Opinions and policies about the full equality of people of all sexual orientations are changing rapidly in our country. What is astonishing is that these are changes about our public covenants around our deepest identities and relationships – sexual, familial, religious, and yes, financial. My own church, the United Methodist Church, is a global organization that must try to maintain communion among cultures with sharply diverging responses to these issues. At the same time, our own local congregation, here in the mountains of the southern United States, is struggling with the question of how to affirm more deeply and explicitly our own commitment to “radical hospitality” and a “welcome to ALL persons at Christ’s table.”
We are beginning to gather in circle conversations to share from our experience, our understanding of our faith, and our present knowledge. At the end of one of our conversations, one of our members simply stated, “It is not about sex. It’s about love.” This seems to me to cut to the heart of the matter and drove me back to rework a poem I have been living with for a couple of years. It is a sharp dialogue that has been occurring both between people and within our own selves. Indeed, in my own experience, it reaches far beyond the present issues before us. I want to share it with you here.
You must
I can’t
Live out of ought
My love is different
…..
Red Clay, Blood River