A weekend with my neighbors

This is my first year on this retreat, and when I arrived thursday
night, I didn't know what to expect, which was a good thing, because
I couldn't have anticipated the amazing souls that I have encountered
here. There are so many people on so many different journeys. And
what has struck me the most here is this: all throughout life we put
labels on people, consciously or unconsciously--boy or girl, gay or
straight, american or foreign, whatever--but here I can't do that.
Here is a place where I have most clearly experienced loving my
neighbor as myself. Not getting to put people in categories is
frustrating, but its the same frustration that I feel when I try to
categorize myself. So what I'm left with is Individuals. I'm left
with the raw Me and You. And it is so refreshing to come to people
like that. Naked and not ashamed. Granted, none of us can fully do
that, but this weekend has been a nice lean in that direction. The
people and experiences here are a true testament to loving and
respecting and sharing real time with my Neighbors, and I have been
privileged to meet everyone here.

so thanks all, for your stories and your presence and your ministry
both here this weekend and wherever you go.

Morning

It is about 6:30 am, and as per tradition on this retreat, many that
have been called here, are going running. For me, it is a blessing
to be able to get up every morning, surrounded by God's beautiful
creation and run, talk, have fellowship, and laugh. This sacred
place and these sacred people have helped me to gather strength for
the journey. It is joyful and a great thing for us to be here!

Ethiopian Searching Has Found What He's Been Looking For

It's so hard to understand which struggle to embrace. Are they
exclusive? Can they be integrated? Which part of my existence do I
fight to defend with the scriptures? You see I'm finding that the
embracing of all that I am--an African American, gay male--a heavy
bag to hold when I have to think about how my ministry will be
affected by fighting this fight within Presbyterianism. It is
amazing to me that the patriarchal and privilege issues within a
denomination that prides itself in moving and growing in the
direction of "Spirit led Reformation" doesn't get that this issue of
gay ordination, inclusion really, feels like such a slap in the face
of my reality as a Black man and the struggles I have had to come to
grips with being a part of any tradition in religion that uses the
same style of argumentation to justify the buying, selling, killing,
legalized oppression of my ancestors and my people as it does to
exclude those who are also my people from the church.

God has called me. There is no other way to explain how God's work
through me keeps happening despite the oppression unto which I refuse
to cleave. I am glad to be here. I am blessed to be able to share
this space with this awesome group of God's children. Much of this
battle I fight is within me as to where does my allegiance lie? Am I
a black man, a black Presbyterian, a black gay man, a black gay
Presbyterian, a gay black male Presbyterian? Well, the folks I am
sharing this phase of the journey of my life with have only ever
looked at me as a child of God. I am not divided and do not have to
choose. God's love has been evidenced to me as so massive that I can
be all things within that greatness. I want to live my life that
way, the totality of my experience in service and ministry to a joy
that washes over me as I walk in the brilliance of God.

Whether or not the institutional chariot driven this man will stop
and pick up this Ethiopian and let himself recognize this ultimate
reality of sexuality as part of totality remains to be seen. But
where would the church be if those like the Ethiopian (don't confuse
me with a eunuch in this analogy!) hadn't seen the power of the
resurrection and demanded baptism? Indeed I say the Spirit of the
Lord would have rained a holy baptism down anyway.

I have a word to speak, a song to sing, a joyous human life to live.
God has ordained it so. We have ordained it so this weekend.

There's only one place left to seek it.

Holy Witness of the Pistachio

Being one who generally walks by faith and not by sight, I would not be one who'd engage the spiritual discipline of "setting out fleece for the morning dew"; still, I marvel -- expectantly -- with Spirit affirmation that I am in a good place on God's time.  Expectantly, I am apt to go where I've never been before, lead by the mysterium of unction, gut, and curiosity.  Coming here is one such place where I arrived through Spirit agency.

In this predestined (prepared) place I was welcomed by the witness of pistachios in its ministry of serendipity and grace! Let me help you understand...

While I work as a writer and holy scribe, I nosh on nuts.  In cyclical consumption, it takes about a week for me to work my way through a bag of dry roasted unsalted almonds, dry roasted unsalted cashews, or uncolored pistachios.  Although pistachios treasures are the messiest nut meat, they are my favorite nuts to consume! Eating pistachios take more time to savor and leave evidence they'd been present in my work space (eg., pull out the vacuum cleaner).  Enjoying pistachios require me to slow down and savor the journey to its center.  

What an epiphanal experience and sermon illustration -- "O, taste and see that God is good!" -- to slow down, savor and center.  Slow down. Savor. Center.  Slow...down...Savor...Center!

To arrive here was worth a day's delay in traveling, ambivalent expectations, and wearing jeans and Crocs (to know me is to know I am not a jeans and crocs kinda gal) because I was welcomed by two -- not one, but two -- large bowls of pistachios!  I'd resisted packing pistachios for the trip, regarding them as too messy to enjoy in an unfamiliar place.  Instead I brought snack packs of dry roasted unsalted almonds, a much neater nosh, indeed.  

To enter in and see the fellowship table set with bowls of pistachios was Spirit witness -- I AM is here, never to leave you nor forsake you, I prepared this place for you, welcome into the family of God!  Twas it not Shakespeare whos espouse, "there are sermons in stone?"  Such being should the rocks cry out in our place, so much more is there praise in pistachios -- evidence that I am indeed in a good place and in God's will and one God's time!

Thank you God for your grace.

being Presbyterian, deep prayer, and this group

I've used this line so many times I might as well put it up for all the web to see: I'm Christian by faith, Protestant by choice, Presbyterian by accident. (The astute reader, like my friend this afternoon, will point out that Presbyterian by accident is an oxymoron.) Anyway, the way I got involved in the PCUSA is that, at a time when I needed to find a new church after leaving my old Methodist church, the nearest progressive congregation in my new home town happened to be Presbyterian.

So the deepening of my faith over the past few years, it's hard to know if it would've happened anywhere, or if I'm just getting in touch with my inner Presbyterian, or if it happened because of the "being called" business (though maybe that last one should be vice versa). But what I want to say tonight is that it really builds on itself. During our time of prayer in our worship service tonight, I felt an intensity stronger than I've ever felt during any group prayer before. And it just went on and on. Unlike Sunday mornings, when the pressure is on to get the whole service done in 60 minutes or less. In this group, though, we keep on praying until we've all emptied our hearts into the Lord's ear. The reverence in the room is palpable. 

Words can't express (which doesn't stop  me from trying) how grateful I am for this sister-/brotherhood. Someone today (or yesterday, whatever) suggested that we are a holy order of called queer people. That's what it feels like. Thank you, Lord.

Hush Harbor aka SELAH!

Hush!

Bearing one another's burdens

O, Lord, hear our prayer...

Hush!

Sharing one another's gratitude

O, Lord, hear our prayer...

Hush!

Caring for one another this Friday night

O, Lord, hear our prayer...

SELAH!

Not Worth Bleeding Over

After emerging wounded from my tour of duty this
afternoon in the kitchen- my sister in faith reminds
me that being able to cut melons isn't worth bleeding
over.

I think the same is true for the church- it isn't
worth bleeding over. So how do we remain connected to
the church without being wounded? Is it even
possible? How do we take care of ourselves and each
other in a way that we remain connected but not dismembered?