During Thanksgiving week, I was feeling grateful for an afternoon's pleasant visit with a dear friend when it struck me: She might not even be a friend if I hadn't changed.
You see, she's gay, and I grew up in a culture that shunned gay people. The only messages I heard from the church were silence (my church) or condemnation (all of the other churches). At school, gay people were the butt of mean jokes and harsh nicknames. Gay people protected themselves by being invisible, "in the closet." I came to adulthood not having known an openly gay person.
My delightful visit brought back a memory. It was 1977, my first semester in seminary. Michael was the guest speaker for a small group seminar on the "hot topic" of homosexuality and the church. Michael was an openly gay priest from New Jersey. I had never met anyone like him.
Tall and angular, with a quiet steady voice, Michael shared his story, similar to so many I've heard since then. From childhood he knew he was different. When other boys said, "Um-um. Did you see that?" as a pretty girl walked by, Michael didn't see. He did see the Marlboro Man on the cigarette billboards. Everything Michael heard from his church, family, school and culture told him that his natural feelings were "bad." He struggled to repress those feelings, and he prayed to God to help him.
In college, he dated his "best friend," confiding in her his conflicted feelings. They believed that they could pray and love each other through everything, and so they married, had kids, and he followed a lifelong call, becoming a minister.
The marriage was kind and cordial, but never really fulfilling. It seems she knew the honest outcome even before he did. They went together to ask the priest who married them to return with them back to the altar. There in the presence of their children, they released each other from their marriage vows. They blessed one another into new futures, and they promised to love and care for their children faithfully and lovingly.
Once Michael became honest, open with himself and with others, he experienced peace -- spiritual and psychological peace. He was able to restart his ministry, though no longer on track toward a big church. He was led to a more modest, yet honest and satisfying ministry.
When Michael finished talking, I can't remember what the others in the room said, but I remember vividly what I said. I leaned forward, looked directly at Michael, pointed my finger as him and said with passion, "But don't you know? Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit."
Michael looked straight at me, with gentle non-reaction. Then he spoke with a voice of deep intensity and absolute authenticity: "Yes! Yes! My body IS the temple of the Holy Spirit." He fixed his eyes on me with utter integrity.
Something in me cracked. Michael's answer was completely authentic and true. Yet it was contrary to everything I had been taught. Through that crack the Holy Spirit poured in. During the next months, I explored a new way of thinking, seeing and believing. My mind changed and my heart opened. And I can't count how many happy relationships I've enjoyed thanks to that holy conversion.
Michael helped me recognize that I grew up in a culture that was wrong about something very important. My culture was wrong also about other important things.
Our deepest sin was racial. Deep, structural multi-generational racism infects everything in the part of the country where I grew up.
My culture also inherited multi-generational gender stereotypes and prejudices. Slowly, women have been gaining their rightful claim to equal rights and power. Slowly, we are beginning to recognize the claims for respect and dignity for other marginalized children of God.
Thanks to Michael's gift to me, it became easier for me to see the humanity, beauty and grace in my transgender acquaintances and in their families. And when a beloved member of my own family claimed their non-gender identity, it was a joy to support them.
For me it was a matter of simply opening my eyes and heart to see the grace and goodness in ordinary people like Michael.
Saint Paul puts it this way: "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and temperance. There is no law against these things." (Galatians 5::22-23)