songs

Open My Mouth and Let Me Bear

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“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.

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My Burden Gladly Bearing

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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.

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Bear the Light

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Bear the Light.

When I first came out, I stayed in my church for a year and a half to try and start a dialogue, and to help try and mend the rift that my coming out suddenly caused. I didn’t want to abandon friends and family that I loved. But I didn’t realize how hard staying in the church would be, and how much of a toll it can take on your mind and your heart to hear over and over again that God does not agree with you, and that friends are trying to tell you that you are wrong and need to change. It can wear your resolve down and make you doubt God and your own truth.

I used to tell others who come out to their church to stay, help reason with them and to show them love and to give them a queer or trans person to speak to and understand. But I can’t ask anyone to stay in a toxic environment–there are better churches, whole congregations out there who will love you, understand you and support you. Shout out to Whitehorse United Church and First Baptist Church, Dayton, OH for being two of those churches.

Go, my beautiful LGBTQ friends, families and allies, and find the love you were promised, free of judgment.

“Bear the Light,” (11 x 15) Jerome Stueart, watercolor, mixed media on paper. Second in the series, Meditations on the Bears in the Baptist Hymnal. Prints available at Redbubble in Bearnabas shop.