#tigers4love

During the work week, I usually set my alarm for 5:30 a.m. My commute is a rather long one, generally lasting at least 90 minutes, but more often than not around 2 hours or more. Each way. I try to use all of this travel time productively—by reading, listening to interesting podcasts, meditating, writing, learning new languages...it's time well spent! And I love my job, so it's all good. In any case, I usually hit snooze several times before I actually drag myself out of bed and get going. But today was different.

Last night, I went ahead and set my alarm for 5:30 and realized that I would really have to get up when it went off. Why? Because I was made aware that members of the Westboro Baptist Church would be traveling to Tenleytown to protest at Wilson High School, a school that I pass almost every day on my way to work in nearby Chevy Chase, and I wanted to show up in support of them in their loving counter-protest. So at 5:30 this morning I forced myself out of bed, showered and dressed, and headed to DC.

I had intended to wear one of my yellow "Standing On the Side of Love" t-shirts because the student organizers asked that people representing others groups and organizations wear identifiable (and hopefully colorful!) clothing, and also because it's become sort of a habit for us Unitarian Universalists to wear this uniform when demonstrating for a cause. However, my brain was not quite awake when I left the house, and I left the t-shirt at home. Oops. Once I finally arrived in Tenleytown I did indeed see some "love people", and I went over to them and introduced myself. I was happy to note that there were other people of different faiths present as well, witnessing to the reality that love really is greater and broader than the hate espoused by the WBC.

But the most amazing thing of all, and the most inspiring, and the most hopeful, is that this significant event was organized by and realized through the efforts of students at the high school. The high school version of me from the mid-90s could not possibly have imagined a world in which not only would it be possible to be out about my sexuality, but that I would have the support of my school, my neighborhood, and my broader community as a gay young man deserving of respect and of love. But this is the reality for the teenagers who attend Wilson High School (and their principal!), and for students in others schools with GSAs—including my alma mater, which I hear has begun a group in the past few years. When I recall the dark depressive moods I would endure, obsessed with thoughts of suicide but never willing to attempt it (thank God), my inner teenager weeps with joy for the possibilities available to high school students these days. That younger me didn't think I would ever make it past the age of 20, much less that I would grow into a happy, loved adult, and that I would be able to marry the love of my life legally. These kids don't have to wonder as much. For them, the possibility of future and present happiness is very real, and they know it. It truly is amazing how much the world has changed in this relatively short time.

And in the midst of all the chanting and the cheering and the general merry-making, there was one young lady with a simple sign that read "Christian values equal LOVE!" So simple. And so not the message of vitriolic hatefulness promoted by the Westboro Baptist Church. I'd choose the message of the students at Wilson over the WBC any day. These students get it. They can teach the world a thing or two.

#tigers4love

"Christian values equal Love!"

Personal Transitions

This text is from a reflection on Transition that I shared during a summer worship service at the First Unitarian Church of Baltimore back in 2008.

___________________________________________________________

Harry Emerson Fosdick, the early 20^th Century liberal Baptist minister who was a prominent force against the emergence of modern-day Fundamentalism, says, in part, in his 1932 book entitled As I See Religion:

The whole discussion…as to which is the true church, seems…a poor expenditure of time because there is no such thing as a true church. All religious organizations, like all secular organizations, are approximate endeavors to meet changing human needs; and one of the best things about them is that, in spite of themselves, they cannot remain as they are.

Fosdick goes on to say, that:

The envenomed controversy also as to which is the true theology…seems largely futile, not because the discovery of the truth about God is unimportant, but because the idea that anybody has so discovered and defined God that he should controversially desire to enforce his opinion on another is absurd. All theology tentatively phrases in current thought and language the best that, up to date, thinkers on religion have achieved; and the most hopeful thing about any system of theology is that it will not last.

Well, the most hopeful thing about my own personal relationships has also been that they do not last. Before you get all anxious about what I am going to say, let me clarify: they do not last as they are, but grow and blossom into something new. Or, when the time has come, they fade away into the past. A concept that has been useful, hopeful, and saving for me, is that of the circle or of the spiral. In a circle one can see that the ending is the beginning is the ending is the beginning. In a spiral, one sees more clearly that a cycle doesn’t necessarily require a ceaseless repetition of the same, over and over and over again; the spiral illustrates the ever-widening scope of experience—every round goes higher and higher.

Today I am 29 years old, and have come to see clear decade-long demarcations in the quality and type of relationship that I have had. My first 5 years were spent almost carefree, living in a 3-story house filled with aunts, uncles, parents, siblings, cousins, my grandmother and great-grandmother! The next 5 years – my first 5 in school – I became much more guarded and cautious with the world. For awhile, I did not know what the word ‘fag’ meant, but could tell by the meanness of those who chose to apply it to me that I did not want to be associated with it.

My grandmother, Shirley Mae, died when I was 10; and so started the next decade of my life. I’d be willing to bet that none of you would have recognized the Adrian of 10-20. Sure, I was friendly and outgoing; but I was deeply closeted and unhappy. Severely depressed at times. My relationships with people, my family, with God, they all deteriorated slowly until at times I felt I would not reach my 20^th year.

But I did. I came out to my friends, I came out to my family, I came out of a theological environment that was harming my soul and came to Unitarian Universalism, which as I once told [the Reverend] Phyllis Hubbell, is saving me every day as my mind and spirit are expanded in love. My 20s have proven to be a time of personal trial and error—a time of learning who I want to be, and of learning to be who I am in all my relationships again. Relationships with other people, my family, with God, with faith, and yes, with myself. The most hopeful thing about any system of theology – or any system for that matter – is that it does not last; that it is not static and stale, but grows and is ever-becoming.

My 20s are coming to an end. I have met the love of my life in my partner, Joel Graham, who is now officially a full-time resident of [Baltimore City], I thank you very much. And a new phase of life begins, calling me to grow even more, in the spirit of love. I expect my 30s to be, like my 20s, years of personal trial and error. But though the cycle be repeated, these next 10 years will be even better than I can possibly imagine. Blessed be each transition, as they are times of holy action.