speak

a very brief word.

i love north carolina.

that's why it hurts.

and let us not forget that there are very many wonderful people in north carolina who love lgbt people. many wonderful people in north carolina who speak out against discrimination.

the temptation is to speak hatred back.

but what does that do?

how does it make us look? like those who do not understand or who do hate us want to paint a picture of us?

we cannot afford to label everyone in the state as a bigot, a redneck, a hick, or an incestuous homophobe. because it just isn't true. and we know it.

we know how it feels to be labeled.

let us not speak words of hatred and labeling today.

let us speak love and hope instead.

someone will hear us. no matter what we say.

i love north carolina. and i'm hurt by what has happened and by some of the words of hatred i have heard.

but i love north carolina. and i hope that love will be heard.

one

i would be lying to you if i told you that my heart doesn't hurt, that my confidence hasn't wavered, that my blood has not boiled.

all in reading a simple word in a status... "passed."

following two other words: "amendment one."

today i couldn't even bear to listen to the radio because of the news reports about the measure and the vote and the likelihood that voters would vote for it. and that the word would be written into the state of north carolina's constitution.

i don't live in north carolina.

it's a state that i have loved since i was a child and visited chimney rock and grandfather mountain with my family. it's a state that my partner loves and where she went to art school. it's somewhere where we thought we might have a home one day. it's where we had planned to take our honeymoon in october.

i have some reflections, and i warn you, i have been deep in thought nearly all day on a variety of issues, so i may digress or repeat myself. however, since i just read the news that this amendment passed, i want to be as open and unedited with you all as possible with keeping at least some coherence. (this means i did not delete what came out - even the ugly)

first, it feels like a punch in the stomach. really, it does. to hear of one more state where we can't.

it's been difficult in our home lately, trying to figure out what the hell we are going to do about health insurance.  it weighs on my mind on top of everything else like the stories my clients tell me, the grocery list, my student debt, my health... we are going to have to work our butts off to just be legally recognized enough to see each other if one of us is hospitalized.

second, even hearing these stories, knowing there is a vote... can you imagine if your marriage were on trial? if hundreds and thousands and more all wanted to have their own say about it? how hurtful and messed up would that feel? my heart has hurt time and again.

third, it's sick how quickly people rise up against this and how little is being done or said about child abuse and domestic violence. i'll say something to this here, too... child abuse is not the fault of the LGBT community. and we will not be scapegoated for it, or for the failure of heterosexual marriages, or any other ailment of the family unit. and if the Church and people outside the church who truly care would mobilize in this way to stand against child abuse, to rebuke greed, to care for the sick - we might not be in such a mess as we are in.

lastly, i refuse to stop believing in hope. hope that deanna and i might one day have rights which would allow us legal recognition. hope that there are way more people who care. hope that there are many more voices in the church, who even if they think that "homosexual behavior is a sin", there are people who went to bat for us. people who stand up and speak for us and with us and to as human beings and neighbors.

so i refuse to give up. i refuse to believe anything other than that love will ultimately win. and if that is a pollyanna way of looking at things, then call me pollyanna. but i know that this is going to be a process, and a mess, but it will have beautiful moments. and we still have legs. love still has legs. and we will walk. and we will remember and be thankful. and we will be one.

strength

yesterday, i wrote that my grandfather has nearly lost his strength.

this morning, i am rethinking my words. yes, his physical strength is nearly gone...

but he is still fighting.

i walked in to his home this morning to find him sleeping and snoring. and i can't help but smile at my uncle's statement that he is "a tough little booger."

yes, he is.

paw-paw not only broke the earth under a hot summer sun, but he has been a survivor and fighter in many ways.

he wasn't supposed to live this long

he has lived way past his prognosis.

he fought in world war II. in the battle of the bulge.

one day when i was just a baby, a great mudslide rushed down the side of signal mountain and washed out a bridge. paw-paw didn't know the bridge was out and he went into the river, swept away by the current. somehow, he managed to grab on to a log and was rescued even though whole trees had swept by him and his vehicle is still lost, never recovered, perhaps a relic on the river floor now, housing catfish and sturgeon.

my point is, he has been a fighter. he has been a tough little booger. and we will miss him.

death and life

death is one of the weirdest parts of life.

i don't know that i will ever understand it or even reach a place of being remotely o.k. with it, even though i know i have come a long way, a very long way, in being "o.k."

i am sitting in the next room while my grandfather is struggling just to breathe. it doesn't seem right or fair. and i find myself also struggling for breath when i am standing or sitting awkwardly next to him, not knowing what to say or do other than the moment when i touched his hand and said "i love you paw paw."

i do not know where the strength or composure came from when my dad asked me to sing. but i do know that the lump in my throat was so large at times i didn't think any air would come out, much less a note, and even lesser - a note that would sound half-way decent.

but somehow, it did.

i sang the verses of hymns. i sang the verses and choruses of worship songs. i gently plucked the strings on the guitar which was the last guitar my grandmother gracefully touched. the very strings that have been on the little guitar since just before she left this world for the next. they are dull and have nearly lost their brightness.

paw paw has nearly lost his strength. it's crazy to look at him and think this is the same man who busted the earth under a hot summer sun, toiling for hours a day to make a rich garden grow beside the river bank. the man who worked with wood and had a wonderful wood shop where he built amazing bird houses and feeders. the man who made his own suet. the man who has built homes. the man who taught me to fish with a bamboo pole. the man who let me drive his pickup way before i was sixteen.

he doesn't look like that man.

in fact, when i first came in this morning, i thought "he isn't really here anymore. not really." in some ways, he is an impression, a fossil of sorts pressed by the hands of time and loss and hard work.

in the midst of all these thoughts, there are more thoughts going through my mind...

there is a sacredness here today. at my grandparents' home.

it was sacred, to sing those hymns and realize how many of them are about life. and Who life is.

it was sacred to say i love you.

it is sacred and comforting to hear the normalcy of the wind chimes. to hear my dad in the kitchen, preparing food. to know my aunt judy is on her way from the store. to hear my uncle bennie answer the phone with his gentle "hello."

it is good and healing in the midst of deep heartache, to hear a light chuckle from time to time, even in the darkness of sorrow and pain.

it is good to know my extended family is going to be here soon.

it is good to know that my grandparents will be reunited soon.

it is good to know that we are not alone. and it is good to be loved. by my family. by my partner. by my Lord. and to know that they all are near.

i look out at the view from the porch, the tennessee river still meandering along the banks of massive hills, though the landscape has changed a bit since i first met her. and that same view that brings me comfort and sadness all at once is the one that gives me the peace i need today.

and though (this is hard to admit) i am afraid of grief and anxious when i think of loss of any kind, i know somehow that i will be o.k.

and a hawk, my symbol of hope, flew over the mud brown water. and disappeared into the greenery of the hills.

God. is. Great.

it's like an anthem i keep repeating in my heart this morning.

i think of the pain of a girl who faces criminal charges, and she is 9 months pregnant.

God.

and all of the injustice and pain and life circumstance that has brought her to this place.


i am also thinking about the hatred and injustice and violent oppression against people like me.

is.

about how it feels to think God hates you.
about how indifferent people are to our suffering.
about how the response "well it's a sin. i can't support that"
just
doesn't
cut it.

Great.

.

.

God.

dear friends, i need your prayers. i've been writing less and less on here for multiple reasons. one of them being that i am finally focusing my writing energy into the book this blog was meant for. the vision i've had since i first began writing on here, sorting out my thoughts and growing in my journey. the other reason is because i have felt less like a black sheep in many ways. this blog reflected light peeking out of my place of darkness and heaviness.

but i find myself here today as that darkness and heaviness is closer to me. my heart is heavy.

as i write the words of a story that needs to be heard, of a prayer that needs to be prayed, of a litany that needs to be spoken and responded to...

i more and more deeply feel the pain.
i am more and more aware of even more hatred and ignorance.
i see the scapegoating and the lies.
i feel the heartache of many of my friends. and revisit the heartache of my own.

is.

after watching tv and seeing some extreme hatred and violence toward people like us a few nights ago, i felt myself sinking a little.
feeling a little defeated.
saying love wins more as a prayer and a hope than of a firm belief.

d noticed.
she called me on it.

as i cried and told her i was afraid of the hate and the violence and that i don't want anything to happen to her or the children we will oneday have,
she held me.

she told me we just have to surround ourselves with people who love and support us. our truest friends. we need you.

Great.

friends, please pray for me. for the strength to continue to write. and that i can find some peace and assurance while i am writing.

my heart is so full of love. and it hurts, it hurts, it hurts.

i do believe that God is Great. that love wins. and that it's our togetherness that makes us strong.

that Christ is with us, in us, through us.

and that his great grace will lead us on.