As appears in http://panzeepress.com/20070905.pdf
Reality always holds the deck, and when all that is you runs at such apparent odds with convention, the hand you are dealt creates only challenges. Lacking the simplicity of unfettered tolerance, the world cannot experience the wonder of you without pause, rebuke, or ridicule. You move into adulthood yearning for “things to be different” and searching for the strength to feed your joy of life, while ignorance and fear beset you at all angles.
Where do you find that strength?
Do you live defiantly, trumpeting your value against the walls of uninformed opinion? Do you gather your peers and swell with pride to find strength in numbers?
Do you hide your uncertainty and rage, every moment slipcovered in fear/shame/distrust?
Do you indulge in alcohol, narcotics, or other euphemized pleasures?
Or, finding these false idols too nimble for consistency…
…do you dare search for hope?
Do you want to offer love?
Do you look for faith, affirming and denying in the same moment
its inexplicable virtue?
In the hardest, solitary moments of highest doubt, could these heady, heavy words actually provide you the strength to go on?
They too have their fleetness of foot, peeking at you from under your drink napkin and beyond your rainbow borders. Their virtues mock you, flitting between the eyes of your bathroom staredown. Isn’t it your choice, your life, after all, that loosens their strongest embrace?
Those moments arise in each of us as mixed as the metaphors, and so will the answers. You wish only to create your truest self, and the world to celebrate you as you it. Therein lies a hope for hope, a faith in faith, and a love of love. You already demonstrate your strength of will (darewesay, leap of faith?) in making that wish. You must eventually move outside your mind and breathe it life, though, for the consistency you seek arises only when you can exude that strength in all your moments…
…in relation to those around you. A community of fellowship and common values, gathering so often in celebrant joy can fuel that first strength of will. The grand pillars of these concepts speckle our community, but would you walk in with your vulnerability and doubt on your sleeve? Would you feel welcome and embraced, safe in the knowledge that these peers seek only the same thing you do, or do you sense judgment and agendas? Would your fear and the shame creep in and keep you from extending yourself thusly?
On Sunday, August 26, a man walked into two churches with hope, love, and faith in tow – wondering if after he left he could feel more able to face the solitary moment.
The Unitarian Church of Harrisburg (UCH) stands removed from the bustle, a modest yet wide expanse surrounded by grass and trees. The back roof points up and the back wall paned in glass fosters a reverent environment. The parishioners move to the front entrance with eyes up and ahead, seeking and affirming their fellows with eye contact, proximity, and greetings. The UCH Pastor, the Rev. Howard N. Dana, stands in the entrance foyer with other volunteers, greeting friends and working to make welcome all who enter. The eye lands on symbols, icons, and heroes from a variety of belief systems and cultural similarities – the rainbow, the Yin/Yang symbol and stone garden, the Harriet Tubman bust, the cross, and the Star of David all lie within one turn of the head.
UCH’s specific appeals to the BGLT community owe partly to the local population, but moreso to continue the Unitarian Universalist’s long history of support. That effort, though, stands among many – it does not define the UCH congregation, as its mostly straight orientation would attest.
Rev. Dana correlated UCH’s pronounced welcoming efforts to that same over-arching sense of appeal. “People new to the area and coming from other UU churches, young adults with small children who are starting to ask awkward questions, newcomers accompanying friends, have all encountered one belief system or another and come in wanting to know what it feels like, so we combine items they can see and people they can meet to help lower the barriers to their exploration.”
The service contains unsurprising gestures of worship – readings, songs, responsive readings, a sermon, meditative and prayerful moments, an offering, etc. The reading selections reflect the same breadth and variety as the entranceway – quotes and inspirations might come from Thoreau, Gandhi, Jesus, Black Elk, and Tomas Paine, all in the same service.
The playground and additional areas around the church allow UCH to emphasize support for parents and children. During the service’s “Children’s Message” Rev. Dana gathers the attending children in front for a small chat, after which they leave to attend their own classes. Rev. Dana’s sermon that day, “Let Us Bring Up Our Children,” furthers this emphasis with ideas and suggestions for parents to take greater ownership of their children’s spiritual upbringing.
The Coffee Hour gathers a sizable portion of the congregation downstairs afterwards, making it feel almost a natural extension of the service. This, too, aligns with UCH’s efforts to foster community and fellowship among all. This sensibility extends to their newsletters and pamphlets, their website, the parishioner name tags, and among UCH’s “Red Carpet CrUU” of ushers and greeters.
Over 200 people attended the 9:15am service, and according to Rev. Dana, they could well have 200 different paths to faith. “Membership in our church,” according to their pamphlet, “is established by a commitment to our principles and purposes and the desire to participate in our community, rather than established by affirmation of a creed.” A man left UCH that morning acknowledging that sense of community – they would not dictate the manner of faith, but instead laud the desire for each of us to always search as one among all.
Attending service at the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) of the Spirit must rarely happen by accident. No tall spire stands as beacon – indeed, at first glance the building and its surroundings suggest more warehouse space than worship space. As a (Protestant) Christian practice, MCC seeks to offer Christianity’s affirmation without the accordant sense of judgment on lifestyle or orientation. Christian and rainbow icons share equal space and emphasis – this and the mostly gay parishioners at the 7pm service all explained the conventional description of MCC as “the gay church.”
The sense of welcome and reverence fills the small entrance space as best as possible. Greeters stand ready to guide a newcomer through MCC’s available programs and resources, including “The Upper Room Daily Devotional Guide.” Large rainbow banners dominate the inner chapel area, hanging on the front wall as large and proud as Brownstone’s and bookending the computer-projected screen for song lyrics and readings. The embrace of the BGLT community here is no component of a wider approach – this is a Christian church for this community.
With a three-piece band at the ready, the congregation sings often throughout the otherwise typical Christian service. Rev. Roben Waddell sermonizes on “putting the wind in your sails” regarding love, God, and Jesus Christ, using personal anecdotes to help the parishioners correlate to experiences in their own lives. The former Methodist preacher coincidentally invokes many of the same ideas as other services attended that day: talking and relating to others, exposing vulnerability, and the use of love as a tool of the Spirit. The Christian perspective, though, remains intertwined within this emphasis.
A newcomer might notice the portraits and brief biographies of MCC’s pastors and ministers, how those present mingle with parishioners before and during the service, and the passion in the visiting reverend’s sermon – and how it all seemed to fall by the wayside when the time for Holy Communion came. Here a younger dark-haired man who remained noticeably removed from the greeting and mingling, with no portrait or biography in the entranceway, and not highlighted or mentioned as part of the service, enters and performs Communion for the congregation. He offers the “body of Christ” with a close embrace and an extended message whispered into each parishioner’s ear. A newcomer might appreciate the warmth and closeness, but also wonder about the apparent “bait and switch” at this most holy moment.
Near 30 people attended the 7:00pm service at MCC of the Spirit, mostly all members of a Christian community and the BGLT community. A man left MCC that evening sensing that those who gather here do so to rejoice their membership in both groups.
In those hard, solitary moments when you seek so ardently for the strength to face what lies ahead, these institutions of faith would suggest themselves as aids in that effort. Their ability to succeed, however, depends mostly on whether you want their assistance. UCH and MCC of the Spirit stand out for their concerted attempts to reach the BGLT community and have thus been chosen for this highlighting article. You may reason that these concerted attempts uniquely qualify them as more desirable alternatives, and no one could cast reasonable doubt on that assessment. Whatever your reasons may be, wherever your search may lead you, we seek in this article only to suggest that, in your moment of solitary doubt, these sources of spiritual aid position themselves to help.
Whether you pursue that or any other initiative remains of your choosing. Any choice to explore your spirituality should be encouraged, and all hopes of success for you on your journey.
Philip
One Perspective 