Posted on June 19, 2014 at the beginning of marriage deliberations at the 221st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA).
When I woke up this morning, my mind was stayed on freedom. When I woke up this morning, I poured the coffee and put on the headphones and began to play songs that put my heart on freedom, especially the freedom to love.
When I woke up this morning, my mind was stayed on freedom. When I woke up this morning, I poured the coffee and put on the headphones and began to play songs that put my heart on freedom, especially the freedom to love.
When I woke up this morning, my mind was stayed on
freedom—singing a movement song I learned from the SNCC freedom singers. I am
singing that movement song for this new civil rights movement whose time has
come.
When I woke up this morning, I put on my wedding
ring, knowing that the bonds I celebrated and consecrated in a PCUSA church
with my partner who happens to be a different gender than I am are strong bonds
and will be even stronger if similar bonds may be celebrated and consecrated in
a PCUSA church for sisters and brothers whose partners may be the same gender
as they are.
When I woke up this morning, I put on my Pentecost
clothes, flames of orange and yellow and red, the flaming fire of freedom for
my queer—yes not just LGBT but also Q for queer—family.
When I woke up this morning, I was reminded by
friends online that this day is Juneteenth, a day to celebrate the end of
slavery for our African-American brothers and sisters, a day to celebrate the
importance of freedom.
When I woke up this morning, I meditated on the
marriage committee meetings where we spent much time making clear that we want
to comfort and keep those conservative folks in our family that disagree with
marriage equality, so that they might not leave our church if marriage equality
passes at this assembly, and I also meditated on those LGBTQ Presbyterians who already
left our church because they felt alienated and excluded and not sufficiently
comforted or reconciled by the actions of previous assemblies.
When I woke up this morning to the Detroit rain then
fog, I felt the misty night clear, so that we might cling to the day, for it is
this day when we choose whether or not to walk in the light of More Light
Presbyterians, to ride the winds of change and unfurl the rainbow flag among
us, declaring that the loving bond is between two people, any two people who
know and feel it to be true and from God, declaring that this bliss is the joy of
being one in the mystery of Christ’s body and this love fills us with a foretaste
of heaven.
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