Split personality?*

Sometimes I feel like several different people all at once. At the very least there is the priest, the professor, and the vital young man (he’s in here someplace, I just know it!). How can this be? Well, of course, multiple realities are consistent with the nature of the universe. We all are one and yet we all are separate atomic beings as well. So it is only natural that the diversity of all creation is mirrored in each of us.

This, too, is how we have come to understand God—as a Holy Trinity—three in one and one in three. God the creator who has caused all things to be, whose love is the energy that transforms chaos into beauty, whose breath is the wind that gives life to all things—God is at the core of existence. All my life I have heard people call God “him” as though God were a human, and a male at that. Of course, this is human chutzpah. We are created in God’s image. God is not created in our image. God is God and that is all we need to know. This is what God says whenever anyone asks—“I AM.”

Jesus of Nazareth, born of Mary and of the power of the Holy Spirit, is the eternal incarnation of God. Jesus is God‐with‐us, and Jesus is with us always, as the visible proof of God’s promise that our life is continuous and eternal. It is from Jesus that the truth about God’s will for humanity is given in simple and straightforward terms: we are to love God and each other with mutual respect and with all of the will God has given us. It is the action of this willful loving embrace that creates God’s kingdom among humankind, like the spinning of a potter’s wheel acts to shape the clay.

The Holy Spirit is the power of God’s love come among us and dwelling within us to fuel for us this action of eternal and universal love. This, then, is God the trinity—creator, redeemer, and sanctifier.

What about you and me and our multiple personas? We need only remember that we are as God has created us, and that that is indeed in God’s own image. We are gay and that is good, we are loving and that is good, we are vital and that is good—it all is good in God’s image. And we are to live fully into the lives God has given us, gay as gay can be, and by so doing we are to lend our energy to the love that not only brings the kingdom into being but keeps it alive and vital eternally.

*1 Pentecost or Trinity Sunday (Genesis 1:1‐2:4a, Psalm 8, 2 Corinthians 13:11‐13, Matthew 28:16‐20)
©2011 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

More or less random thoughts

I missed the last two Sundays, I know.

On the 5th I was traveling home to Philadelphia from Fredericton, New Brunswick. I had been there for an academic conference, a really great, inspiring, conference. I decided to make my “prayer” for that day the trip itself. My first flight, from Fredericton to Montréal, was on a Dash-8 prop-jet. I hadn’t seen one of those since I lived in Illinois 30 years ago. It was on time, and although it was packed, it also was pleasant enough. In fact, the whole experience was pretty pleasant (the conference, the travel both directions, the visit to Fredericton), if not really exciting. The second flight was an immense A330, which had just flown from Brussels to Montréal, and also was packed with Dutch-speakers. That was fun. I could understand them, but their accent was a little thick, so I’ve no idea where, exactly they came from … however, it had a Dutch ring to it so I don’t think they were Flemish. Maybe they’re from Maastricht or Limburg. The final flight was an Embraer, which is what makes Air Canada flights to and from Toronto so much nicer than those horrid US Scareways Express flights. All together a very nice trip. It was especially noticeable that, although I had three flights, all were on time, smooth, pleasant. Try to do that on US Scareways.

Fredericton might be the provincial capital, but it was a very small city. If there is gay life there I never found it. People were pretty nice, and very helpful, but I did feel sort of out of place. Also, almost all of the service employees I ran into–hotel, bar, restaurants, even cab drivers–were women. It began to dawn on me that young men probably leave when they get out of school to go to Toronto or someplace metropolitan to make their careers. Interesting. There was a night-club that is listed as a gay bar, but it was rarely open, so I never got to it. I was working, after all.

Yesterday I preached and celebrated at CHT in the morning (it was Pentecost after all), and in the afternoon I blessed pets at the William Way LGBT Community Center’s booth at Philly Pride. That was fun. We did somewhat better with it this year, and by my count I blessed 14 dogs. I blessed 6 cats by remote (ha, I gave the owners a “blessing” card to take home with them). Two other dogs came by to have some of the cool water, but their owners didn’t want them blessed. I did notice that the people who brought their pets to be blessed were very gentle sorts of people. It made me wonder whether there is some nurturing instinct that some lgbt people have, that correlates with the way they manage their pet relationships. All of these people commented (which got my attention, because it happened 14 times) that the dogs were a bit freaked out by all of the people at Pride. Interesting.

The sermon I gave in the morning is available on CHT’s website. It is titled “Receive the Holy Spirit.” I found myself, as I was composing it, outing myself anew. As a preacher for my former lgbt interparish ministry I often gave very openly gay-affirming sermons, but since I’d gone to CHT I had been aware I had pulled back. I’m glad I’ve gotten over that hump now. It was a little thing, really–I was describing my experiences of the Holy Spirit and although getting ordained was clearly going to be on the list, I also had to include getting married to Brad.

Being married has been quite an eye-opener. We have been together 33+ years, married 3+ years. But since we’ve been married there is something about the quality of  the relationship that has changed, in much the same way there is a sort of ontological shift that comes with being ordained. I wrote in the sermon that it is the matter of receiving the Holy Spirit’s gift of unity as part of the marriage–unity with each other, and our collective unity (as two-made-one) with God. I really believe this to be the case. I was amused, as often, about the little matter of when I raise my hands to the orans position to begin the Sursum corda, I can see out of the corner of my left eye the candle-light gleaming in my wedding ring. It always reminds me that I’m married, that Brad is with me, and that God is part of it. Neat, huh?

Well, I said these were more or less random thoughts.

But lgbt people who think marriage won’t make a difference in their relationships need to ponder this. The sermon is here: http://www.htrit.org/worship/sermons.html.