Finding Faith Sex and Acceptance

[Music]

[Laughter]

sometimes

it’s really helpful to remember your

foundation

the place where you feel connected to

your core you know you’re standing on

solid ground

and no winds or anything else is going

to blow you off course

it’s especially important when new or

unusual situations hit you

it could be something that’s scary or it

could be

almost anything like discovering

something about your heritage

that you didn’t know or dealing with

your sexuality

and facing something you weren’t sure

about

or it could be realizing you have a

vocation

that isn’t going to make you a lot of

money

but that foundation is important then

but also i wondered why is that

foundation so important in the future

the event for me that helped me sort of

find my foundational truth so to speak

was when i was asked to lead a choir

retreat at a church

in hartford connecticut i was just

ordained an episcopal priest

i was sort of a new kid on the block i

had ideas i wanted to shake things up

and i’d heard about the four quaker

questions

and i thought what a great exercise for

this choir

they needed to get to know each other

and they could go as deep or as

shallow as they wanted to talking with

one another where did you grow up

how was your house heated what was the

center of warmth in your home and when

did you first know god loved you

and the choir did great there were about

12 people they shared

information they talked about their

experiences there was a deep sharing

especially for that last question

i heard people talk about my

grandparents were the ones who told me

that god loved me

and didn’t judge me or a time when a

spouse was ill or a family member died

that they had some awareness that there

was more going on there than just their

friends or their family that there was

something

more present something spiritual

that was walking that journey with them

now i had answers to those questions too

where did i grow up rural new jersey

what was the uh how was my house heated

forced hot air

i remember this big vent right in the

dining

in our dining room and you could stand

at it to stay warm

the center of warmth in our home the

kitchen and a butcher

block table and when did you first know

god loved you

oops you know when you lead these

retreats you should figure out your

answers before you lead the retreat

but i hadn’t figured it out and the

answer that jumped into my mind

was embarrassing because it was event

that happened during my second year of

being in graduate school in seminary

now you think if you’re going to go to

seminary

you would have figured out the god stuff

first

but you know there’s the head stuff and

then there’s the heart stuff

i could talk about god and theology and

scripture and saving the world and

making the world a better place

but being loved

so the story i ended up telling was

about my second year in seminary

i was in new york city as it happened

both my parents were having open heart

surgery

their surgeon was at columbia

presbyterian hospital i was at seminary

in lower manhattan

so every day i would go to school then

i’d get on the subway

i’d go 144 streets see my parents

get back on the subway come back do my

homework

talk about being stressed and one night

i got back to school and i was just

pissed

and exhausted and i went out on 10th

avenue and i took a walk

and i just railed at god

what do you want from me what more am i

supposed to do

what’s going what what do you want me to

do

so let me be clear no voice

no sign on a billboard

but there was some sense of inner

clarity

and a message came through that was sort

of like thad

i don’t want you to do anything

i’m your creator i love you you can’t do

anything i’m already with you

on these trips up and down manhattan

so i don’t know maybe it was stress

maybe it was exhaustion

but i decided to listen and even believe

that message little did i know

that it would shortly be the step the

foundation from which

i would come out to myself

you see for 27 years

i basically ignored the whole issue of

my sexuality

now in 2020 that might seem almost

impossible

and with therapy and a lot of work and

time i can look back and realize the

roots of that

but friends in 1979 i was clueless

i had no idea

so some friends and i oh i was also

in 1979 i was working in philadelphia i

took a year off from graduate school

to earn money to pay for my last year

and so some friends of mine and i

decided uh actually over this

president’s day weekend we went winter

camping

up in new hampshire the white mountains

and during that time i realized that my

best friend

something was off and i said to him at

one point

i i don’t know what’s going on i know

you’re having a hard time

but just know that i care about you and

if i can help you in any way

just let me know i’d be glad to talk

and much to my surprise he actually

called me up and he said

i want to get on the train come to

philadelphia we’ll have dinner we’ll

talk

i gotta get on the train the next

morning go back for school i said okay

that’d be great

and i had no idea what was coming

so he came down we had dinner and then

we sat down to talk

and he told me that the previous fall

he had had a gay experience even though

he

thought of himself as a straight man he

had a fiance

but he found this whole side of himself

that he

was both amazing and

sort of confusing and he was just trying

to figure out what was going on

he also said to me that he was a little

afraid

to tell me about this story

because he perceived me as something as

a jock and he wasn’t sure how i was

going to respond

and as it was i was actually the

executive director for the sport of

rowing in the united states at the time

but my response was totally supportive

how can i help i’m with you all the way

well to make a long and somewhat

complicated story

uh shorter that night i had my first

sexual same-sex experience

with my best friend and it was wonderful

but then the next morning i was scared

i said to him ah i’m not sure this

should ever happen again

and he had to get on the train to go to

school and i had to go to work

so i go to my car and it won’t start

coincidence i i don’t know but it meant

i had to walk to work

and on the walk i went past

the museum of modern art into fairmont

park

along the schoolkill river and

everything looked different the grass

was greener

the trees were greener the sky was bluer

everything was different and in a good

way

i got to work and decided this is

useless so i turned around and walked

back home

and sat down to write my best friend a

letter

i told him that what i realized is that

for

years i had hidden

my sexuality behind a great big brick

wall

i had just tucked it away and tried to

ignore it

as much as i could but that this

experience with him

had put a crack in that wall and light

was streaming through there was a

distraction

the light touched all parts of my being

and i realized i had a choice

i could either decide to plaster up the

crack

and stay in darkness or

i could start to dismantle the wall

and that’s when i remembered my

foundation that that i wasn’t alone

on this journey so i continued to write

and i said to him the reason i said i

don’t think this should happen again

is because i was afraid

and that instead my care for him maybe

even my love for him had somehow

allowed me to touch my sexuality

and even more scary to touch it as a gay

man

and i wondered if he would be willing to

talk

again long story short lots of

complications but

we were in a committed relationship for

three years

and i was on that journey of saying yes

to being a gay man

and figuring out ways to be open and out

on that journey

but at some point i wondered

what did i do with all those bricks

what does one do with all the

mental psychic emotional

all that energy that i used so much to

hide from my sexuality

when you start disbanding it what do you

do with it

and in looking back what i realize is i

used old bricks

to build bridges

when i left philadelphia and i went back

to school for my final year

where the first two years in new york

city had taken this rural kid

and just freaked me out all of a sudden

manhattan was kind of exciting

i had an opportunity for my field

placement to work with

shopping bag ladies homeless women who

lived on the street

i went interviewed with a group of roman

catholic nuns who had a ministry to

these women

and i said to sister bernanette i’m not

sure why i’m here

what what does a guy who went to a prep

school

in an ivy league college have to offer

a shopping bag lady and i will never

forget

bernadette looked me straight in the eye

and said to me

your presence

and suddenly a bridge started to be

built

that year twice a week from 11 p.m till

1 in the morning i would go to the

bus station at the port authority or the

train station at penn station and i

would seek out shopping bag ladies

and i would sit down and offer to talk

with them and

if they didn’t want to talk with me

which is more often the case

i would just sit quietly for 10 or 15

minutes say good night and then move on

two mornings a week i would go to the

dwelling place at their ministry

and help serve breakfast to any homeless

woman who walked in

i was stunned at the energy and the

care that was given to these women and

thought i

i want my first job to be in a city

so when i got a chance to work

i moved to hartford connecticut my first

church

small church racially diverse

not not a lot of people not

fancy indeed there was 240 units of

low-income housing right in our backyard

and that church had built an extra

112 units of low-income housing on their

property it was exciting and i was

i was jazzed it was going to be a great

challenge

and then the aids crisis

came to hartford and i’ll tell you

friends

i almost started putting those bricks

back up

this is the early mid 80s there was no

treatment

there was no cure

it was basically a death sentence and

everybody said it was the gay disease

well one day a woman from the

neighborhood came to the church and

asked if i would go visit her husband

who was dying with aids so at the time i

said that i would

and then i’m not proud of this but i put

it off and i put it off

but i finally did go and i went to her

apartment and i knocked on the door and

she invited me in and we chatted and she

handed me a glass of water

now i know you can’t get aids from a

glass of water

but that’s rational the irrational

fear just hit me and i had to make a

decision

and i decided again that i wasn’t alone

in this journey

and i took that glass of water and i

drank it

because i’d begun to realize that the

thing that was happening with hiv and

age was

three things that are scary for human

beings

we’re all connected the whole issue of

sex and sexuality

the whole issue of drugs and addiction

and then oh let’s connect it all to

death

people did not want to talk about this

but i actually realized

that maybe religion or spirituality or

whatever it was

had language and words that could help

people move from fear

to compassion where some people were

saying this is god’s wrath and people

are getting what they’re

what they deserve in our little church

we decided we were going to say

this is an illness and we’re going to

respond with care compassion and respect

we were the first church to have a

healing service for people with aids

and i began slowly to start working

locally and nationally

to see if we could find ways to build

bridges to help get from fear

to compassion i founded an organization

in the city where i was

and we were very fortunate that there

was a ad advertising agency that

worked in that city and they put

together

four posters for uh aids awareness month

and you’ll see them on the screen

building bridges they help people say oh

maybe there’s another way

to respond to hiv aids at the same time

one of the things we realized

is people were losing their housing

because of fear around

hiv and aids and discriminating against

people kicking them out of their

apartments and this wasn’t just

happening in hartford this was happening

in lots of cities

and so pretty soon we decided there was

a way to build a coalition

instead of everybody figuring it out in

eight different cities

let’s all come together and figure out

how best to respond

to this reality and the connecticut aids

residence coalition

actually uh ended up going to our

legislature

and getting a million dollars in bond

money so that we could provide housing

for people living with hiv and aids

in the same way the national episcopal

church was trying to figure out ways to

respond with care and compassion

and it also occurred to me that if we’re

not careful we’re going to reinvent the

wheel again

so this is our button up on the slide

with our with our theme

our church has aids trying to make sure

that

we were going to work together to help

people living with hiv and aids

and then what about young people you

know one of the highest risk groups in

the 80s

were young people mostly teenagers

so it’s one thing to have a bunch of

grown-ups say to teenagers well you know

this is what you ought to do and you

know

this is how you ought to be and safe sex

and all that

what i realized was if you want to build

a bridge to a young person

you educate their peers to be peer

educators

and so i helped write a curriculum that

would help young people

learn all about hiv and age so they

could help their peers

make sure they didn’t get hiv infected

so looking back i realized i spent most

of my professional life

trying to take old bricks to build new

bridges

helping individuals and people find that

foundational place that was solid for

them

so that they could do something to help

others for me

it was that i was loved by my creator

but whatever it was for someone else

find that foundation

and then realize it’s not there just to

keep you happy

it’s there to be an anchor to build a

bridge

so you can reach out and help other

people

and remember you can’t do it by yourself

my best friend had to come

overcome his fear and come and talk to

me so i could

face my own fears and be more true about

who i was

so whatever it is for you if you find

your foundation

i just hope that you will discover that

the world looks different

the grass is greener the sky is bluer

it’s different and it’s a good thing

find your foundation build a bridge

help others because my friends we live

in a desperate time

and the need is great may we all do that

thank you