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Definitely Not the Opera, (DNTO) a CBC Radio One program devoted to the art of storytelling in Canada, asked me to tell my story of coming out to my church for their Nov 3 show “Lost Causes”.

I had pitched the idea to them last year for a different show called “Making Enemies” but withdrew the pitch because a) I don’t think I meant to make enemies, nor do I think I have made enemies; and 2) because I didn’t want to restir a pot that has finally calmed down.

But they remembered my pitch.  And they sought me out.  Which is humbling, and cool.  We recorded on Friday morning and they are editing my lengthy story to 3-4 minutes.  I appreciate Andrew Friesen’s belief that my story was important and needed to be told.  I feel like the story is more appropriate under “Lost Causes” because trying to reason with people who don’t want to listen to you, or discuss with you–and believing that you alone have to spark change–well, it can feel like a “Lost Cause”.  But in the end–and the end hasn’t come yet–who knows if the cause is lost?  I think every person who says the church must look at the evidence, must consider the Christian testimonies of LGBT folks in the discussion, is a step towards change.  We need more people who realize how many people have fallen away from the faith, have decided against Christ, have been repelled from the church, and who, sometimes when there is no hope left, taken their own lives, all because the Church has historically refused to consider the scriptures in an accepting light–and this causes their members to refuse to accept their children in an accepting light.  This splits familes.  My God and my Christ are not what I encounter when I come into a Baptist Church anymore.  I daresay they wouldn’t recognize it.  Churches are not all one defined Mass though–as many churches are beginning to change their minds about LGBT people.  Episcopals, Lutherans, Presbyterians, United Church of Canada–all have begun seeing that this is just the next issue the church has to rethink.  As it did slavery, race, and its treatment of Women.  And divorce.  Change comes when people inside churches decide they can’t hold false doctrine anymore.  Christianity and Faith are not the problem.  Interpretation is.

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Geez Magazine, editor Melanie Dennis Unrau, selected two of my short pieces to go in Geez’s fall issue.  One of them, Undercover at the Festival of Faith and Writing, you can read as a web-exclusive.  The other “As the Spirit Moves Me” is available in the newsstand print copy.

If you came here from Geez 27, thanks!  and Welcome!  You’ll find some additional pieces from my trip to the Festival of Faith and Writing.  Think of them as addendums–things I couldn’t fit into such a small space.

Four essays:

Gay at Calvin College: more about going to the festival and wanting to do something to help those who are gay at Calvin College

The Last Supper: Johnny’s Cafe remix: mainly a photo where I asked students in the cafe to recreate Da Vinci’s  Last Supper.

Christians (Wanting to) Talk about Sex: where I go into depth about one of the seminars there—as no one recorded it for later discussion.

Marilynne Robinson, Hero–which talks in depth about her keynote address and the reaction of the crowd, and later comments at the college

Together, they comprise most of my Calvin College experience.  I should write up more of the seminars–and I will.  Certainly they will not be what others gathered there.  Take into consideration who I am and what I felt being there.  I am a Christian, a Writer, and a gay man.

I enjoyed Calvin College’s conference immensely and will go back in two years.

I hope these four supplemental blogposts will enrich the essay you did read in GEEZ.

It’s sometimes impossible to boil down an experience into 1000 words, or 1500, or 750.

“As the Spirit Moves Me” is a 500 word piece on going to my birthmother’s church, at Camp Chesterfield, a famous psychic institution.  I need to write the full story there—it’s quite amazing.

Thanks.  J

 

Let Me Worship as I Am

photo by Danny Rothenberg / Rapport for Newsweek

A wonderful first person essay in Newsweek in June. Jimmy Doyle writes from the heart. His search for a church that accepted him and accepted his gifts and his worship resonates with every gay Christian who sits in the pew of a non-accepting church, as well as those who get up, walk out and find a new one.

Gays must be included in the life of the church as God planned them to be.

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From a young age I felt called to Christ. But as a gay man, I took a long time to find my spiritual home.

By Jimmy Doyle | NEWSWEEK

From the magazine issue dated Jun 23, 2008

In October 2005 I took the soup. To an Irish Catholic, “taking the soup” means going to the other side, turning Protestant. During the famine years, one could get a bowl of soup if one sat through a Protestant service, which meant automatic excommunication in those pre-ecumenical days. So the slang was born, implying desertion of the One True Church in order to make life easier.

I suppose what I took wasn’t soup, but it was comfort. I took a life steeped in the mystery and rhythm of the church along with what I hoped was a life with the integrity of being an open, practicing gay man. When I turned to the Episcopal Church, I saw a Christianity that was alive and evolving, one that delighted in difference and saw God’s creation in many things, including women and openly gay men serving as priests and bishops. I saw a chance to get past the separation and sanctimony of the more vocal Christian presence in American society, and a challenge to get to the more nuanced and tricky teachings of Christ—loving your neighbor and all that. I hoped to live and worship as I was created, not as I was condemned. And so I took catechism at St. Thomas the Apostle, where the smells and bells made me feel at home, although the challenges of parish life made me want to sleep some Sundays. After six months of classes in the teachings of the Anglican faith, I was “received” into the communion in a high mass attended by friends and my partner, with not a dry eye in the house. The healing I felt as I stood before the assistant bishop and reaffirmed my faith was, without a doubt, of the Spirit.

Read the rest here: “Let Me Worship as I am”