PFLAGers at the March!

Here is a report and some pics by PFLAGers Stacey and Beth who attended the National Equality March in Washington D.C.

The March…
“full and equal protection for LGBT people in all matters governed by civil law in all 50 states”
“the march is just the beginning”

The fun began on the Metro just prior to noon on Sunday, the 11th…where anyone wearing a rainbow or a “Hello Kitty” sticker was clearly going to the same place…the corner of 15th and I Streets. People looked out for each other that day…like when a large group was on the wrong Metro…the yellow line instead of orange…someone in the crowd yelled “If you’re gay, get off now!!!” We got off…soon found the orange line…and made it to the crowd.


Joining the hundreds of thousands of people also gathered at the same corner of 15th and I streets, one might expect to be filled with anxiety! But quite the opposite, it felt open and calming and a wonderful blending of energy with these people all with the same focus.


It is difficult to put into words…suffice to say that the beauty that radiated from each individual person in that march was exquisite.



There were families with children…babies being carried, children in strollers…screen actors guild…straight families, gay families, young people, old people, pflag, socialist workers, church groups, Methodists, Unitarians…the list goes on.



Also striking was what wasn’t present at the march. Unlike what one might expect with a wonderfully typical Pride Parade – a variety of scantily clad men and women, drag queens, flamboyant and outrageous costumes, etc.




– it was overwhelmingly everyday people…coming together with their friends, loved ones, families, and perfect strangers to make a difference.




Estimates give 200,000 as the number of people, but it felt like a million on the ground making their way the 2.33 miles from I to H Streets, on to Pennsylvania Avenue, past the White House, to the Capitol building. It felt like a million people in part because of the time it took for the march to begin. It started at noon, and from where we stood toward the back of the crowd marching did not begin until after 1:30pm. Once we made it to the destination of the Capitol lawn, there still were seven blocks of marchers behind us.

Once the march concluded on the Capitol lawn, an equality rally was held, with a host of speakers including Matthew Shepherd’s mother, Cynthia Nixon, Cleve Jones, among others.






Dan Choi spoke of the need for repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. He emphatically repeated three times, getting louder with each time, “I Will Tell” “I Will Tell” “I Will Tell”. It was so inspiring to hear these words from him, knowing what he has been through. He had such conviction in his voice…and it was urging the crowd to join with him in telling.



An 18 year old young man … .
One of two that received an award…
Could hear the remorse in his voice - remorse for not responding two years ago the way he would have liked to an incident in which a gay friend was the focus of verbal attack (belittling, humiliating). And so now he is doing what he can to lead a movement of young straight allies to work for the cause… It was moving to hear him, because of his conviction to make a difference but more because of his youth…knowing he is so passionate about this cause…it just felt like he would in fact make a difference…and that he would be in this movement and politics for years to come.

They Will Know We Are Christians By Our Hate

Never missing an opportunity to cash in on prejudice, the Vatican has announced to disaffected Anglicans:

"Hey we are narrow-minded and bigoted just like you. Come join us!"

Check it:

The Vatican announced Tuesday it was making it easier for Anglicans to convert to Roman Catholicism -- a surprise move designed to entice traditionalists opposed to women priests, openly gay clergy and the blessing of same-sex unions....

Until now, Anglicans had been allowed to join the church primarily on an individual basis. With the new provision, groups of Anglicans from around the world will be able to join new parishes headed by former Anglican prelates, who will provide spiritual guidance to Anglicans who wish to be Catholic.

A surprise move?! It is what is to be expected from institutions that have enthroned ignorance, fear, and bigotry as spiritual virtues.

Bishop Spong's Manifesto

This is cathartic. It is Bishop John Shelby Spong's Manifesto. Some of my favorite sentences:

I will no longer engage the biblical ignorance that emanates from so many right-wing Christians about how the Bible condemns homosexuality, as if that point of view still has any credibility.

He is just warming up...

I will no longer talk to those who believe that the unity of the church can or should be achieved by rejecting the presence of, or at least at the expense of, gay and lesbian people.

Yes. Yes. Yes.

I will no longer seek to slow down the witness to inclusiveness by pretending that there is some middle ground between prejudice and oppression. There isn't. Justice postponed is justice denied. That can be a resting place no longer for anyone.

Thank you! There is no middle ground any more than there is 3/5 of a person. Those who advocate for a so-called "middle ground" that continues to keep unjust rules in our ecclesiastical rule books or unjust laws in our civil governments are chicken shits who hide behind privilege.

I will particularly ignore those members of my own Episcopal [or Presbyterian] Church who seek to break away from this body to form a "new church," claiming that this new and bigoted instrument alone now represents the Anglican [or Reformed] Communion. Such a new ecclesiastical body is designed to allow these pathetic human beings, who are so deeply locked into a world that no longer exists, to form a community in which they can continue to hate gay people, distort gay people with their hopeless rhetoric and to be part of a religious fellowship in which they can continue to feel justified in their homophobic prejudices for the rest of their tortured lives. Church unity can never be a virtue that is preserved by allowing injustice, oppression and psychological tyranny to go unchallenged.

I added the red lettered "Presbyterian" and "Reformed" to make it personal. Personalize it by adding the name of your favorite sect.

I will also no longer act as if I need a majority vote of some ecclesiastical body in order to bless, ordain, recognize and celebrate the lives and gifts of gay and lesbian people in the life of the church. No one should ever again be forced to submit the privilege of citizenship in this nation or membership in the Christian Church to the will of a majority vote.

We'll get you gay hitched for Jesus right here, right now.

I have been part of this debate for years, but things do get settled and this issue is now settled for me. I do not debate any longer with members of the "Flat Earth Society" either. I do not debate with people who think we should treat epilepsy by casting demons out of the epileptic person; I do not waste time engaging those medical opinions that suggest that bleeding the patient might release the infection.

I wonder if I should still debate with those who think Cain and Abel played with dinos?

This is my manifesto and my creed. I proclaim it today. I invite others to join me in this public declaration.

I am with you, Bishop. That was fun. Read the whole thing. More Light Presbyterians has linked to it as well.

The point I take away from this exercise is that there is no argument. There is no debate. There are no "sides." There is no middle way between "extremes." There is justice and there is injustice.

To suggest that there is argument, debate, sides, middle ground, extremes, etc. is to give credence to oppression and to affirm that treating people like second-class citizens is a reasonable position.

We need more people to follow the lead of Bishop Spong and speak clearly. This clear speech is what is required to penetrate the fog of homophobic propaganda and the hand wringing of the weak-kneed who unwittingly corroborate with it.

Here is some more inspiration:

Can You Drink the Cup? A Sermon

Can You Drink the Cup?
John Shuck
First Presbyterian Church
October 18th, 2009
Isaiah 54:4-12
Mark 10:35-45

One image for the spiritual life is to drink the cup. In all its complexity and ambiguity, in all of its richness and its depth, to drink the cup is to experience life fully. We toast with a cup. We celebrate with it, “To life!” The cup is a symbol for the via positiva, the celebration of life, joy, beauty, royalty. We drink the cup at weddings, graduations, and celebrations of all kinds.

To drink the cup of joy is a sacred thing. It is a holy thing. It is to acknowledge the awesome, joyful mystery of being alive. To share the cup with a friend is to celebrate divinity within each other. We need to do it and do it often so we can remember how precious life is.

We need to play, sing, dance and enjoy life and one another. Our calendars, whether religious or secular, move from feast to feast. It is how we mark time from celebration to celebration, from one cup to the next.

But when Jesus asks James and John: “Can you drink the cup?” he is talking about a different cup. In a sense it is the same cup. It is the cup of life. It is the cup of the holy and the sacred. It is the cup of reality. It is the cup of what is. But this cup is not the cup of joy, celebration, beauty, and accomplishment. This is a cup of sorrow and pain. This is the cup of loss, emptiness, and letting go.

It is also a shared cup. To be human is also to share our cup of sorrows. As the passage in today’s reading ends, Jesus says to his fellow cup drinkers: “the human being came not to be served but to serve and to give his life for the ransom of many.”

James and John get a hint of the via positiva. They know the end of the story of victory, celebration, and royalty. It is in that spirit that they ask to be seated at the anointed one’s right hand in glory. Before they experience that they will need to drink the cup of letting go.

It is an odd exchange Jesus has with them. They ask if they can be seated at his right and left hand. They want to be in the place of honor--of privilege and entitlement. Jesus responds to this request with a question of his own: “Can you drink the cup?” and “Can you be baptized with the same baptism as the one I was baptized with?”

With the confidence of those who have no idea what they are talking about, in the naivete of those who “do not know what they are asking” they say, “Oh yes we can do that.” Jesus replies, “Yes you will drink the cup and be baptized with my baptism.” In other words:

“You will let go. You will drink the cup. It may not be until your death, but eventually you will let go.” And then Jesus says, “but to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared.”

I have often wondered what that meant. He could have said that at the beginning in answer to their question.

“Can we sit at your right and left hand?”
“It is not mine to grant.”

So why does Jesus ask them if they can drink the cup? The lesson here is that the glory cannot be separated from the shame. Neither can the fullness from the emptiness, the light from the dark, the receiving from the giving, and the joy from the sorrow. The via negativa is in a perpetual dance with the via positiva.

In order to live authentically we need to learn how to drink the cup of letting go and letting be. We need to learn how to embrace our sorrow, pain, limitations, vulnerability, and emptiness. It is part of life. If we run from it, hide from it, deny, or ignore it, we will cheat ourselves from experiencing the sacred and the holy.

The cup occurs twice more in Mark’s gospel. At the supper, Jesus took a cup and gave it to them and all of them drank from it. Then just before his arrest, Jesus prayed that the Holy One would take the cup from him, and then added, “Not my will but yours.”

One of the best books on the via negativa --the way of letting go and letting be-- is the last book written by Henri Nouwen. Father Nouwen, a Dutch priest, died about 12 years ago. He wrote a number of books on spirituality. I was looking for his book, Can You Drink the Cup? based on this passage in Mark to help me with this sermon. I couldn’t find it. I picked this book off the shelf in my Nouwen collection. It is called Adam: God’s Beloved.

In the last years of his life, Nouwen was the pastor of the L’Arche Daybreak Community in Toronto, Canada. This is a community for mentally handicapped. He had been the community’s pastor for about ten years.

Nouwen was going to write a book about the Apostle’s Creed and what it might mean for contemporary people, when his best friend, Adam Arnett died. Adam was severely handicapped. He couldn’t speak. He was gripped by seizures. He lived his life in obscurity. He was the first person who Henri cared for when he came to L’Arche community.

After Adam died, Father Nouwen decided to write about Adam instead of the Apostle’s Creed. This is Nouwen’s last book. He never quite finished it. A year after Adam died, Father Nouwen also died. Adam: God’s Beloved was published after Father Nouwen’s death.

It is interesting that Father Nouwen, a famous author and teacher of theology and spirituality, would spend ten years of his life as the pastor of a facility for the mentally handicapped. From that experience he wrote one of his most touching books about the life of Adam who for Father Nouwen became the Christ. This book about Adam is told in the framework of Christ’s life.

Adam was the first person Father Nouwen cared for when he came to L’Arche Community. Henri was given the task of getting Adam ready for the day. Henri writes:

Helping Adam meant waking him up at 7:00 A.M., taking off his pajamas and dressing him in a bathrobe, walking him to the bathroom, shaving his beard, giving him a bath, choosing clothes for the day, dressing him, combing his hair, walking with him to the kitchen, making his breakfast, sitting close beside him as he ate his breakfast, supporting his glass as he drank, brushing his teeth, putting on his coat, gloves, and cap, getting him into his wheelchair, and pushing him over the pothole-rich road to his Daybreak day program, where he would spend the day until 4:00 pm. P. 41

He couldn’t figure out why he was asked to care for Adam. Adam was one of the most needy. Henri had no experience. It took two hours of his day. When he asked he was told, “So you can get to know Adam.” Even as Adam could not speak, Henri had to learn how Adam was communicating with him. If he ever rushed Adam, perhaps pushed his arms through his sleeves too quickly so he could get on with the business of the day, Adam would respond. Henri writes:

He let me know that I wasn’t being really present to him and was more concerned about my schedule than about his. A few times when I was so pushy he responded by having a grand mal seizure, and I realized that it was his way of saying, “Slow down, Henri! Slow down.” Well, it certainly slowed me down! A seizure so completely exhausted him that I had to stop everything I was doing and let him rest. Sometimes if it was a bad one, I brought him back to his bed and covered him with many blankets to keep him from shivering violently. Adam was communicating with me, and he was consistent in reminding me that he wanted and needed me to be with him unhurriedly and gently. He was clearly asking me if I was willing to follow his rhythm and adapt my ways to his needs. I found myself beginning to understand a new language, Adam’s language. P. 47.

In caring for Adam, Father Nouwen discovered that Adam was his teacher. He wondered what Adam thought about things. What sense of self-awareness did he have? Did he think about God? Could he pray? He writes:

And while I, the so-called “normal” person, kept wondering how much Adam was like me, he had no ability or need to make comparisons. He simply lived and by his life invited me to receive his unique gift, wrapped in weakness but given for my transformation. While I tended to worry about what I did and how much I could produce, Adam was announcing to me that “being is more important than doing.” While I was preoccupied with the way I was talked about or written about, Adam was quietly telling me that “God’s love is more important than the praise of people.” While I was concerned about my individual accomplishments, Adam was reminding me that “doing things together is more important than doing things alone.” Adam couldn’t produce anything, had no fame to be proud of, couldn’t brag of any award or trophy. But by his very life, he was the most radical witness of the truth of our lives that I have ever encountered. P. 55-6.

Father Nouwen wrote that Adam, like Jesus, had a public ministry. People would come to Daybreak and were affected by Adams’s beautiful, silent presence. Henri writes:

Adam was a true teacher and a true healer. Most of his healing was inner healing that announced peace, courage, joy, and freedom to those who often were hardly able to acknowledge their wounds. Adam, by his eyes and by his presence, said to us, “Don’t be afraid. You don’t have to run away from your pain. Look at me,, be close to me, and you will discover that you are God’s beloved child, just as I am.” P. 65.

Father Nouwen in this beautiful book about Adam, realized that Adam drank the cup. Adam suffered. His life was one of suffering. Father Nouwen calls it Adam’s passion. The greatest aspect of his suffering or his passion may have been that he could never tell anyone what was bothering him. His life was dependence upon others. He was acted upon. He made no decisions about his own life. Others decided for him. He was in many ways, like the Christ, who fulfilled his mission, not by doing great things, but by letting go, by giving himself as a ransom for many.

Adam lived in total dependency. Henri writes:

He seemed deeply resigned to it, totally given into the hands of others, radiating light and peace in his utter weakness….Adam’s passion for me was a profound prophetic witness. His life and especially his passion radically criticized those of us who give ourselves to the norms of a society driven by individualism, materialism, and sensationalism. Adam’s total dependence made it possible for him to live fully only if we lived in a loving community around him. His great teaching to us was, “I can only live if you surround me with love and if you love one another. Otherwise, my life is useless and I am a burden.” Adam clearly challenged us to trust that compassion, not competition, is the way to fulfill our human vocation.” P. 90.

When Jesus asks James and John, “Can you drink the cup?” he is not scolding them. He is teaching and inviting. He is asking them, “Can you be vulnerable? Can you let go of your success, your ambition, your illusion of independence? Can you accept who you are outside of your accomplishments? Can you love yourself and others as you are loved, as God’s beloved?

Can you drink the cup? Can you let yourself be dependent upon the love and compassion of others? Life isn’t so much what we have done. It is mostly how we respond to what is done to us. We like to think that we are in control. But most of our lives are spent dependent upon others. Not just childhood or old age. The pews we are sitting on were constructed by others. Everything we eat, where we sleep, all we do is connected with everything else.

We are not individually made or sustained. The Adams of our lives teach us that. If we are wise we learn from them. It is in times of loss that we realize how quaint are our concerns. When circumstances force us to let go, to drink the cup is to be conscious about where we are in our lives and who we are.

“Can you drink the cup?” is a question of invitation. It is invitation to be here now, in the present, with one another, with ourselves, with Earth, with life, without pretense or presupposition.

To drink the cup is in the words of Father Henri Nouwen:

“To choose to give our love when we are strong and to receive the love of others when we are weak, always with tranquility and generosity.” P. 94.

Amen.

Time to Join PFLAG

Now is the time to renew your membership or start a new membership to PFLAG! You can become an at-large member of PFLAG national for $50. Here's how.

But if you join through PFLAG Tri-Cities it is only $25. Fifteen dollars will go to national and ten to PFLAG Tri-Cities. What could you do with the extra $25? Well...you could make an extra donation to PFLAG Tri-Cities!

Either way it is win-win for support, education, and advocacy.

All memberships expire at the same time, October of each year. If you have joined PFLAG Tri-Cities last year, your membership needs to be renewed. If you have never joined PFLAG there is no better time than the present!

Here is what you do:

Go to the website, open the form, print it, fill it out, send it with your check for $25 to

PFLAG Tri-Cities
P.O. Box 442
Mountain Home, TN 37684

You can make a larger contribution too. It will be most welcome.

National Equality March: The Movie

Coming soon, pics and stories from PFLAG Tri-Cities folks who attended the march! In the meantime, enjoy this!

Missed the Boat

Meeting Tonight!

Hey Friends of PFLAG Tri-Cities!

We have our monthly meeting tonight at 7 p.m. at #311 Warf-Pickel (Bldg. #8) on the ETSU campus!

We are going to be treated to a slide show (the old fashioned term for power point) of the National Equality March in which some of our PFLAGers marched!

Join us!

Invite friends!

Spread the word!

Love ya!

Oops, Wrong Rally

My peeps are starting to tell me stories and send pics of the March for Equality. Expect a colorful post forthcoming. Had to share this right now:

Oh yea... the most peculiar thing...Abortion Protesters? Standing on the sidewalk with a giant, full color poster board the size of my car with graphic pictures.... I just didn't get the connection...as a group, I'm thinking gays and lesbians are probably the least likely to need such services...

Money and Stuff

I received a couple of responses to my Stuff sermon. One was a from a church member who invited me to check out this video, The Story of Stuff. It also has a study guide.

Download the film on your computer here.

Here is a teaser:

And I received a nice note from Sam Pizzigati, editor of Too Much, an on-line magazine, and author of the book, Greed and Good: Understanding and Overcoming the Inequality that Limits Our Lives.

He wrote:

Just read your October 11 “stuff” sermon online. Nicely done!

A little factoid for your statistical files . . .

In 2006, the latest year with IRS numbers available, America's 400 highest-earning taxpayers collected an average $263,306,000 each in income. They paid 17.2 percent of that, after exploiting all the loopholes they could find, in federal income taxes.

In 1955, the top 400 collected on average, in 2006 inflation-adjusted dollars, just $12,257,000. They paid, after exploiting all available loopholes, 51.2 percent of that in taxes.

Please take care.

Well, there you have it. Thanks for the factoid, Sam.

Money. It's a gas.