ain't dead yet

I probably shouldn't write this, but it's late and my dog just made me puke.

Here's my id.  I remember in high school, when I was taking college history courses, having a professor tell me religion, Christianity in particular, was dead after the Enlightenment.

We're still here.

In 2003, the Episcopal Church ordained an openly gay man bishop.  Lies were told about said bishop and never retracted. Using the term loosely, the conservatives announced the impending doom of the Episcopal Church and the dissolution of the Anglican Communion.

We're still here.

In case any of you are math challenged, that's 12 years in which we are supposed to have died out.  Last week, in a move non Episcopalians weren't aware we hadn't already made, the Church amended it's marriage canons to allow same sex marriage.  They're saying that same thing again.  But last Sunday we had a good crowd for summer. We even had another baptism.

I remember another time everyone who knew anything said that we were all wrong.  I'm struck by where the voice of reason came from:

Acts 5:33When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death. 34But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, who was honored by all the people, stood up in the Sanhedrin and ordered that the men be put outside for a little while. 35Then he addressed the Sanhedrin: “Men of Israel, consider carefully what you intend to do to these men.36Some time ago Theudas appeared, claiming to be somebody, and about four hundred men rallied to him. He was killed, all his followers were dispersed, and it all came to nothing. 37After him, Judas the Galilean appeared in the days of the census and led a band of people in revolt. He too was killed, and all his followers were scattered. 38Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. 39But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”

The literal old guard was trying to figure out what to do about the apostles.   First they were going to kill them, and then someone remembered that God is still God.

Yes, God is still God.  My God is not so small that he can't set the Church, his Church, straight (pun intended) on the subject of sexual morality if it matters to him.  If we're wrong, I'm sure God can damn well get our attention on this subject.

They've been saying for 2,000 years that we're going to die out. That we're wrong.  They've said time and time again that we'd gone too far.  They said it when the Church let gentiles in without following Jewish law.  They said it when the Romans came for us and we outlasted their empire.  They've said over and over again that we've gone too far. Many times we didn't go far enough.  But God is faithful and he loves us too much to leave us where he found us.

I think we're going to be okay.  More than that, we owe it to this church to stay.   I don't know about the rest of you, but I owe this church.  They've put up with me for 18 years now.  Endured my ignorance and my eye rolling.  Nodding off in church during high school.  The meanness I subjected people to when I was sure I was right. (I wasn't)  They didn't introduce me to God but they taught me how to love him.  I owe the Episcopal Church. I'd venture to say I'm not alone.

I can't be the only "dog" these people have fed twice who won't go away.

I'd also venture to say that with or without me or you or several others, we're going to be here in 100 years.  If this is a colossal screw up, we're going to need all the help we can get.

Being gracious and healing on the Sabbath.

 Sometimes it's hard to be gracious.

Luke 13:10-17
10 Now he was teaching in one of the synagogues on the sabbath. 11And just then there appeared a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years. She was bent over and was quite unable to stand up straight. 12When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, 'Woman, you are set free from your ailment.' 13When he laid his hands on her, immediately she stood up straight and began praising God. 14But the leader of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had cured on the sabbath, kept saying to the crowd, 'There are six days on which work ought to be done; come on those days and be cured, and not on the sabbath day.' 15But the Lord answered him and said, 'You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger, and lead it away to give it water? 16And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the sabbath day?' 17When he said this, all his opponents were put to shame; and the entire crowd was rejoicing at all the wonderful things that he was doing.

Why do we get our feelings hurt when God does things for other people?   The urge to nitpick is so strong, it's irresistible.  The pharisee in this story is jealous.  Jesus had done something for that woman that he could not do.  He nitpicks.  He looks for someone wrong about the wonderful thing that had just happened. 

You shouldn't work on the sabbath.  

I should point out that I'm guilty of this same thing with similarly decent intentions. I am ritualist.  I want everything to be done "right".  Is it OCD?  No.  Is it righteous? Sometimes.  I do it mostly because I care.  I think every time I see that acolyte lighting the Paschal candle last, it should be burning before ANYONE comes in here and you should light your candles off it!  Am I right? Yes. Do I need to worry about stupid crap like that? Not really...

In the case of the pharisee, definitely not. It's jealousy, pure and simple.  The rules are made for people, not people for the rules.  So the next time you find yourself worrying about the rules more than you are the person breaking them, ask yourself if you would treat your pet that way.   If you wouldn't, why the hell would God want you to treat his child that way? That's what the Lord's telling us in this story.  People are more important to God than rules.   Meet people where they are, and give them what they need. 

The Baptismal Covenant, or Why being a liberal goes with being a Christian for me

I got to thinking this morning about what it was like for me when I first became a believer during church.  Part of it was the sermon, the other part involved questions a friend of mine had about my religion.

Do they say offensive things about glbt people or women's rights?

It made me remember the first chip in my armor as a teenager.  One of the things about growing up un-churched is that even f you land in a place where they practice infant baptism, which I did, you get to remember your baptism.  You're not 2 months old when it happens.  Not that there's anything wrong with being two months old when it happens.  Some of the most religious/sanctified/Holy Spirit oozing people I know were baptised as children.

The Episcopal Church doesn't just try and drown you in front of a bunch of people for a baptism.  No, instead we ask hard questions and ask people to make hard promises.  It's those promises that come back to me every time I'm tempted to dismiss another human being as worthless or less than.

Specifically:

 Celebrant     Will you proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ?
People          I will, with God’s help.
Celebrant      Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?             
 People          I will, with God’s help
.Celebrant      Will you strive for justice and peace among all
                 people, and respect the dignity of every human
                 being?

People          I will, with God’s help.

Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons?   There's no wiggle room there.   There's no "but not the gays" clause, or "not the women" or "not the poors",  or "not the Republicans" in there.  It's ALL persons.  All of them.  In case you don't get it, they add a clincher:   Will you strive for justice and peace among all people and respect the dignity of every human being?  

For me, that's pretty clear.  Crystal.   Just in case I don't get it reading the gospels or having them read to me every week, it's right there in the promises I made to God when I formally joined his family.  It's why I wholly reject the words of people who parade around, purporting to speak in the name of God, and compare homosexuals to people who screw ducks or abuse children.  This isn't respecting their dignity, it's a blatant attempt to stip them of it.  That isn't my Jesus.  I don't like this guy they keep talking about.  Yes, Christ wasn't afraid to call out sins, as they like to say, but it was never sexual sins he was calling it.  It was hypocrisy, keeping people away from God by declaring them outlaws, and condemning others when they themselves were mired in dirt up to their necks.  Somehow I think we need to stop straining out gnats and swallowing camels.

I am, for the record, ridiculously happy that I learned how to love God where I did.  Ecstatic even.  The other deal breaker for my friend?  Evolution.   Yes, we get to believe in dinosaurs.

  

Locked out of heaven....

 "But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them."

I've been seeing a lot of 'blind guides' lately.   Talking about how Pope Francis is too liberal.  Saying that if you do this, you won't get to heaven.  If you do that, you'll go to hell.  Blah, blah, blah.  There was even a guy in Hastings last night selling paintings and books talking about eternal destinations. (I don't know if this is bad or good but I think the guy was sincere.)   I know these guys are annoying.   They picket plays.  They produce crazy people like Megyn Kelly and put her on tv.  (Jesus and Santa are white!!)   The truth is that they have always and will always be around.   They will always be around locking people out of the Kingdom of heaven.

Friday this was actually said on facebook to me:

 Facebook person: You're one of the few people who can God-talk and not trigger my gag-reflex.
That was supposed to be a compliment. Did it work? :|December 13 at 5:07pm · Unlike · 1

Sort of.  Kind of like copying and pasting it sort of worked.   The thing is though there's a reason Christianity hasn't faded into the background (in America anyway) and turned into some kind of foot note of history.   This Jesus guy?  He's deliciously radical.  He's a bit nuts.  He keeps drawing us back in by actually (as opposed to just creating another cliche) going against the crowd.  Even today's crowd.  The guy talking about eternal destinations like it's the point.  It's not.  Really.  Heaven is not the point.  It's freaking great, but it's not the point.   The point is making THIS place better.  Ushering in the kingdom of God.

23'Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith.

To paraphrase, you tithe your salary, you boycott disney movies and throw hissy fits about plays, and you ignore the important stuff like justice, mercy and faith.    We realize this every once in a while and then forget about it.  We even dedicate entire denominations to nit picking and talking about eternal destinations and if you die tomorrow where will you spend eternity.   A lot of people think that's all there is to Christianity because that's all they've ever heard out of it.   Well, we're not all like that.    Some of us actually read the words printed in red in the gospels.   The God-talk isn't all bullshit.

Matthew 23:13-26 (NRSV)
13 'But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you lock people out of the kingdom of heaven. For you do not go in yourselves, and when others are going in, you stop them 15Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cross sea and land to make a single convert, and you make the new convert twice as much a child of hell as yourselves 16'Woe to you, blind guides, who say, "Whoever swears by the sanctuary is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gold of the sanctuary is bound by the oath." 17You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the sanctuary that has made the gold sacred? 18And you say, "Whoever swears by the altar is bound by nothing, but whoever swears by the gift that is on the altar is bound by the oath." 19How blind you are! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? 20So whoever swears by the altar, swears by it and by everything on it; 21and whoever swears by the sanctuary, swears by it and by the one who dwells in it; 22and whoever swears by heaven, swears by the throne of God and by the one who is seated upon it. 23'Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint, dill, and cummin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faith. It is these you ought to have practiced without neglecting the others. 24You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel! 25'Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may become clean.

Pay attention to the important stuff first.  Quit nit picking.  Quit straining out gnats.  It's just  little extra protein.

Uptight and White....and that's alright.

 Enter his gates with thanksgiving; 

go into his courts with praise; 

give thanks to him and call upon his Name.

I've been hearing a lot lately about what a chore it is to go to church.   How it doesn't feel right for one reason or another, or it makes people uncomfortable, or they go there and they hear people being put down by the preacher or other members.   It shouldn't be that way.  Sometimes it is.

I think the trick is figuring out why it doesn't feel right.  Is because someone is making unreasonable demands?  Did you have a falling out with a fellow member?  Is the pastor a total dick? (This is always a possibility.)  Do you know you're supposed to be somewhere else?

A long time ago, high school-ish, I did what teenagers do and let a friend of mine convince me to visit his church.  I think they were going to give him pizza or something if he brought the most people.   My friend either didn't know or didn't admit to being gay.  Skinny, ginger, sweet, 17 but looked 12.  At this point in our lives he's around 30 and looks 24 so I guess that was a mixed curse.   He conned me into it, and I hopped into his father's huge mini-van and rode out to Meno.

I should point out that I am uptight, white, and absolutely not a demonstrative person during worship.  More so then than now.  I like/d the scriptedness of Episcopal Church for a reason.  It matches my personality.  I'm not touchy, I'm not feely, when I'm huggy it's learned freaking behavior.  That's just me.   So when I wandered into a non-denominational church, you can say it was because my friend was persuasive.

Entirely because he was persuasive.   The church was/is a converted high school.  There are stairs everywhere.  The second I walked through the doors, I got an eerie feeling.   Stupid me, I just assumed it was because the building was probably haunted.  My church is haunted.  Lots of churches are haunted.  I tried to dismiss it as a cranky spook.  The kids had talked about being drunk on the Holy Spirit like some kids talked about drinking everclear.   (Not exaggerating)  We went up some stairs and down some stairs (Salvador Dali painting?) and into the 'youth room'.   There was a lovely painting of Jesus on the wall that another friend of mine had done.  We sat down and listed to youth pastor preach.  He talked about David and Bathsheba, totally threw poor Bathsheba under the bus and made David sound like an innocent victim of her being a female who dared to take a bath.   I got really pretty pissed at him and wanted to mouth off but I didn't want to embarrass my friends.  Their parents went there, they had to live with this asshole.  Then he tells the entire room that he wasn't a virgin when they got married but his wife was, *wink* wink* and I wanted to punch him in the face.  

Believe it or not, this wasn't the moment I knew for sure that God didn't want me there. No, no, it wasn't.  It wasn't until they began doing something they called a concert of prayer that this moment came. A 'concert of prayer'is when everybody prays at once but doesn't pray the same thing.  From what I was hearing, it was more a cacophony of prayer.  I was standing there, feeling uptight and white and like I was being lame.  I decided I was going to try this and I started to get on my knees in an attempt to participate..  Then it happened.  My friend passed out at my feet.  Right at the spot where I was going to kneel.  His pale ginger ass was lying on the floor 'slain in the Spirit' as they say.  The Lord had given me a sign!!!  I was supposed to lie low until I could get the hell out of there.

Church shouldn't feel like that.  You shouldn't feel assaulted and abused.  You should be able to be quiet if you want to without feeling like a jackass.  The pastor/priest should probably talk about Jesus and not about David's huge creeper psycho moment that everyone, including God, blamed him for like it was the poor girl's fault.   He probably shouldn't talk about his relationship with his wife like a dirty old man either.  Worship should feel like something bigger than the moment in which it takes place.  It should BE bigger than that moment.  It should be about something other us and something other the preacher.

It should be about entering his gates with Thanksgiving and his courts with praise.

Not about some dick with a huge ego.  Just sayin'.  The Episcopal Church: Where even a dick with a huge ego can't hijack the entire Eucharist because well, this isn't about him.  He only gets fifteen minutes of extemporaneous time, and the rest of it is out of his hands.

The Armor of Light

Just a warning, I'm going to try really hard to blog every day during Advent.  Or at least post a blog every day, even if I wrote it on a different day, and the Advent blogs will all be religiously themed.  If you don't like that, have you been reading my blog at all? It's kind of obvious I'm a hair religious.

I'd even go so far as to say I'm really religious.   Very religious.   The other day I mentioned a look coming over someone's face like they'd just swallowed sour milk after I mentioned my five year old goddaughter wants to be a drag queen when she grows up (true story) the explanation was that the sour faced lady is 'very religious'.  

I'm starting to wonder what that's code for.  I'm losing my taste for the word homophobia.  They're not afraid, they're just assholes.    Yes, I said that.  I'm still religious even though I said that homophobes are assholes.  Even though they use religion as their excuse for being assholes.   Sour faced lady wasn't unpleasant except for her involuntary reaction to what I said, and I didn't figure it was the time or the place to explain that half that child's family is gay and she knows a few drag queens.  It doesn't really matter.  I'm not going to explain to a five year old that she doesn't have the boy parts to be a drag queen... because she's five.  She's five and if I go down that rabbit hole it will mess her up because that's too involved and age inappropriate.   Even though she told me I needed to do just that...

The ways I'm messing that kid up will have nothing to do with gender.  Nope.  Not going to happen. I realize that for some people, being religious is defined by what you don't do.  They don't believe in women wearing pants.  They don't believe believe in women preachers.  They don't believe in letting little girls believe they can grow up to be drag queens. They don't believe in homosexuality (It doesn't exist?).  They don't believe in Disney movies.  They don't believe in smiling.  They don't believe in dancing.  They don't believe in women cutting their hair.  They don't believe in the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, kittens or happiness.  

To me that isn't being religious.  To me, being religious is about what I do believe in.  It's about meeting with the Church to continue in the apostles teaching and fellowship.  It's about ushering in the Kingdom of God by making this world suck less.   It's about talking to God the way I would talk to a friend.  It's about getting dressed up and doing church in a ridiculous amount of pageantry in an attempt to respond to the love God has given us.

Advent is about getting ready for the Lord second coming by remembering his first.   That day when instead of riding in on a white horse after having been born into a wealthy family and being groomed to massacre the Roman Empire God showed up in a cave in a Bethlehem after having been born to a couple of peasants who couldn't even negotiate a hotel room.   The day when God did yet another unexpected thing and didn't come in with fan fare and parades like he deserved.   When he actually came down here and dwelt among us.

All of us.  Even the assholes.   Even the poor working class slobs who became the twelve apostles.   He was born into a carpenter's family and probably spent a lot of time doing that instead of ruling as he should.  Because God doesn't want to come in and lay down a new set of rules for us to follow. He wants us to know him.  He wants to live with us so he can help us heal from this mess we've made.  So we can do something instead of sitting around worrying about the things we aren't allowed to be.   Let us put on the armor of light and cast away the darkness.

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

image from MissionStClare.com

Things left undone

Today was a big day for Dorcas Terrell, also known as Dorky Dog, my beloved monster dog, Houdini Dog, and Attila the Lab, mess maker, destroyer of hoses and hammocks.   I took her to church for St. Francis's day.   Notice the heavenly light bathing her behind in my car, Little Wednesday's car seat and the WD 40 in the floor board.  Chariot was VERY well tricked out.   After I tricked her into staying in the house while the other two chased a squirrel, I began the process of getting her out the door.   The harness is too small, the regular collar she'd just twist out of...alas, the "choke" or training collar was our only viable option for 45 minutes of 'out in public time'.    

 

 
I very quickly figured out why all the other people with big dogs stand all the time and position themselves behind all the chairs.  She nearly sent a tiny dog into a seizure by sticking her nose under the puppy's owner's arm for attention.   I decided it would be better to remove Dorky from the situation, since she has no idea that she and the micro dog are not equals in battle.  (RJ jumps her all the time, but he's still twice the size of the micro dog.  Hmmmm)



Pretty good "seats" for a dorky dog

I should mention that we do the annual blessing of the critters in honor of St. Francis, a man frequently admired and seldom imitated.  Seldom imitated because it would be really freaking hard to live like that.   Really.  Seriously.   The guy was hardcore. Nekid in the court when he denied his father hardcore.     Incidentally, also the only case of stigmata I'm not willing to write off as hysteria or drama queenitis with a touch of cutter.

I should back up a bit.  Yesterday I had an interesting experience.   We had a benefit breakfast for a friend of mine who needs a liver transplant.  (Click on the link and donate generously if you can.)  I got there early and we went out on the lawn to see if the lights were on in the tiny Eiffel tower we had out front.  (We were serving crepes and it was delicious.  Hence "French café" theme.)   There was a homeless man camped out on the church's front porch.  He apologized for being there.  Said he didn't know we were having an event that morning and promised to clear out when it quit raining.  I told him not to worry, he wasn't hurting anything.  I didn't want him going back out in the rain.  It was 7am and it was raining hard.  Cats, dogs, emus hard.   It was chilly in a pleasant way, but man was it wet.  

 

We turned the lights on and cheered at our pretty little tower in the morning light and went back inside.  I started making coffee--not so much for the guests as of yet as the cooks.   7 am is early on Saturday morning.   I decided to take him a cup of coffee.  He thanks me and I lock myself out of the building.  Nice.  I start pounding on the door trying to get someone's attention.  (Cats, dogs and emus, remember?) 

 

It occurred to me later and more so during the sermon this morning that I didn't get his name.  I mentioned we were making breakfast and I brought him coffee but no crepes.   In fairness, they weren't my crepes, but come on.  I didn't engage the guy except in passing.   I was being nice but not as nice as I should have been.   I was out there for a few minutes and I didn't speak to him much at all.  Our sexton, upon arriving and finding the place occupied, offered to run him off and I did keep him from doing that. 

 

Yes, I know the homeless folks who camp on our porch have shit on our porch before.  I know they leave trash and worse behind.   I realize this.  It's really frustrating and the day I stepped in it part of me wanted to smear the poo on the person who left it there.  How is it though that the first thought going through "our" heads at hearing there is a homeless man still on the porch at 7 am in the middle of the rainstorm is to run him off?

 

I know how bored I get just sitting in a waiting room at a doctor's office with no cell phone.  I can't imagine how bored and lonely that man must be.  Young woman offers you a cup of coffee but doesn't engage you in any real conversation.   I can't imagine.  The isolation must be devastating.  I don't know what to do to make it better. 

 

I just know the way it is now is bullshit. 

 

 

 





What are we for?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQb3MGgGFSw&feature=youtube_gdata_player

I watched this video on upworthy.com and it occurred to me that the whole Church (not just the "Romans" as I call them) needs to hear this.  If we can't speak up against bad stuff before everyone else decides it's a good idea, what are we for?  Seriously what does keeping up the budget by not offending anyone do to advance the Kingdom of God?  

What good is having a church if all it does is exist?   My research on the civil rights movement and churches revealed a disturbing trend in Christianity. ..we're on the right side of history as soon as it's apparent what it is.   Jesus certainly wasn't concerned about waiting for a consensus.   I don't think we should be either.  

"Who are you to say that what I have made is unclean?"

I read something today that made me think again someone I've loved and lost and how amazed I think he'd be at the Supreme Court's ruling on DOMA.  Amazed.  Will left us on November 6, 2001.   The arc of history really does bend toward justice.  I wish it were not so long.  

At the time he passed full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the Episcopal Church looked like it was still long coming.  He had succumbed to social pressures from, for lack of a better turn of phrase, assholes, in the Church and lost his faith.   He was a cradle Episcopalian, raised in the church and then eventually frozen out by it because of his disease and sexuality.  If I ever meet the priest that refused to speak to him, I think it will take a lot of restraint not to punch that guy in the face.  What happened to my friend wasn't right and it wasn't Christian.  I remember thinking it was possible but it would be long coming that we would ever get it right but because of what happened to my friend, I had to try.  I had to stay and fight.   In 2003 Gene Robinson was elected bishop of New Hampshire and approved by General Convention.  (It seems impossible that he's already retired.)  The Church had a hard time of it afterward, and we lost a few of our 'conservative' friends along the way.  I'm not going to lie, it was all very painful, but it was the right thing to do.  I was torn between joy at what was happening and sorrow at the way people I love were reacting to it.   I remember crying more than once over all the fighting.  I also remember being sick to death of talking about sex in Church.   A friend of mine told me that he heard a clergy person say he was sick to death of talking about 'cock' in church.  I felt the same way.   Bear in mind, I don't remember any queer people talking about sex in Church, it was always coming from straight people who were all hung up on what happened in other people's bedrooms.   Another friend (single at the time) told me that a woman had told him what he does in his bedroom made her sick to her stomach---who else in the church did she enjoy fantasizing about and why did it even cross her mind about what was going on in his bedroom?  I still don't know.  

In 2012 General Convention approved same gender blessing/marriage liturgies for provisional use.   What that means, if you're wondering, is they are trying out these liturgies to see if they want to keep them or scrap them and do something else.   Yes, we are that bloody picky.   Then something wonderful happened, the Diocese of Oklahoma approved them as well.   Too many hang ups, like getting approval from the congregation, but it's a start.  A wonderful, wonderful start.   It means I probably won't have to write someone's wedding liturgy for them, which, though it would be fun, is really out of my purview.  

I wish these things had happened while Will was around to see them.  One of the last major events that happened before he died was 9/11.   He said he wished he hadn't lived to see that.   I would love to call him on the phone and tell him about DOMA being overturned yesterday, but I can't.  I  can't log on to AIM and gossip with him about how awesome all this is and how much better the world is now than it used to be.   I wish I could.  He helped make it happen by sticking it out as long as he could.  He made us think about what it means to be the community of Christ when God puts challenges in our midst and says "Who are you to say that what I have made is unclean?" 

I guess I'll have to settle for remembering him in my prayers and hoping our good Lord lets him know about all this.   We have a coffee date for when I get done with my chores.

If it weren't for him, you wouldn't care...

A news article struck a nerve with me today.   It reminded me of a conversation I had with someone I love very much when I was 17 or so.   Bear in mind, I didn't know until years after that that she herself wasn't straight, but it cut me just the same.  She was talking about a friend I had from the internet, Will Norton, a man 17 years older than me who was my first adult friend who had nothing to do with my parents.

 She said, "You wouldn't care about gay people at all if it weren't for him."

In a way, she was right.  God put Will into my life for a reason.  I needed to see an adult gay man who wasn't slutty, on drugs, or irreligious for it to occur to me that there were 'normal' gay people.  Now, knowing him like I do, I won't say Will was normal. He wasn't.  He graduated high school at 17, had a degree in Egyptology, almost became an Episcopal monk, and he used to work for the Pentegon.  He wasn't normal  by any stretch of the imagination, but he was a member of the same Christian denomination as me, he didn't smoke a whole lot of weed, and he was celibate (due to having AIDS).  For me at that point in my life, when I was still hung up on stupid things like 'drugs are bad, mmmkay' and freaked out by sex in general, that was important.  He was also HILARIOUS, estranged from his sister and therefore his niece, and needed a young friend to pay attention to just like I needed an adult friend who would listen without judgement.

Still, it stung.    She mattered.  Her friends mattered.  Even if I thought one of them was batshit crazy, he still mattered.  I did... care.  I just didn't understand until someone showed me who some of these people were.

The Morman Mother in the news article just didn't understand until she found out her son is gay.  All of the sudden, the rumors she's been hearing her entire life are bullshit.  She suddenly sees.   She's no saint for standing up gay rights now---she's just a mother who had her children teach her something about human nature and about God.  God who loves her, and loves her son and who is teaching her tolerance.  Good for her.  She's a good mom.    She's not listening to bullshit anymore and she's not caving to the pressure of society to ostracize her kid.  I hope it works out for her family.

I know my life sucks less because God put a stranger in it.   I'm a better person because of the way all that happened.   The world is bigger for having had him in it.   I want to think it's better than the one he left.   He helped me understand.