But God didn't ask me if I would do it for one of my children. I was sitting in a place with a group of gay people, where if a gunman had come in and asked for all the straight people to leave I could have left. BUT as I sat there thinking about being vulnerable to outside irrational people (and this was in 2000, before so many of the recent, senseless shootings) I realized that this was my epiphany–my moment about what unconditional love truly means. Then I thought: Would I refuse to leave or would I walk away to be safe?
Back to 1992 when the landlord died and the months thereafter when I pondered the issues of the conservative church when it comes to being more than a talking head, I sent out a questionaire for persons in the gay community to complete. The questionaire was sent to the local AIDS clinic and the Metropolitan Community Church. I asked numerous questions about who Jesus was to them. I expected all kinds of far-out answers. I had been taught that gay people worked outside the realm of truly knowing God. To my utter shock I got back scores of replies of solid salvation experiences, as well as stories of deep hurt from their childhood churches. More than one said that when their former pastor saw them walk down the sidewalk, he crossed the street to avoid them.
After 1993 something would periodically come into my life to teach me more about absolute grace. I can’t say everyone on the face of the earth has my undying love. I can’t honestly say I’d take a bullet for Charles Manson–I haven’t been in that position to even consider it, but who knows I might be some day.
Yet in our individual lives there’s someone that makes them totally unlovable. Maybe it is a child who refused to submit to a family rule and was asked to leave home. Maybe it is that son-in-law who is a violent man with his wife and children. That new boss who is an ogre, or the people next door who leave their dog outside in the middle of an ice storm with no place to go for shelter. You know the type of situation that makes you so angry that you want to grab them by the collar and ram them against the wall.
Then there are other situations where someone has caused deep hurt: A friend who betrayed you–or worse that spouse you left you with nothing but bills and a broken heart. And while they are living the grand life, you’re having to work three jobs just to keep the lights on for you and your children. Those are the tough places. Those are the places that many times the church isn’t there for you and your heart feels more pain.
It is at this place of deep pain that Jesus is waiting for us. He’s there and is doing all he can–but where are those people in shoe leather who have the arms, hands, legs and feet to accomplish the task? Many times they are absent. And this is the place where my story begins…a cry for those people to wake up and attend to the pain around them. Pain that is present within their group of friends. It’s easy to run to Africa to have a ministry, but what about the gay couple across the street? Can you be a plain friend without any sort of conditions?
I sat in that church and thought about how vulnerable I was. I was in a conservative city with a group of gay people. Would there be a rogue village idiot who wanted to make a name for himself and “kill all those people”?
Frankly, I’m a majority member of most classifications like white, female, etc.–I don’t have to worry about crazy people who want to “pick off” a certain sect. I can travel quietly, and really lead a simple, unseen life if I wanted. But on that day, I realize that the question in my heart wasn’t a question of my own making but a question that God had placed there for me to consider.
The gay pastor of this church had never had custody of his son because the judge wasn’t going to “take this child from a legal home and put him in an illegal home.” The judge never appointed a guardian ad litem for this 16-year-old (yes, at 16 he was never given a choice as to where he wanted to live). And in his “legal” home he was seriously abused. Here is the kicker: a fellow conservative said to me “Are you sure he isn’t better in his home with two real parents?” WHAT? How can someone even suggest this? I was appalled.
There are other stories. However, God used this and other situations to show me what it looked like “from the other side.” I don’t mean from a non-Christian standpoint, but what it looks like from the gay world when conservatives mount a political attack. (Hint: they don’t see Jesus in us, because we’re being political and not spiritual). As well, what does it look like to the woman who is being abused and you look the other way because church doctrine calls for “no divorce except in the case of adultery.” What does it look like to your child who knows you’re dedicated Christians and you’ve told her she can’t come home until she changes? Are you taking the bullet for these people?
So, yes, I knew I had no choice but to take the bullet for them. I decided that day I would sit in my seat and let them know that my love wasn’t conditional on acceptance by anyone other than God. “A bullet” might not be the one from a revolver, but instead a social bullet that will isolate you from your friends who really don’t agree with your decision.
Many saying come to mind at this point….Martin Luther King, Jr. said in his Letter from the Birmingham Jail: “I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustic anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Mother Teresa said: We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwated, unloved and uncoared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.”
And You Invited Me In is a novel about how to heal the poverty of the soul and “take that bullet” to let the ones we love know just how much we care.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Friday, February 15, 2008
I believe in absolutes...
There are absolutes in this world. The sun does rise and set. And as well gravity plays an important part in our daily lives.
In my early days as the "conservative of Conservatives" I believed there were all kinds of absolutes for people who crossed spiritual boundaries into sin. Most of my conservative friends believed the same way. I can’t remember a whole lot of sermons preached on "absolute grace" or "absolute forgiveness." Since I had asked Jesus into my heart when I was eight, and I didn't have a long rap sheet of sin. Therefore, the idea of "grace" was more intellectual than experiential.
One recent event that comes to mind when you speak of grace: the shooting at the Amish school. The Amish community embraced the family of the shooter and grieved with them. There was no reason for the Amish to do that except that Jesus has done it for them. He did it for all of us, and how can we do anything less?
Loving my daughters is easy because they love me back and grace isn't difficult. But what if someone took their life…I'd have no choice but to forgive and extend to him/her the same grace that Jesus has given me. Sometimes the offense isn't as high profile as a murder. It may be someone who has hurt your feelings, or someone who has rejected you. Maybe you are the rejecter and need to go to that person and 'come clean."
The final example in my life about grace and forgiveness came about almost 20 years ago. A close friend—"Jill"—and I had been at odds. I had stood firm in a situation where Jill wanted me to help her. If I had, I'd have stabbed another friend in the back so I didn't do it, and as the result, Jill had a great deal of hurt.
I was barely a month pregnant with my oldest and we were on our way to my hometown. A friend was riding with us and he mentioned Jill's anger toward me. He said "the Bible says if you have 'an ought' against someone, you’re to reconcile…" and he continued with "the Bible never said whether you’re right or wrong, it just said that you need to go to them."
I stewed about it, but the next week I wrote her a note. Eight months later, on the day my baby was due, Jill called me to apologize. She said she had torn up my letter in anger, but over the course of the months she realized she needed to call.
Writing to her was the right thing because of my commitment to Christ. Just like the Amish did the right thing with the shooter's family—because of what Jesus has done for us, we can do no less. Truly there are absolutes in our walk with Jesus: grace and forgiveness.
In my early days as the "conservative of Conservatives" I believed there were all kinds of absolutes for people who crossed spiritual boundaries into sin. Most of my conservative friends believed the same way. I can’t remember a whole lot of sermons preached on "absolute grace" or "absolute forgiveness." Since I had asked Jesus into my heart when I was eight, and I didn't have a long rap sheet of sin. Therefore, the idea of "grace" was more intellectual than experiential.
One recent event that comes to mind when you speak of grace: the shooting at the Amish school. The Amish community embraced the family of the shooter and grieved with them. There was no reason for the Amish to do that except that Jesus has done it for them. He did it for all of us, and how can we do anything less?
Loving my daughters is easy because they love me back and grace isn't difficult. But what if someone took their life…I'd have no choice but to forgive and extend to him/her the same grace that Jesus has given me. Sometimes the offense isn't as high profile as a murder. It may be someone who has hurt your feelings, or someone who has rejected you. Maybe you are the rejecter and need to go to that person and 'come clean."
The final example in my life about grace and forgiveness came about almost 20 years ago. A close friend—"Jill"—and I had been at odds. I had stood firm in a situation where Jill wanted me to help her. If I had, I'd have stabbed another friend in the back so I didn't do it, and as the result, Jill had a great deal of hurt.
I was barely a month pregnant with my oldest and we were on our way to my hometown. A friend was riding with us and he mentioned Jill's anger toward me. He said "the Bible says if you have 'an ought' against someone, you’re to reconcile…" and he continued with "the Bible never said whether you’re right or wrong, it just said that you need to go to them."
I stewed about it, but the next week I wrote her a note. Eight months later, on the day my baby was due, Jill called me to apologize. She said she had torn up my letter in anger, but over the course of the months she realized she needed to call.
Writing to her was the right thing because of my commitment to Christ. Just like the Amish did the right thing with the shooter's family—because of what Jesus has done for us, we can do no less. Truly there are absolutes in our walk with Jesus: grace and forgiveness.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
My Life--Part 2
I’m still a proponent of conservative Christianity, and still consider myself a conservative. But in my first years of conservatism—okay, maybe a decade or two—I took conservative Christianity a bit too far. I never got caught up in a lot of emotionalism, and my most earnest commitments were made in private just between God and me. However somewhere along the way I got into wrong thinking. I was a conservative who turned into a legalist. I can’t exactly say how I got there, I only remember the moment when it all came into the light…
That moment came in late May of 1979 when I refused to go to a dinner party where a gay guy was also going to attend (I’ll call this guy George). I can remember standing with my garbage in one hand and telling my friend Karen that it was totally against all I believed to join them for dinner with George also in attendance…by the way, God has a wonderful sense of humor, and I was the joke: The next month I changed jobs. The night before I began someone said “You know George works there.” And wouldn’t you know that in a building that covered about ten acres, George worked right across the hall!
Then within a year a close friend came out--he was a professional, fellow church member with a wife and kids. And in no time there was another young man—“Jake”—who had been one of my students suddenly left the church. I tracked Jake down three states away and found out he was gay. Sadly, he has never come back home.
So, of course, I heard God and immediately changed the way I thought and acted, and all was great….NOT!
You’d think I’d learn when one thing after another was happening like dominoes collapsing, but I’m slow. Right now I want to go back to the first time I heard about someone being gay. Realize that in my childhood days you just didn’t speak about it. So for me to hear about a minister committing suicide because he was gay would have been huge. But hearing about it when I was a little over five years old in 1959, well that was another divine moment in this journey.
As I said earlier, I was the conservative of the Conservatives. And soon after this boom-boom-boom of learning about all my gay friends, AIDS came on the scene. I can remember standing in my living room and hearing a guy on the Today Show cry about losing 25 of his friends to the virus. I sort of snickered about his losses—totally lacking Christian love. Then after a move to a large city a couple of years later I grew to believe that AIDS was incurable and that anyone who had it deserved it.
It wasn’t until 1992 that I got a huge wake-up call about the Church and my conservative fellows. When our landlord was dying of AIDS and doing "everything right" according to conservative church standards…the church failed to show up. What a shock for me! How could this be? I have always believed (and still do) that the church needs to be more than God’s talking head. They also need to be His arms, hands, legs and feet. They should be the first with soup as well as prayer. When the pastors and members didn’t deliver to our landlord, I was emotionally numbed, trying to absorb what had just gone down in my ‘hood.
And this was the divine moment where God had me ready to listen. A place where I could begin to learn about the true meaning of grace….
More to come about how And You Invited Me In got on the shelves and into your hands.
That moment came in late May of 1979 when I refused to go to a dinner party where a gay guy was also going to attend (I’ll call this guy George). I can remember standing with my garbage in one hand and telling my friend Karen that it was totally against all I believed to join them for dinner with George also in attendance…by the way, God has a wonderful sense of humor, and I was the joke: The next month I changed jobs. The night before I began someone said “You know George works there.” And wouldn’t you know that in a building that covered about ten acres, George worked right across the hall!
Then within a year a close friend came out--he was a professional, fellow church member with a wife and kids. And in no time there was another young man—“Jake”—who had been one of my students suddenly left the church. I tracked Jake down three states away and found out he was gay. Sadly, he has never come back home.
So, of course, I heard God and immediately changed the way I thought and acted, and all was great….NOT!
You’d think I’d learn when one thing after another was happening like dominoes collapsing, but I’m slow. Right now I want to go back to the first time I heard about someone being gay. Realize that in my childhood days you just didn’t speak about it. So for me to hear about a minister committing suicide because he was gay would have been huge. But hearing about it when I was a little over five years old in 1959, well that was another divine moment in this journey.
As I said earlier, I was the conservative of the Conservatives. And soon after this boom-boom-boom of learning about all my gay friends, AIDS came on the scene. I can remember standing in my living room and hearing a guy on the Today Show cry about losing 25 of his friends to the virus. I sort of snickered about his losses—totally lacking Christian love. Then after a move to a large city a couple of years later I grew to believe that AIDS was incurable and that anyone who had it deserved it.
It wasn’t until 1992 that I got a huge wake-up call about the Church and my conservative fellows. When our landlord was dying of AIDS and doing "everything right" according to conservative church standards…the church failed to show up. What a shock for me! How could this be? I have always believed (and still do) that the church needs to be more than God’s talking head. They also need to be His arms, hands, legs and feet. They should be the first with soup as well as prayer. When the pastors and members didn’t deliver to our landlord, I was emotionally numbed, trying to absorb what had just gone down in my ‘hood.
And this was the divine moment where God had me ready to listen. A place where I could begin to learn about the true meaning of grace….
More to come about how And You Invited Me In got on the shelves and into your hands.
My Life--Part One
My experiences are nothing exceptional, but I want to share the events that moved me down the road to writing And You Invited Me In.
I came from a fairly regular family. My father was a denominational minister and my mother was a pastor’s wife, mother and occasional college student (and eventually a teacher). Dad also taught high school math wherever we lived. In my first decade of life we lived in Mayberry-type communities in Kentucky, and then we moved to Alabama for Dad to get his doctorate. Life was just about to begin…
While you wouldn’t think of Kentucky as the “north”, we were labeled as Northerners when we moved to an extremely rural area just south of Tuscaloosa (as Dad was still preaching to support us). Since it was the summer of 1964 we also learned first-hand about Civil Rights movement. My family was very pro-integration, and the welcome from this tiny KKK community wore out as soon as they met us. To put this on a historic timeline, we were living less than 40 miles from Selma when the infamous march happened.
I was questioned about integration by teachers at my tiny rural school. I had never met people who considered another group of humans as non-people. These same people pressured my father to join the KKK by threats of a cross burning and, eventually, by kidnapping our dog. (Dad stood firmly by his beliefs in spite of all of this!) That era is forever encapsulated in my mind and heart. Relief came in 1966 when we moved further north to my spiritual destiny…
In my specific religious tradition we believed in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. My grandparents were like most conservative Christians born in the 19th century, and while my parents were more liberal, they were still typical of conservative Christian’s of the late 1950’s and 60’s. Things began to change for me in the late 1960s with the Jesus Movement. Remember those hippies called Jesus Freaks who got high on Jesus? I embraced this when I switched high schools my senior year. I changed schools for several logical reasons: the first was to get away from the senior English teacher at the high school I was attending. Next, I would be at the school where my mother taught. Now I see that it as more than a simple move, but was a divinely-inspired move.
In the summer of 1970 a Billy Graham associate minister held a revival in our town and many people in my future senior class “got saved” (i.e. asked Jesus into their heart; repented of their sins). That fall I found a new depth to my religious beliefs as I renewed my spiritual commitment and moved into a doctrinal stand that has names like: the inerrancy of the Bible, fundamental perspective, and—within a few years—the Moral Majority. While my heart and motives were sincere I would became the “conservative of the Conservatives”. I was the “Jett Taylor” or “Gerald Eubanks” (to know more about them read And You Invited Me In). Little did I know that God had me on a specific journey to bring about this book….and that’s the second part of my life….
I came from a fairly regular family. My father was a denominational minister and my mother was a pastor’s wife, mother and occasional college student (and eventually a teacher). Dad also taught high school math wherever we lived. In my first decade of life we lived in Mayberry-type communities in Kentucky, and then we moved to Alabama for Dad to get his doctorate. Life was just about to begin…
While you wouldn’t think of Kentucky as the “north”, we were labeled as Northerners when we moved to an extremely rural area just south of Tuscaloosa (as Dad was still preaching to support us). Since it was the summer of 1964 we also learned first-hand about Civil Rights movement. My family was very pro-integration, and the welcome from this tiny KKK community wore out as soon as they met us. To put this on a historic timeline, we were living less than 40 miles from Selma when the infamous march happened.
I was questioned about integration by teachers at my tiny rural school. I had never met people who considered another group of humans as non-people. These same people pressured my father to join the KKK by threats of a cross burning and, eventually, by kidnapping our dog. (Dad stood firmly by his beliefs in spite of all of this!) That era is forever encapsulated in my mind and heart. Relief came in 1966 when we moved further north to my spiritual destiny…
In my specific religious tradition we believed in a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. My grandparents were like most conservative Christians born in the 19th century, and while my parents were more liberal, they were still typical of conservative Christian’s of the late 1950’s and 60’s. Things began to change for me in the late 1960s with the Jesus Movement. Remember those hippies called Jesus Freaks who got high on Jesus? I embraced this when I switched high schools my senior year. I changed schools for several logical reasons: the first was to get away from the senior English teacher at the high school I was attending. Next, I would be at the school where my mother taught. Now I see that it as more than a simple move, but was a divinely-inspired move.
In the summer of 1970 a Billy Graham associate minister held a revival in our town and many people in my future senior class “got saved” (i.e. asked Jesus into their heart; repented of their sins). That fall I found a new depth to my religious beliefs as I renewed my spiritual commitment and moved into a doctrinal stand that has names like: the inerrancy of the Bible, fundamental perspective, and—within a few years—the Moral Majority. While my heart and motives were sincere I would became the “conservative of the Conservatives”. I was the “Jett Taylor” or “Gerald Eubanks” (to know more about them read And You Invited Me In). Little did I know that God had me on a specific journey to bring about this book….and that’s the second part of my life….
Saturday, February 9, 2008
And You Invited Me In - Book Beginnings
I don’t know how many people can remember what it was like in the mid-80’s and early 90’s when the topic of AIDS came up. Everyone was scared they would be infected with the virus. One of my distant relatives stated that he wasn’t going to swim at his club anymore for fear he would get it. Sermons were preached about AIDS and people who had it. There was no question in my mind that the conservative church helped to stir the pot of fear.
Before the drug cocktails, death from AIDS was swift and horrid. Victims had cancer, lung and stomach conditions, Candida, dementia, and more. That’s where this story began.
We were living in an affluent neighborhood of a Southern city. However, it could have been Boston, Seattle or Phoenix. Our landlord had AIDS. ‘Joe’ was a committed member of a large conservative church. Joe was doing everything right according to the conservative church ‘rules’. You know, the unofficial rules that makes you ‘right with God’: daily Bible study and prayer, regular church attendance, fellowship only with other Believers, among other things.
Joe believed that God would heal him, and didn’t tell his family that he had AIDS. Then suddenly he was at death’s doorstep and hospitalized. The task of cleaning Joe’s house and contacting his family fell on us. My husband diplomatically explained to his mother that she needed to hurry because Joe was hospitalized with more than a severe sinus problem. I called our mega-church to get a pastor to the hospital. I detailed the needs of the family to him. He did his part and visited the hospital one time.
I was devastated and wondered: where was the church for Joe? After all he had followed all the rules. Why was the church not there to help clean his house, cook his meals, and minister healing to the breaking hearts of his loved ones? Where was the right hand of Christian fellowship when it was most needed?
Joe’s story is the norm—even today more than a decade later. There are many stories of people with AIDS who barely have a bowl of soup to eat because their family has deserted them. These individuals—created in the image of God—have no one to help change the sheets or to just show they care.
After Joe died, I started investigating and found that in the larger cities AIDS wards were off-limits to ministers unless a person requested them by name. The reason? Ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ—the gospel of unconditional love—would go into the ward and tell these dying people that AIDS was a punishment by God for their sins.
My soul was vexed by these events. How could people who claim to know Jesus treat others this way? Jesus was radical as he embraced all who had a need without question. He told us to do the same. In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus said:
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came and visited me.” Matthew 25: 35-36
Over the next days, months and years, I pondered how we conservatives could remain within the rules that define our conservative approach, and yet be all those things that Jesus wants us to be. After all the church is simply a group of individuals who know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Jesus told us:
“For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because you belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.” Mark 9:41
And You Invited Me In is about leaving our comfort zone to give a drink to the thirsty. When Jesus sent his disciples out, he gave a list of instructions for believers—among those were these words: freely you have received and freely you give (Matthew 10:8b). Grace was freely given to us when we accepted Jesus as our savior. Grace is given to each of us on a daily basis—and it’s our responsibility to people like Joe to show them Jesus through our actions, words and deeds.
Before the drug cocktails, death from AIDS was swift and horrid. Victims had cancer, lung and stomach conditions, Candida, dementia, and more. That’s where this story began.
We were living in an affluent neighborhood of a Southern city. However, it could have been Boston, Seattle or Phoenix. Our landlord had AIDS. ‘Joe’ was a committed member of a large conservative church. Joe was doing everything right according to the conservative church ‘rules’. You know, the unofficial rules that makes you ‘right with God’: daily Bible study and prayer, regular church attendance, fellowship only with other Believers, among other things.
Joe believed that God would heal him, and didn’t tell his family that he had AIDS. Then suddenly he was at death’s doorstep and hospitalized. The task of cleaning Joe’s house and contacting his family fell on us. My husband diplomatically explained to his mother that she needed to hurry because Joe was hospitalized with more than a severe sinus problem. I called our mega-church to get a pastor to the hospital. I detailed the needs of the family to him. He did his part and visited the hospital one time.
I was devastated and wondered: where was the church for Joe? After all he had followed all the rules. Why was the church not there to help clean his house, cook his meals, and minister healing to the breaking hearts of his loved ones? Where was the right hand of Christian fellowship when it was most needed?
Joe’s story is the norm—even today more than a decade later. There are many stories of people with AIDS who barely have a bowl of soup to eat because their family has deserted them. These individuals—created in the image of God—have no one to help change the sheets or to just show they care.
After Joe died, I started investigating and found that in the larger cities AIDS wards were off-limits to ministers unless a person requested them by name. The reason? Ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ—the gospel of unconditional love—would go into the ward and tell these dying people that AIDS was a punishment by God for their sins.
My soul was vexed by these events. How could people who claim to know Jesus treat others this way? Jesus was radical as he embraced all who had a need without question. He told us to do the same. In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus said:
“For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came and visited me.” Matthew 25: 35-36
Over the next days, months and years, I pondered how we conservatives could remain within the rules that define our conservative approach, and yet be all those things that Jesus wants us to be. After all the church is simply a group of individuals who know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Jesus told us:
“For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because you belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward.” Mark 9:41
And You Invited Me In is about leaving our comfort zone to give a drink to the thirsty. When Jesus sent his disciples out, he gave a list of instructions for believers—among those were these words: freely you have received and freely you give (Matthew 10:8b). Grace was freely given to us when we accepted Jesus as our savior. Grace is given to each of us on a daily basis—and it’s our responsibility to people like Joe to show them Jesus through our actions, words and deeds.
And You Invited Me In
This is a newly-released novel that is about life's challenges, and how to love unconditionally when it is the most difficult.
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