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.