Legally marrying a couple I'd done a service of union for. Finally! |
a coming out story would be
a chronicle of all the days of all my lives
it seems there is either nothing to tell,
or far too much
how can i possibly capture any of it
stop the flow
march it out in lines for all to see and know
i am always coming out
endlessly unfolding on an infinite number of levels
i struggle and persist.
a chronicle of all the days of all my lives
it seems there is either nothing to tell,
or far too much
how can i possibly capture any of it
stop the flow
march it out in lines for all to see and know
i am always coming out
endlessly unfolding on an infinite number of levels
i struggle and persist.
– Constance Faye (“Come Again”)
a coming out story would be
a chronicle of all the days of all my lives
We live many lives.
a chronicle of all the days of all my lives
We live many lives.
If we are lucky, we know this, and we grow more and more fully
into the “I” that is the most whole and most evolved. We become who we are
meant to be.
On this Sunday after Coming Out Day, I have had the
opportunity to reflect upon some of those lives, and to accept that I have not
always been who I was meant to be, to accept that even now, the age some people
“retire”, I am still becoming. I am still learning.
It seems there is either nothing to tell
Or far too much.
When I was becoming aware of human sexuality, it was “last
century” as my kids love to say. Pete Buttigieg, the first openly gay candidate
for President, had not been born. We whispered about our two Phys Ed teachers,
Miss Carson and Miss Bookner, who were, we were sure, lesbians, we made
fun of the Thespian Society (I was a member so I heard the comments all the
time), we wondered about effeminate boys and masculine girls. The word “queer” was
just gradually beginning to be used to mean “gay” and not just “weird”.
I didn’t know anyone who was gay; or at least anyone who was
openly gay. I had no books, poems, films, or music to help me understand. Naturally,
I was afraid of what I didn’t know. I wasn’t openly homophobic, but I was
avoidant and silent. This continued through most of my twenties, even after
going to college. It seems almost bizarre to me now.
It was not until I became involved in the UU Church in Cherry
Hill NJ that I met and was befriended by gay men and women, and that I volunteered to join the committee to introduce one of the first Welcoming
Congregation programs. Something we talked about was that if we promoted the
workshops, people would think we were ourselves gay/lesbian. Deciding I was
fine with that was one of my first baby steps toward coming out: as an ally, a
liberal, and an advocate.
how can i possibly capture any of it
stop the flow
march it out in lines for all to see and know
stop the flow
march it out in lines for all to see and know
My then very young sons (the oldest is the same age as Mayor
Pete) and I went to SUUSI for several summers before I entered the ministry. (Once
I was a clergy person, I just couldn’t enjoy SUUSI the same way again. Nude
hikes, anyone?) It was there we were befriended by a family whose kids got
along great with mine. Dee Graham and Signa, her late partner, had two
biological and one adopted (Black) child. To me, from a circumscribed life in
South Jersey, this ought to have been shocking, but our friendship grew so
naturally and so organically that it’s hard to pinpoint the moment I “changed”.
What I know for sure is that it took, for me, eating, playing, relaxing and
co-housing with, LGBT persons to become for real what my intellect knew was
right: an outspoken ally.
None too soon.
My kids would learn never to use the word “gay” as a slur. They
stood up against its use by others. Colin was actually censored by his
elementary school for cross-dressing in the Halloween parade, while Casey
regularly put on make-up and skirts in adulation of Kurt Cobain, the lead
singer of Nirvana.
i am always coming out
endlessly unfolding on an infinite number of levels
i struggle and persist.
endlessly unfolding on an infinite number of levels
i struggle and persist.
Since becoming a minister, I have had the opportunity to not
only eat, sing, laugh, and share space with gay colleagues and congregants, I
have had the opportunity to minister to lesbian, gay, transgender, queer,
questioning, and gender fluid people. I have been with them at the death beds
of their beloveds, done funerals for their children who died of suicide or
overdose, sat with them in hospitals and hospice, in childbirth and trauma. I
have performed numerous services of union and many legal weddings. It has been
a privilege.
All this has been possible because UUism is a welcoming,
affirming, embracing place for LGBTQI+ persons.
And I want to say that it has not only been a blessing to those
people, it has enriched my life beyond measure. That is the thing: opening,
embracing, loving the “other” enriches us. We are the richer, the deeper, the
more profoundly human because of it.
i am always coming out
endlessly unfolding on an infinite number of levels
i struggle and persist.
endlessly unfolding on an infinite number of levels
i struggle and persist.
I’m still unfolding. Aren’t you? My daughter is bisexual,
although I’m sure she’d reject even that label. Of late, she’s been a career
woman with our dog (which she stole, but that’s another story) and her two
therapy rabbits as her family. I will freely admit that it took me by surprise
and that it worried me. What if? What if? What if? I knew enough about people’s
struggles and pain to know what she was in for.
My former interim congregation in NJ was one of three who called
a trans minister. I worried, knowing them: how would these South Jersey mostly
straight UUs manage to remember to say they/them/theirs instead of “she”? Or
“he”? They've done great.
i am always coming out
endlessly unfolding on an infinite number of levels
i struggle and persist.
endlessly unfolding on an infinite number of levels
i struggle and persist.
I regret that I was homophobic and heteronormative for so long.
I forgive myself, because I didn’t know, and had no means to know. I accept
myself as part of this world, organically interconnected with all beings and
all life, for better, and increasingly obviously for worse. As I age, my
aspirations scale back but my determination remains, just more closely focused.
My being here with you is an outgrowth of that. I no longer expect massive
change, but I want to be a part of what can be, with what is left to us.
Here is my challenge: Who will we choose to be going forward?
We have yet to becoming entirely embracing of trans and gender fluid people, people
of color, of people of lower socio-economic backgrounds, of mental, emotional,
and spectrum disabilities, of blue collar people who don’t read the New York
Times.
But we can grow. We can learn, evolve, and reach out.
I want to be a part of what Margaret Wheatley calls Islands
of Sanity. I want us to be able to honor our two great needs, for connection
and for self-expression. I’ll
talk more about that next time.
Brother Thomas Merton |
For now:
The mystic and scholar Thomas Merton reminds us of the futility
and the promise of our work together:
What if your work
achieves nothing? Thomas Merton, a writer and contemplative in the
Catholic tradition, said, “Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have
to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve
no result at all, if not, perhaps, results opposite to what you expect.
“As you get used to
this idea of your work achieving nothing, you start more and more to
concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of
the work itself. And there, too, a great deal has to be gone through, as,
gradually, you struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for
specific people. The range tends to narrow down, but it gets much more real. In
the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything.”
Colin & Baby Marjorie 1993
- Links to learn more:
- www.uurainbowhistory.net Stories, a timeline, more
- www.margaretwheatley.com Go to "library" for articles, podcasts, videos.