Essential Glory

What does it feel like to be gay?

I have been pondering that for decades. I know it feels like I feel. I am gay and this is how I feel so this must be what it feels like to be gay. I know it feels different in some ways from what it must feel like to be straight. I know there are obvious emotions concerning sexual attraction but I also know that those are not the most of it. I know that when I am in the physical presence of my beloved I don’t perceive gayness.

[I had better make it explicit that although I identify with the LGBTQ community I obviously only have the experience of being gay. I understand what it feels like to be LBTorQ only tangentially from my interactions with the community. On the other hand, of course, much of what all of us experience comes from the reality of being somehow “other.”]

I know that I am most aware of my sexuality in that sense when I am in an exclusively heterosexist environment. I know that decades ago when my closest friends had a baby girl and made jokes about how she was eyeing the baby boys in the nursery I was really angry that there was simply the assumption that everybody had to be heterosexual until proven otherwise. That time I felt gay. That was a sense of oppression.

I know that my first experience of the Gay Games in New York in 1994 was both humorous and joyous. I was only vaguely aware of the impending games when, early one morning, I hopped down to the corner near my Chelsea apartment to grab a newspaper and a bagel and I was shocked that everybody around me seemed to be gay. I laughed out loud (really!) as I had that realization “Oh, this must be what it feels like to be straight most of the time.” A friend promptly called and invited me to go with him to the opening ceremony and as we rode the subway up the west side all I could see anywhere were LGBT people. It was my first experience of feeling like I was in the majority, of feeling like I was not different in some way. It was glorious.

There you have it—glory is that sensation of love that comes from inside. Glory is love incarnated in our daily experience. The surprising red tomatoes in my garden are glory, my husband walking around the neighborhood each afternoon is glory, the rain chasing away the wildfire danger is glory. We make a mistake when we look for glory outside of ourselves instead of in our own hearts.

The love we experience is glory.

What does it feel like to be gay? Well, glorious, of course!

To remain in a state of glory requires that essential action of walking in love. It is too easy to challenge reality, to challenge love, to challenge God by being angry instead of remembering to walk in love. When we dwell in anger, even justified anger, we stop loving and become self-focused (Job 38:1-2). But when we remember to walk in love the anger dissipates and love fills life with joy. All creation shouts for joy when God’s creatures experience the glory of walking in love.

But what are we to do with those feelings that gave rise to anger, what are we to do with that feeling of oppression? This, too, requires essential action, to lovingly seek justice and righteousness. This requires wisdom that comes from a lifetime of walking in love (Psalm 104:25). This requires the wisdom that comes with sharing the cup of Christ (Mark 10:38), which is the baptism of walking in love. We must push through the anger, through the sadness, through even grieving until we reach the other dimension, where we see the glory of love shared.

What, then, does it feel like to be? To be a living member of creation sharing the power of the love that binds everything together is glorious.

Proper 24 Year B 2021 RCL (Job 38:1-7, (34-41); Psalm 104:1-9, 25, 37b Benedic, anima mea; Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45)

©2021 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

Ontological shift*

It has been a curious year.

I had a spell of illness, not serious but temporarily debilitating, earlier in the year. As often happens, like a summer storm, it led to a period of much improved health. As I said, curious.

I continued to work in Europe, making visits to Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Heraklion this year, as well as to Ottawa and Toronto in Canada. Immigration security is tight everywhere—immigration officers in every country routinely meet you at the door of your arriving aircraft looking for passports. But otherwise things are much the same as always. It was a relief to find Crete looking shiny and clean and with business seeming to thrive despite the news we hear in the west about Greek economics. While I was in Heraklion I purchased this icon of the Annunciation. I knew there was a reason, I just didn’t know what it was.

Marriage equality became the law in the United States this year, allowing same-sex couples in the US to join those in much of the rest of the developed world. It has been interesting to watch this evolution over a period of about a decade and a half. Once we all said routinely that we didn’t need marriage, we had our own loving approach to partnership. But once the possibility existed in reality we thirsted for equality. Many of us who were long-partnered were among the first to wed. Many of us were surprised to discover it does, in fact, make a difference. My own experience was that it shifted the manner of being in our relationship as we became literally each other’s family. It was reminiscent of the famous ontological shift priests experience in ordination. It is an awareness that something is radically different along one dimension even as everything else stays the same. My husband and I now in the 39^th year of our relationship and the 8^th year of our marriage are ever more deeply in love and ever more connected spiritually.

Elsewhere terror and violence have spread around the world. Politics seems to have run amok everywhere. And yet the scripture speaks to us as always. “In those days” the story of Mary’s annunciation begins. “Consequently” is the opening of today’s appointed passage from Hebrews. God’s mercy and compassion are eternal and timeless. The world exists in many dimensions—chaos along one intersecting with peace and joy in another. It’s tough to be human, even in these days. Just as it was then. When the angel came to Mary to bring her the news that she would bear the prophesied child it was into a moment of grace in a chaotic life. This is how God always comes to us it seems. It is up to us to embrace the news, to allow God’s grace to work in and through us. It is up to us to live through the ontological shift.

For God a heartbeat is a thousand years long and a millenium is but a second. Micah (5:2-4) prophesies the advent of a child of Bethlehem “whose origin is from of old” but who will “stand and feed his flock” forever, and this flock, that would be us, will “live secure” because this child will become “the one of peace.” It is not a prediction, it is a prophecy. It is not a bet or a riddle, it is the story—the narrative—of the reality of the coming into each human heart of a moment of ontological change that takes place when we realize we are the children of God. This is the meaning of Christmastide, which is now upon us.

Prepare, once again, for the ontological shift that is Christ’s birth within and among us.

©2015 The Rev. Dr. Richard P. Smiraglia. All rights reserved.

*4 Advent (Micah 5:2-5a, Canticle 15 Magnificat, Hebrews 10: 5-10, Luke 1:39-49 (50-56))