So, I haven't posted here since July. There was a billing hiccup, and then I forgot to fix it, and then VOILA! It's October. Story of my life.
But, it's time to get back to the writing, I think.
Because it's #National Coming Out Day.
Here are some things that occur to me about this:
I went to my nephew's wedding in LA on the 3rd. All the little kiddos there (a feisty group of three-to-six year olds who ran, and ran, and ran) saw nothing strange about the marriage of two young men, and they never will. If I were to tell them, in later years, that the fact of it was an amazing miracle, the possibility not yet a year old, they would smile politely and think, "dusty old lady from a dusty old time."
When I told my shuttle driver I was here for a nephew's wedding, and he asked if the bride's family was from LA, I told him matter of factly, "actually his partner is a man, so there were two grooms." He seemed a little taken aback, but we were all there once. (Or I was, anyway.)
Gay-straight alliances in secondary schools don't mean that everything is perfect, but they mean that some kids are courageous enough to be out, and that some of their peers are supporting them. And that means that less kids have to go through the confusion I did at that age, dating gay boys who were still closeted to themselves as well as the world.
I attend a wonderful church with this welcome statement:
St. Martin-in-the-Fields Episcopal Church is a welcoming congregation offering spiritual sanctuary to all, regardless of race, color, gender, sexual orientation, age, ability, or socio-economic class, and to all persons who have felt marginalized in any way. We recognize each individual as a unique child of God. As we move forward with the work of this church, we commit ourselves to making justice and inclusivity a reality in this congregation and the world.
Until I transferred to this church, in the continuing Diocese of Fort Worth, three years ago...those statements would never have been made by my Dallas church. By many in it, yes; by the parish as a whole, no. Certainly not by that diocese.
I'm grateful to be located close enough to my church to belong and participate there.
And I need to recognize and be grateful for this positive, freedom-recognizing, loving movement in our country and our world, because, frankly, the rest of it seems so very, very grim. Every day, it seems to get worse.
For today, let's celebrate. Let's rejoice that people can marry the ones they love, and that our world is beginning, slowly, to understand that as a good thing.
