Blogs
Everyday Blessings
Greater NW Pride: Justice
12/31/2019
Justice Yesterday, I spent over an hour in the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, Georgia with my partner and his family. In this sacred space, I was reminded of the complex story of the particular city where I was visiting, namely Atlanta, and the general area known as “the South,” as well as the contemporary events of civil and human rights around the world today. The first floor of the Center reminded the viewer of the 1940s through to the 1960s, and ...
Greater NW Pride: LGBTQ+ Families and the Holy Family
12/23/2019
LGBTQ+ Families and the Holy Family With “Merry Christmas” on the lips of many in many churches in the US in the past few weeks—with simply a pause to first wish you a “Blessed Advent” first for those in the theological and church-holy-day “know”—the focus on December 24thand 25th, is all about family. Granted, it is the date that was chosen generations ago to be the day that we would celebrate the birth of the Christ child, though biblical scholars continually remind us that keeping sheep...
Greater NW Pride: #Resist Harm
12/9/2019
#ResistHarm UMC The Revised Common Lectionary reading from the Old Testament for the second Sunday of Advent was Isaiah 11:1-10. The Prophet Isaiah foretold of a child from the “root of Jesse,” in which “the spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but ...
Greater NW Pride: Growing Churches Welcome LGBTQ+ People
12/4/2019
Growing Churches Welcome LGBTQ+ People Part of the joy of my position is every day I read about what is going on in other denominations concerning LGBTQ+ issues and their respective churches. Along with More Light Presbyterians and Covenant Network in the Presbyterian Church (USA), I’m always interested in what is going on in the United Church of Christ (UCC). When I lived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, I attended United Church of Chapel Hill, NC, a UCC church, and my partner is a member ...
Greater NW Pride: World AIDS Day, 2019
12/1/2019
World AIDS Day, 2019 As we come to the closing hours of December 1, 2019, I wanted to post a blog about World AIDS Day. In my life, I have had many friends in the Church and outside of the Church have lived and died being HIV+(positive or poz) and dying of one of the AIDS related symptoms. Some phenomenal ministers, church administrators, priests, pastors, organists, and youth directors, all close friends, have died. Those who are closest to me today, personally, are HIV+, in which the ...
Greater NW Pride: Queer Pride Camp: High School, Aug. 6-9, 2020, Camp Magruder, Oregon!
11/23/2019
Queer Pride Camp: High School, Aug. 6-9, 2020, Camp Magruder, Oregon! This blog post is really an announcement this week. In 2019, I led and was part of a great team of LGBTQ+ clergy persons and straight allies in the United Methodist Church’s Western Jurisdiction (UMC WJ), who brought about a very unique camping experience: Queer Pride Camp for young adults, ages 18-25 years old. The camp was held at Camp Sky Meadows in the San Bernardino Mountains of southern California. 26 campers—all...
Greater NW Pride: Being Church
11/14/2019
Being Church Since the specially called General Conference meeting of February 2019, with the decision to go with the Traditional plan, there’s a lot of activity within the United Methodist Church as our members are trying to figure out the way forward on this pilgrimage of faith. For example, as I write this, the Bishops of the Western Jurisdiction came out with the aspirational vision of the “Safe Harbor” declaration, welcoming out and closeted LGBTQ+ clergy and families to find a ...
Greater NW Pride: Microaggressions
10/31/2019
Microaggressions I’m in the process of becoming a Docent with the Portland Art Museum. This 36-week training course is part art history class, part education class, and part cultural awareness seminar. On October 28, 2109, we had a “Building Inclusive Practice through Anti-Racism,”workshop, led by Keonna Hendrick and Marit Dewhurst of Brooklyn, New York. Because of the work we do as Docents, and how we interact with the works of art and the people who come to the Museum, it is helpful in ...
Greater NW Pride: One Step Forward
10/23/2019
One Step Forward: The Art of Pilgrimage in Life I recently completed walking the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in Peru. It was amazing! This is the 20th year I’ve gone on a pilgrimage. Call it a spiritual practice/continuing education event/a source of life and living that I began soon before I left teaching at Duke Divinity School. Here was the situation: While I kept writing about pilgrimage in my books and essays and sermons regarding people with disabilities and the Church, I had two ...
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 ...