Blogs
Greater NW Pride: LGBTQ+ Missionary Pilgrimage in Southern Idaho, 2019!
10/2/2019
LGBTQ+ Missionary Pilgrimage in Southern Idaho, 2019! By the time I got on my Alaska Air flight back to Portland via Seattle and sat down, I knew I was tired from traveling many miles. Yet a big grin came across my face as I leaned against the window side of the small prop plane. What an incredible, short pilgrimage I went on across the southern, broad, part of Idaho! I called it the LGBTQ+ Missionary Pilgrimage, although on Facebook I called it the Queer Missionary Pilgrimage, spreading ...
Greater NW Pride: Violence
9/19/2019
Violence In opening up Facebook, reading the New York Times and Washington Post, watching CNN and MSNBC, listening to NPR, and reading towleroad.com and joemygod.com on a fairly regular basis, I was struck by the presence of violence upon LGBTQ+ people that is a constant in our life as queers in straight American society. There is the physical, emotional, and religious violence that is perpetrated on us daily. In other words, the violence is systemic. It is the in the very institutional-cul...
Greater NW Pride: On Writing As a Gay Man
9/12/2019
On Writing As a Gay Man In the recent documentary of the life of the late-writer Toni Morrison, Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am, I was struck by a quote about who her audience is in terms of who she is writing to in her novels and essays. I was struck by her candor: she writes to and for black people. It made me think about who I write this blog to and for: I write this blog to and for straight cisgender people, not for LGBTQ+ per se. That’s because this blog is part of the United ...
Greater NW Pride: Amateur Sports and the Church
9/4/2019
Amateur Sports and the Church This Sunday morning, Sept. 8, 2019, I’m going to be preaching at Hillsboro United Methodist Church at 10 am, and I’m looking forward to it. I enjoy my time visiting UMC churches as the LGBTQ+ Advocacy Coordinator, visiting congregations and seeing what is happening in and around the Conference. I’m also signed up to be paddling with my Dragon Boat Team, Golden Dragons, and there is a Grand Master Race (over 60 years-old) at 10 am that morning as well. I’ll ...
Greater NW Pride: Called to Love One Another: A Video Documentary Project
8/29/2019
Called to Love One Another: A Video Documentary Project “Called to Love One Another” is a video documentary project that collects the stories of three congregations and pastors who have been on a faithful pilgrimage of movement towards being an open, affirming, and reconciling congregation, along with the story of three LGBTQ+ United Methodist Church members, whose pilgrimage is a movement from the closet to being open and a members of a local United Methodist Church. In both movements—the...