A Conservative Lib-Brull

I consider myself to be pretty conservative.  That’s a fraught thing to say in today’s rancid political environment, but it makes me feel better to admit it.  It’s also not easy to say for somebody who has never voted for a Republican in his life, opposed the war in Vietnam and the endless wars since, backed the impeachment of Richard Nixon, supports abortion, equal pay and same-sex marriage, worries how the current occupant of the White House will do harm to me, and remembers that his parents and grandparents idolized Franklin Delano Roosevelt for saving the country.

I suppose those things make me a lib-brull to those addicted to Fox News, but they’re wrong.  My type of conservatism, like wisdom, seems to have come with age, outside the left-right political divide.  Here’s how I define it:  If change is needed, it should be gradual; don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.  If it works, don’t fix or discard it. If it’s broken, repair but don’t destroy it.  Compromise is always better than discord.  

So how does this conservatism play out now that I am in my eighth decade of life?  Consider these rules I follow:

(1)  Don’t buy a new car every few years; keep it for at least ten years, change the oil frequently and enjoy it as it ages gracefully with me.

(2)  Wear clothes until my spouse claims they look shabby, then donate them to charity.

(3)  Grow, harvest and can my own vegetables; it puts me in synch with nature, and all it takes in some seeds, some water, some sunshine and some hands in the dirt.

(4)  Tolerate today’s music, movies, books and TV shows, no matter how loud or graphic; don’t bend anybody's ear to whine about how much better they were when I was young  (even though they may have been).

(5)  Don't snark back at stupid Facebook comments.  This one is really difficult for me.   

(6)  Keep calm and don’t curse when learning a new app or other technological advance with instructions written in an unknown language.

(7)  Watch my bank and investment accounts with a hawk’s eye, and worry just like my parents did that a buck you spend today is a buck you won’t have tomorrow.  The nest egg needs to last at least a long as I do. 

(8)  Follow the advice Polonius gave to his son Laertes in Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”  -- “Neither a borrower nor a lender be.  For loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.”

And, most of all, don’t force my religious or political beliefs on others and don’t consider people with a different point of view to be enemies.  That’s what dictators do.

A Reluctant Draftee's Memory on Veteran's Day, 2017

I have not posted on my blog in a very long time.  Something moved me today to write this long-forgotten memory, as all the well-deserved tributes pour forth for all our veterans.  This in no way diminishes anyone's service and sacrifice, but it is a reflection of my particular moment in time.  

Thursday morning Sept. 5, 1968, my mother, sister and brother dropped me off at the Greyhound Bus station in Tacoma, my hometown.  There were a few tears and shared worries about my safety.  The local draft board had ordered me to catch the bus to Seattle that day and prepare for induction into the Army.  The draft, implemented at the beginning of World War II, was still going strong more than 25 years later to feed yet another war.

About 50 men boarded the bus.  I knew none of them; almost all were younger than I was.  At 23 going on 24, I had run out of student deferments.  Draft calls had increased that fall because of the rather embarrassing reversal American forces had suffered in the Tet Offensive earlier that year.  The bus took us to the Seattle YMCA.  They fed us a brown bag dinner and bedded down us for the night in a room full of triple-decker bunk beds.  This was long before cell phones; there was a long line to use two pay phones.  I sat by myself and read the Seattle Times.

The lights came on at 5:30 a.m.  Somebody bellowed a command that I soon came to hear frequently:  “Gentlemen, you have 20 minutes to shit, shower and shave.”  We did what we were told.  They fed us some watery scrambled eggs and bread, then herded us down to the induction center.  A couple of hippies were outside handing out draft resistance literature and urging us not to go in.  We ignored them.   

The 50 of us from Tacoma joined another 200 or so men from other parts of Puget Sound.  We sat on folding metal chairs holding our precious paper work, waiting our turns.  We were not allowed to have magazines or newspapers.  That was a real hardship for a wonky aspiring journalist.  A loud speaker called out names.  Sometimes I could make out what was said, other times I couldn’t. There was nothing to eat but Tootsie Rolls donated by the Red Cross.

To fill the hours, there was lots of small talk among us. Some were high school dropouts, others had failed to keep a C average in college and therefore lost their deferments.  Some had no job.  A few had children but weren’t married — a small step that actually might have got them excused.  Others had been ordered there by a judge to avoid jail time.  Only one other guy had a college degree, as I did.  Earlier in the summer, he tried frantically to join the Navy to avoid the Army, but Navy and Air Force enlistments were closed at the time.

I was poor military material and I knew it; too old, too educated, too sedentary.  I had no interest in volunteering for anything; I just wanted to get it over with.  I opposed the Vietnam War but despite my anguish I did feel obliged to serve if called.  Not for some big, flag-waving, love-it-or-leave-it reason but because I loved my family and wanted the chance to come home and do what I loved to do.  Unlike some I knew, I didn’t go to Canada to avoid the draft and I wasn’t rich enough or well connected enough to pull strings or buy my way out — as so many did.

Finally, after about six hours, I was called into a small room with five others.  We stripped and were examined.  I was asked if I had ever been convicted of a crime, was or ever had been a member of the communist party or had homosexual tendencies.  I answered no to the first two and lied about the third.  One medical examiner thought the high arches on my feet ought to disqualify me, but I could tell he was under a lot of pressure not to reject very many of us.  In the end, I was deemed good enough for the Army.

Of the 50 of us from Tacoma, only seven were inducted that day. Quite a few were excused because of their outstanding warrants for anything from unpaid child support to parking tickets.  Others were excused after showing doctors’ letters mentioning everything from psoriasis to excessive ear wax.  One man had a fever that day and was excused; he later whispered that he caused the fever by holding bars of soap under his armpits for several hours that morning. To this day I don’t know if that was possible. 

That afternoon we few, healthy and without an excuse were herded on a bus and taken to Fort Lewis to undergo basic training.  And so my adventure as a reluctant soldier began. In hindsight, I don’t regret it.  Today, I'm proud I did it, came home  and have lived a successful life.  

But I wholeheartedly agree with Sen. John McCain, a true war hero veteran, who recently said that if this nation ever again demands that everyone should serve, then everyone must serve.  No excuses. 

LIving Life As An Active Verb

I had the privilege last Sunday (Aug. 31) to preach once again at my parish,

St. Augustine's-in-the-Woods Episcopal Church in Freeland, Washington.  Here is what I said.

 

          It’s Labor Day Weekend, the last holiday of what has been a dazzling summer here on Whidbey Island.  Our rector is taking a rest from at least his preaching labors today.    

    

          As a result, you’re stuck with me.  A retired dude with nothing better to do on a Labor Day Weekend.  And besides I can’t go anywhere because the ferry line is backed up.

           

There is, however, some method in this madness.  September begins tomorrow.  And many of you know what that means.  Stewardship season gets underway at St. Augustine’s.  And yours truly is chair of the annual stewardship campaign.

           

          So that’s what I’m going to talk about today – stewardship.  Now as I say that, I may notice some of you gaze longingly out the window, check text messages on your cell phones or turn down your hearing aids.  But give me a chance.  I’m going to share some thoughts on what stewardship means in a modern Christian community.

         

          Yes, stewardship does include making a financial commitment to our parish.  We have to pay our bills.  We’ll ask you to do that during the pledge campaign that kicks off on September 14.  And yes, stewardship does include making a time and talent commitment to our various parish ministries. Somebody has to do the work.  We’ll ask you to do that at the Ministry Fair after worship services next Sunday, September 7.

And a reminder that this year, the Ministry Fair takes the place of the old volunteer check-off that used to come in the pledge card.  That just didn’t work.  So this year’s pledge card will ask only for our financial commitment, and the Ministry Fair will ask for our time and talent commitments.    

         

           As we begin this 2015 stewardship season, I’d say we are in pretty good shape at St. Augustine’s.  We don’t owe a penny of debt to anybody.  We’ve had a record number of people making financial pledges in both of the past two years.  In fact, there were 110 pledgers this year.  Our ministries remain diverse and dedicated.  More new people continue to join us.       

          

          We do face a serious financial challenge because of the loss of the generous and long-time financial support of more than half a dozen people who have left us this year.    

          We needn’t live in anxiety about it.  Our parish is blessed to have resources to help us meet this challenge, if we use them wisely.  But it does make our stewardship season this year all the more important.  The future really is in our own hands.   

 

          By stewardship, however, I mean way more than writing a check to the church once a week or volunteering to be part of a ministry.  I believe it means this:  serving, sharing, tending and protecting what God has given us.  Serving, sharing, tending, protecting.

Those are all active verbs.  Stewardship is not a passive, somebody-else-does-it endeavor. 

       

          Let’s dig a little deeper and go all the back to the beginning.  Genesis chapter Two.  “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” To work it and take care of it.  Sounds to me like the Lord God told us what our stewardship responsibility is right from the get-go.   

           

          Moving forward a few thousand years to First Chronicles:  “For all things come from you, Oh Lord, and of your own have we given.”  In other words, everything we have comes from God and it’s our duty to give it back.  Sounds to me like somebody was writing the very first pledge campaign letter.             

 

          Traveling on a few centuries to the Gospel of Matthew:  “Jesus said, for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Your treasure and your heart. Those are key words.  We’ll come back to them in a minute.

           

          Finally, there is today’s reading from Paul’s letter to the Romans.  As always with Paul, he’s doing a full-throated exhortation about how we’re meant to live.  This particular reading almost approaches a primal scream.  Listen to some of the language he uses:  Love one another. Outdo one another.  Do not lag in zeal. Be ardent in spirit.  Live peaceably.  Rejoice. Feed. Persevere.  Contribute.  Bless.  Overcome evil.  Live in harmony.

          Hear all those active verbs that Paul uses?  That’s what stewardship sounds like.

           

          And that’s why stewardship isn’t just about making a pledge or volunteering for a ministry – although please, please do both!  It’s really a way of life.  Living in gratitude for all that God has given us and demonstrating that gratitude in a hundred ways every day of our lives.  St. Francis of Assisi said it better than I just did when he told his disciples to preach the Gospel and use words if necessary.

           

          I could spend the rest of this homily spouting stuff about stewardship you’ve probably already heard.  But you get the picture.  Instead I’m going to tell you a story about someone very close to my heart.

           

          This is about my great aunt, Bertha Carter.  She was born in Washington Territory, before we became a state, in March of 1889.  And she died in Tacoma in 1993 at the age of 104.  She was my grandmother’s sister, the oldest of six siblings.

 

          My Aunt Bertha was what we used to call “a good Christian woman.”  That’s a term that has fallen out of style these days, and what a shame. We really ought to reclaim it.  Those simple words carry great positive energy and meaning, and in my humble opinion they are the main reason we come here every week.  To become good Christian women and men.

          

          So let’s try something.  Please turn to the person next to you right now and say to them, “You are a good Christian woman or man” and have them return the favor to you.  Try it.  See what I mean?  Those words can unleash an amazing, positive, grateful energy into the room. 

           

          Aunt Bertha didn’t have an easy life and she wasn’t famous.  Nobody wrote a book about her . . . but maybe I will.  She was a poor child who was forced to leave school after the fourth grade to work and help support the family.

 

           At the age of 18, she married a man almost twice her age, and they set out to homestead 40 hardscrabble acres on the road to Mount Rainier near Eatonville.  Together, they cut down trees and pulled stumps with a horse and harness, built their farm house and a cow barn, and ran a dairy farm for 40 years. 

           

          Here’s my favorite part of the story.  One day in 1915, her husband Curt got sick and couldn’t drive his rickety Ford truck to get their milk to the dairy in Tacoma.  So Bertha did it.  When she got into town, a cop pulled her over and demanded to know what she was doing.  He scolded her that women aren’t supposed to drive. 

 

          She pointed her finger right back at him and said if he didn’t get out of her way and let her get to the dairy the milk would go sour and the farm would go broke.  Well, she made it to the dairy. 

And the very next day Bertha showed up at whatever the Department of Motor Vehicles was back then and got what our family believes was the first driver’s license ever issued to a woman in the state of Washington. 

 

          When Curt died, Bertha was 60 years old.  She had to give up the farm.  And in order to support herself as a woman alone she took in and cared for what she called “old ladies” until she was 94.  Some of those old ladies were younger than she was.

 

          Bertha understood what living in gratitude means.  There was no church out in the country where she lived, so she started one.  A one-room, all-denomination Protestant church.  When she couldn’t persuade a pastor from town to come preach, she or Curt would do it. She took communion to the sick. Taught Sunday school.  Brought food to everybody.  And read the Bible to people who couldn’t see any more.

 

          She never owned any expensive clothes and didn’t want any.  She always wore simple cotton print dresses, and when they wore out she’d cut them up to make patches for the crazy quilts she sewed. 

 

          She had a habit of repeating certain key phrases – words to live by, she called them.  “Waste not, want not”….was one.  She made a pie out of every apple she ever picked. “The Lord will provide”. . .was another.  She didn’t live in fear; she knew her God would always come through. And, of course, there was, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”  She hurled that one at me when she caught me reading comic books instead of mowing the lawn.       

 

          After she left the farm, she would make what she called her “rounds” every Saturday morning to visit “her people.”  She drove the same car for 25 years.  It was a 1940 Ford V-8 with those “suicide” rear doors that opened backwards.  I loved that car.  I remember her pulling up to our house, bringing us something she’d grown or baked, always asking the same question:  “How are you folks doing today?”  We’d fill her in on our lives, and then she’d move on to the next set of “her people.”

 

           She wrote little notes of encouragement on scraps of paper, in her fourth-grade school girl script, and mailed them to those she thought were “down in the dumps.”  While I was in the Army in Vietnam, she’d send me chatty letters about the apples in her yard or the birds on her fence.  Sometimes she’d  enclose some religious pamphlets from Oral Roberts.  She’d scribble a note on each one saying something like, “Read this just before bedtime” or “Jesus wants you to know this.”

She gave away most of what little money she had.  She’d always say others needed it more than she did. 

The last time I saw Aunt Bertha was a few months before she died.  She was living in a nursing home.  She had become very impatient with God and just couldn’t understand why the Lord hadn’t taken her yet.  She was frustrated that she couldn’t drive and make her rounds any more. 

As I came to her room, I looked in and saw her standing at the bedside of her roommate, an elderly, bedridden woman with dementia.  The woman was moaning and trying to mouth some words.  Bertha was standing beside her, holding her hand, trying to calm her and asking if she’d like a drink of water or a bite of peaches.  Still taking care of old ladies, I thought to myself.

My Aunt Bertha was a good Christian woman.  She lived her life in gratitude for what God had given her and she demonstrated it in a hundred ways every day of her life.  Her treasure was where her heart was.  She was an active verb.

And so, my friends, my good Christian women and men, that’s the challenge I give you as we begin our stewardship season here at St. Augustine’s.  Live your lives in gratitude for everything you have been given.  Demonstrate it in a hundred ways every day of your life.  Show that your heart and your treasure are in the same good place.    

And guess what.  You can get started when you leave this room in a few minutes by signing up for the Stewardship Kick-Off event on Sept. 14.  The sign-up sheets are just outside Campbell Hall.  Then come to the Ministry Fair next Sunday and find a new ministry to commit yourself to.  Then pick up your financial pledge packet at the kick-off on September 14 and spend some time considering how you will support our parish in the year ahead.  Then turn in your pledge card at the All-Parish Dinner on October 23. 

And most of all:  Make yourself an active verb.



Welcome, Outcast!

 

Here are the words I spoke on Sunday January 26, 2014 at my parish,

St. Augustine's-in-the-Woods Episcopal Church on Whidbey Island.

           Well now.  This is interesting, isn’t it?  Me, standing up here.  I can just see my late, beloved mother out there among you, leaning over to the woman next to her and whispering, “Who does he think he is?  He’s not a preacher!”  No, mom, I’m not.  But as you well know, I always have something to say.  Our brave rector has courageously turned the pulpit over to me this morning.  And, Nigel, I am especially grateful that you offered it today and not on Super Bowl Sunday next week!

            What I have to say is more akin to a testimony, the kind the early Christians offered to each other when the Spirit moved them.  Speaking out loud about a truth as I have come to understand it. 

            I have spent my life and made my living with words.  And, since I became a Christian rather late in life, I’ve had the intriguing challenge of deciphering such exotic words as nave and narthex and catholic and eucharist, and—especially in this current season – epiphany.  What I have come to understand about epiphany is that it simply means understanding a mystery.  Or, perhaps more accurately, striving to understand a mystery. 

            The greatest mystery, of course, is Christ himself, and we are meant to spend our lives pondering that.  This morning, however, I want to talk about the mystery I find in a couple words we Episcopalians toss around quite a bit:  “Welcome” and “outcast.”  Both come from the Middle English.  “Welcome” meaning “one whose coming is pleasant.”  “Outcast” meaning someone who is rejected and literally cast out of the community.  

            My questions this morning:  What do we mean, exactly, when we say all are “welcome” here?  And who is an “outcast?”

To explain my epiphany about these two words, I first need to share a bit of my personal journey of faith.  All my life – and long before I became a Christian – I have seen signs that I believe came from God, and I have tried to pay attention to what those signs mean. 

            What I haven’t been all my life is religious.  My parents didn’t attend church, and after I failed at being a Swedish Lutheran as a teenager, neither did I.  As I came to grips with my sexual orientation as a gay man, I decided that Christianity was not for me.  That stuff about abomination in Leviticus can’t be swept under the rug.  I refused to take the socially acceptable way around it.  I just couldn’t lie and fake it and deny who I am in order to find favor with a God who thought I was abominable. 

            As I got older, however, I felt a yearning.  I was successful in my career and had a loving personal relationship with Terry, but it wasn’t enough.  One Sunday, a friend invited me to attend a small Episcopal church on, of all places, Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles, California.  Before I walked in, I noticed an old, rusty sign outside that read “The Episcopal Church Welcomes You” – exclamation point!

Being a confirmed skeptic, I could feel my suspicions rise.  Where’s the fine print?  The Episcopal Church Welcomes You – exclamation point!  So long as what?  So long as you look and act like us?  So long as you are straight?  So long as you agree with us politically and socially and biblically?  So long as you keep quiet about things that might make us feel uncomfortable or challenge our assumptions? 

            Those were my honest suspicions as I entered that church back in 1996.  And I’d be willing to bet they’re not much different from those of some people who pass by our church every day.  Whether we recognize it or not, churches have a lot of fine print that keeps people away.  What do you suppose our fine print says here at St. Augustine’s?

            Despite all my doubts, Jesus tapped me on the shoulder that Sunday 18 years ago.  I was baptized and confirmed within a year.  And, never being one to do things half way, I have since served on the vestry and been senior warden at three Episcopal Churches – Trinity in Santa Barbara, St. Thomas in Dallas and most recently right here at St. Augustine’s.           

I have found my spiritual home in the Episcopal Church.  And I’m proud of how far it has come in the past four decades, on civil rights, ordaining women and publicly accepting gay and lesbian parishioners, among many other things.  But I still wrestle with what the “welcome” sign means – like the one hanging outside our front door right now.  If we welcome everybody, do we expect “everybody” to change and be just like us?  Or, and here’s the rub, if we welcome everybody, are we willing to let “everybody” change us?  Welcome.  One whose coming is pleasant.  But what if they’re not who we’re expecting?

 I was struck by what Paul wrote in today’s reading from First Corinthians.  It seems that the church in Corinth was growing.  But it was attracting different kinds of Jesus followers who claimed allegiance to different disciples.  And they spent a lot of time arguing.  I presume, as in all church fights ever since, it was mostly over what’s correct and what’s not.  As I read it, Paul is pleading with folks to forget their silly differences and welcome everybody.  I’d say that advice still goes for us today.

Every week we Episcopalians gather for the Eucharist.  In the prayer, we hear that Jesus yearned to draw all the world to himself, and one way he did that was by breaking bread with sinners and outcasts. 

Think about that with me.  Sinners, we know, are those who disobey God.  All of us qualify for that label, don’t we?  But who’s an outcast, and who decides?  Other than the roundly detested tax collectors, who do you suppose the other “outcasts” were at those meals with Jesus? 

I’d guess they were lepers and anybody else considered unclean.  Widows and all unmarried women – certainly, there were no lower outcasts in the First Century.  The blind, literally and figuratively.  The destitute.  Anybody considered not a good enough Jew.  Maybe even a Greek or a Roman, on the down-low.   And, unless human nature was different then, I’d guess that a few gay people were there, too.  But unlike the other outcasts, they wouldn’t have dared say out loud why they were outcasts.  Only Jesus knew their secret. 

So why did the outcasts come to dinner with Jesus?   I suppose it’s because he gave them permission to be themselves and to be honest.  I imagine these dinners could get pretty loud and raucous.  Outcasts didn’t – or couldn’t – conform to society’s behavior norms of the day.

What else did Jesus do at these meals?  He acknowledged their common humanity simply by eating with them.  He listened.  He didn’t change the subject.  Their “different-ness” didn’t scare him.  He offered them hope.  He told them they weren’t outcasts in God’s eyes.  This was the world’s first come-as-you-are-party. 

We know from John’s Gospel that when the religious folk of the day saw Jesus hanging out with these outcasts, they were shocked and appalled.  They called him a glutton and a drunkard for associating with the likes of “them.”  Aha!  Now there’s the proof I’m looking for. 

“Outcast” is purely a human construct, isn’t it?  We create “outcasts” in order to feel superior to somebody else, to make them less than us.  That way it’s easier to dehumanize them.  The outcast label allows us to put out of sight things we don’t like or that make us feel uncomfortable.  Outcast.  Someone who is rejected and cast out of the community.     

 Don’t get me wrong.  I think we do pretty good job of welcoming the newcomer here at St. Augustine’s.  Certainly that was true in our case almost five years ago.  We have always felt a special warmth here, and Terry and I are very grateful for that. 

But if we’re truly honest, can we say that we fully model Jesus’s come-as-you-are party?  Are we a safe place where people can be authentic and open?   Do we really listen when what’s said is disagreeable or strange or makes us uncomfortable?  Do we expect newcomers to be like us once they join or are we open to the change they will bring to us?  Does the Episcopal Church Welcome You – question mark?

Jesus told us there would be a price to pay if we follow him.  Discipleship isn’t easy.  But he didn’t say exactly how our lives would change if we follow him.  In last week’s Gospel reading, two of John’s disciples asked Jesus where he was staying.  Remember what he told them?   “Come and see.”   That’s what I did that, and my life has changed.  Did he make me straight?  No.  But he did make me better.

            Most gay people grow up feeling like outcasts.  We don’t experience the romantic joys and disappointments of the teen years the way our peers do.  Too often we can’t share what we’re feeling with anyone.  Not our parents, not our friends, not our church.  It’s easier and safer to just stay quiet.  Even though things are better today than when I grew up, there still are many gay people – young and not so young – who struggle with this.  They really need an invitation to Jesus’s come-as-you-are party.

            But this isn’t just about gay people.  In one way or another, every one of us is an outcast.  Something about each of us makes somebody else disappointed, angry, embarrassed, uncomfortable or anxious, and they have cast us out.  That’s why we all need an invitation to the party.

While Terry and I were living in Dallas in 2008, I met Gene Robinson, the Episcopal Bishop of New Hampshire.  As many of you know, his election as a bishop, as an openly gay man, set off a shock wave across the Episcopal Church and the worldwide Anglican Communion.  Some quit the church.  Parishes split apart, including St. Stephen’s in Oak Harbor.  A few Episcopal bishops and a number of priests resigned.  The Archbishop of Canterbury disinvited Gene from the Lambeth Conference of Anglican Communion Bishops because of the worldwide uproar. 

The day in 2003 that he was installed as Bishop, Gene received death threats.  He wore a bulletproof vest under his vestments, and Mark, his partner of more than 20 years, went into hiding.

Gene visited our little parish in Dallas in 2008 as a favor to our rector, with whom he had attended seminary. The very conservative bishop of the Diocese of Dallas had forbidden Gene to vest or preside at the Eucharist while he was in town.

But our small, maverick of a parish was thrilled to have him among us.  As senior warden, I got to introduce Gene at coffee hour.  It was a joyous moment. 

He gave me a warm hug.  And as he did, I felt something like metal buckles down his back, and it dawned on me.  Gene was still wearing a bulletproof vest under his purple bishop’s shirt.  The Episcopal Church Welcomes You – question mark?

I’ll share a few of the words Gene spoke that morning: 

In the Gospel of John, Jesus says this really astounding thing.  “There is much that I would teach you.  But you cannot bear it right now.  So I will send the Holy Spirit who will lead you into all truth.”  I take that to mean this:  Don’t think for a minute – you bunch of thick-headed, uneducated fisherman I chose as my disciples – that God is done with you and those who come after you.  Does anyone doubt that we were led by the Holy Spirit to turn our backs on defending slavery using Scripture?  Is it not the Holy Spirit that is leading us to a fuller understanding of the gifts, integrities and experiences of women?  And I would say that the Holy Spirit is leading us to recognize gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.  We should see this as a sign of a living God.  He didn’t retire someplace in the Bahamas at the end of the first century.  He has never stopped revealing himself.

God bless you, Gene Robinson, and amen.  And may the Holy Spirit continue to lead us into all truth here at St. Augustine’s.