What a difference the right church makes, eh? For queer and trans people, the right church can be a matter of life and death.
I grew up believing that you look for churches within the denomination you were raised in, and pretty much, if you stayed within those safe theological walls, you’d have a good experience, one that you were used to. Familiar. Like Church Branding. Stick with the Brand Name and you’d have the quality and taste you were looking for. If you grow up in “the church,” that concept is so ingrained in you. More than the brand of jeans you buy, your favorite burger place, the make of your car, even the teams you root for. None of those choices would affect the next ten thousand years of your happy eternal life. You will stick to your brand pretty strongly.
An “off-brand” church is an unknown path. I was raised to believe that Baptists (somehow) hold the Truth about Everything Spiritual and that Presbyterians were slightly off–like 10 degrees off to port. I know this is ludicrous, but follow the bouncing logic here…
“Open my mouth, and let me bear gladly the warm truth ev’rywhere; Open my heart, and let me prepare love with Thy children thus to share. Silently now I wait for Thee, ready, my God, Thy will to see; open my mouth, illumine me, Spirit divine!”
— Clara Scott (1895) “Open My Eyes that I May See”
What is it that we need to say today?
The loudest Christians, the ones interviewed, the ones that are commentators on roundtables and talk shows and discussions are conservative evangelicals. They are considered the “other side” of the argument when it comes to the value and worth of the lives of trans and queer people. I don’t like the premise. We should not be up for debate on whether we should have marriages, teach your kids, serve in the military, go to a public bathroom, or in some conversations, whether we deserve to live.
On the bright side, there are thousands of churches and many denominations of religion and faith that accept and affirm LGBTQ people as worthy of love and equal status and the right to choose their expression. I have been privileged to attend several churches like that in my life, but I know of many many more. The problem is that we just don’t hear those churches very often on the screens we are watching. Reverend Budde of the Episcopal Church made such a strong statement for the worth and care of every individual on the Inauguration of DT. She had a platform and she used it.
We don’t always get those platforms. Perhaps we are not naturally loud people. But we are going to have to speak up louder because a) people seem to think that Christianity and being LGBTQ are incompatible (they are not–and there are great books and websites which will explain the details to you if you are fuzzy on them or unsure), b) Queer people have been so hurt by evangelical churches that they can’t see the churches that will celebrate their true selves. There are whole denominations of Episcopalian Churches, Presbyterian Churches, United Church of Canada churches, United Methodist Churches, American Baptist Churches, just to name a few, that have fought for queer and trans inclusion so hard as to have endured a split in their denomination to do it.
I heard a sermon Sunday about one such divisive vote in the United Methodist Church.
How do we protect those we love from those who question their very worth, their humanity, their right to exist? How do we protect ourselves from that constant batt-le?
Bears are pretty powerful all by themselves, but sometimes armor is called for. Bears have claws and poundage and teeth and jaws. But these are bears I found inside music–and they work differently. In the Bible, Paul talks about putting on the armor of God–and describes breastplates of righteousness, helmets of salvation, sword of the spirit, etc. Far be it from me to edit SAINT Paul– known for his perfect wisdom about what to do with women in the church, about singleness, about sexuality– but I’m going to anyway.
The bears I had didn’t defend me by attacking others; they defended me by empowering me and equipping me with better armor, better defensive structures.
They gave me a Helmet of Empathy– a way to see others struggling to see me, a way of understanding where they were coming from so that I could see them as worthy of love too; frankly, a helmet of Salvation further divides us into “saved” and “unsaved,” worthy and unworthy. Empathy makes us all worthy of being saved, protected, understood.
In my new job, as a tarot reader (spiritual life coach), I meet a lot of people who have barely survived evangelical churches. A lot. Many of them are queer like me. Others may not be queer, but they too got judged, hurt, ostracized, and/or punished for years by a church.
Our shop, The Sacred Owl and Salt Room is a sanctuary and a destination for people in East Tennessee who want to still connect to their spirituality and their faith but they don’t know if a church and steeple should come with that faith. And that’s completely understandable. Who goes back to the places that hurt you? Or even the ones that look like those places? However, something is still calling to them, and they don’t know what it is, but they want to hold on to part of the faith they were brought up in, but leave behind the exclusion, the judgement.
They want a God who is strong enough to hold them, but loving enough not to hurt them.
They want this for themselves and they want this for their kids.
“All Our Griefs to Bear,” Jerome Stueart, (11 x 17), watercolor, mixed media on paper. Part of the Bears in the Baptist Hymnal series.
Bears were symbols for the protection I felt through music–through singing the word, “bear,” every Sunday, as if God were speaking to me and sending me strength. It helped guard me against the criticisms I received or the feelings of doubt. I wish all our LGBTQ folks still in conservative, evangelical churches, in communities and towns and cities full of evangelical church goers, this kind of protection–whether they, like me, need to mentally imagine a bear protecting them, or whether they need us to be that protection. Be the shield. Be the Bear. Be the physical, verbal, soulful protection they need to survive the horde of negative onslaught in their daily lives, in the news, in legislative and judicial places. They need us to stand with them, shield them. They too are holy. They too are divine. They need to be protected. Be the shield, be the bear, be the protection that bears their grief, bears with them the barbs and arrows aimed at them, strengthens them with presence and love so they can find safety at this time.
Queer and Trans folks have always been a part of churches, supporting them and bearing them up. You just might not have known who they were. Many chose to stay quiet and serve the church–a job they love–rather than risk that good work by coming out.
I remember once, in 2004 or 2005, when I had returned to the US after discovering I was gay, I was dating the pianist for an MCC church in Lubbock (a church that was created by and for and served the LGBTQ community and anyone else who wanted to participate and enjoy). He took me to a secret Saturday Board Game Day for queer men. These were friends of Jay, and met in someone’s home. They were all in their 50s and 60s, playing Snakes and Ladders on folding tables, laughing and calling each other “old queens.” I felt accepted and loved and pulled in to this “secret” meeting. Why was it secret?
They were the music ministers, pianists or organists at local churches in the Lubbock area. They were all closeted, except for the man who brought me there, and they told me stories of “little old women” who loved them because they reminded them of Liberace. And they would laugh, but you could tell that they loved being loved— who doesn’t?
But they couldn’t come out. They were beloved by their churches—but they were certain it would all disappear if they came out.
Every straight teen boy could stand up in a congregation and announce that he was engaged to the girl sitting beside him and the church would cheer for them, but for these men, they couldn’t talk about who they loved, and if they did, they had to mask. It was necessary to keep their jobs, homes, livelihoods, friends, all of it. Coming out in a church in Lubbock, you could just as easily trip on a snake and be sent to the bottom of the board.
Even in these conditions, in George W Bush’s America of 2004, 2005, a re-election won by scaring conservatives about gay marriage, these men, these “old queens” were happy to be here in this house, free to be themselves, playing games and reassuring each other that they were not alone. Their energy and joy was their survival and rebellion. They continued to serve their congregations that same energy and joy–and they were responsible for the feelings people had coming to church. Their joy translated into joy for everyone who came; their love for the music or the arts or the theatre had a ripple effect on everyone. They bear up the souls of every member of the congregation. I celebrate them today and hope that in the future they can all be fully loved and celebrated and affirmed for who they are in every aspect.
The song on the rainbow music here is “Be Still My Soul, the Lord is on your side. Bear patiently, the cross of grief or pain.” Let’s celebrate and send love and support to all those who love to give us joy through music and the arts in our churches (and in other areas) even when they have to erase part of themselves to survive in their churches. I hope there is a secret Board Game Saturday in all the cities for all of them.
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“Bearing Up the Church,” Jerome Stueart, (11 x 15) watercolor, mixed media on paper. Part of my Meditations on the Bears in the Baptist Hymnal series. Prints available at Redbubble.
I had best hits of the 80s playing when I drew this (“I was dreaming when i wrote this…”) so I was singing hard in my studio… and I pray everyone else in adjoining studios was okay with that! But I know the lyrics to hundreds of 80s songs… embedded in my core memory forever. Not useless data. Valuable data. Shared experience data. You know old folks homes for Gen Xers are gonna be filled with the best music. Nobody will come in there on weekends to play “a bicycle built for two”–they’ll bring in a cover band and play Journey, “Someday love will find you, BREAK those chains that BIND you!” And all us old Xers will be rockin’ out and singing along.
Do you sing in the bedroom? If you have a partner, do they sing in the bedroom? Do you sing together in the bedroom sometimes? (I count the shower as the bedroom in some houses!) Then do you bust up laughing because it’s so wonderful and funny? 70’s-80s songs, Broadway, Disney and church hymns…. that’s my on-call repertoire. Some Irish ballads… folk songs… and okay, Dan Fogelberg and the Beatles can be pulled up when necessary. Currently, songs from Nathaniel Rateliff, Rag & Bone Man, Taylor Swift, and Adele run through my head–because they got me through the pandemic by dropping albums into our difficult times like rocks into a still lake. (And now—Sam Smith and Kim Petras’ “Unholy” is so damn catchy, I’ve been playing that over and over while I work on the big King O the Cats painting) Anyway! When I have had someone who likes to sing, it’s fun to sing with them. (Some cute guy I know enjoys singing in the car! And it’s nice to blend with him down the curvy road.)
Where do songs come from inside us? Are they stored with feelings? I don’t think they are in a bin called “music” in our brain because if someone asked me what I know by heart I couldn’t tell you… that file is empty… but let me have a feeling, and wow, I get songs with lyrics that match that feeling flood my brain. If I hear three notes outside from a windchime–I can sing a whole song in full. Or turn on the car radio and all my notes are there.
There are songs appropriate for every feeling we’ve felt and I thank musicians for cataloguing those experiences and feelings so well. When I have to clean, I turn on the music to get me happy enough not to mind the cleaning. When I am sad, I turn on music to purge the sadness, to reflect in it, to bleed it out. Music puts us on a collective train of a feeling–and the lyrics and our lives merge in the windows of the shared landscape passing by. By the end of the song, we know the singer has “felt” our experience, and we theirs, our shared music of the moment
In the bedroom, we have a chance for many duets. Yeah, our voices aren’t perfect all the time. (But I bet opera baritone Bryn Terfel’s morning voice can be froggy hilarious too!) But I love my partner’s voice. I love singing with him. I love laughing about how we know all the lyrics, or- or- or- or… stay with me… how I memorized the lyrics ALL wrong… and those can be really funny too. Music allows us to share feelings– in a way like no other. We are full-throated blasting the Joy of our “Summer of 69” or we are harmonizing and synching in the sadness of our “Mercy Street” together. It puts us, for a moment, on the same page as our partner. And they know, even when they can’t express their feelings in words yet, that yeah, we “feel” their music too.
Very happy and honored to tell you that my novelette, “Postlude to the Afternoon of a Faun” originally published in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (Mar/Apr 2019) is a finalist for the 2020 Eugie Foster Memorial Award!
The Eugie Foster Memorial Award for Short Fiction (or Eugie Award) celebrates the best in innovative fiction. This annual award is presented at Dragon Con, the nation’s largest fan-run convention. Starting with the 2020, we will add a video presentation of the award online, along with a reading of a section of each finalist.
The Eugie Award honors stories that are irreplaceable, that inspire, enlighten, and entertain. We will be looking for stories that are beautiful, thoughtful, and passionate, and change us and the field. The recipient is a story that is unique and will become essential to speculative fiction readers.
You can learn on the website what a wonderful writer and person Eugie Foster was, and about her legacy. I’m deeply honored to be on a list recognized by those associated with her.
Four other writers are also featured with their stories:
“A Civilization Dreams of Absolutely Nothing” by Thoraiya Dyer (Analog Science Fiction and Fact)
I’ve had a wonderful two days just telling people that I became a finalist and receiving so much positive feedback. I kinda feel that being a finalist with all these cool authors and stories is its own reward! It’s really filled my soul with love in this very tumultuous time.
There are still many changes to make in the world. We will make them! Today, it was nice to feel loved.
PS. Yes that is my illustration for the story. It was something created way after the story was accepted and in print… but it was fun to doodle.
I only published one thing this year, 2019, but it was a big publication for me. “Postlude to the Afternoon of a Faun” was a novelette (8000 words) published in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in the March/April 2019 issue and is eligible for Canadian and American writing awards. It is Fantasy. It’s about the power of music, music mentoring, about the courage to go on after loss, and features jazz-playing fauns. The character is queer and disabled. He stays queer and disabled and alive through the whole story.
Below you’ll find a link to the whole story here online, or you can read an excerpt from it.
*I am a Canadian and American writer, holding dual citizenship.
Thank you for visiting my 2019 year round up page, and I hope you enjoy my story.
Excerpt:
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Postlude to the Afternoon of a Faun
Mr. Dance couldn’t keep his eyes off Eric’s clarinet. From the moment the young football player opened the black case and revealed the instrument, Mr. Dance knew that what he thought had been broken– as his legs were– or lost–as he felt–had instead been hidden for a hundred years.
I like finding science fiction in odd places. Janelle Monáe is a genius. Think if the Archies had been a ska band with a funk lead singer. But she’s more than that. She’s also a brilliant storyteller. Her “Many Moons” reimagines the beginnings of science fiction cinema, Metropolis. She gives the silent film Metropolis the soundtrack it needed. For Janelle, Metropolis is about many androids now…and there are comments on slave auctions, blaxploitation, and the lack of freedom–for anyone. For women, for minorities, for humans in a world overcome by technology. There is no fear of androids in “Many Moons”—but even I would think that at the corners of the movie Monae makes, there is jealousy at the perfection of the androids, and even a bit of jealousy when Cindy Mayweather erupts in a spasm of freedom, or is it a spasm of realization that she is not free…. all I know is that she breaks loose and begins to dance, dance so high, that she short circuits. But the crowd is in ecstasy with her.
Monae has certainly looked here at humanity as commodity. She’s done it with brass. And artistry. She’s even mixed in a bit of Sesame Street.
I like finding science fiction in odd places. And this small film is beautiful. It’s got solid worldbuilding where she’s imagined, in one scene, the state of society. The characters all have the hint of well-developed backstories; they have desires, weaknesses, past confrontations. Cindy Mayweather grows as an android/character. Her growth, perhaps, comes from her realizations–of the names that keep her as Other. The names are not androidish—they are names leveled at minorities. Check out the Cybernetic Chantdown after the break.
Bear Witness 