On April 27, 1998, during my junior year in high school, I joined the First United Methodist Church in New Iberia. Having hailed from half a family of Roman Catholics and half a family of Baptists, I was the first person in my family to become a United Methodist. That same day, I realized how powerfully God could use me. As I preached for Youth Sunday, I felt this fire growing inside of me. When I spoke, I felt like that fire was spewing forth from my mouth. My words and my voice were more powerful because God abided in them. I knew then that God had something in store for me, but I just couldn't believe that I was worthy enough to do the will of God.
Many respected church members questioned me about my future and encouraged me to look into ministry. I was so resistant to their guidance. How could I possibly have anything to give to God? I was an abomination in the eyes of God. Over the next few months, I cried a lot. I prayed more than I cried, though, and by the summer, I was at a crossroads. Two things seemed clear: My head told me that I could not be queer and Christian; my heart told me that God had made me beautiful, queer, and with a purpose. I could not figure out if I should trust my head or my heart. With the exception of my best friend, no one knew how painfully I was struggling. And, in reality, the struggle was killing my soul. I went on our summer mission trip with a heavy heart. During a worship service, we were invited to pray. The leader of the service said she would pray and if God placed anything in her heart she would share it with us. The prayer time seemed interminable, but I dropped to my knees and I bargained with God. I told God that I needed to know if my heart was right or if my head was right. I just kept saying, “My heart or my head?” I must have prayed those same five words a hundred times. I basically demanded that God tell me what to do. And there was no answer!
As the prayer time came to an end, I was desolate. Then the leader came and stood right next to me. She placed her hand on my back and with the most confused expression she said, “I have no idea what this means and I normally would not have even told you, but I feel like God is commanding me to say this: Heart!”
I experienced an awakening. I awoke to the reality that I was a child of God, loved by God, sought by God, but most importantly called by God. Accepting myself allowed me to face God as a whole person. I could seek God now, because I knew who was seeking! After coming out to my friends in high school, I found myself happy, at peace, well-adjusted. My life finally made sense. I began to understand my call as tied to the United Methodist Church. I finally accepted that my life made the most sense if I would be an ordained elder. This was not an easy decision. At the time it felt like simply a concession. God wanted it and I accepted it. Even then, at sixteen, I knew that the church's position on homosexuality was not positive, to put it lightly. I knew that my ordination was not an option, but I was also very idealistic and naive. I truly believed that God would swoop in and fix the problem, fix the church, fix the world. Out of this conviction came a covenant. I promised God that I would not cut my hair until I was ordained. Still in high school, I realized that I had a good eight years before I would finish all the education and requirements for ordination. Surely, the church would have changed by then!
College proved an amazing time of expansion for me. I felt capable of expressing myself sexually and relationally. I finally came out to my mother in a Mexican restaurant. She said she knew and wanted to get back to dinner. My mother had to tell my father because I could not muster the courage. My father still saw me as the five-year-old girl who thought that doves were actually angels. I was innocent to him. I had always been a daddy's girl and I did not want that to change. The next time I was home I was reading a book called Bi Any Other Name, about the bisexual movement. I had left the book on the coffee table while I was online. My father came into the living room and stopped. He looked at the book and then at me and then at the book again. Finally, he said, “I take it that's yours.” My only response was “yes.” He said “okay” and we have been better than okay since. Once I was out to them as queer, I began to come out to them as called. In many ways, I think my parents understand my sexuality better than they understand my call. They are endlessly supportive, but not always knowledgeable.
My college years brought clarity about my call, my purpose, my place. To that extent, clear areas of my call started to form in my mind and soul. First, I am called to be a preacher. I felt the closest to God when I was preaching. The Gospel message of liberation from enslavement spoke to my queer experience, and I found that preaching allowed me to give voice to my own feelings of enslavement and oppression. More importantly, I was able to reach people and to influence them. Second, I am called to relational ministry. Small groups came to be an integral part of my spiritual journey. My junior year I started a small group Bible study for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered Christians. In that circle of six, I realized that God also calls me into relationship with all God's children, especially those whom the church and world have marginalized. I understood that my own journey and experience could serve as food for others' journeys. In those college years, I became the great gay index. I was the one that young men came to when they needed to come out. My own struggle with my sexuality equipped me; I understood their pain and fear and excitement. Finally, I am called to be a church reformer. I feel very strongly that part of God's will in my life is to bring about justice. Micah 6:8 (to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God) has been a focal scripture in my realization of my call. With clarity came deeper conviction, which then led to action.
During my college years, I organized the queer community. For three and a half years, I led a queer student group. I became an active and vocal queer member in many mainline religious student groups. I preached about liberation to my peers. Such publicity does not come without consequence. In my first four quarters of college, I received twenty-seven pieces of hate mail. Some of the letters were almost kind. They only suggested that I was leading Christians away from Christ. Other letters scared me. One such letter plainly explained that if I did not justify myself by God, they would be forced to do it! I started to have horrible nightmares while I was receiving the hate mail. I would dream of being at a large family gathering with my kids and my extended family. In the dream, I would be breast-feeding my youngest, and some fanatic would come into the restaurant and murder me at point-blank range in front of my whole family, and then pray over my body. I always remembered him calling me the Antichrist. Between the dreams and the hate mail, I was paralyzed with fear. So I moved off-campus and established a safe home for myself. The move really invigorated my organizing. Consequently I started the GLBT Bible study. In response to the Bible study, I got a very kind and curious e-mail that said, “I don't mean to be mean, but can you be gay and Christian?” I politely replied yes and included some explanation. I found the interaction absolutely delightful. I was no longer afraid and felt like I could live my life again. This change of outlook prompted me to start my ordination process.
I am convinced that any ordination process is as much bureaucracy as it is sound spiritual discernment. In the United Methodist Church, the ordination process reminds me of really steep steps. If you try to skip steps, you will fall on your butt. During my junior year of college, I made my first attempt to jump through my first local church hoop. The first big step in the ordination process is to get the approval of your home church. My first attempt at the process unfortunately led to me falling on my butt. My mentor and I thought that I was ready to meet with a representative body of the church called the Charge Conference, but alas, we were wrong. So I took about a year and a half to regroup. In the interim, I received a new mentor.
Then I moved from Louisiana to Denver to begin my graduate education. There I was granted the genuine pleasure of attending the 2004 General Conference of the United Methodist Church. This conference meets every four years and has the gigantic undertaking of stating what the United Methodist Church officially believes. Issues surrounding homosexuality were addressed at the
General Conference.
When I first realized my call to ministry more than seven years ago, I believed that the church would have changed its position on the ordination of homosexuals. In many ways I was right. This last General Conference did change the church's position on homosexuality. Now the United Methodist Church has a harsher stance than it did seven years ago. For this reason and many others, the General Conference weighed on my heart. Where is my place in a church that does not seem to want me? How can I be of maximum benefit to God and to inclusivity? What can I do? In response to this last question, I decided that I must force the issue by allowing my struggle to be made known. Church members and people in the pews must begin to understand that the issue of ordination of GLBT people is not some distant reality, but that our struggle for full inclusion fundamentally speaks to how we will be the church. I felt that the best way to effect change was to bring my story, my struggle, my experience, to the people that need to be transformed. During fall break of my second year of seminary, I decided to begin climbing the steps again in order to begin a dialogue in my southern United Methodist Church. Before I went home to tackle the epic struggle, I had the privilege of preaching on behalf of FLAME, which is the queer community at the seminary that I attend. In many ways, the sermon I gave synthesized the reason I struggle for ordination. I think it also reflects the mind-set that I brought to these most recent ordination proceedings.
FLAME Sermon
I will not be silent anymore. I stand before you today as a lover of God, a lover of men, and a lover of women. I stand before you today as a bisexual woman, and I am coming out. For me, coming out is deeply tied to being a Christian and to being a United Methodist. The scripture from Romans is such an amazing piece of scripture because it articulates three important themes in the Christian journey and in the coming-out process: choice, death, and resurrection.
The scripture begins with remembering our baptism. Our baptism is the event that ties us to Christ and remembrance is an act of choice. When we remember our baptism we choose God again and again. For Christians, that choice should empower us. Choices also empower queer people. When I came out, I chose to see myself through God's eyes because God doesn't make junk. Let me say that again: God doesn't make junk. I chose the queer community and that was a powerful choice. In that community, I have found friends and family. I have found colleagues and comrades. But most importantly, I have found a deep embodiment of God in the world. The queer community has taught me to be a better Christian. It has taught me about the transformative power of suffering. Suffering that empowers people, deepens community, and transforms the world. When we make choices about who we are and how we will live, those choices will empower us. But beware: Those choices have consequences, and some of those consequences are not always good.
From baptism the scripture immediately turns to death. I read the scripture and these powerful images of funerals surface in me. Death is a key part of the Christian journey. There is no resurrection without death. There is no Easter without the Crucifixion. There can be no new life without a death of an old life. Coming out is a death. It is a death of an old way of living! It is a death of a life of lies! It is a death of unhealthy expectations! It is a death of fabricated personhood! And let me tell you, death is difficult! And we need to be able to sit with death because when we can really embrace death, we can more fully appreciate resurrection.
And that is the Good News: When we die with Christ, we are also resurrected with Christ. Resurrection also has a lot to teach us. It teaches us about a new way of living in the world. The Resurrection teaches us about being a new creation. The image of Easter taught me how to come out and be out. The Resurrection taught me how to shed my old life and put on the life God intended for me. The Resurrection taught me how to shed a life of victimization and lead a life of empowerment.
The Resurrection also requires us to dream. It demands that we dream about the sort of world we want to live in. It demands us to dream about the churches we are a part of. It forces us to dream about the Kingdom of God. The Resurrection forces us to dream big dreams, unthinkable dreams, outrageous dreams, even undignified dreams.
I dream about a world where every child has the ability to come out. Where our children and youth can honestly figure out how they will be in the world, how they will love, and whom they will love, and then be able to publicly declare that. I dream that when our children come out, all of their parents will love and support them. This is what I dream, but mostly I dream about a church much closer to the Kingdom of God. I dream of a church where candidates for ministry are judged on their gifts and graces for ministry, not on who or what they do in their bedrooms. I dream about the United Methodist Church.
I am a United Methodist, and I love my church. I joined the United Methodist Church when I was sixteen. I chose the United Methodist Church. It was a beautiful choice, but before I could do that I made another choice. I chose to live as a bisexual woman, and those choices together have brought me to this path. This path has not always been pleasant. My ordination is not currently possible. My full participation is unwelcome. But this scripture from Romans gives me hope and forces me to dream. I am reminded of this praise song that goes “I will dance and I will sing to be mad for my king. Nothing, Lord, is hindering this passion in my soul. And I will be even more undignified than this.” See, the Resurrection gave me the power to live a truly undignified life for God, because I have already died with Christ! Now I mean to live with God. I can see the church's old self, but I can also see the church's new self. Because of this, I can say with all the confidence in heaven, I love my church, and I will love it until it loves me!
I began the ordination process knowing that my ordination was not a possibility. I refuse to closet myself to do the work of God. And I only know one way to be me: Queerly! The meeting was set. I was supposed to be with a church committee called the Staff-Parish Relations Committee on December 14, 2004. I was certainly afraid. At times, I was devastated at the possibility of them not seeing my gifts and graces. I cannot think back on the days before that meeting without seeing the face of a woman who has been my support, my confidante, and even for a short moment, my lover. For days she was the rock of salvation, the balm of Gilead, the ancient of days. She was the incarnation of God for me! My hope every day is that I can be the same for her. In the midst of my angst, though, was great expectation. I was so ready to speak to them about who God had made me. I wanted to tell them how they had helped to form this beautiful, faithful, queer woman. The day before I was to meet with the committee, my pastor called me and requested a meeting. In the meeting, I was told that I could not yet meet with the committee. They were confused about their responsibilities and the church's position on homosexuality. I felt angry and pissed off and frustrated. All of my preparation was met with more waiting. My pastor explained that the committee would meet with me after their initial clarification meeting. Then, I was asked to explain in writing parts of my call narrative in light of the homosexual issue gripping the church.
They have not responded to the letter I sent them, nor have I had the opportunity to meet with them. The waiting is painful, because it feels like I am waiting for bad news. What light is there in this dark and dingy tunnel? My district superintendent (DS) is certainly a bright light of God. In him I have found a colleague and a source of support and encouragement. He constantly tells me that God will complete the good work that has been started in me. My DS and I do not agree about gay ordination, but we do agree that God is greater than we can know. We are both open to God's transformative power. Essentially, this should be the nature of the church. My experience of being queer is fundamentally the same. If I let go of my expectations and my judgements, I find tremendous beauty and diversity in our queer community. I find people yearning for justice and loving whatever way they see fit. I want to choose to be queer every day! I want to choose to follow God every day! And for me, when I choose one, I also choose the other! When I am Christi
an, I am queer! And when I am queer, I am Christian! And that truth is a blessing that sets me free!
Hatchback
by Kaitlyn Tierney Duggan
I.
It's not until the weekend is over that I realize I haven't really thought about transit matters for days and days. I wonder what that means, if this state of mind is what people mean when they talk about a normal life. I realize I find myself wondering entirely too often, except for this weekend. I wonder what that means, as well. I feel the boy I was slowly ebbing away, more quickly than you would think. I find myself a little sad for his loss. He is dying, after all, so I may live. If he was ever alive in any real sense is something that will be left for me to think about for what I suppose will be the rest of my life.
Toward the end of the weekend, I realize I am at, or possibly well past, a certain point in my life where I was asking which was the greater cost: to lose friends, family, even those you thought were very close to you, to put yourself into debt and risk the loss of your material possessions, or to sacrifice your own identity for the comfort and peace of mind of those around you. I see now that suffering in silence is not, as I had thought, the path of least resistance.
Unhappy people don't lead happy lives. They don't have healthy relationships—they can't. Transition is shocking to anyone who knows you, and some will never get over it, true, but I realize, over my Cheerios, that it comes down to a finality, an impasse: You can either suffer the loss of others or suffer the loss of your own self.
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