Well, that went nowhere. Story of my life. The two dates we had were nice. I just hope he figures out what he what he wants and why he’s so unhappy.
There is a hymn that I really love, called “Canticle of the Turning.” The refrain goes a li’l somethin’ like this:
My heart shall sing of the day You bring.
Let the fires of Your justice burn.
Wipe away all tears,
For the dawn draws near,
And the world is about to turn.
It was announced recently that my denomination’s task force on sexuality has finalized its work on a proposed social statement on human sexuality, which includes a report with recommendations on ministry standards regarding possible changes to policies that preclude pastors in committed same-sex relationships from the denomination’s clergy roster. The two documents will be released to the public on February 19. The next church-wide assembly will be held this upcoming August and among the many other items on its agenda will vote whether or not to accept the proposal.
As someone who is gay and single, I feel as though I live within the eye of the hurricane in many respects. I sit within the calm and I read my denomination’s monthly periodical, cringing and more often than not getting just as heated as the vitriol I read in the letters to the editor written against “my kind” often by people who don’t know a single queer person and won’t go out of their way to. But that’s about as bad as the tempest gets for me. I hear about it. I read about it. I’m told that the synod my seminary is located in is by far the most conservative synod in the United States. I hear about the synod assemblies and church-wide assemblies that are so completely emotionally charged on the issue of allowing gay and lesbian people in committed same-sex relationships to serve as clergy that people scream and cry and say the most un-Christlike things to each other.
And I get where the conservative people are coming from, I really do, but I just have to ask: Why?
Why–well past thirty years since the igniting of the gay rights movement–are we still having this argument over biblical interpretation regarding people’s lives and who they love? And more importantly, by accepting your gay and lesbian brothers’ and sisters’ gifts and calling within the church especially, what will you lose? What is at stake here?
I am afraid that the task force’s proposed statement concluding their sexuality study and their recommendation is not going to be what many of us whom it will directly impact hope for. I do not have a sense that February 19, let alone church-wide assembly, will be a time when I can wipe away the tears of my queer brothers and sisters caused by the years of spiritual abuse in the church, that the fires of God’s justice will be quenched, and the world is still the same place it was today. Already, a lesbian seminarian I know is contemplating switching out of the ordination track and going a different direction; she says this is part of her continuing discernment and, granted, not everyone who enters the MDiv track completes it and that is completely okay. But part of me wonders if she is switching because she is sick of the hassle and part of me wonders if she wonders that, too. I listen to her discuss discernment and issues with her candidacy committee and that kind of tired look on her face after only having been out a little over a year herself–just one year and she’s already tired!–and I have to wonder:
When it comes right down to it and they pronounce that “absolutely not,” what will I do then?
Of course I want to hope for the best outcome, especially on behalf of all those who love me, believe in what I’m doing here, and are behind me. Then again, if the church says “absolutely not,” how is the church serving those who are supporting me?
I don’t have any answers, but I wait with baited breath and pray that the world is about to turn.
Then you should listen to this:
http://belovedschurch.org/2009/01/21/salvation-on-the-small-screen-reading-by-author-nadia-bolz-weber/
And if you like THAT, then you should read this:
Thinking more about hope in the midst of feeling hopeless, I suddenly thought of this electronica jem from my college days. And God bless YouTube, of course there’s a video of it.
Be inspired. And don’t let your dreams go tumbling down.
I’ve had to catch my breath a bit after living out of a duffel bag the last five weeks. What a whirlwind, amazing five weeks it has been, too. There is so much to tell that I’m afraid I could type a novel overnight.
First, Alaska. My family. Amazing. I’m saying “amazing” a lot lately but words can’t even begin to describe (maybe I should use that online thesaurus option I have). It was especially neat to spend time with my nephew Mike and his wife (my niece-in-law?) Emilie, and their two adorable children (my great-niece and great-nephew!). My great-niece is three now and we hit it off pretty well this time around at home. At three years old she is a natural micromanager. For example, while sitting at the kitchen table coloring together, she made it clear which colors to use when and where and which colors I was not to use. Look out Big Fortune 500s.
Three weeks wasn’t nearly enough time at home but in that time I was able to spend quality time with my folks. Every time I leave home and come back they age just a little more. Not so much in looks, but in their behavior. My mom’s cholitis/IBS is almost unmanageable, which worries me. She is so tiny now that she must buy her jeans in the “junior miss” department while my dad continues to gain weight. I was able to spend some precious time with a few close friends, one of which made sure I spent at least two evenings out at fine dining establishments. I was very spoiled and very blessed.
All too quickly I found myself back on a plane headed to the Midwest… by way of Las Vegas. This was sort of a fluke, but the airline’s hub city is Vegas. So, I amused myself during my layover there wandering around in the casino masquerading as an airport, drinking my Starbucks Espresso Truffle (Crack) Latte, and staring out the large picture at The Strip which looked oddly out of place against the backdrop of the rugged brown mountains behind the mish-mash of highrise buildings, a sphinx, an ominous black pyramid, and the Eiffel Tower. I had never been to Vegas before and now I see I’m going to have to make a trip down sometime to behold the spectacle that it is.
Back on the plane, this time to my final destination: Minneapolis. I was met by my friend Scott; he and his partner Erik are excellent hosts. That same evening my date came and picked me up. He was better looking than his picture, I thought, and less intimidating. 
I found him to be very warm, thoughtful, and even romantic. I accompanied him to a local natural foods market where we shopped for the required ingredients for dinner, then went back to his place to cook it all up. I can’t even remember everything that was served that evening except that it was all so delicious. Even the presentation was impeccable. It was certainly five-star quality cooking, hands down. The conversation was even better, with soft jazz playing on the cable TV as a backdrop, we talked into the early hours of the morning.
All too quickly, my two days in Minneapolis drew to a close. My date was gracious enough to offer to drive me down to Rochester where I was to meet up with a classmate from school. From there, my classmate and I drove out to Pine Ridge, SD for our January term cross-cultural learning immersion experience. What’s in Pine Ridge, you ask? Pine Ridge is the commercial and judicial seat of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation and home of the Pine Ridge Retreat Center. We spent two weeks there, along with students from two other seminaries, learning about the Lakota history, culture, and worldview as well as touring agencies and organizations on the Rez which are working to make a difference in the lives of the people who live there. The county in which Pine Ridge is situated is the poorest county in the United States; it is not uncommon for many families to earn an average of $6000 a year. A YEAR. Not to mention the shitty hand that was dealt to them by even placing them on a reservation in the first place. This is the home of Wounded Knee. Of Black Elk. Of Crazy Horse. To say that standing at the Wounded Knee memorial or gazing up at the faces of dead presidents carved into the side of sacred hills which were taken from the Lakota in a shoddy act of legislation by the United States wasn’t seriously depressing is an understatement. At the same time, though, there is so much happening on the Rez that gives me hope. I could sense God’s presence there in the midst of seeming hopelessness. I met so many beautiful souls during my stay there, it was incredibly difficult to leave.
But leave we did. 12 hours in a car later, I am back at my seminary and feeling a little lost and overwhelmed by God’s goodness from all I have seen and experienced all at the same time. I’m also trying not to think about how much cleaning I have to do in my room tomorrow. If I squeeze my eyes shut maybe it will all go away. LOL.
I suspect I have built up quite a reputation for myself as the man-hating gay man over the past few years. For as many bad dating experiences I have had in the past, I would venture to say there is little wonder why. Others seem to move past the bad experiences with relatively little ease, perhaps learning from them and moving on or perhaps again falling into the same mistakes or patterns. I am somehow wired to chew slowly and methodically on those bad experiences like rancid meat, insuring that the terrible taste will forever be engrained in my taste buds and etched in my memory so as not to make the same mistake twice.
I have not dated anyone in two years, unless you count a man who lived 5000 miles away from me whom I had been in a sort of long-distance “courtship” relationship which ended a year ago in November. Since then, concerned gay folk would ask, “how is your love life?” And others who are more irreverent and flippant would just gape at me in wonder as though I had won the lottery and burned the ticket and would ask “Why don’t you just go get laid?” The truth is, which each passing year and the more gay men I met (single or otherwise) the more convinced I was that there was something inherently wrong with the lot of them, as if the moment they first uttered the words “I’m gay” someone flipped the stupid switch inside them and it’s been on ever since (no offense to the gay men folk who are my friends, you all don’t seem stupid, you must have flipped that switch back off, hee hee). And the more idiotic gay men I seemed to run into or whose personals profiles I would skip through online, the more hopeless and increasingly isolated I felt. Or rather, the more I began to wonder, what if it really is me that’s off? What is wrong with me???
Adding to that were the increasingly frequent feelings of utter dread and exhaustion whenever I did venture out to meet someone in real life. When I had been living in Seattle over two years ago, I made the comment to a friend once that the prospect of going on a date felt like I had worked a 12 hour shift at a factory; I was going to find the same thing and I would have the same 20 questions to arrive at the fact that we would not be a good match for continued dating or possible romance which I knew even before meeting the guy usually. My friend replied I needed therapy. It was–is–so frustrating, though. Being a gay man who is also a Christian and tries to live his life accordingly is not wildly popular in the GLBT community. It runs counter-culturally (usually) to the altar of hedonism that many in the community seem to regularly bow down to. Finding someone else who lived in a such a countercultural way to the “way of the gay” was indeed a rare find. And when I occasionally did, there just wasn’t enough other common ground or spark to go the extra distance.
Having some wonderful moments of boredom last week, I began again to browse through personals ads, stopping at a few here and there because the profile said something interesting or someone seemed nice and I would type a hello. One profile picture in particular grabbed my attention, but when I read the contents I quickly thought to myself, perhaps not enough in common. I pictured this particular man to be one of the hyper-masculine variety who wore his butchhood as large as a trophy rodeo buckle and would perhaps only grunt monosyllabic responses of indifference back to me. I continued through a couple more pages before I thought suddenly, you know, why not? The worst he could do is just that or not respond at all. I flipped back, typed a hello and briefly mentioned a couple of items we shared in common and left it at that.
Five minutes a message popped up for me from this gentleman! Completely ignoring whatever items I had brought up that we shared in common that were of interest, he had typed excitedly, “I just read what you said about the importance of your faith in your profile. I’m a Christian, too! It’s so hard to find other guys who ‘get that.’” Thus have ensued several hours of combined online chatting and a phone conversation that culminated in a date for when I return to the Midwest at the end of this week. As it turns out, no monosyllabic grunts and we have far more in common than I initially thought. In fact, the guy is really a big softy. And a head-turning one at that.
And you want to know the darnedest thing of all? I don’t have a sense of dread or exhaustion in anticipation of meeting him. For the first time in well over two years I feel excited and even exhilarated over the prospect of meeting someone. It’s like I have been sitting in a room with the lamp set to the lowest setting and then suddenly someone came over and turned the lamp up a couple of times so the room is now illuminated and I see colors and textures that I could not see before in the dim. And of course, because this man seems too good to be true, I am utterly petrified at the same time.
OMG… this is friggin’ hilarious… and painfully poignant. And we wonder why people don’t like going to church… Thanks for sharing this with me, Erik.
At my seminary, all of the MDiv (short for Master of Divinity) students are required to be in the rotation of leading one of the weekday morning chapel services. My turn rolled around this morning. I wore an alb for the first time ever (for those of you not in the know, an alb is a white robe that typically has a hood on it, though the hood is seldom if ever worn pulled up). I sang and chanted (cantored). Still being sick, I am amazed I managed to croak my way through but I got through it.
One of my friends asked me later how it felt to be up there with the alb and all that, like did it feel as though I were growing into a pastoral identity? My answer was no. It felt very bizarre and foreign to me wearing an alb, like a costume representing an era long gone, perhaps a little showy and distinguishing. I am still trying to make up my mind about things like robes and such. I don’t think they’re bad, but I just feel… stuffy and set-apart from the rest of the assembly. Part of the Lutheran theology that I dig so much is the concept of the priesthood of all believers, yet this is something I seldom see in real life. The albs and vestments definitely set apart the priesthood from the rest of the believers and one never sees a non-ordained person officiate at communion. I get it and I don’t get it all at the same time. Jury is still out.
This year, give the gift of clean water to someone who can’t easily get it.
www.adventconspiracy.org
Yeah, can you believe that? Last night at work I was confronted by my boss and the manager who was working with me one night two weeks ago. A friend came in with two of her friends to order dinner and drinks. I served them and eventually brought them dessert: three pastries. Before I could include the pastries on their bill on the register, I was distracted by something else and momentarily forgot about it. The manager caught the mistake and brought it to my attention before they even paid their bill. I acknowledged my oversight, the bill was eventually paid, and I thought nothing of the incident… until last night.
Ever since then, the manager on shift that night suspected I was planning on giving those pastries away to that group without ever charging them. He brought it to my boss’s attention, who sat on it a good two weeks before bringing it to my attention last night. What pisses me off the most is how the whole situation was handled. I was immediately guilty. Verbally I was lectured about stealing and how wrong it is but I was written up for an oversight/error on the register. At least, I think that’s how it went down. Honestly, I was in such a state of shock about being accused of any sort of intentional misconduct that I didn’t know what to think or say.
After I had time to think about it, I was livid. And I penned my resignation letter last night and delivered it to my boss this afternoon. I spoke with her personally again about how the situation was handled and explained that I was leaving not due to being called on making a mistake–a mistake of the kind that happens frequently in this business due to distraction and oversight–but due to defamation of character. I came highly recommended; I have never worked someplace before where a) a suspicion of this nature wasn’t immediately dealt with rather than sat on for two weeks, and b) I have never ever had my character or integrity called into question like this before. In my letter I explained that my character and integrity are extremely important to me and I would not work in an environment where I felt like I would always be under suspicion.
My boss was congenial but maintained that she felt she was more than fair in how she handled this situation, given that she “was not the one who made the mistake here.” I was livid. But we were at an impasse: she doing what she felt she needed to do as someone who runs a business and, in my opinion, is clearly looking for people to be dishonest, and me who does make mistakes but is not dishonest. Even rehashing the events of the last 24 hours here causes the anger at what I feel is an injust accusation rise in me like stomach bile.
