General Conference 2008

Scars

Something Jayson said about scars from GC 2004, as well as what Julie T said about feeling uneasy about GC coming up have both resonated with me, and spurred me to finally write my first blog post in this forum.

I am also a General Conference veteran.  In 1996, I attended the entire two weeks in Denver with the Garrett-Evangelical seminar.  In 2000, I attended the Cleveland GC as a volunteer from Broadway UMC and stayed the whole time there as well.  In 2004, I planned not to go at all, but midway through the first week, found I couldn't stay away.  By the weekend I was in Pittsburgh.  And I plan to attend the entire conference this year as well.  "Liberal church nerd".  That's me.  (Thanks to Sue for the label.)

My clearest memories are of the Cleveland GC.  I was a legislation monitor in the Faith and Order legislative committee.  It took almost all of my time and energy.  We met late into the nights and all day on both weekend days.  I did not get to attend the RMN rally, or do any witnessing events like holding open doors and passing out newsletters.  I barely saw my BUMC friends and I certainly didn't get as much time as I would have liked seeing my larger "church family"--some of whom I only see at this gathering, every four years!

But I clearly remember the last days and hours.  The faces of the delegates.  The 14 Bishops who led a hymn sing during a break in the voting.  The witness of Sue Laurie and Randy Miller.  The faces of those who went up front during the proceedings, and their subsequent arrest.  (And the celebration we had outside the jail when they were released.)  The anguished voice of the woman who threatened to jump from the balcony railing when the church's renewed rejection of her sexuality and her very person were brought to life in the voting.  The tears.  The way my stomach felt.  The faces and rainbow rag stoles of those who were watching the proceedings from the balcony--a silent witness.  The rockin' party we had down the street when it was all over--a resurrection of sorts.

That these memories are so clear all these years later reveals just what an impact that gathering had on me emotionally.  It was overwhelming and traumatic.  I remember the ride home; it was pretty quiet in the car.  We were all just shell-shocked and exhausted.  It took me months afterwards to feel like myself again.

Am I anxious about going to Fort Worth?  You bet I am.  But I am also hopeful, afraid, excited, determined, and feeling the Spirit leading me.   We are going to Texas next month.  I can't wait to see all those far-flung family members.  I look forward to the comfort of being surrounded by other United Methodists and having some great worship opportunities.  I will feel welcome, because this is my church and my home.  I know this will not be without struggle, and the work we will do spans many years and at least a few more General Conferences!  But I feel ready to get there and begin the work anew.

I have been carrying around two Audre Lord quotes recently and I think they're appropriate for us:

When we speak we are afraid our words will not be heard or welcomed. But when we are silent, we are still afraid. So it is better to speak.

When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.

Don't ask don't tell

Okay, I have discovered that I have to be more disciplined about blogging.  Maybe i do and maybe I don't have any original thoughts, but I am going to express them any way.  We shall see if it makes any sense at all.  I am going to say what comes to my mind....It occurred to me today that I could actually be putting some of my gay friends, family, or associates, who happen to be United Methodist Pastors, at risk just by mentioning their name in this blog.  It is possible that some of the folks who are so adamantly against anyone gay entering or remaining a United Methodist clergy could comb this blog site, take names, and sentence them to death siting the Old Testament.  Or they could turn their names into the Bishop for punishment....Then as I took this further in my mind I started thinking about my experiences as member and chair of Staff Parish Relations Committees in 2 United Methodist Churches...The situations and personalities that I encountered  led to divorce of one pastor and other mean and nasty things but yet they don't want people that I know, who happen to be gay (not be choice but by nature) who are moral, ethical and caring people, to become Pastors in this Church...My Church..(I love that piece of the Reconciling Ministries video in which the guy says "Hey, they are talking about ME...they want to keep ME out"  or something like that.....It began to get absurd and make me mad...I began to think that if this was anything else (except the armed services) somebody would be getting sued.  If a person is baptised in the U Meth faith and told that they are a child of God how can they become not so?  I keep trying to reconcile myself, thinking this is just one issue in our Church, but daggonit, this is serious.  This flies in the face of  Jesus...This is my Church too and I strongly disagree with Don't Ask Don't Tell.  I think rational thinking people know that people do not choose their sexuality....People who are not heterosexual can be just as moral or immoral as anyone.  Generalizing any population is bad business...Enough....

Preparing Spiritually for General Conference 2008

I am a veteran General Conference (GC) attendee.  I don't know that it means much, but I definitely have the scars to prove that I was in Pittsburgh in 2004.  When I think back, I am unsure why I decided to go and spend two weeks in Pittsburgh at that point in time.  I had no idea what to expect and I certainly was not prepared for the roller coaster ride of emotions that was my experience before, during, and after GC. 

Having come out as a gay man and having gone through the issues of family, friends, and local congregation, I assumed that going to GC would be pretty easy.  I really hoped that the church was going to change - and I think believed that it really would happen in Pittsburgh.  The feelings of rejection, unwelcome, and unwant that I felt after General Conference affected me for months.

Now that I am a veteran, I still have hope for the church to change, I must have hope if I am going to stay in this denomination and keep trying to make things happen.  I really want to believe that it will happen in Ft. Worth.  However, I realize that I need to prepare myself emotionally and spiritually for the events of the next few months. 

This Lenten season, in preparation for GC, I have been engaged in a whole regimen of spiritual disciplines - I call it my spiritual work out.  I have been spending time in prayer for our church and our movement everyday.  I am spending time in scriptural study, and I have also started a regular schedule of fasting one day a week.

The most important part of this spiritual regimen, for me, is to feel a greater sense of connectedness, to God, to those who love me, to those struggling in this unjust church along with me.  With them, I can get through this GC just like Pittsburgh.  With them, I have faith that one day the UMC will change.

Peace with Justice.

Taken With Trees

One Family Tree

Our logo came out nice

It’s pretty, all the multi-colored leaves

But to be perfectly honest

I’m not really into the theme

Family – so heteronormative

Tree – we were trying to blend with the General Conference logo and theme

The green tree & “A Future with Hope”

I didn’t really see the need to regard the General Conference theme at all

Why is it that the margins feel they have to address themselves to the center anyway?

Doesn’t that strategy always fail?

Like addressing ourselves to unity? To being ONE?

 

To me the GC theme “A Future With Hope” was just, well, might I say, premature.

It reminded me of another theme in the book of Jeremiah,

“People carelessly saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ when there is no peace.”

How about trying on this Jeremiah for size:

“My heart is sick, hark, the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land…is there no balm in Gilead?"

“A Future with Hope?”

What’s with the mighty middle UMC adopting a passage from the exile?

Who in the General Conference is in exile anyway?

I mean, really. And I ain’t talking about just the gay people here.

 

One Family Tree?

What are we saying we are a part of here?

What is it we are saying we want to be a part of?

Jeremiah writes

The religious establishment is a disastrous faithless mess and God has had it

The future with hope depends upon the people who have already been exiled

(Who, by the way, have their own repenting to do for their various forms of faithlessness)

But God is not suggesting that the exiled rejoin the family tree just yet

God still has some of God’s own work to do

Bringing low the remaining religious establishment so the restoration might begin

 

Meanwhile

God says

Wherever you find yourselves, exiled people

It’s not just about BEING A TREE

It’s about PLANTING TREES

[well, technically Jeremiah says plant gardens (verse 5), but, same idea]

 

It’s not about wishing you were a part of some fictitious family that you are not a part of

Or even if you could be, that it would be a good idea

But it’s about whatever ground you are standing in which you find yourself an exile

Bringing life to that land and the people around you

And being faithful to the ONE who is with you in this land

Faithful to the ONE, who, though it is confusing and pisses me off sometimes,

According to Jeremiah

Brought us to this land for a purpose.

 

Root yourselves in one another who are the exiled

Connect to the real, living space that sustains your being

and it will sustain you

Be productive

Make community

Seek the welfare of the place where you are

The journey to restoration will be long

So seek me

And pray

MoSAIC in Chicago for GC 2008 Planning Meeting

The 2008 General Conference planning team for MoSAIC met in Chicago last weekend. Members of the planning team traveled from all over the country to get ready for the General Conference in Fort Worth, TX.

If you would like to donate to help youth and young adults get to General Conference, visit our donation page and designate your gift "General Conference Youth Scholarship". Each youth and young adult scholarship costs about $500. We hope to bring 100 youth and young adults to General Conference.

Here is a YouTube Video of the MoSAIC planning session at Holy Covenant UMC, a Reconciling Congregation:

Youth and Young Adults: These Are Our Stories

"These Are Our Stories" is part of the MoSAIC witness to the 2008 General Conference of the United Methodist Church. We will feature a new story at Generalconference2008.org each week leading up to General Conference. Here is Miriam's story:

You may visit MoSAIC's YouTube Channel at:

http://www.youtube.com/user/MosaicRMN

You may visit MoSAIC's Blog at:

http://mosaic.rmnetwork.org

The Reason Why

Last week I met a guy and we got to talking and during the course of our conversation it turned to my involvement with church and then more specifically the United Methodist Church, a church that feels it is ok to deny lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people membership. He kept asking me why I stay in a place that seems to not want me so vocally. Why do I struggle for equality from a group that has no desire to grant me equality? This isn’t the first time I have been asked these questions but somehow it never gets any easier to answer them so I thought it would be important to share them.

For me there are several reasons that I stay. The first and most important reason is my faith in God prevents me from abandoning the body of Christ. It is a source of constant inspiration for me. It isn’t always easy knowing that I’m not welcome everywhere as an equal but somehow God always manages to use those experiences to help me continue to grow in my faith.

Another reason stay is because I see people hurting outside the church. I unfortunately have many friends who have abandoned faith because they feel they do not belong or are unwanted. I know that’s not true but for people who have been so deeply hurt it is hard for them to see. I stay because I want the church to be a place where they feel welcome to come just as they are and if I walk away nothing will ever change.

I see so much potential in the warm and wonderfully loving church that is the UMC. After all it is the church that helped me to find my faith. But it is unfortunately denying a part of the body Christ full access. This is hurting the body because it is making many feel less worthy and less welcome, in a church that preaches that all are of sacred worth.

So why do I stay. I stay because I believe in the UMC. I believe change is currently happening and one day we will truly be a church with open hearts, open minds, and open doors.

Meditate On That

Sit here, wait

to see what comes

What comes when I meditate on General Conference

meditate on general  conference

I decide

“meditate” & “General Conference”

do not belong in the same sentence

 

What comes

is a slightly queasy feeling

excitement-anxiety-anger

that if I stayed with long enough

Might actually make me puke

 

What comes?

 

from the past

Blank stares, that’s what comes.

Parades of delegates

walk by our demonstrations

they look without looking

while we

open doors

block driveways

stand silently

kneel on pavement

offer water

pray

hold signs

sing

cry

Blank stares

from disembodied loyal middle mediocrity

no com/passion in what comes

 

Occasionally other

Offer words and gestures

Come

sympathetic nods

thumbs-ups

contempt

thank yous

questions

what have you

which mostly leave me as cold as the blank stares

 

I am not there for them

I am not there to convince them of anything, anymore

I am there for us

I am there to be us

To come

As

Queer

Creative

Outraged

Out-rage-us

Hilarious

Demanding

Delightful

Resistant

Serious

Crazy

 

Having more fun

Laughing more raucously

Shedding more tears

Grieving deeply

Singing more loudly

And beautifully

Holding gratefully

Communing with

Pursuing passionately

the God of Life who comes

Regardless.

 

I will meditate on that.

Love the Dog

I love dogs.  I love their loud lapping at water bowls, their incessant enthusiasm, and their unabashed enjoyment of belly scratches.  (I also love underdogs and hot dogs, but I think that’s a different topic!). 

My dad went to St. Bernard’s High School.  Their mascot was – yup, you guessed it – a St. Bernard dog.  Dad was about twice as large as I am, so I practically drown in his old clothes.  But I love wearing his high school letter jacket; the warm gray wool is a powerful shield that wards off winter winds, and the embroidered chest patch that depicts a huge, endearing St. Bernard always makes me smile. 

I love that dog.

Now, my neighbors have two cats.  Acorn’s a lot like a little brown tree nut – small, prone to falling from great heights, and almost always in danger of being trampled underfoot.  Magma’s bigger and slower.  Hard to realize she’s even moving, until it’s too late - suddenly you’re engulfed by a heavy gray mass!  And holding her is like receiving a full-body bear hug: Magma’s weight crushes you like molten rock.  She throws her weight around in a more figurative sense, too – Magma’s got attitude.

One of my neighbors took them to church for the Blessing of the Animals.  Magma can’t stand car rides – I’m sure she spent the entire 20-minute drive complaining incessantly.  Acorn’s sweet, but not the brightest gourd in the field, so she was a bit confused about where exactly she was.  But both were blessed, the unwilling and the uncertain.  And my neighbor says it was beautiful, a time when all of God’s creation was welcomed into God’s house for blessing and rejoicing.  A time when the expansiveness of God’s love was made tangible, when the companionship of beloved pets was celebrated, and people experienced – not just mentally understood – the interconnectedness of all life on God’s great green earth. 

It sounds nice, but it made me sad.  The church was happy to ritually commemorate the love and lives shared by pets and their humans, but when my neighbor finds a partner with whom to share his love and life, the United Methodist Church will close its doors to him.  My neighbor, my ardently churchy neighbor, whose heart is strangely warmed by singing centuries-old English hymns, will find those proverbially open UMC doors slammed in his face, simply because any marriage he enters into will unite him with a man. 

Myself, I’m not home enough to have a dog – or a cat.  I still dream of a day when I’ll take an early evening walk to the lake with my big, furry St. Bernard, a dog that sweetly will remind me of my late father.  I expect all three of us to have a mutual love of the water, of long and lazy summer afternoons, and of warm winter nights lounging beside a fireplace.  I also expect to take such a dog to our local UMC for a Blessing of the Animals.

Sadly, I also expect that same church to be unable to celebrate any partnership I may have with a human being.  Now, let me be clear – I am blessed to live in Boston, MA, where there are many Reconciling churches within driving distance.  Indeed, I attend one on Sunday evenings, and am discerning whether I should be more deeply involved with a second congregation that meets on Sunday mornings.  I am blessed.

But official United Methodist policy forbids the celebration of same-sex marriages, even though they are legal here in Massachusetts.  So if I can find the right person, we can share our lives and hearts with one another, can cook meals together for church potlucks, and may even spend our Sundays serving on committees and singing in the choir (I like to imagine dating a baritone, whose rich voice completely drowns out my tone-deaf hymn-mangling.  It seems the Christian thing to do, to spare others of any auditory suffering I may currently be causing).  But somehow, this dream life would be distasteful in the eyes of the church.   If I’m looking for a ritual blessing of the God-given love that buoys my everyday life, the UMC says my St. Bernard is welcome, but my Bernard is not.

As a church, how can we celebrate companionship with pets but not with people?

When reluctantly forced to name this sad state of affairs, I must admit that the UMC stance can be summed up in one stale, stark quip:

Love the dog, hate the dog owner.

But take heart, friends:  GLBT people may be excluded from the church, but apparently the hearts, minds, and doors of the United Methodist Church are open to felines.  I’m going to be nicer to Acorn and Magma, and slip them a little extra catnip every now and then.  After all, they can get a front-row seat in any United Methodist Church  - maybe they can sneak me and Bernard in!

Unity

The theme for this General Conference is "A Future with Hope."  However, if you have been following the articles in the official UM media, and the language coming from many of the bishops and general agencies, the real buzzword of GC 2008, is unity.

Unity is important to our identity as United Methodists. Our very name came from the “uniting” of the Evangelical United Brethren denomination and the Methodist denomination at a “uniting” conference 40 years ago. Our founder, John Wesley, famously said: "In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity." 

This unity talk started because some conservative caucus groups were pushing for schism at the last General Conference. I think most of us are agreed that we would rather that this didn’t happen. I am against schism.  I love our church and don't want it to split - read my earlier post.  But we also cannot let this talk of unity overpower the necessity of Justice. Unity is important, but it is not all-important.

The way the word unity is being used this general conference is to stop debate. There have been suggestions that we shouldn’t discuss GLBT issues this General Conference. That is not unity. According to my dictionary, unity means whole or being in totality. The church can never achieve unity until it welcomes all people, all families, all relationships, and all of our gifts and talents.

Let’s not forget the above quote by Wesley. The important part of that message seems to be “in all things, charity.” My question to the general church is where is the charity in Judicial Council ruling 1032? Or in taking credentials from ordained ministers? 

The opposite of unity, of "wholeness," is being broken, in pieces.  We as Christians know the value of brokenness.  Every time we have communion we relive the night when Jesus died, when he took the bread and broke it, saying this is my body.  It was through the brokenness of Christ's physical body that resurrection came.

Isn't the church also the body of Christ?  Although we should work to stay united, we should not be scared of being broken. It may be painful for us, but sometimes the path following Jesus leads us through times of brokenness. How else do we get to Easter?

We cannot sacrifice the GLBT community for some false idea of unity.  We must continue to bring our message of a justice-seeking, grace-filled, loving God, to everyone.  That is the only way to achieve true unity.