a follower of Christ; I still am kind of an outsider in organized religion (and there is some good in that!); I am still a storyteller, I am still a recovering alcoholic; I am still a 50-year-old, heavyset, graying man. I am still, hopefully, a man with a great heart, and great dreams, and a desire to be of service to my God and my fellow human beings. None of that has changed.

And I am a gay man.

There is much of me in that regard which has changed, certainly. I am not the desperate-for-approval, please-accept-and-love-me person that first came out two years ago. There is still one area in my life - my youth-group activities - in which I am not out. I made that choice because I wanted to be of service to the organization. But I also told them, when I started, that "don't ask/don't tell" would work, until someone asked - because I wasn't going to lie. No more.

Until I find a friend/boyfriend/partner who's willing to put up with me, there just isn't a lot in my life to deal with. But on this day, if none other, I need to let people know who I am...what I am...and Whose I am. The song lyric at the beginning of the post, used in the very last scene of the 5th seasons of Queer As Folk, reminds me that to "step out of the ordinary" is what I'm called to do. And that I'm called every day to do something "to make me feel proud" - as a brother, friend, man in recovery, and Christian who just happens also to be gay.

If you are interested in coming out, or know someone who is struggling with it, there are vast resources to help. Here are just a few:

The HRC Coming Out Project - including stories of those who have come out, and all kinds of information for GLBT's and their families.

FamilyAcceptance.org - a site started by a mother and father whose son came out to them, and their journey to acceptance.

A Letter To Louise - a former chaplain and Civil Rights Commission worker responds positively to a friend whose son is gay.

Accepting What Cannot Be Changed - an article by Dr. David Meyers of Hope College about sexual orientation.

Why Come Out? - Tom Scharbach's very sensible and common-sense advice to me (and many others) about the benefits of coming out. An excellent bit of experience from a very sharp mind.

The Gay Christian Network - including messages and discussion threads on all aspects of gay Christian life by more than 7,000 online members who are both gay and Christian. A podcast called GCN Radio has some great information, including a great interview with Patti Ellis of Family Acceptance (above).

What I wish straight Christians knew...

It's the very last day of what the gay community call Pride Month - recalling the Stonewall Riots of 1969, when gays and lesbians revolted rather than continue to be harrassed and persecuted by police and authorities. In Pride parades and celebrations around the country, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered (GLBT) individuals continue to make the statement that our community is part of "the greater community," and is not about to go away.

I am not one to wear rainbow-flag patches, or march in parades - I am not a gay activist by any means. In fact, I don't talk much about being gay here - primarily because I have another whole blog devoted to my fairly recent journey coming out as gay in late middle age. It will probably be a sign of healing and recovery when the two blogs merge (now there's an image - two becoming one...), but for now, I'm content with a mild case of split personality.

On this blog, however, I've spoken a great deal about my faith journey - and how many aspects of my life have affected that journey. So tonight, as the last minutes of Pride tick away, I've been thinking...

A couple months ago, Peterson Toscano (a new friend I met through the Gay Christian Network) asked the question of fellow GCN members: As GLBT Christians, what would you want straight Christians to know about your experience and your identity?

There are dozens upon dozens of answers - my fellow GCN'ers spilled a lot of bits-n-bytes on this topic. In responding to that question, I'm going use a lot of what I wrote, but also to steal some of their words - the ones that felt like "they were reading my mail," so to speak. In their voices, they were definitely "killing me softly with their song..."

I'd like straight Christians to know that I love God as much as I used to before I came out. In some circles, saying I'm gay is tantamount to saying that I'm an infidel - that I've turned my back on God. I'd want straight Christians to know that I've only made this choice because I believe that I can have both God and my sexual orientation.

Back when I believed that I had to choose, I chose God - which is why I spent so many years hiding in church closets. God is at the heart of my life and I knew that, as integral to my existence as my sexuality is, my relationship with God is even more central. It's only as I've studied the scriptures that I've become convinced.

I would like people to know that I am the same person I was when I was trying to live a hetero life. The fact that I came out of the closet does not change anything about me, except I am more honest. I didn't have to make the choice to either be gay or be a Christian. I am both and I have never felt closer to God than I do now living an authentic life.

I also am grateful that so far, none of my Christian friends have questioned my faith, nor have they rejected me for coming out. Compared to many, many gay Christians, I have had an extremely positive, affirming experience. I believe that this is because those people love me - whatever the hell I am - and knew my faith, regardless of my orientation. (That may very well end tomorrow, of course - but today, at least, I'm grateful for acceptance.)

I'm very grateful for the man who said I want it to be understood that I never quit taking my faith seriously. It's been a long and rough road to this point - but God is still very much on the throne, and many people have continued to affirm the call I heard a decade ago to "lay down your nets and and follow."

I would want straight Christians to know that I didn't choose this. The process to come to terms with my orientation has been agonizing and painful. I was never abused and I had a father who did his very best to have his son turn out right. It wasn't a choice...no matter what you've been told, or by whom. It's just not.

I would want Christians to know that the act of accepting gays isn't a moral breakdown or a failure of faith on their part. For gays there is a right and wrong way to live just as with straight people, and their is a striving for holiness, and there can be such thing as sexual purity and committed relationships.

I would love straight Christians to know how much I've tried to "straight-en out." How much I've prayed to God to make me love football and Baywatch babes. And I'd love them to know how desperately I wish that straight people didn't need those 5 stylish gay guys to make ugly straight men attractive....so they could come over HERE and work on making ME attractive! ('cuz honey, I need WORK done...)

I'd love the other advisors in my all-guys youth group to know that I don't desire their sons any more than they desire each others' daughters. I'd want them to know that advising their sons is as much an honor and a privilege for me as it is for them. And I'd want the church to know that there is a vast majority of gay men who are JUST as disgusted by child sexual abuse (regardless of the orientation of the perpetrator) as church folk are.

I'd love people at church to know that the one thing I'd love to see (almost as much as Jesus himself) is for the church to be as worried about Matthew 25 (the whole sheep-n-goats, feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, visit the prisoners thing) as they are about Leviticus. Now there would be a real miracle!

I'd love Brian McLaren to write a new book about gay Christian faith based on Acts 10, and call it A New Kind of Gentile. (But I want credit for the title...)

I'd like straight people to know that being gay is not like being a vampire or a werewolf. Not only is it not infectious, but besides - we don't bite. (In fact, like playful puppies, we only nibble where we know it would be welcome. But in an immense advantage over puppies, of course, we don't piddle on the rug....)

One of my straight Christian blogging friends asked the question: Sometimes, I get the feeling that "being gay" is the most important thing in a gay person's life. Is it really that important?

I replied to him that it's like the red thread in a Tartan-plaid fabric - if it wasn't there, you'd still have fabric, but it wouldn't be Tartan-plaid. And, to quote Brendan Fraser's character from the movie Twilight of the Golds, "Every human being is a tapestry - if you pull one thread, or one undesirable color, then the whole thing falls apart and you end up staring at the walls."

I think it's important for straight folks to see is that for homosexuals, the revelation that we are gay puts us at odds with a significant portion of society - friends, family, church, and social structures. In that way, it's not the most important thing to us, but it can become "a" defining thing, if not "the" defining thing to those we care about.

I guess one thing that I really, really wish I could ask straight people of every flavor is this: when I tell you I'm gay, please don't automatically assume you know what that means. When I say I'm gay, it does NOT mean I am some flamboyant, club-hopping, drug-taking, promiscuous queen (though God DOES know that some or all of those things have sounded like a good idea, at various times). Please remember that you are still talking to a human being - not a stereotype.

Once I tell you I'm gay, all that is different about me is that you understand my same-sex attraction. Nothing else has changed. And I'm not telling anyone in order to further some mythical "gay agenda" - I'm telling you so I can be more honest about who I am with you. Being "out," in many ways, is about "not bearing false witness," which God seemed to think was a good thing.

A final thought: I wish Christians could realize some of the cause-and-effect of why some gay people live the lives they do. Christians look at the drug use, gay bars, and promiscuity and then think that being gay can never be holy - but in reality, the Christian church has to take some responsibility for that. The Church has told the world that God does not love someone if they are gay, and would not want a relationship with them "just as they are." Because they have been told they must choose between God and being gay, homosexuals are often led to lives of desperation and depression.

I'm grateful to my fellow GCN'ers for putting into words some of the ideas I've expressed here. And I'm grateful to be able to think about these things in context of a loving, caring, accepting God.

"We are your sons, your daughters, your mothers, your fathers, your neighbors, your coworkers, your friends. We are here to love - and we are here to stay."

• (Note: The image of the cross surrounded by the rainbow is the logo from Affirm United, a GLBT-welcoming ministry within the United Church of Canada. Thanks to Poor Mad Peter for the hat-tip!)