I have to start by stating I claim no superior knowledge or insight into the GLBT world. While I have many friends who were born gay and live healthy, loving, and productive lives, there is a limit in my ability to understand fully the struggles and challenges society exerts. What there isn’t a limit to is my ability to accept and welcome people today into my small circle of existence irrespective of where they are on life’s journey.
Fortunately, these dear friends have allowed me to ploddingly ask questions about their humanity, showing such patience and willingness to let a clumsy seeker gain a small foothold in what it means to be a homosexual. The stories I hear devastate me. The pain and anguish thrust upon these sons and daughters by parents, clergy, as well as extended family and friends is in a word, horrendous.
As a brief bit of background, had I not gone through a period of deep rejection as fallout over my divorce that likewise caused me great sadness and isolation, I may have never have come to see pain that others share and live in each and every day. For many, pain is a passing period of great grief that dissolves over time and while maybe not forgotten, an ability to function meaningfully does develop. But what if the pain were never to stop, never release, instead only compound? Hope that some day there will be a light that leads one away from this bondage but only seems to stay forever darkened.
Where is that safe place? Where do they go for respite? Where does the world slow down enough to allow them to catch their breath?
Much is made of what would Jesus look like if he came to earth and walked among us. People spend time in debate over how Jesus would honor certain groupings and assimilate with others while rejecting and castigating those the loving faithful seem to dislike. Personally, I haven’t a clue what Jesus would do, but I do have a hunch. I would bet he would come back as one so isolated and cast out, one so despised by society, one so unwelcome, unwanted, and unlikeable to the masses that he would be overlooked and missed completely. Like a friend said, wouldn’t it be like Jesus to come back and walk among us a transgendered individual? What other person reflects so much of what society rejects? Wasn’t it the excluded who Jesus chose to spent his time while walking among us?
Imagine my surprise when Jesus sat down next to me at church this past Sunday. Found so much happiness watching others offer a greeting to our guest as well. I think he felt welcome, he must have felt safe here maybe even among soon to be friends for when the offering was presented he shared his gift like all the others. Everyone needs a place they can call home and just be themselves, I hope this community becomes that to him. For my part, made damn sure s/he felt welcome, for its not everyday you have such an encounter. Glad Jesus felt comfortable enough to visit our church. Hope we see him/her again real soon.
My prayer is that I forever seek the promise of love embodied in all. Seeing no person as less than or lacking, instead fostering a desire for unity of our common souls chasing the promise of hope fleshed out in the life of our Christ.
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