Work more with a desire than with futile strength. . . . It is not what you are, and not what you have been, but what you wish to be that God considers with his merciful eyes.
There are the days when spirit flags,when I listen to a playlist of songs I’ve named Soul Songs—Pete Seeger singing “We Shall Overcome,” Joan Baez and “Guantanamera,” Sweet Honey in the Rock and that passionate political ballad “I’ve Got to Know,” “Nella Fantasia,” “How Can I Keep from Singing?” “Calling All Angels,” and, of course, Mercedes Sosa rendering “Gracias a la Vida” as if the song is welling from the earth’s depths.
Singing heals the spirit, when too many words threaten to wound it.
I suppose I’m down in a quite specific way because of the apparent futility of talking to church folks about the damage the churches do to gay hearts, minds, souls, and lives when the best pastoral responses churches seem able to provide us is to render judgment on us.
I should say “church folks” rather than “churches.” Churches are people, after all. The frustration is that people—other human beings—seem so oblivious to the harm done to fellow human beings when they are capable of interacting with us only insofar as they have tagged, controlled, and dismissed us.
My aborted conversations with some of these church folks in my own religious communion (but they’re in all churches) continue on threads at National Catholic Reporter. What strikes me as so curious about some of these folks is their ravenous need to tie everything in life up into neat little packages, to wrap those packages tight and then dispose of them—as they imagine God would have them do. Tie, wrap, dispose: the divine plan for salvation!
Several of these people talk always in binary opposites: Truth (always capitalized: they own it) as opposed to falsehood; true love as opposed to false love; natural as opposed to unnatural; the saved vs. the unsaved. It grows wearisome attempting to speak to anyone whose worldview is so neat, so contained, so . . . false.
Because life itself is not like that. Human beings are not like that.
Christianity speaks about the incarnation of God. To me, this means that God enters the human condition, becomes like us—beset with uncertainty, groping to find a path, seeking the best way possible in a world in which there are few best ways.
Last week’s Christian Science Monitor has an article on what constitutes good theology, in the religions of the world. The article cites Karen Armstrong, who notes that the heart and soul of the various religious traditions of the world is one simple and yet frighteningly complex concept: practical compassion.
From a Christian theological standpoint, when God took flesh, Love took flesh. For Christians, God is to be found in the world not through clutching a scrap of paper that contains The Truth, not through sweeping the churches clean of contaminating presences and drawing insider-outsider lines, not by defining everything in the world as we vs. them.
God is to be found by love. And the love that is God is enfleshed. There is no separating line between loving God and loving human beings. Rather than splitting all of reality into binary opposites (controllable opposites, hierarchical opposites), in taking flesh, God unites the opposites: to love humans is to love God; to love God is to love humans.
And so the very deep wound church folks inflict on gay persons: in telling us that what we do is separated from “real” love, in telling us that who we are is not about love in the divinely approved sense, church folks not only deny our love: they deny our humanity.
When the experience of love opens one’s heart to further love; when the love of one person disposes one to love all persons; when love makes one more generous rather than more closed; when the love of the beloved sharpens one’s vision of the many hungers of the world (for food, for water, for knowledge, for freedom from oppression): then one is experiencing the kind of love that is redemptive, liberating, divine.
Rumi says, “Remind those who tell you otherwise that love comes to you of its own accord, and the yearning for it cannot be learned in any school.” To me, this speaks volumes about the vocation of gay believers: to witness to the authenticity of the divine love that we find in our lives and relationships.
Against all odds, no matter what the deniers of love wish to say, we must keep on loving. To do otherwise is to die. When words fail us, when friends betray us, when political allies prove not to be worthy of our hopes, we still have the strongest resource possible: we love, and no one can take this from us.
It's a struggle to find and speak truth in a world in which the truth is systemically distorted by media, by powers and principalities, by those whose self-interest is served by manipulating the truth.
In such a world, the voices of witnesses such as these help keep the flame lit, when turbulent winds and dark days threaten to extinguish it:
First, I’m grateful for Rev. Andy Burnette’s 20 Feb. posting at Bilerico project entitled “Thanks for Your Concern about My Children” (www.bilerico.com/2008/02/thanks_for_your_concern_about_my_childre.php). Rev. Burnette addresses those who express concern about his daughter, given his decision to speak out courageously on behalf of LGBT rights as a minister in
“I can’t imagine having to admit that, while I believe prejudice is wrong, I didn’t say anything because I was afraid. That admission would teach her that self-preservation is more important than truth and justice, that it’s OK to be quiet about discrimination when speaking up could be uncomfortable. . . .May we have the courage to do what is right, for ourselves, and for the next generation.”
Rev. Burnette’s article includes the quotation from Martin Luther King, Jr., about shallow understanding and lukewarm acceptance that I highlight my own 20 Feb. blog entry.
And today, when a memorial service for Lawrence King is to be held in Westminster Presbyterian Church in
Given that silence, I was heartened to read in Pam’s House Blend blog this week an article entitled “Parents Confront Officials about Lawrence King Shooting” (www.pamshouseblend.com/showDiary.do;jsessionid=4A0DDC165E766AC3D00D71957B29D080?diaryId=4558). Pam notes that the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) is keeping track of local vigils organized to remember Lawrence King, and has issued a list of four concrete steps schools can take to confront school bullying of LGBT children.
I’m delighted to hear that GLSEN is calling on schools to address the issue of school bullying of LGBT youth, in light of Lawrence King’s murder. Yet, as I explain in my blog entry of 15 February, the mention of GLSEN reminds me of the role the churches and their institutions play in suppressing open discussion of homophobia and homophobic violence.
As that blog entry explains, in my last position leading faculty at a church-based institution noted for its commitment to civic engagement, I was severely punished by my supervisor for even mentioning GLSEN as a resource for faculty. This supervisor, who is the mother of a gay son and has worked in a leadership position in the United Methodist church, found the mere mention of GLSEN in a church-based school a way of “putting my lifestyle in the face of colleagues.”
The church has a long, long way to go. It is time to break silence.
Since I have chided the presidential candidates this week for their silence about Lawrence King’s shooting, I would like to give credit to Barack Obama for speaking out in
And finally, I would like to give credit to one courageous church leader—in a church not known for its welcome of LGBT people—for daring to remind us that the rejection of LGBT folks by churches undermines the churches’ claim to walk in the footsteps of Jesus.
Bishop Gumbleton’s sermon may be found at the blog café of National Catholic Reporter (http://ncrcafe.org/node/1619). Courageous advocates like Bishop Gumbleton deserve to be supported and celebrated by the LGBT community. All too often, they suffer reprisal at the hands of their own church when they speak out—and this has happened to Bishop Gumbleton.
Those whose words I’m citing in this post have been candles to my heart this week, as I continue to ponder the senseless murder of LGBT youth in our land, along with the silence of the churches (and media) about this national social cancer. As the Persian mystic poet Rumi reminds us in his poem “Candle in the Heart,” there is a candle in our hearts ready to be kindled. And it is love that kindles that candle—love that comes to us of its own accord, love that should be accepted and celebrated as it is, not excused or explained away, when it kindles candles in our heart. The love that fills human hearts, changes lives, and pours forth into the lives of others in endless creativity is a precious resource for all of society. Those who love should never be chastised for their loving. They should certainly not be maimed or killed because they love. As Rumi urges:
Love
comes to you of its own accord,
and the yearning for it
cannot be learned in any school.”