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I'm moving to Chicago because I have accepted a communications job with Reconciling Ministries Network, a non-profit mobilizing United Methodists of all sexual orientations and gender identities to transform our Church and world into the full expression of Christ’s inclusive love. I get to do all that! Sadly, the church has been responsible for so much oppression—explicitly by shunning and implicitly by silence. My job will not be to speak for, but to help their voices be heard… and to help the church see the LGBTQ community and make room for all at the table.
The past 8 months have led me from bartender to magazine owner to writer. My writing gained me invitations to be allies with the LGBTQ and Immigrant communities. Some who disagree with my writing have said I should pick an issue, but all of my writing has been a result of experiencing a very different world full of people who live in fear and experience inequality and injustice in their everyday lives. Listening and writing have been my way of living out my Baptism to resist evil and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves. My discernment has led me day after day in a direction of great happiness, peace, and fulfillment in my ministry. For the first time in my life, I love what I am doing, I feel like I really know who I am, and even the toughest of weeks has not caused me much stress.
I have spent many days with activists, working beside them, helping them to frame their work in a theological context, and connecting with them on a deep spiritual level. At my RMN interview in Chicago last month, I knew I was supposed to be there to help communicate the urgent need for all to have a place at the table in our churches. I am committed not to winning an ideological battle, but to communicating love in such a way that even the heart of equality’s fiercest enemy might be transformed.
This is my first one-way flight away from home. I am literally getting off a plane in Chicago and getting on the subway with nothing but a suitcase full of clothes and all my Apple products. I have no idea where I’m going to live. The places I have lined up to look at were all found on Craigslist, so I really don’t know if they actually exist, or I will find an empty lot. Either way, it will be an adventure and, I’m sure, provide lots of stories. I am excited about living simply (plus bowties and technology), and without a car.
Clearly, I will be sad being away from my family, especially the boys! I told Liam that I am going away for a series of work trips (I will be working from Florida for one week a month). I bought him his own secret daddy communication device (an iPod touch), and ordered him a Toy Story wall calendar so he could count down the days. He told his Momma, “Daddy is going away on some work trips, but it will be okay… I’ll just facetime him.”
The work I have been doing in Florida will continue. The group I have helped organize in Lakeland fighting for LGBTQ equality will continue with great leadership. They are about to petition the local YMCA to allow LGBTQ and other family types to qualify for family memberships. The DCF case against my family was closed last week. Both the DCF and others have volunteered to investigate the person who made the egregious complaint. All I want is a signed public confession. It is not okay that this happened, and it seems to happen all too often in Polk County.
My family has been attending Trinity UMC in Lakeland. Rwth is an excellent preacher. If you are in Lakeland, you need to hear her! Today’s scripture was from James 2. I preached this text one time and a woman called me a socialist and spit in my face. I replied, “I think you meant to say that James is a socialist,” Here is the text:
My brothers and sisters, do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ? For if a person with gold rings and in fine clothes comes into your assembly, and if a poor person in dirty clothes also comes in, and if you take notice of the one wearing the fine clothes and say, "Have a seat here, please," while to the one who is poor you say, "Stand there," or, "Sit at my feet," have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers and sisters. Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into court? Is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you in your Baptism? …If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, "Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill," and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?
James is speaking to a church that is being used as yet another system to protect the interests of the rich at the expense of the poor. This is not class warfare. He’s talking to leaders who put the love of money before justice. There’s a difference. The best part of my unemployment has been the time I have spent with communities that much of my church has forgotten (or has been paid to forget). I’ve heard the rationale that money is needed to do good ministry. It’s a true statement. Money does allow you to do lots of good ministry. But if it is on the backs of farmworkers and people of color, I want no part of it. And I’m not sure you can still call it "good" or even "ministry". I’m pretty sure James agrees.
I start a new part of my calling next week. It is where I have been led in the wilderness of unemployment. Each part of the journey: the bar, the protests, the writing and most of all, the strangers who have become friends, have prepared me for the work I get to do now. I get to make more room at the table. I get to stand alongside those who demand equality. I get to write and help others write so their voices can be heard. I get to be friends with the oppressed. And I get to change hearts by loving the oppressor. I’m happy. I get to be myself.