About fifteen years ago, I preached a sermon around Thanksgiving entitled “Love Is A Many Gendered Thing”. After the service we had an open dialogue. It was a spirited discussion, one that led a congregant to stand and say, “it’s all right if they are gay, but I don’t want them teaching my children.” This was in a Unitarian Universalist church. At that point a visitor, who had clearly come to hear this sermon, stood. He was visibly shaken, but chose to speak to this room full of strangers. “My family will not let me come to Thanksgiving dinner because I’m gay. They don’t want me to influence my nieces and nephews. They have heterosexual parents, heterosexual grandparents, heterosexual aunts and uncles, but they think that the presence of one gay uncle is going to endanger them.” This brave messenger then broke into tears and we held the moment in silence.
The power of the truth of this man’s life was palpable and the love that his courage and kindness conveyed filled the room. That love, that truth equalized the moment into a deeper understanding. And those with ears to hear and eyes to see were set free.
“Since all creation is a whole,” writes John Heider, “separateness is an illusion.”
