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Coming Out and Keeping the Faith
Apr 24, 2013
How strong does a person have to be to reconcile their LGBTQ identity and their faith in the face of family, religious, and community rejection? The short answer is: Incredibly strong.
For 80+ attendees of “Coming Out and Keeping the Faith” at Northern Essex Community College in Haverhill, Massachusetts, that strength was demonstrated by 6 panelists–3 young adults from the LGBTQ community and 3 local religious leaders.
Sponsored by LGBTQ Welcoming Communities of Faith (Welcoming Faiths), a coalition of open and affirming congregations in the Merrimack Valley, Massachusetts, and Greater Boston PFLAG, the evening’s discussion addressed one of the biggest and most divisive issues facing the LGBTQ community: bullying in the name of religion.
The three young adult LGBTQ panelists illustrated how religion factored into the anguish and rejection they felt from family, community, and even themselves, as they struggled to reconcile their faith and their sexuality. Kate spoke of her conservative parents who rejected her based on their religion. Carlo talked of being afraid he would “burn in hell” for his growing realization of his sexuality. Zach prayed nightly that God would “make him straight” and faced abuse from his peers that ultimately lead him to attempt suicide.
In response to these emotional stories, the religious leaders on the panel offered perspectives on how their faiths focus on acceptance, inclusion, and understanding. Rev. Lara Hoke of the Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Andover and Rabbi Karen Landy of Havurat Shalom in Andover talked about their congregations’ long-time acceptance of the LGBTQ community. Bill Henson, founder of Lead Them Home, spoke of his evangelical beliefs and his commitment to including all people who want to embrace his faith, regardless of sexual orientation. Personally and professionally, they expressed their own stories and reiterated their belief that everyone, no matter who they are, deserves a chance to embrace a faith. As Rev. Lara Hoke put it “God loves diversity.”
It is the ongoing mission of Welcoming Faiths to build upon the strength of the open and accepting spirit of their member congregations so that we can be as strong as the people who choose to join us. The eleven-member coalition was founded by South Church in Andover in April 2011. Faith communities represented include Episcopal, Jewish Reconstructionist, Unitarian Universalist, United Church of Christ, and United Methodist. To learn more about Welcoming Faiths, find us on Facebook or email us at welcomingfaiths@gmail.com.
This post was written by Lauren Remes. Lauren lives in Andover, Massachusetts, and is proud to be a part of LGBTQ Welcoming Communities of Faith as a representative of her congregation, Havurat Shalom.
More >Grateful for Everything, In Spite of Everything
Rev. Fred Small
We had originally scheduled the following litany by Rev. Fred Small, in honor of Earth Day, as the second installment in a four part series leading up to the UUA General Assembly in Louisville, Kentucky exploring the impact of energy production and the interdependent web of life in our communities.
Because of the recent tragedies in Boston, we thought we would also include Rev. Small’s sermon from Sunday, April 21, in which he explores the connections between Earth Day, the bombings, and why we must let our hearts be broken open. Rev. Small is the senior minister at First Parish Cambridge, Unitarian Universalist.
“Standing on the Side of Love: We Are One”
A litany by Rev. Fred Small
First Parish in Cambridge, Unitarian Universalist
We are one.
One people.
One community.
One earth.
One spirit.
We are one.
The coalfield family flooded out of their home by mountaintop removal.
The baby with asthma who lives in the shadow of a coal-fired power plant.
The miner with black lung.
We are one.
The family whose drinking water is poisoned by fracking.
The sick mother in Cancer Alley.
The grandfather dead of heat stroke in another record heat wave.
We are one.
The Katrina victim in Louisiana.
The Sandy victim in New Jersey.
The refugee displaced by flood waters in Bangladesh.
We are one.
The hunter whose family goes hungry because game has disappeared.
The worker who can’t get to a job because bus service was cut.
The retiree who can’t pay the heating bill.
We are one.
The young woman who fears bringing a child into the world.
The adult who fears growing old.
The child who fears growing up.
We are one.
The coal companies, the oil companies, the energy conglomerates want to keep us apart.
They don’t want us talking to each other.
They don’t want us caring for one another.
We are one.
Today we close the circle.
Today we break the silence.
Today we find our voice.
We are one.
Today we listen to one another.
Today we speak out for justice.
Today we stand on the side of love.
We are one.
We will heal our wounded communities.
We will heal our wounded earth.
We will heal our wounded souls.
We are one.
We will dwell in beauty.
We will abide in love.
We will see the sacred in all.
We are one.
“Grateful for Everything, In Spite of Everything”
A sermon by Rev. Fred Small
First Parish in Cambridge, Unitarian Universalist
April 21, 2013
175 years ago this July, barely a half mile from here, Unitarian minister Ralph Waldo Emerson addressed the senior class at Harvard’s Divinity College.
In this refulgent summer, it has been a luxury to draw the breath of life. The grass grows, the buds burst, the meadow is spotted with fire and gold in the tint of flowers. The air is full of birds, and sweet with the breath of the pine, the balm-of-Gilead, and the new hay. Night brings no gloom to the heart with its welcome shade. Through the transparent darkness the stars pour their almost spiritual rays. Man under them seems a young child, and his huge globe a toy.
In the nearly two centuries since Emerson spoke these words, how little has changed, and how much.
The sun still shines as brightly, the birds sing as joyously, the shade of night brings the same welcome.
But the child—the wanton, reckless child has broken the toy.
The earth I explored and marveled at as a boy a half-century ago is no more.
Oceans are rising. Glaciers are melting. Arctic sea ice is vanishing. Coral reefs are dying. Drought spreads. Crops wither. Wildfires rage. Extreme weather floods the coasts and batters the heartland. Unprecedented numbers of entire species are driven to extinction by human activity.
Maybe our own species will be next.
And then last Monday, Patriots Day, a perfect New England spring day in our city on the hill—terror and mayhem.
Lives ended and upended, a world of beauty and normalcy shattered into fragments of pain and confusion.
Worse, we knew that someone had done this, had wished for it, planned for it, rejoiced in it. And that someone was still among us.
The very same day, in Iraq, coordinated bombings and a shooting left fifty dead and nearly three hundred injured.
Wednesday night fire and explosion in Texas at a fertilizer plant with multiple safety violations, not apparently an act of terror but of how we put food on our table cheap. Fourteen people now confirmed dead, ten of them first responders, with hundreds more injured.
Earthquakes this week in Iran, Pakistan, and China left hundreds dead and thousands injured.
So much suffering. So much horror. So much brokenness.
What do we do with our pain? What do we do with our grief? What do we do with our anger?
First we must feel them.
We must feel everything we feel—all the pain, all the grief, all the rage—let them possess us, let them course through our bodies, surge through our souls, and sweep us clean.
Let our hearts be broken.
Let our hearts be broken open.
Open to it all—the ugliness and the beauty, the cowardice and the courage, the despair and the hope, the sorrow and the joy.
“Life is filled with suffering,” teaches the Vietnamese Zen master and war refugee Thich Nhat Hanh. “Life is filled with suffering, but it is also filled with many wonders, like the blue sky, the sunshine, and the eyes of a baby. To suffer is not enough. We must also be in touch with the wonders of life. They are within us and all around us, everywhere, any time.”
You don’t have to be a Zen master. You just have to pay attention to the signs of wonder all around us.
Brian Downes couldn’t be with us here this morning, but if he were he could have delivered the sermon instead of me.
With his son and daughter-in-law both gravely injured by a terrorist bombing and now facing their future life as amputees, here’s what Brian says: “What I’m thinking about right now is that 99.9 percent of humanity is full of heart and soul and love for their fellow human beings, and those people saved my son’s life this week.”
Paying attention means looking deeply into everything.
We don’t really know what to make of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, do we?
Is he American or Chechen? A sweet kid or an angry jihadist? A gifted student or a troubled stoner? A sensitive, suggestible teenager in thrall of his big brother or a confident leader who knew exactly what he was doing?
What if he is all of these things?
What if, however monstrous his crimes, we can’t file him neatly under “monster”?
What if the only completely accurate label is “human being”?
But that can’t be.
Because then he would be one of us.
A very long time ago, I was a high school wrestler. It’s an individual sport, but it’s also a team sport. I know the bond among wrestlers.
So I got exactly what Peter Payack was talking about. Peter coached Dzhokhar for three years at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School, where he was an all-star wrestler and team captain.
When he heard that Dzhokhar was a suspect, Peter said “It was like a bomb going off in my heart . . . because [he] was one of my guys.”
And when I heard Peter’s words, I thought: In the eyes of God, they’re all “my guys.”
Every single one of ’em.
Every single one of us.
That’s the core of my faith.
That’s the essence of Universalism.
Each of us is responsible and accountable for what we do.
But no matter what we do, no matter how fatal our mistake or contemptible our conduct, we cannot be cut off from our connection with each other or from God’s infinite love.
Ours is a paradoxical faith for a paradoxical world.
And even as that world breaks and it breaks our hearts, we are grateful for wholeness.
Grateful for first responders who plunge into the carnage to rescue the wounded disregarding the danger that another explosion could take their life, too.
Grateful for athletes who after running 26.2 miles keep on running to donate blood.
Grateful for bystanders who tear their clothing into tourniquets.
Grateful for police officers and firefighters and paramedics who risk their lives every day to keep us safe.
Grateful for friends and family who, at our bedside in the valley of the shadow of death, take our hands, whisper in our ears, and by the power of their love will us back to life.
Grateful for a sip of juice.
Grateful for hospital food.
Grateful for fresh air and open space after a day of lockdown.
Grateful for company.
Grateful for community.
Grateful for democracy, however flawed.
Grateful for those who peacefully and relentlessly resist the desecration of the earth by protest, political engagement, or civil disobedience.
Grateful for all who work for justice and peace and understanding.
Grateful for the inexorable profusion of new life in the springtime.
Grateful for dew glistening on the grass at daybreak.
Grateful for baseball on a sunny afternoon.
Grateful for the cacophony of seagulls.
Grateful for wind rustling in the trees.
Grateful for stars gleaming in the endless sky.
Grateful for everything, in spite of everything.
Amen and Blessed Be.
More >A Mother’s Day for All
Apr 20, 2013
In some ways, Mother’s Day is an easy holiday, right? Lots of people have important “mother” figures in their life, for whom they can find something in the greeting card aisle, buy flowers, or make breakfast in bed. We celebrate these women because we love them. Setting aside a special day for them acknowledges the critical and often underappreciated role they play in our lives and in our communities.
And yet, some experiences of motherhood aren’t so easily found in the greeting card aisle, such as families with queer or trans or two mothers. It might be impossible to make her breakfast in bed if she’s incarcerated or recently deported. While many of us already celebrate those women who raised us (whether she was our nanny, our grandmother, our aunt, our foster mother), how do we acknowledge the experiences of women who wanted children but couldn’t, due to economic circumstance, medical condition, unjust adoption rights, or any other reason? How do we stand on the side of love with all those who “mother” and their families?
This year on May 12, join me in celebrating a more inclusive “Mama’s Day.” Click here to learn more.
Mother’s Day was originally founded as an antiwar rallying cry by Unitarian Julia Ward Howe. This history reminds us that Mother’s Day is more than a day for flowers and pancakes. It’s a call to honor the resiliency of all those who mother, especially those who bear the brunt of hurtful policies or who are weighed down by stigma in our culture. It’s an opportunity to take action to create conditions that enable all families to thrive.
This year, transform your Mother’s Day into “Mama’s Day:” a multicultural, justice-oriented celebration of all those who “mama.” For the first time ever, the UUA has partnered with Strong Families, to offer beautiful e-cards and resources for advocacy, worship, and more.
Let’s do “Mama’s Day” on the side of love. Click here to find out how to transform your celebration this year.
Faithfully,
Jessica Halperin
Witness Ministries Program Associate
Unitarian Universalist Association
The message above went out on Saturday, April 20, 2013 to Standing on the Side of Love supporters. You can sign-up for these emails here.
More >One Click Away from Compassionate, Family-Based Immigration Reform
Apr 17, 2013
I have been hearing so many amazing stories of Unitarian Universalists making advocacy visits to tell their elected officials that immigration reform must respect the inherent worth and dignity of all people.
In 2010, I marched and later was arrested in Phoenix, AZ, because my faith values taught me that it is wrong to tear apart families and criminalize whole communities. No person is illegal. I stood on the side of love to stop immoral legislation that sadly began spreading from one state to another.
Now finally the moment is here, a once in a generation moment, to pass federal legislation that will create one immigration policy for our nation.
An immigration reform bill was introduced this morning, so now is the time to tell Congress that reform must be compassionate.
You can do that right now, by simply sending this message to your local elected official. Tell them that reform must keep families together.
One of the proudest moments of my presidency was when thousands of Unitarian Universalists witnessed at the Tent City detention center in Phoenix at Justice General Assembly last year calling for an end to detentions and deportations and for reform of our immigration laws.
You and I both know how powerful our voices can be when we mobilize and work together to make real change happen. Click here to add your voice today towards compassionate, family-based immigration reform.
Love has no borders, love keeps families together, love respects the inherent worth and dignity of all people.
In faith,
Rev. Peter Morales
President
Unitarian Universalist Association
The message above went out on Wednesday, April 16, 2013 to Standing on the Side of Love supporters. You can sign-up for these emails here.
More >Standing on the Side of Love for Marriage Equality at the Supreme Court
Apr 12, 2013
A couple weeks ago, hundreds of people witnessed for marriage equality as the Supreme Court heard arguments on the constitutionality of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California Proposition 8.
Among them were dozens of Unitarian Universalists! Check out our video to hear from these committed activists why they stand on the side of love:
Special thanks to our colleague Annette Marquis for putting together this great video.
More >
