You know as surely as do I that….

• Today someone is just coming to the self-awareness that the life they’re living isn’t the life that’s true for them.
• Today someone has experienced rejection, condemnation, and shame that was never meant for them due to the words and actions of their pastor, their parent, or their life-long friend.
• Today a queer youth raised by conservative Christian parents has been told to leave the only home they’ve ever known until they “come to their senses and change their ways.”
• Today a pastor tearfully preached his last sermon to the congregation he’s faithfully served because a vibrant ministry has been judged meaningless by a denominational policy that values a single sexual orientation over a heart that’s responded to God’s call.
• Today a lesbian or gay couple have been reminded with a glance at the morning paper that there continue to be people in this world bound and determined to keep their children from ever knowing what it is to be regarded as a “real family.”
• Today someone was savagely beaten for wearing clothing that reflected their true gender identity.
• Today someone is reeling from another assault on their heart and spirit and questioning if it will ever change, doubting that it ever will, and wondering what the point is in going on.

These are the someones I can’t forget even in the comfort and ease of a life lived with a beautiful wife, an affirming congregation, a supportive community, and a family that continues to love me and stay connected despite any differences that exist between us.

As GLBTQ people we have no shortage of causes and all of them are important but additionally as GLBTQ Christians there’s another aim we seek along with marriage equality, equal rights, the reversal of DADT, and the passage of ENDA. It is that every gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered man, woman, and young person would come to an understanding that God loves them fully, unconditionally, and with no small print attached.

The way we do this is simple even when it’s not easy.

We make ourselves as visible in the world as our own life situation allows us to be. We come out where we can, living as openly as we can, whether it’s in the public square or in the intimate confines of a small circle of friends. We become as visible as we possibly can so those who remain hidden might see they are not alone and so that queer youth can be assured that there are people, both gay and gay-affirming who will understand them and not abandon them when so many others in their life they trusted have closed the door.

We tell our stories of being Christians who are GLBTQ or as straight Christians who are affirming of the lives of GLBTQ people. We tell how it was like to come out and of the freedom we came to know even when we were met with rejection. We tell of those places of light in the church and in the world to bring balance to the darkness that has proceeded from the church and been lived out in the world in all too apparent and painful ways. We tell of our lives and our love for God. And if we must remain hidden we can create a blog where we tell our stories knowing that the narrative of our lives can speak hope and healing even when we can’t speak our name. ([un]Closeted Pastor, formerly known as Closeted Pastor stands as just one example).

We confront in truth and in love the misrepresentation of queer people by the church and the misinformation and stereotyping that comprises the bulk of their stance against homosexuality. While we hope that truth-telling will in time change the hearts of the church and society, for the immediate moment we tell our truth so that those who continue to struggle will understand that there’s more than one interpretation of Scripture and more than one view of homosexuality within Christianity.

We make ourselves visible, we tell our stories, we speak truth where there are lies and confront stereotypes with the diversity of our lives, and finally, we allow the witness of our lives to bring positive change into the world, the church, and into the hearts of those most in need of seeing the freedom and joy that awaits beyond the storm. We refuse to be the tormented homosexuals the church requires of us but instead we walk with confident assurance in who we are, making no apology for our lives, our relationships, or our place in the church. We proclaim without reservation our love for God and God’s love for us and we seek every day to live lives grounded in the love of God and reflective of the Spirit of Christ so that others would know claiming their sexual orientation need never come at the price of forsaking their faith and relationship with God.

This is my diabolical gay agenda and if this is what the church fears then be afraid. Be very afraid.

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, ‘Greetings, favoured one! The Lord is with you. But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favour with God.  And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. He will reign over the house of Jacob for ever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.’ Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I am a virgin?’ The angel said to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. Then Mary said, ‘Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.’ Then the angel departed from her.  -Luke 1

She was perplexed and wondered what sort of greeting this might be.

How can this be since I am a virgin?

Here am I, a servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.

Mary’s response to the angel’s pronouncement is an understatement on so many levels. Even before dealing with the content of what the angel is saying Mary has to take in the context; that being that an angel has shown up in her room in the middle of the night. Though I’m not a scholar of ancient history I’m going to go out on a limb and postulate that angel appearances weren’t a common occurrence in the lives of young Palestinian Jewish girls in the first century. I could be wrong but I’ll take the risk. Whether Gabriel glowed with heavenly light and feathered wings flapping or made a nondescript appearance like Earl, my preferred variety of angel, it was a moment like none other in the young girl’s life. Surprising to say the least and yet the story doesn’t go on to recount how Mary ran screaming from the room or went weak in the knees, swooning to the ground in a heap. No external reaction on her part is revealed; only that internally Mary was perplexed and wondered why the angel had addressed her as favoured one and assured her of God’s presence.

While Mary might have been baffled about it all, why was there no fear on her part? Why no running or screaming or fainting or trembling, all of which I would have done in no particular order or more likely would have done all at the same time? My best guess is because from the moment the angel appeared, despite the extra-ordinariness of what was unfolding, Mary simply accepted what was. There was nothing in her that denied the reality of what was happening or that said no to the moment. You can almost hear the gears in her mind turning over;“This isn’t a dream. This is real. There’s an angel in my room and the angel is speaking to me. Now what?”

Mary’s acceptance allowed Gabriel to get right to the point of why he had come and where he began was by offering Mary the assurance that she had found favor in the eyes of God so she would know that the news to follow wasn’t a punishment for wrongdoing or a test of her faithfulness but instead he had come to tell her that because she had found favor, because God loved her and trusted her faithfulness God had chosen her for a special calling above all others. Mary had been chosen. By God.

And with assurance given the angel went on to round out the details of God’s calling; that she Mary, a young Jewess occupying a humble station in life, born to a family of simple means, engaged to a blue-collar worker, had been chosen to give birth to Messiah, the Promised One, the Hope of her people from the infancy of their beginnings, the King who would reign over the House of Jacob forever and the One whose kingdom would have no end. The angel’s pronouncement was the fulfillment of a promise from God that her people had longed to hear and hinged their lives upon from generation to generation. The angel is revealing that the promise of God to the people of Israel was just on the horizon. The moment had come. The time was now.

And Mary’s response? Now here is the part I love. Don’t miss it. Mary may have been young, but she wasn’t stupid. She knew where babies came from and so she knew it was impossible for her to give birth since she’d never been with a man. What the angel was saying was ridiculous. It was inconceivable. It was out of the question. Nope, not her. Not now. No way. And that’s just what she could have said. “No Gabriel. What you’re saying is impossible because I’m a virgin.” Period. End of story. Yet  instead of making a closed statement Mary asked the question “How can this be since I’m a virgin?” Mary didn’t say no to the impossibility of what God is revealing through Gabriel but instead she asked how it can be possible and in doing so Mary left the door open for the impossible to become possible. She left her heart open to receive the divine revelation for what in her human understanding was inconceivable.

And with her heart and ears open, she received the angel’s explanation for how it will be and answered in simple faith, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Here I am. Yes. I will accept this calling. Though I may be condemned as a sinner in violation of the law. Though I may lose face among my people. Though I may be rejected and cast out by my community. Though my parents may be ashamed. Though Joseph may abandon me. Though there will be certain pain and labor and blood. Though I will be stepping into the unknown, here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

That’s all I’m saying. Let God’s Spirit say what God would have you hear.

Spread the Word!

]]> http://www.sisterfriends-together.org/what-you-said-mary/feed/ 3 http://www.sisterfriends-together.org/jesus-said-it-first/ http://www.sisterfriends-together.org/jesus-said-it-first/#comments Thu, 03 Sep 2009 04:19:18 +0000 anita http://www.sisterfriends-together.org/?p=3986

Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. (For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written,

‘This people honors me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.’
You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.”

Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

After he had left the crowd and entered the house, his disciples asked him about this parable. ^“Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a man from the outside can make him ‘unclean’? For it doesn’t go into his heart but into his stomach, and then out of his body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods “clean.”) He went on: “What comes out of a man is what makes him ‘unclean.’ For from within, out of men’s hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man ‘unclean.’ ” - Mark 7:1-8, 14-23

I’m a sharp enough whip to understand the context. The Pharisees had their tunics in a bunch because the disciples had ignored a basic purity law. They ate food with unclean hands and in doing so they set off a icky dirty chain effect: unclean hands made the food they touched unclean and the unclean food they put into their mouths made them unclean. They were defiled. Unclean. Impure. In other words, the disciples had unholy cooties.

Jesus responded in pure Jesus style which I now offer courtesy of my own translation “Knock it off you chuckleheads! The prophet Isaiah had your number when he said ‘you talk the talk but your hearts are shut away from me. You’re pushing your conditions and traditions on others as though they were doctrine and all the while you’re totally ignoring what God said.’ Wise up everyone! Nothing outside of you will defile you. Pay attention instead to what comes out of you because that’s what really matters.” As is often the case in the Gospel of Mark, the disciples are portrayed as so thick around the ears they don’t understand what Jesus’ teaching means and so once again he has to spell it out for them. “I’m going to say this slowly for you guys. Whatever food you eat goes into your stomach and then it leaves your body, so that’s why no food is to be considered unclean because none of it stays with you.  No. What matters to God is what comes out of your heart and if what comes out of someone is evil, then that’s what makes that person unclean. Capice?”

Everyday we take what’s unclean into ourselves from outside ourselves. Every diminishing word that’s spoken about us, every name we’re called, every condemning word and judgment, the disapproving looks of family and friends, the legal assault on our rights, the verbal debate in society and the church about who and what we are. All those words and looks and actions come at us and into us through our eyes and ears and there are times when worn down and weary we begin to wonder if the unclean things we’ve taken in to ourselves are who we really are.

But that’s not who we are. Your worth will never be determined by what’s outside of you. Your worth is found in who God says you are (Does child of God ring a bell?), in the content of your heart (Evil thoughts or thoughts of God?) and in what proceeds out of your life through the words of your mouth and the actions of your hands.

Your worth is determined by your heart and by the day to day living of your life and by who God says you are. Those three things say everything about you and all the rest, all that unclean rubble whirling around you from outside you doesn’t belong to you. It says nothing about you and no one has the power to determine your worth and no one has the right to call you unclean.

Now, if you have a problem with what I’m saying don’t take it up with me. Take it up with Jesus because I’m only repeating what he said. “ There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.”

Do you think Jesus was just talking about food? Oh. I don’t. Not for a minute.

…..Straight in body

…..Straight in mind

…..Straight in heart

……....I would not take it.

If taking such a pill would restore all my lost friendships

…..And regain my parents pride

…..And give back my families respect

…..…..I would not take it.

If taking such a pill would return me to my former ministry

…..And the admiration of the congregation

…..And the loving welcome of the church

…..…..I would not take it.

If taking such a pill would replace the love I have for my wife with an equal love for a man

…..And we could legally marry

…..And we would be granted full rights under the law without fighting for them

…..…..I would not take it.

If taking such a pill would mean no one would reject me for being who I am

…..And for saying what I believe

…..And for standing boldly as one who follows Christ

…..…..I would not take it.

If taking such a pill could take the world back in time,

…..Before I came out of the closet,

…..Before I said I was gay

…..Before I knew I was gay

…..Before inequality touched me

…..Before hate revealed its ugliness to me

…..Before anyone rejected me

…..Before anything was lost to me

…..Before I ever questioned God’s love for me

…..…..I would not take it.

If taking that pill would make me straight

…..And famous

…..And wealthy

…..And talented

…..And adored

…..And beautiful

…..And thin

……....I would not take it.

……....I would not take it.

……....I. Would. Not. Take. It.

I would never take a pill that would make me straight because

……....I love being who I am

……....I love being whole and free

……….I love seeing the world from where I stand

……....I love knowing God from this place

……....I love feeling passion burning in me for equality

……....I love being part of a people who are courageous and relentless

……....I love being one in Spirit with every queer youth

…………..With every gay man and woman

……………With every bisexual man and woman

…………..With every transman and transwoman

……………With every ally and friend

……………With everyone who questions, doubts and searches

……….And I love being one in Spirit with you

……………Bound in hope, and faith, and love

……………Bound in God

If there was a pill I could take that would make you straight

………..And taking that pill would end all your confusion and anxiety

……….And remove your fear that God has rejected you

……………I would not take that pill even for you.

You are gay.

…..You are not wrong.

…..…..You are not sinful.

…..…..…..You are not evil or perverted.

…..…....…..…You are not unworthy.

…..…..…..…..…..You are not a mistake.

…..…..…..…..…..…..You are not to be ashamed.

You are gay.

…..God loves you.

…..…..God holds you.

…..…..…..God stands with you.

…..…..…..…..God delights in you.

…..…..…..…..…..God calls you “My own.”

If there was a pill that could make me straight

…..And make you straight

…..And you

…..And you

…..And you

……....I would not take it.

……....I would not take it.

……....I. Would. Not. Take. It.

…..…..…..…..…..

In the four years between the demise of one relationship and the beginning of my life with my beloved the biggest project in life was spent working on me. Here’s what the Anita Project entailed:

• During those years I all but single-handedly financed a college education for my therapist’s daughter as I explored and dissected every personal issue I could possibly dredge up.
• I tended to my spiritual life by committing myself to prayer, mediation, and study of the Word with a rigorness and consistency I’d never known prior and which often escapes me now.
• After a life time of being miserable in a body that was far too big for me, I lost more than a 100 pounds.
• I became actively involved a new church and in the local community by volunteering monthly at a food kitchen and in an afterschool program for at-risk kids.
• I attended my first national GLBTQ Christian conferences and wanting to connect with other Christian lesbians in my town I started a local Christian lesbian group that involved placing an ad in the newspaper and setting up a circle of chairs on a Saturday morning in my churches fellowship hall. Nineteen women showed up. Just so you know, they are out here.

At the end of those four years when I headed off to attend seminary I was as happy and content as I’d ever been in my life. I was single and involved in life and a future relationship was the last thing on my mind. I had no idea that D and a more than spectacular life with her at my side was waiting around the corner. All that I had known four years earlier was that since coming out the previous year nearly every anchor in my life had been knocked out from under my feet. In coming out I’d lost my immediate circle of friends. Relationships in my immediate family had grown distant and strained. I left my church of 15 years and the only denomination I’d ever known. I’d lost my identity and career in pastoral ministry. I’d moved to another city, was in another church of another denomination, was working a 9 to 5 desk job, and my only significant intimate relationship had just ended disastrously. Conservative Christianity in the church and in my childhood home had created my identity, had instructed me in how to live, and had shaped my understanding and relationship with God. Coming out I lost that identity and the boundaries that had constrained me and while I remained certain of God’s love and presence I was unsteady and in doubt of much of the fundamental teaching that had bracketed my conservative faith. In a very real way I was beginning life all over again and I didn’t have the maturity, knowledge or even the basic skills to  know how to find my place in the world. More than anything I needed help to learn how to live in the world as the best version of myself I could be; the fullness of me created within the heart of God.

I know I’ve just yammered about me but I can’t help but believe there are others reading who are nodding because some part of this is their story too. Am I right or am I right? If not boy, do I feel silly.

So sure. There’s little doubt we’ll be in a far better position to participate in a lasting, loving relationship if we don’t enter it spiritually broken, emotionally needy, and clueless as to who we are in this world, but the point of personal growth is never about another woman or getting another woman but it’s about you and becoming you. We slog through all the laborious work of self-discovery, healing, and personal growth so that we can live in to and out of God’s great plan for our lives, and God has no greater plan for your life than that you would grow fully into who you are. You do realize don’t you, that you’re the only person God created who possesses the ability to live out life fully as you?  No one else can bring who you are to the world but you and all God desires is that you live out your life in wholeness, health, and love…as the most complete and quintessential you.

That’s the most important task before you. Being you. Not finding her.

And as it so happens, sometimes when we tend to the one, the other takes care of itself.

You’re my Honeybunch, Sugarplum
Pumpy-umpy-umpkin, You’re my Sweetie Pie
You’re my Cuppycake, Gumdrop
Snookgums-Boogums, You’re the Apple of my Eye
And I love you so and I want you to know
That I’ll always be right here
And I love to sing sweet songs to you
Because you are so dear.

I know. It’s so sickeningly sweet and over-the-top you want to gag. Go ahead. Gag a little and once you’ve treated yourself to a Listerine rinse sit yourself back down and prepare yourself for truly disturbing news.

In the eight plus years D and I have been together I’ve called her by every pet name imaginable, and yes, that includes Sweetiepie, Honeybunch and Pumpkin. I’m holding onto Snoogum-Boogums and Cuppycake for the next time I forget to clean out the cat box or wash the dark clothes in hot water. While this admission no doubt wrecks total havoc on my incredibly cool dyke-ish veneer I’m trusting you to not tell anyone.  ¿Hermana a la hermana, por favor?

For a long time my pet name for D was Boo. I’m not sure where it came from but I loved calling her Boo and she loved hearing it so it worked for us. It worked until the day I accidentally called our slightly crazy cat Tweety by D’s pet name. With a kitty treat in my hand, I held it in front of the cat and said the unthinkable.

“Here Boo.”

“What did you just call the cat?” she asked as I began searching desperately around the room for someone else to blame. Apparently having your wife call you by the same pet name as she calls “the pet” tends to diminish the sweetness of it all. Who knew? Anyway, that’s why when sometime later I came up with a new pet name D liked she issued forth instructions. “Don’t call anyone else by that name, okay? I want it to be mine.” And so I never have. I’m slow, not stupid.

We’re like most couples. We share an intimate language between us. Some of the terms of endearment we use with each other are common to other couples. Honey. Sweetheart. Baby. Others are just between us. None. Of. Your. Business. Not because they’re shamelessly provocative but simply because those names belong just to us. A secret little language between two people in love. Read the Song of Songs. We aren’t even privy to their given names because all they ever did was call each other the little names they made up for the other. Whether talking to their lover or talking to others about them the pet names were non-stop. My beloved, my fair one, my lover, my dove, my king.”

Pet names. Given names. Every name we have, from the one chosen for us by our parents to the ones we collect over our lives from friends, loved ones and partners, play a part in shaping our self-identity. It’s true that we grown and live into the names by which we’re called.

Wait! I almost forgot. That was close!

Before you read any further take a minute and go outside and find two stones. Humor me will you? The size and shape don’t matter. Just try and find one stone that’s as close to white as possible and another stone that’s a darker shade. When you bring them back inside place the white stone near you on the table and hold the other in your hand as you continue reading. Okay.

The stone you’re holding represents other names that might have stuck with you over your life and gone into shaping your self-identity whether you wanted them to or not. We once chanted on the playground,“Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me” but even while chanting it with a firm upper lip I knew it wasn’t true. Name-calling hurt. They were like stones that smashed our spirits and vied for power in making us who we believed we really were. Every stone that the crowd readied in their hands to hurl at the adulterous woman was named. Tramp. Whore. Prostitute. Sinner. Had Jesus not intervened those stones could have crushed the life out of her. Such is the power of naming stones.

Have you ever been called a name that determined your identity? Did you hear Ugly when you were told “You’d be so pretty if you only lost some weight?” Have you always thought you were Stupid because you never seemed able to bring home grades that met you or your parents expectations? Did a lover betray you and leave you feeling Unlovable? Are you a Loser because you didn’t get the job you wanted or an Outsider because you weren’t included in the popular crowd? Have you always thought of yourself as Dirty because you were abused sexually as a child? And how about the names we hear directed at us as GLBTQ people? Pervert. Abomination. Sinner. How do you answer the question “Who am I?” How do you answer that question really, in the depths of your heart? Do your naming stones, and some of us have a pile of them, affect your answer? Whatever names you’ve been carrying within yourself all these years, write them on the stone you hold in your hand, and when you’re done, place that stone down and replace it with the white stone.

Scripture reveals our true identity. We are the people of God. We are God’s workmanship. We are sons and daughters of the most high God. We are the sheep and God is the shepherd. We are a holy people, a royal priesthood. We are the beloved. We are the beloved. We are the beloved but often our true identity is hidden under a pile of naming stones.

But there is another stone that’s born out of the intimacy of our relationship with God that reveals a secret name your beloved has given to you alone; a name better than Honey or Baby or even Cuppycake. In Revelation 2:17 it reads that to all those who have overcome, God will “give a white stone and on the stone a new name written, which no one will know except the one who receives it.” Is it so hard to imagine, such a far stretch to consider that God, your heavenly parent and your beloved has a special name for you; a name so sweet, intimate, and tender that it is only for you and God to know?

The theologian George MacDonald wrote more than a hundred years ago of the stone mentioned in the Book of Revelations; the one represented by the stone you now hold in your hand. Taking liberty with MacDonald’s gender language he wrote,

“It is the woman’s own symbol – her soul’s picture, in a word – the sign which belongs to her and to no one else. Who can give a woman this, her own name? God alone. For no one but God sees what the woman is…It is only when the woman has become her name that God gives her the stone with the name upon it, for then first can she understand what her name signifies…Such a name cannot be given until the woman is the name…that being whom He had in His thought when He began to make the child, and whom He kept in His thought through the long process of creations that went to realize the idea. To tell the name is to seal the success – to say “In thee also am I well pleased.”

God has a name for you, written on stone and even today you are becoming the name that God has held for you from the beginning of time. The naming stones are wrong. They aren’t your identity. Your most true identity can’t be given to you by parents, bosses, enemies, or even friends and lovers. Your identity is shaped and formed and flows from the very heart of God who loves you. Do you see that naming stone laying on the table near you. Give it up. Toss it away. Throw it in a river. Fling it over a mountain cliff. Whatever you do, get rid of it because it doesn’t belong to you anymore. It never did. Replace that naming stone that never really named you with God’s white stone. And why is the stone white? In ancient times a person was declared innocent by a jury if they presented the defendant with small white stones. While others find you guilty God declares you innocent and not only innocent but cherished by the bestowing of a unique and private name. Live in that name! Wake up each morning, take that white stone in your hand and ask that God would help you to grow into your name through the day. Though you don’t yet know what that still hidden secret name is by which you’re called, you can be assured that when you hear it you’ll smile because it will be a perfect fit.

=====

Afterword: Some of the content for this post came from a keynote presentation I gave a few years ago at an Evangelical’s Concerned Women’s Retreat. The theme I selected was “The Sacred Romance: Exploring Our Relationship with God,” and one of the many books I referred to was The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer to the Heart of God. I’ve misplaced the book since then and so I can’t check to be certain which of the material above is original content or was gleaned from their writing. I mention this to be certain that proper credit is given.

One other thing I want to mention. I used the passage from Revelations in a devotional manner, to suggest that given the intimate relationship we share with God and of God’s great love for us, it doesn’t seem to be out of the scope of possibility that God has a name for each of his children that will be shared between only God and every individual. What I’m not doing is inferring that the text serves as evidence that my thoughts around God giving us a secret name has the backing of biblical authority. To use it in that manner would be to engage in proof-texting; a questionable practice at best, dishonoring of the scriptural text and the intention of the author at its worst.

These early activists, predating Stonewall and Gay Liberation, paved the way for the freedom that GLBTQ people enjoy and continue to seek to advance to this day. They were brave and brilliant people.

In the years that followed, as the Homophile Movement spread across the nation and onto college campuses, and with the rise of Gay Liberation and other contemporary activist groups, the emphasis moved from gay assimilation (fitting in to the wider culture) to embracing a unique gay identity that refused to conform to societal norms and institutions. Gay Liberation, Stonewall, Queer Nation and Act Up all pushed GLBTQ people to reject the status quo in every aspect of life from appearance to politics and ever since those early days an internal debate has been bubbling among various camps within the GLBTQ community; do we integrate into society or create a separate identity that stands apart from it. It’s complicated conversation packed with political and socio-cultural implications and like a good little lesbian I should probably care about it all but I have to admit I care but not so much

What I know is that as GLBTQ people each of us is first an individual before we’re a part of a bigger community and as such we should have the freedom to be whoever we are and to live a life that most authentically reflects that without being critiqued or criticized from either direction. Be radically queer and reject all conformity, raging against the system and stirring up the waters if that’s who you are. Move to the suburbs with your same-sex spouse and 2.3 cats if that’s who you are. Be who you are and stake out your own identity while you let others be who they are and self-identify as they will. As though there aren’t bigger causes for us to direct our time and energy to than getting everyone to look, think, and act just like us.

I wish someone would have told me that about 12 years ago because I’d been out for no more than 23 minutes than I started putting on the gay. Now, let’s break down a myth here. Lesbians don’t actually go out into the straight world and try to woo straight girls into our special secret club. No. Instead professional lesbians wait for new members to join of their own volition and then take it upon themselves to train up the lesbian newcomer in the art of being a lesbian. At least I had a friend like that who one day while looking at my chosen footwear procured from the sales rack at FootLocker, informed me with a slow resigned shake of the head that any self-respecting lesbian with tomboyish leanings wore Dr. Martens. Armed with her wisdom in my back pocket I replaced my cheap sneaks with a forty pound pair of Dr. Marten black leather lace up boots. So what if they gave me blisters on my big toe the size of an 8 month old infant! They were what lesbians wore and so I laced up those big bad blister boys, slipped my rainbow-colored “Yes, I Am” teeshirt over my head, and made my giddy-gay way right into Tower Records where I bought every Melissa Etheridge and Indigo Girls CD in stock. As I remember they had a rather hefty inventory.

After several months of being a groupie of all things gay and lesbian I realized all I was putting on wasn’t anymore a reflection of who I genuinely was, than it was all those years I sat among my Christian women friends and talked about men and makeup as though I cared about either. I nodded. I agreed. I smiled knowingly as each woman contributed her opinion on why men were the way they were when in reality it was all so unrelated to my universe that I might as well have been sitting in on a gathering of Lithuanian-speaking Mensa members. While they were my friends and I loved them like crazy there was a gapping disconnect between their world and mine. In some ways I was only pretending which is what probably propelled me so full-speed ahead into putting on the gay. With the awareness I was gay suddenly the disconnect I’d always felt made sense and for the first time I finally knew those to whom I belonged and I wanted to connect with them in every way possible to tighten my bond to them and strengthen my identity. I’m not saying I did any of this consciously but looking back I think that’s what was behind it. I put on external things and internal values that weren’t really me so I could more fully belong at last.

It seems a natural progression for many of us to go through a time of trying on gay. Consider it a rite of passage that can be fun, exciting, and a little scary. I’m not judging it, just commenting on it and offering the thought that in the end we each need to be true to ourselves and not worry about how that looks to others. Wear Dr. Martins or Birkenstocks if you like them. Listen to Melissa until your woofers and tweeters explode if that’s your music. Subscribe to Ms. Magazine or Good Housekeeping. Be politically active or don’t be. Carry a purse or stuff all your earthly possessions into the back pocket of your jeans. Just understand that gay has a thousand faces and a thousand lifestyles as does straight and you don’t have to jump from one box into another or put on anything that isn’t you.

Even while I’m writing this I’m wondering if Christianity didn’t teach us something about the pressure to conform. Oh, who am I kidding? I’m not wondering. The evidence is in and so maybe that influences part of language was spiced with church lingo, what we believed was determined by church doctrine, we said “yes” to what the church approved and said “no” to what the church opposed. And yes, we even dressed like Christians, complete with slogany teeshirts and coordinating car bumper stickers. Ironic. The Apostle Paul encouraged believers to “put on Christ” (Romans 13:14) and “be imitators of God” (Ephesians 5:1) and somehow we’ve confused that for putting on Christian. Big difference, tragic though that might be. This is all striking me as so fascinating though I doubt I’m expressing it very well or that I’m even able at the moment to untangle it for myself. I’m just pondering the correlation between putting on the church and putting on the gay, how putting on either of them or both of them distracts me from just being me. Messy, holy, human me.

Again I’m just thinking out loud here and perhaps only for the benefit of myself but maybe if we all just spent less time putting on the gay, the church, the conservative, the liberal, the this, the that, and put on Christ we’d find out who we really are and who we really want to be.

No. Wait. I’m probably the only one.

Or am I? Maybe I’m wrong.
Do you think I’m wrong?
I wonder if you think this is a weak opening. Do you think it is?
Maybe it’s not good enough and I should start all over again.
Should I start all over again? Do you think I should?
Huh? Do you?

I admit it. I’ve spent a big chunk of my life seeking approval from others to validate just about everything about me from the decisions I made, to the way I thought, to the person I was. No matter what I did if someone else noticed and gave a positive response I ended up feeling a little more smart, talented, interesting, funny, or insightful than I did before someone noticed. I loved that my mom and dad were proud of me as their daughter, that the parents of the church praised my ministry with their children, and that I received glowing feedback following workshops and various speaking gigs. I’ll even confess, since it’s just you and me here and I know you won’t tell anyone else, that it was a major ego-rush when I’d get a room full of children giggling and one of them would look up at me and say with an all too adorable, sweet, and adoring face, “Teacher Anita, you’re so funny! You make me laugh!” Maybe it was the clown costume, or the time I tossed a ball up in the air and a ceiling panel came crashing down on my head, or running around the room pretending I was an ape in the jungle complete with sounds and accompanying gestures and gyrations….so many choices to choose from.

People-pleasing, to one extent or another is a normal human quirk we all share but in my own life growing up in the church seemed to crank it all up another notch. Et tu? It wasn’t just about feeling a little smarter or prettier or funnier, but when people in the church approved of my actions and agreed with my words it meant they were not only validating my worth as an individual but my worth as a member of the community. I was one of them and I belonged. I was living in a way that matched the way they were living and believing as they believed, and should I have questions about what we believed, when our answers didn’t seem to fit the questions, I brushed my doubts aside. After all, everyone in my world, a very conservative evangelical world, were all on the same page with their answers and because I admired and loved them, then surely they must be right which could only lead to one conclusion; I was wrong, and if not wrong, at least weak for being uneasy with the certainty of the answers.

It’s funny really, or tragically sad that the Christian faith, supposedly centered in an individual’s personal relationship with Christ in reality seems to judge the personal in comparison to the community norm. What I mean to say is that our relationship with Christ and the way we flesh it out is expected to conform to the rest of the community and when it doesn’t conform, that’s seen as a red flag, a signal that something isn’t quite right with the one who does or sees things differently. Could it be that the church has come to be more interested in the individuals relationship to Christianity (their group) than to Christ? I’m just wondering this out loud.

So all that to say, there was a message that played around in my head as I confronted the realization I was a lesbian, a message that argued “Everyone in your world, all the people you love, your family, your friends, your church, and kabillions of Christians believe homosexuality is a sin. They read the Bible and say it’s message on homosexuality is clear. They can’t all be wrong so you must be wrong.” Of all the old messages this is the one that stayed with me the longest and played the loudest and I came to realize over time it plays for a whole lot of people in the church, gay, straight and polka-dot, and it continued to play for me until I came to recognize that a vocal majority of Christians (and the institutional church) have historically have been wrong about a boat load of other issues beginning with the prohibition of Gentiles into Christian community, enforcing slavery, second-class status for women, segregation and apartheid. Anyone heard of a little oops known as the Crusades? The thing is, we can vilify past and present generations of Christians for their wrongs or recognize that most were and are good and sincerely-motivated people, guided by their commitment to the Christian faith and grounded in their understanding of the Scriptures and sometimes they were simply wrong, individually and corporately. As they are today. Just as committed to their faith and just as likely to come to mistaken conclusions. I say that without judgment but with the understanding that I’m just as human and open to being in error as anyone else.

The message that plays telling you must be wrong because they must be right also disregards that the church (other people) aren’t the only source for guiding us to truth. Yes, we give attention to church tradition, past and present, but we hold it along with consideration of the Scriptures, human reason, and our personal life experience. Residing within evangelical Christianity I wasn’t familiar with John Wesley’s Quadrilateral or utilizing this method to guide my theological reflections. Truth had always been limited to the first, that being what my denomination and church espoused as truth, and while they referenced all they believed as being established in the Scriptures, it was according to their interpretation of the Scriptures. Reason was viewed as a lack of faith and human experience was seen as untrustworthy and corrupted by emotions and human desire. Reconciling my sexuality and faith was the first time I knowingly considered other factors apart from the view of the church and their interpretation of Scripture. It was the first time I paid real attention to my own life experience or brought reason into the discussion. I might have posted this before so stop me if you’ve already heard it but during a seminary discussion on biblical authority, the professor said “If as Christians we’re willing to give our lives to Jesus, why aren’t we willing to give him our mind at the same time?” I love that and give it to you as a freebie. No charge kids.

Ramble, ramble, ramble. What am I trying to say? Just this.

My long answer to this outworn message is that yes, a whole lot of Christians can be wrong about the same thing but regardless of whatever everyone else is saying I can’t build my life on their convictions and expectations. I have to base my life, actions, and words on what is the truest and most real thing I believe in faith.

And my short answer is that of Paul’s in Galatians 1:9-11.

Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.

When I wrote the other day that I believe we are who we are and we love who we love because it’s by God’s design and for God’s purpose that we’re GLBTQ people; when I called being gay a divine calling, a holy vocation and for the sake of the Gospel, I was saying I believe all that today but I haven’t always.

I didn’t believe being gay was a gift when after 15 years of full-time ministry as a children’s pastor the senior pastor called me into his office and said “For your remaining two weeks as the children’s pastor at the church, I need to ask that you not be alone with any of the children; that you do what you can to avoid being with them at all.”

I had no confidence that being queer was a divine calling when the Christian publishing company called to inform me that while they still wanted to purchase my Christian Education program for national distribution it could only be under the condition that my name not appear as the author because they couldn’t risk having their evangelical market discover the material had been written by a homosexual.

I couldn’t have imagined it was God’s plan I was a lesbian when a Christian educator’s organization passed along word to me that despite having been one of their most popular workshop presenters over the previous six years, they were putting me on notice that they knew I was gay and therefore never again would be asked to speak at their annual conference or participate in any manner whatsoever.

I didn’t dare believe my sexuality was for the sake of the Gospel when it came time to receive the annual application to renew my denominational ministerial license in the mail and my mailbox remained empty; when a loved one who had supported my ministry from the beginning coldly said I should never have entered the ministry at all; or when I closed the door for a final time on an emptied church office where I’d counseled with parents and loved on their children through the main part of my adult years.

For all these reasons and for others held too close to my heart to openly share, I know that calling our sexuality a divine gift, a holy calling, God’s plan, and our purpose can be a challenge when the internal messages and external circumstances seem to reflect a different reality. I really do get it which is all the more reason why I admire you for taking on the challenge to believe something different if only for four days or for two.

All that I mentioned above came about in the first two months following my own coming out as a lesbian. While I had already come to peace concerning being a Christian and a lesbian, I understood my sexuality at that time as something more akin to a burden than a blessing, an oops of God rather than a gift of God. After all, it was coming at such a high price and then there was all that had been lost around my ministry. I had loved the ministry and that my greatest responsibility in my call had been to simply love people and tell of God’s even greater love for them. I couldn’t help wonder if the most meaningful and rewarding years of ministry were behind me.

Haman had tricked King Xeres into issuing a decree that would lead to the destruction of all the Jews. When Mordacai learned of Haman’s plot he sent a messenger to Queen Esther his niece, a closeted Jew, that she should petition her husband the king for the salvation of the Jews. When fear caused Esther to resist the idea, the message Mordacai sent back to her was this:

Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14)

Uncle Mordacai dares to suggest that the reason Esther had ever become queen, gaining privilege and renown might well have been for this very moment by placing her into a position where she could save her people, bringing relief and deliverance to the oppressed.

I read this passage one evening during my personal devotional time and something about it grabbed hold of me. Several weeks later I went to a GLBTQ Christian gathering where Marsha Stevens was the keynote speaker. Marsha told of her early years in Christian music when the Jesus Movement exploded and we (the currently middle-aged we) were all listening to Christian groups like Love Song, Second Chapter of Acts, and Children of the Day. She’d written the song, “For Those Tears I Died” while still in her teens, a song that was part of my own youth, playing it over and over again on my clunky 8-Track, strumming it’s simple chords on my acoustic guitar, and carrying the alto line in the church youth choir. Marsha recounted how after coming out as a lesbian she began to receive packages in the mail from churches around the country, filled with copies of her song torn from church hymnals and song books in angry protest upon learning the song writer was gay. In the midst of what must have been a devastating time in her life, Marsha turned to the story of Esther and the words “For such a time as this” rattled inside her, and rather than grieving the past success in ministry she’s once experienced, Marsha continued on to sing and proclaim the Gospel message as an out lesbian Christian and to establish a ministry that’s taken her around the world, healing and blessing the lives of countless GLBTQ and straight people. Marsha believed that all her past successes and accomplishments had been to prepare her for such a time as this.

For such a time as this. The phrase bounced around in my heart for days and then months and when it came to finally rest the idea that being gay was the purposeful intention of God for my life replaced the sense that my sexual orientation was merely a fluke or a flaw. I could never have imagined doing anything in ministry more rewarding or meaningful than all those years of pastoring children and their families, but then I could have never imagined the utter joy of the opportunities I’ve been given in recent years to proclaim God’s unconditional love to GLBTQ people or to anyone for that matter who needs to hear the message of the love of God, the message of the Gospel.

So many doors closed years ago but even more have been opening ever since. I’m an ordained clergywoman. I officiate at the table. There have been opportunities to preach in church and lead workshops designed for GLBTQ Christians. Every Sunday morning, I scrunch down onto a small carpet circle in the front of the church and gather another generation children around me to tell them how precious they are to God and how great is God’s love for them. And then there’s this online ministry. How would have thought this up but God? I could never have imagined or thought to ask to be part of anything like this nor can I ever tell the joy I feel when even one woman writes to say that something here has helped her draw a little closer to God. It makes my knees weak every time. In the end I lost nothing in coming out that wasn’t given back to me in extravagant abundance.

Everyone is called by God and we spend our lives seeking to live into that calling; to discover our way of being the presence of Christ in the world. The calling doesn’t stop the day we come out. The voice of God isn’t silenced even in the closet. God’s hand is on you. God’s spirit within you. God’s anointing upon you. Who you are is the very person God needs for you to be in this world. You have a way of speaking and living God’s love that will touch someone in a way that my life and others lives simply couldn’t do. Your life reflects a particular angle of God’s character and being that’s the exact angle someone else needs desperately to see. These might sound like sentimental words but they’re also very real. Nothing in your life is unusable to God. Nothing is less than a gift when devoted to God’s glory.

Whatever you’ve done in the past, wherever the present finds you, God has called you…for such a time as this.

It’s five years in the future and the issue of homosexuality has been settled once and for all. Clergy, theologians and scholars from every denomination and faith tradition have come together agreeing without exception that there exists no biblical prohibition against homosexuality, but that in God’s creation there is a diversity within human sexuality. In response to their conclusions, they call all faith communities worldwide to a season of repentance and to begin the reconciliation process with their GLBTQ brothers and sisters. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and James Dobson hold a joint news conference that opens with the words “We were wrong,” and a televised live feed from the Vatican shows a contrite and tearful Pope nodding in affirmation.

Change happens quickly. There are no longer any GLBTQ denominational organizations or congregations proclaiming themselves to be gay-affirming because all denominations and every church is now fully welcoming to the lives, ministries, and relationships of GLBTQ people. Focus on the Family has finally begun to focus their ministry and resources on equipping and supporting all families. Pastors that had been publicly removed from their positions because of their sexuality return to the pulpit. Families once torn apart by the conflict over erroneous religious teaching and sexual orientation are restored in forgiveness and grace. The church begins as never before in history to live out the kingdom of God on earth where all people are fully loved, received, and cared for as God’s own beloved.

As other sectors of life and society witness the transformation unfolding among people of faith, policies and attitudes around the world change. Legal marriage and adoption are opened to same-sex couples. Gays wishing to serve in the military do so, responding to the Armed Forces new slogan, “Ask or tell, it’s no big deal.” GLBTQ people are represented positively in movies, print, and on TV. It’s finally revealed in a delightful one-hour special on the Disney Channel that Goofy and Pluto have been together for years and are the chosen godparents to Donald’s nephews Hewy, Dewy, and Lewy. National Coming Out Day is officially discontinued because all the closets have long since been emptied.

Your mom calls. “When is my favorite daughter and daughter-in-law coming over for a visit? We haven’t seen you two since your wedding day and we’d like to have a little get-together with our church friends and neighbors so they can meet the happy new couple! Oh, and your uncle Bob and his partner will be making their yummy guacamole!”

Imagine that was all true and that it all happened tomorrow. You stumble out of bed and drink your morning coffee in a brand new world where gay, straight, bisexual, and transgendered are all held as equal. Nice to think about huh? But here’s what I wonder. I wonder if that, all of that, would be enough to settle the question for you once and for all? Could you then stop doubting that God loves you as you are? Could you let go of that nagging question that makes you ask of God or yourself, “Am I okay? Is this alright? Am I wrong? What if I’m wrong?”

You know what? I don’t think so for the same reasons I sometimes question my own worth or why I’m truly surprised sometimes to look in the mirror and not see the 325 pound version of me as I wrote about yesterday. As a heavy child, a big teenager, and a morbidly obese adult in this world I took a lot of messages into my mind that didn’t automatically fall away with the lost weight. The name calling, the attempts and the failures at weight loss, the guilt and shame of people looking at me and believing they were judging me based on my body. Some of you might totally relate to the weight experience and for others it might be something completely different but for all of us, to one extent or another we deal regularly or rarely with the old messages that play in our minds and our hearts around our sexuality.

Up to the day we realized we were gay most of us heard little but negative messages around homosexuality from our families and in our churches. There was no question the Bible explicitly condemned homosexuality and for some of us, the church taught homosexuality was more than a sin but among the worst of all sins. We’ve heard our share of gay jokes and under-the-breath comments like “Look at that guy over there. What a fairy.” or “Geeze, is that a man or a woman?! What a queer!” The media is littered daily with stories on banning gays from the military, protecting the institution of marriage (and civilization as we know it) from homosexuals, or of another hate crime against a queer or transgendered youth. On TV Christian organizations raise millions by instilling fear in their Christian viewers with false stereotypes of gays and the threat of our non-existent gay agenda. All those messages have found their way, and continue to find their way into us, so that even if everything in the world changed tomorrow, all that clutter would still be there. That’s why it’s in our hearts and minds that the real change needs to come, to learn to separate the sound of old messages from the voice of God and to renew our minds so that the old messages are replaced with new ones that bring assurance instead of doubt.

What I’d like to do over the next few entries is look at alternate ways of understanding ourselves and our sexuality that goes against the voices that occasionally chatter in our heads, and that we begin by putting aside any messages that suggest our sexuality is sin or happenstance and that we receive it instead as a holy and unique calling of God; allowing ourselves to believe that being gay isn’t simply okay with God but that it’s by God’s design and for God’s purpose we’re GLBTQ people.

And yes, I promise. I’ll make every effort in the world to be more brief in my writing. I realize I’m breaking all the rules around good blogging with these ridiculously long posts so I’ll work on shorter ones. You’re being so patient with me!