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What does a Queer Lutheran Family look like? by Rev. Gretchen Rode

Lewis Eggleston August 25, 2022 No Comments
When my wife, Jill, and I got married 9 years ago this month, we had a reading from the book of Ruth. Drawn to the book by the two strong women who made promises to one another despite their different backgrounds and hard circumstances, we loved the vows that Ruth made to Naomi: “Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God” (Ruth 1:16). United by our love for one another and our commitment to following our callings, we hoped this reading would set us up for a future full of love together. We sealed our promises to one another with a kiss.
 
9 years later, at the beginning of this month, we had what we lovingly called “baptismpalooza” for our four adopted children. We remembered the story of Abraham, longing for a family, being told by God to look to the stars and remember the promise of a family as vast and wide and varied as the stars. On a day of pouring rain, we met under a leaking overhang at our
favorite park and reminded Niya, Aysha, William, and Willie that God loves them always and forever, sealing this promise with water and prayer.
 
Adopting four children during the pandemic hasn’t been easy. Coordinating and leading two churches as a clergy couple hasn’t been easy. Being a queer person and a woman in the United States these days has not been easy.
 
And yet, when we doubt we can make it, when it seems like there is no hope, it is then that the promises of care from our friends, families, and congregations have come through. Our queer, beautiful, dynamic family has been embraced and supported in so many ways: by the food dropped off at our doorstep, by the crowd at the wet baptism, by the hopes and prayers of so many. At our kiddos’ baptism, we read words written for us by the Reverend Sarah Rouse Clark: “Families are made in so many ways; by birth, by adoption, by choice, by marriage, by
circumstance, by tragedy, by love, formally, and informally. The Bible is full of different kinds of families and over and over again we see that God dwells within them all” (SAPLC Adoption Blessing).
 
Our queer Lutheran family leans on promises. The promises that Jill and I made to each other. The promises we made to the judge when we adopted our children. The promises that our communities made to us to support us always. The promises that God made to each of us in our baptism: You are loved. You are beautiful. You are mine.
 
May the promises of God uphold you in your queer Lutheran family today and always.
 
 
Article ImageGretchen Rode (she/her) is the “One and Only Pastor” at House of Hope Lutheran Church in the Twin Cities, MN. She and her wife, Jill Rode (pastor at St. Anthony Park Lutheran Church) live with their four children and new pup in a house full of laughter, books, board games, maps, and far too many chicken nuggets for their liking.

Deacon Lewis Eggleston

Lewis Eggleston August 11, 2022 No Comments
 
Hands outstretched in prayer, friends, family members, members of the Proclaim community, ELM board members, and four (yep, count ‘em-Four!) bishops gathered, in-person and virtually, around ELM’s Associate Director of Generosity and Communications, Lewis Eggleston, last night to ordain him as a deacon in the ELCA and to officially install him in his call to ELM. It was the culmination of many years spent in the candidacy process, and a true joy to behold. As an ELM board member, watching Lewis’ journey through candidacy these last several years has been a testimony to how far we’ve come and how far we have left to go. Being a queer person in candidacy is not any easy feat, even now, and being a queer person called to a ministry of Word and Service, rather than Word and Sacrament doesn’t make it any easier, especially when that call lies outside of a congregation. Even just as an observer, it has been difficult to watch the long and sometimes arduous journey that led to this day. 
 
And yet. It was a day full of rejoicing, not just because I’m excited for my treasured colleague, but also because it was the first time I’d seen a service held on a seminary campus that was so delightfully queer. From the music to the banners, the paraments to the preaching that invoked drag culture, the famous rainbow suspenders, to the fact that two of the four bishops participating were themselves out queer Christians, last night’s service was a reminder of the fact that, in the 32 years since the forming of Lutheran Lesbian and Gay Ministries (ELM’s predecessor body) and the first ordinations of out gay and lesbian pastors, so much extraordinary work has been done. Extraordinary in the sense of occurring extra-ordinem and in the sense of being bigger, better, and more daring than what is ordinary. 
 
 
Lewis-friend, colleague, and child of God, you have been carried to this place on the shoulders of giants-both those who found ways to serve in this denomination we hold dear and those who could not. They hold you still. And so do we-the colleagues, constituents, friends, and family who surrounded you last night and surround you in prayer today. When you call, we will answer. We will rejoice with you, mourn with you, hold you accountable, and journey with you as you continue to make the church a more hospitable place for LGBTQIA+ rostered leaders. Wherever this work and your servant’s heart call you, you will never go alone.
 

(Pictured: Proclaim members at the ordination)
 
 
Jessica Davis (they/she) is an ELM board member and a church consultant specializing in Christian Education and pastoral care.

Dear Churchwide: By Drew Stever

Lewis Eggleston August 4, 2022 No Comments
Dear Ecclesia,
 
Many of you know me. Many of you do not. I am Drew: pastor, step-parent, trans elder, son, partner of Hazel.
 
Yes. That Hazel. Pastor Hazel Salazar-Davidson.
 
I have been relatively quiet in the last eight months. This is a result of having to care for Hazel, myself, and our kids while maintaining my own call as a solo pastor.
 
During this time, we have experienced a palpable silence from the institution.
 
Institutions are created by specific people with specific worldviews, for specific people with specific worldviews. They are not made for marginalized folks, so they don’t know how to care for us. So they become silent.
 
This is what institutions do. They prioritize:
  • the institution over the people.
  • maintaining a perfect image over suffering.
  • public relations and political conversations over vulnerable and uncomfortable exchanges.
  • a facade over what is authentic.
  • pushing out any who hold up a mirror in one hand, and the gospel in the other.
 
“Is it even that bad? Why are we still talking about this?”
 
I have had to witness and learn more about how Post Traumatic Stress Disorder shows up in a person as a result of religious trauma than I ever thought I would. And that person isn’t a congregant. They’re my partner. My love. There are no support groups for those caring for those experiencing spiritual trauma.
 
We have had to tend to the spiritual wounds of our kids, too. One of them, who was supposed to be a voter, chose not to attend Churchwide Assembly because they felt unsafe. She has experienced firsthand what it’s like to be a person from a marginalized group in this institution and as a young adult who grew up in the ELCA, has now taken steps to create distance from the institution during a season when the ELCA declares we are striving to bring in new young diverse leaders.
 
In the last eight months, we have not received one message of care from the presiding bishop, even after Hazel wrote to the bishops, reported to the listening team, published vulnerable accounts of her experience, and received a majority vote to speak at Sierra Pacific’s synod assembly.
 
Instead, we have received chaotic, dysfunctional attempts at care by the synod that have only perpetuated harm. As of the date of Churchwide Assembly, Hazel still has not received disability benefits, nor an income since December 2021.
 
We have been left to fend for ourselves in a system that was not created for us.
 
We have been left feeling like we are not wanted here, that eventually we will just leave so the institution can continue its trajectory of sweeping harm under the rug.
 
The thing is, we want to be here. We want to respond to God’s call to serve in this church.
 
 
However, it has gotten to the point where our safety is our utmost priority and wherever we find ourselves not experiencing safety, we look for the nearest exit.
 
Boz Tchivijivan, an attorney advocate for abuse survivors on the Hillsong:  A Mega Church Exposed documentary shared what he had consistently heard from those harmed by faith communities was that “‘the abuse that was perpetrated…by the perpetrator was traumatic and it is going to take me a lifetime to process it and heal from it. But what was worse than that was the response from the very community that I thought was going to be my greatest advocate, but who turned their back on me. That I don’t know if I’ll ever heal from.’” Tchivijivan found that the failed response of the faith community has a graver impact on the victim than the actual abuse itself.
 
There have been many in our denomination that are currently experiencing the same kind of hurt and abandonment. Those of us from the LGBTQIA+ community understand this kind of hurt on a very personal level.
 
This year’s assembly theme is Embody the Word. I invite us all to consider this word: Mark 21:12-13. It reads:
 
Then Jesus entered the temple and drove out all who were selling and buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves. He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’  but you are making it a den of robbers.”
 
Far too long this institution has ignored those on the margins. We have been distracted by the shiny things on the table. It is time we overturn tables and drive out those who are peddling goods that lead us away from God – goods such as legalistic resolutions, antiquated protocol, or “stay in our lane” mindsets.
 
Dear Ecclesia.
 
Dear Presiding Bishop Eaton.
 
Who are we called to be?
 
Are we called to witness suffering, but then ignore it until it goes away? Are we called to favor our own comfort? Are we called to check with our lawyers first before extending care?
 
Or, are we called to set down our egos, set aside what distracts us from one another, to witness suffering and move toward it, regardless of how we feel?
 
I pray this assembly moves toward the latter.
 
 
ELM encourages you to make a prayerfully considered gift for Hazel’s continued (unpaid) ministry within our church- you can Venmo her at @Hazel-Davidson. Thank you. 
 
 
Drew Stever (they/he) serves as Lead Pastor at Hope Lutheran Church in Hollywood, CA. During this season, he helped co-found Koinonia Mutual Aid with Hazel and many other faith leaders, which is a network of care by BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ faith leaders, for BIPOC and LGBTQIA+ faith leaders. Drew lives in Ventura County, CA with Hazel, the kids, their dog, fish, bird feeder and ever-growing abundance of succulents.
 

Dear Churchwide: by Chelsea Achterberg

Lewis Eggleston July 28, 2022 1 Comment
Dear Churchwide, 
 
2022 will be my second time attending Churchwide Assembly. In 2019 I was the young adult voter for my home synod. I left Milwaukee aching that we did not discuss, yet alone vote on, an update for the Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust social statement. When I had a chance to serve again as a voter for 2022 in my new synod, it felt like a chance to finish the work. This year, a memorial to update the social statement has been removed from en bloc and will be considered by the assembly. Many, or maybe even most, of you reading this have strong feelings about the document as it is and about how it should be. Like many of you, it is personal to me.
 
In 2016, my wife Mandy and I were preparing to draft our Roster Ministers Profiles (RMPs) our senior year of seminary. We quizzed bishops who came to Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary about what we should select, married or publicly accountable lifelong monogamous relationship (PALMS). Of course, two bishops gave two opposite answers, both with sound reasons. One said, you should put PALMS. That makes clear you are in a same-sex relationship. It’s more honest and doesn’t look like you’re hiding anything. The documents of the church, the social statement and the now removed Vision and Expectations, still define marriage as between a man and a woman. Another said, are you legally married? Yes, we were legally married with a state issued license by an ELCA pastor in an ELCA seminary chapel. Then you are married and you should select married. The problem of course was that both were correct and both reflected legitimate views within our church.
 
That paperwork and plenty of others have changed since then. PALMS has been removed and non-gendered options have been added. Non-gendered titles for this assembly brought me great joy. It’s easy to change paperwork. Paperwork, especially RMPs, are only seen by a tiny number of people every year. Paperwork must be informed by policy and policy change is much harder. Policy is a public face of what we believe and discussing it opens us anew to scrutiny.
 
Since well before the Human Sexuality social statement, the policies of this church and all our predecessor bodies, have left some with privilege and some with the table scraps. We will not fix all of those at this assembly. But we might spend the rest of our collective days moving us closer to the mutuality we see in our triune God. My prayer is that this Churchwide Assembly will approve a reconsideration to revise the social statement not only in better accordance with our laws and our understanding, but in celebration of the great diversity of ways we glimpse the vastness of God through the diversity of people in God’s good creation.
 
 
 
Chelsea Achterberg(she/they) serves as pastor at  All Saints Lutheran Church in Aurora, CO and as a US Army Reserve Chaplain. While usually a solo runner, Chelsea is looking forward to running her first multi-stage relay race with a team other pastors this fall. She and her wife, Mandy have enjoyed the great community of Proclaimers they have found in Denver. 

Dear Churchwide: by Melissa May

Lewis Eggleston July 28, 2022 No Comments
Dear Churchwide, 
 
The first time I was ever aware that the ELCA was a risk-taking denomination was at the Churchwide Assembly in Milwaukee in 2003, where I was a young adult guest. On the street outside the convention center, a small group of protesters held up signs chastising our denomination for considering openness to queer leaders in relationships.

Controversy has been no stranger to our body. But I’ve always been glad that the ELCA is willing to take on challenging questions of faith and step boldly forward when the Spirit leads us.

However, realizing that you are in a persecuted group can slap you into the stark reality of never being far from churchgoing people who distrust your community.

The universal pressures of the last few years are compounded upon us who are ministers of vulnerable identities. If you’re a person of color, a woman, queer, and/or experiencing disability, you’re too frequently hammered with blame when congregants feel discomfort and fear. You’re hounded by more intense scrutiny and gossip. Frighteningly, many ministers from vulnerable demographics are chased away from places of ministry through parishioners’ passive-aggressive onslaughts, abetted by complacent status-quo-seekers.  Of course, sometimes queer, BIPOC, disabled, and female ministers are attacked outright. It can happen to anybody, but it happens to us so much more frequently.

I speak to no specific scandal here, but to many instances of beloved colleagues struggling desperately to hang on to a ministry call, find a new call in a non-toxic environment after being deeply wounded, or simply to find a call at all.

But “blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven,” Jesus declares to the crowds in Matthew 5. 

If we are who we say we are as the Body of Christ, and one of our goals is to lift one another up in our various beautiful identities–including but not limited to queerness–then we must continue to be courageous in the face of adversity and repeat: “Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11-12).
 

We are doing a God-led thing when we treasure and proclaim the sanctity of queer, black and brown, disabled, and women’s lives, and the lives of all who are downtrodden. We are choosing a Christ-like way when we describe the imago dei identity of all, especially folks who are persecuted. So my prayer for us all, Churchwide, from the bottom to the top, is that we keep being courageous in these ways, though people may leave our congregations. I pray they will stay long enough to have honest, thoughtful, and compassionate conversation before they depart, if they must.

Be brave, ELCA! God loves you deeply, and Christ is with you!

 
The Rev. Melissa May (she/her) is a regular supply pastor through the Virginia Synod, and teaches English as a Second Language at Eastern Mennonite University. She recently had the privilege of co-leading the SAWC Exploration known as the Virginia Eastern Shore Exploration. Some of her greatest joys are playing escape-room games with family, adventuring in Dungeons and Dragons, and engaging in creative writing.

Dear Churchwide: ELM Blog by Anna Tew

Lewis Eggleston July 14, 2022 No Comments
Dear Churchwide, 

It might sound odd, but I want you to know that I’ve watched you, as a body, since well before I became Lutheran. In 2011, I was a United Methodist pastor serving from the closet and I watched with longing your liturgies, your prayerful consideration, your earnest work. I saw a paschal candle and a baptismal font in the frame online, and it felt like home. My eyes welled up with tears as I imagined that I might belong.

This is not simply because of the decision in 2009, historic as it was, to stop officially persecuting queer people and let us serve as we are called by God, though that was certainly part of it. Watching online back then felt like looking into the window of a home to which I had never entered. You, just gathering for worship and doing your work, made me homesick. Three years later, at the Easter Vigil at St. John’s in Atlanta, I would officially, and for life, become a Lutheran. I had never been one of you before, but that was the night that I finally knocked on the door and was welcomed with open arms. I came home. 
 
I wanted to be ordained, an honor the Methodists withhold until well after seminary. So I had waited with hesitation outside that metaphorical door as others outside told me that you would be skeptical, that you would question my loyalty, that you would think that I only wanted to join you because I was queer. These fears never materialized. I was ordained in 2016 as my call from God was recognized by the Church. I became what I had always wanted to be: just a pastor, serving God’s people.

I know that we are far from perfect; even a glance at the news or into our churches will tell us that. We have a long way to go. The wounds of systemic racism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, sexism — the list goes on — remain with us. We have a long way to go before everyone feels as welcome as I did. We have to continue to reform. But beloved, reforming is what we do.

You gave me the language to describe the incredible capacity that we have for evil, and the incredible capacity that we have for doing good in the world: we are sinners. We are saints. We are saved by grace, full stop.

So know that as you do your work, there is probably someone watching, just like I was in 2011. Longing for acceptance. Longing for beautiful liturgy and a theology that makes the Gospel nothing less than a stunning story about God’s grace. Longing for home.

In all that you do, I am grateful for your service and I am praying for you. Let us show everyone the warm welcome that I received. Let us open the door to all who wish to enter.

Thank you for your work. Show them who we are.
 
 
The Rev. Anna Tew (she/her) is a Lutheran pastor serving Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in South Hadley, Massachusetts, where she has served for the past six years. A product of several places, she was born in rural Alabama, considers Atlanta home, and lives in and adores New England. A lifelong athlete, Anna enjoys hiking, backpacking, and cycling in the summer, snowboarding in the winter, and running and weightlifting in all seasons. She is typically quite happy to chat about the intersections of collective spirituality, congregational life, athletic pursuits, pastoral care, and incarnational theology. Since graduating from the Candler School of Theology at Emory University in 2011, she has served in a variety of settings, including hospital chaplaincy and small congregations in both urban and rural settings.

Rage, a Bike, the Wind, and Jennifer Knapp by Charis Weathers

Lewis Eggleston June 30, 2022 2 Comments
 
Rage, a Bike, the Wind, and Jennifer Knapp
By: Charis Weathers
 
My young adult years were wrapped in a smothering blanket of shame. I knew I was attracted to girls, and I knew both church and culture said that attraction was depraved. If I had gotten into a relationship with a girl in my teens or twenties I’m not sure I would’ve survived my own self-hatred. 
 
My connection with conservative evangelicalism was my only way to get in good with God. If my behavior ticked all the “good” boxes, if I shared my faith, if I just didn’t act on my attractions then I could counteract my inherent badness, the sin of my very existence. 
 
After a near break-down I was forced to get some therapy, which, thankfully, took the edge off of my shame. I made peace with my attractions, and I began to actually like the God that had been served to me as so wrathful. So much so that I felt an urgent pull toward seminary; the theology of the conservative organization I was working for just wasn’t enough anymore, but I didn’t even have the language for “why” it wasn’t working. 
 
My ordination, a year after seminary, was in a not-quite-as-conservative denomination. The next year I met a woman with whom I fell in love. She fell in love with me, too. The problem was that both of us were pastors in denominations that were not okay with our love. We struggled, we tried to hold our alignment with the moral statements of our ordaining bodies, and we spun on in a cycle of attraction/pushing away. 
 
After I left my denomination over women in ministry (women “could” be lead pastors, but it was super rare that any were), I was happy to move to Seattle, move in with my love, stew about my pastoral calling, and work at REI. On days when I had the time and it wasn’t raining I’d ride my bike the 30 miles to work. 
 
It was 2010, and Jennifer Knapp had just come out. In my world, this was a complete bomb. She had been a contemporary christian music rockstar who had fallen off the face of the earth for several years. It turned out she was in Australia with her female partner. People burned her CDs, castigated her, said she was going to hell as was anyone who continued to listen to her music. 
 
I bought her album, “Letting Go,” and I’d listen to it on my bike rides. Two hours of hearing Knapp sing about her rage with the church, her uncomfortable acceptance of herself, and her love for a wonderful woman. When no one was around I’d sing at the top of my lungs, push hard on the pedals, and scream at the church, the culture, those who wanted me to feel shame.

There are so many great songs on this album; the one that had me singing the loudest was “Inside,”
I know they’ll bury me
Before they hear the whole story
Even if they do, well I know they won’t care to
Chalk it up to one mistake
Or God forbid they give me grace
Well, who in the hell do they think they are
Oh, I’m the one who keeps it on the inside
Locked away from judgments wrong
Oh, I’m the one who keeps it on the inside
So they’ll leave me alone
Leave me alone
I know they’ll bury me
Alive
Even though I’ve got conviction
Even though I’ve got pride
I know they’ll bury me, they’ll bury my alive
 
I’d ride, breathless, waving my proverbial fist at the evangelical institution that made me hide, made me choose counseling or self harm, made me obsessed with following rules so God would like me a little more.
In “Dive In” I began to understand the spiritual limitations of anti-gay rhetoric in the church,
I’m tired of choking in
The shallow waters I’ve been in
I’m ready to baptized
By water and blood come on push me under
I’m so tired of standing on the edge of myself
You know I’m longing for it
To dive in
Dive in
 
I DID long to dive into something more free. If one explores Knapp’s pre-2010 lyrics you’ll find quite a bit of torment. From “Undo Me,” to “Refine Me,” 
Lord…
Come with your fire, burn my desires
Refine me
Lord…
My will has deceived me, please come free me
Refine me
 
Yet the deception was with what we’d been told. It wasn’t our will, we didn’t need to be refined. We needed to be released into the wider understanding of the love of God. To let go of that which hindered, of those who hindered. 
 
As the wind whipped at my face on those bike rides I could feel myself changing, beginning to push back, beginning to live.
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
Charis Weathers (she/her) is the pastor of Burlington Lutheran Church in Burlington, WA. A former mission developer who started Echoes Bellingham, she delights in experimenting with new ways of being and doing church. Partnered with Deborah, they love to explore the northwest by foot, boat, kayak, and in her mini camper, Nemo. 
 


 
 

Never One Thing: Clare

Lewis Eggleston June 23, 2022 1 Comment
Never One Thing
By: Clare
 
CW: Strong Language
 
 
I’m a Lutheran because of our theology of both/and (simul justus et peccator)–this human tension of holding constant reminders that I’m f*cked up, loved and holy.
 
Coming out in my late 20’s felt like an explosion of both/and. Fears, insecurities and messiness were held together with excitement, joy and learning to love and to know myself; seeing myself the way that I now know God sees me.  As Joel Workin professed, “living in forgiveness, claiming my wholeness,” my fullness. There is a never-ending depth to the ways God invites me, invites us, to pronounce ourselves in the fullness of who God is calling us to be.
 
May Erlweine’s song “Never One Thing” offers a center to the ways I embrace and embody queerness in this “Lutheran-ey” way.
 
“I’m the underbelly, I am the claw never one thing no not one thing at all. I’m a street fighter, I’m a prayer for peace. I’m a holy-roller, I’m a honey bee.”
 
bell hooks wrote about the ways that queerness speaks to a self that is “at odds with everything around it and has to invent and create and find a place to speak and to thrive and to live.”* Queerness centers how I want to be in the world. Being a part of visions for new ways that we can thrive and live, at odds with the forces of oppression. queerness orients me in my faith. Faith that compels me to confess when I f**k up, and to account and course correct in accountability to community. Queerness locates me in the work of justice and call toward unmasking and confronting systems of injustice, especially when they benefit me. “I am the truth, I am the lie. I am the ground I am the sky..”
 
I hold the tensions of what it is to be a queer person, especially in this month of pride. While there is space to mark this season with kinfolk around the world, with ancestors of the multitudes of ways that love and this vision of thriving exists, we hold and know the pain we still face of violence and discrimination. How, as hooks speaks to, are we in tension with the world around us. There are tensions in this month of pride coopted by capitalism, while rooted in foundations of protest started by Black and brown transwomen. There are tensions, the both/and of movements that have been co-opted by whiteness culture and racism.
 
I have learned that to be queer does not absolve me from being racist or oppressive. Queerness doesn’t absolve me from participating in systems that perpetuate oppression and violence toward BIPOC siblings (especially Black transwomen). I know that I cannot simply center my queerness when it comes to Black liberation and anti-racism.
 
I am never one thing; and both my queer identity and my Lutheran theology help to remind me and hold me accountable – or at least they can.  As an elder in my internship community says, I get to “live out the risk of being faithful.” There is risk, there is tension, and while systems of domination have a strong pull, community calls me to remember to take risks for love.
 
Weighed down with grief and exhaustion of our world, (you know and can name what your body and spirit hold tender dear one and what it may need to recognize too that you avoid or numb to); we hold the tensions which call us to intersectionality and to the possibilities of both/and. There is brokenness in our world and our world contains beauty and resilience which compels us to action and to thriving.
 
How is our queerness calling and inviting exploration of tension? How will you embrace the many things and never one thing which claims you, and which always names you beloved?
 
 
 
 

 

 
 
 
 
Clare (she/her) is completing a two-year part time pastoral internship at University Lutheran Chapel in Berkeley, CA and was just approved as a candidate for Word and Sacrament. She works as a per diem Pediatric Chaplain at UCSF. Clare enjoys a good Tiktok and hearing your recommendations on summer readings and tv shows. Find her hanging out with the IrReverend, & High Priest of Fabulous John Brett at Faithful and Fabulous monthly queer spirituality events in SF.

Got to be Real by John Brett

Lewis Eggleston June 16, 2022 No Comments
We sat along the edge of the stage after her talk. In the quieted, small, storied college auditorium where MLK Jr. once spoke, the four of us exchanged dreams from the margins we inhabited. We conjured heady hopes that history would break open for us with the weight of our theory, praxis, casting visions of fullness, self & community actualization. Rebecca Walker was with us to discuss To Be Real, the then recently published book she had edited on emerging feminist thought: the personal was political as we brainstormed. I spoke of my desire to organize a small caravan of queer folx and allies to drive across the country into small towns to support and provide critical mass for first-ever Pride Parades. Perhaps inspired by Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and anticipating by decades the HBO show We’re Here, my daydream details were far more low-budget. Picture VW busses of rag-tag activists with poster board and sequins and chaplaincy training accompanying Melbas of the Upper Midwest or Annies of Appalachia while creating a rural queer network of organizers of the early internet age. 
 
Though the vision didn’t come to pass, I recognize that it continues to encapsulate something of what I imagine realness means. Any realness I, or anyone else might manifest entails a community context: to be seen, recognized, for all of who we are, who we want to be, whether children of chiffon, leather & studs, plaid, or silk lamé. None of us reaches such a salvation alone.
 
The first time I came out to anyone as questioning my sexuality, it was at a church lock-in, perhaps 2am, in the intensity of an adolescent existential conversation next to the altar in the darkened church chancel. The sanctuary “Jesus Candle” burned above us, casting flickering shadows. It was a holy moment. A few months later, the second time I came out as questioning, a few hours away while I attended a synodical youth leadership meeting, it was in another church sanctuary similarly late at night. My coming out journey started at church. 
 
Did the church and its promises make these spaces seem safer? Did the sacred architecture of worship, the cross looking down above all, allow me a level of comfort, a container to hold my fear and trembling? Nestled in these confessions, the fortunately kept secrets, did I seek absolution? Can we find solace in the institution that caused the wound? 
 
These were my first attempts at being real. Almost 30 years later, with deeper repeated church wounds, and joyous recognition of how much my denomination has indeed begun to accept people of all gender identities and sexual orientations, I wonder if I would still be Christian if I weren’t queer. Taking seriously the theology I was taught, that God comes to us in love, that we in turn love our neighbor, I have stubbornly insisted that the church recognize my realness, fullness, and beauty. As I even now speak my truth beneath the cross, bringing my vulnerability into worship spaces and beyond them, I invite the church, in expectation, to live into its own message, promises of grace. As I continue to work out my own realness, salvation in fear and trembling, still I ask the church to embrace its own.
 
“Your love is my love
My love is your love
Our love is here to stay…”
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
John M. Brett (he/hym/hys), ELCA seminarian & street chaplain, serves the SF Night Ministry as Minister of Faithful&Fabulous!, offering queer-centric ministry programming & accompaniment. Christened IrReverend, & High Priest of Fabulous by parishioners, his first on-the-job pastoral care lesson was to remember to tip the drag queens. He leads an annual Drag Street Eucharist & this fall will support the first-ever Spiritual DragCon.

ELM Pride Blog: Dr. Melissa James

Sharei Green June 9, 2022 No Comments

Queer Pentecost on Late Night TV

 

We were a number of months into the pandemic when a clip of a late-night show caught my eye. “You have to see this!” my feeds echoed. Scraping the bottom of the well of all my reserves that were being used up keeping our queer little family safe and alive in a time of global pandemic and racial justice reawakening while also starting a new job I wearily clicked through looking for a moment of distraction or levity. And then I watched as Alanis Morrisette relived every meeting I had been trying to have over Zoom for the last months on national late night television—holding her small child she performed her song “Ablaze” being interrupted to have to explain what she was doing, having her equipment tugged at, and still delivering a powerful performance. The delivery of the song was enough to win me over and give me a moment of feeling seen but the song itself is what has kept it on my playlist for these many months that have followed. You see, the song is an oath to her children. It sings to them lifting up that which makes them uniquely glorious and says “I see you; I love you” and it is a naming of the commitment as their parent to keep the fire in their eye ablaze.  

This song speaks to me, particularly as a queer mom of a young child. It’s a reminder that even in these times and with so much out of my control it is my duty to this precious human being to kindle the light in her eyes. To help her understand her inherent worth and dignity and to kindle a flame within her that sees and fights for the recognition of that same worth and dignity in others.

But this is not just a song about parenting. Moving through this month of pride and having just celebrated Pentecost what better time to be reminded that we are called into community through God’s love with the express responsibility to keep the fire in each other’s eyes ablaze. Ablaze with the promise that we are all made in the image of God, imago Dei, and beloved of God. Ablaze with the promise that the unique gifts and stories of our lives are welcome and necessary here in this time and place. Ablaze with a fire to continue to be a part of the difficult and essential work of dismantling White supremacy culture within our church and our world. Ablaze with the fire and promise of righteous anger on which pride began. Ablaze with the audacious hope that all might flourish.

 

 

Dr. Melissa James (she/her) is a Minister of Word and Service (Deacon) in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA).   She currently serves the Unitarian Universalist Association as a congregational consultant for the Pacific Western Region and teaches at the University of San Diego in Sociology and Gender Studies. She lives in La Mesa, CA with her wife and 4-year-old daughter.