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eNewsletter 15 November 2002 |
Chi Rho Connection ************************* Contents:
1. 'The Journey is Our Home:' Sharing Our Faith Journeys, by Cheryl Coleman -------------------------------------------------- Friends are relatives you make for yourself. Welcome once again to the Chi Rho Connection, the electronic newsletter of Chi Rho Press. Thank you for passing this Chi Rho Connection on to others. To join our list, send an e-mail message to
ChiRhoPress-subscribe@yahoo.com. Direct all other e-mail to Adam@ChiRhoPress.com. See the end of this eNewsletter for a complete list of e-mail addresses at ChiRhoPress.com. -------------------------------------------------- 1. 'The Journey is Our Home:' Sharing Our Faith Journeys, by Cheryl Coleman
Vol. III, No. 16
15 November 2002
2. Link of the Month: http://www.e-sword.net
3. 'Together In Love' now in stock
4. Do Your Christmas Shopping at www.ChiRhoPress.com, Special Offer on Shipping
5. 2003 Liturgical Calendar Published
6. Adam's Last Word: Calls for submissions, new shipping and handling policy, intentional families, the holiday season, new books in progress.
-- Eustache Deschamps
Please visit our Web site at http://www.chirhopress.com to see our entire lines of books, handouts, tchochkas, and stained glass.
This article is a lot longer than other essays in 'The Journey is Our Home,' and we hope you will both bear with us and agree with us about its value.
Cheryl is a member (as is Chi Rho Press director Adam
DeBaugh) of the Soulforce and First Light list-serves, where we first read her story (Soulforce-subscribe@yahoogroups.com and FirstLight-subscribe@yahoogroups.com). She is a subscriber to the Chi Rho Connection and a Guardian Angel of Chi Rho Press.
Here is Cheryl Coleman's story of faith:
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Literally Out and About in Lynchburg
Like many others, I found the Soulforce "Out and About" October weekend in Lynchburg empowering, though in a different manner than I ever would have anticipated.
I grew up attending Jerry Falwell's church, and my partner Janet and I both graduated from Liberty University. In fact, I was an English professor at LU for over eight years. I suppose it would be accurate to say we've been "in the closet" because only some of our immediate family members and a few select close friends, mostly gay or lesbian themselves, knew about the nature of our two and a half year relationship. We had both been married previously, so we assumed that folks who had known us all our lives were unlikely to suspect the truth.
It was with a great deal of discussion, prayer, and trepidation that we waited for the Soulforce weekend, wondering whether we should attend. We had no idea what to expect. Would protestors show up in droves, screaming epithets related to our orientation? Would violence erupt? Would there be an onslaught afterwards of spiritually condemning, hate-filled letters to the editor that would make me feel sick to my stomach each morning as I opened my local newspaper? Would someone we know in Lynchburg happen to see us or hear that wewere in attendance?
As the weekend drew closer, the question we found ourselves asking one another, however, was "How can we NOT go?" With folks coming from all over the country to show us support and try to make it easier for us to live with honesty and integrity in our own community, how can we stay home and hide and let them make all the efforts on our behalf? We had seen a story on the local news of Mel White facing the protestors from his front porch, accompanied by several Soulforce supporters, not one of them from Lynchburg. We couldn't let them fight our battles for us while we stayed out of sight. So we registered with Soulforce online, and Friday night we made our way to First Christian Church and nervously picked up our t-shirts and name tags.
Saturday morning we attended a workshop called The Bible and Sexuality: Undoing Biblical Misinformation by Rev. Dr. Lisa Davison, a professor of Old Testament. What we didn't know was that WSET, our local ABC affiliate, was going to be videotaping during the workshop. Janet and I noticed the camera during the class, and she visibly stiffened beside me. I leaned over to her and whispered, "don't worry. God will protect us." I assumed that, at the most, WSET would show the class from the back where they were taping and so no faces would be visible. Besides which, with all that would be going on later that day at Riverside Park, why would a clip from a workshop make the news? I wasn't worried.
Later that afternoon, on a beautiful fall day, we attended "Out & About," Lynchburg's first Pride festival in Riverside Park. A few protestors tried to disrupt the events, but there were too many of us and too few of them. We felt invigorated: we had worn our Out & About t-shirts in public, and we had been yelled at but weren't much phased by it (I was reminded more of pesky flies buzzing about that were an annoyance but not a danger). My former husband even showed up to support us. Nothing unpleasant or threatening had occurred, and we went home happily, satisfied that we had faced and met the test. In our own quiet little way, we had tried to show some courage.
Fast forward to about 11:10 that night. I had gone to bed but Janet had stayed up to watch a movie, and she caught the beginning of the local news afterwards. First story: Soulforce and Lynchburg's first Pride festival. She came upstairs and woke me up and said somberly, "we made the news." And it wasn't just a quick flash of anonymous faces in a group. No, when I watched the tape the next day, I could see that Janet hadn't exaggerated the situation when she had said, "you'll have to see it to understand. They called us 'homosexuals' and showed our faces. Up close."
The tape showed the class from behind, the workshop leader, and then it slowly zoomed in on Janet and me and then me. It was not simply a fleeting glimpse. We were sitting sideways on the opposite side of the room from the cameraman and were apparently in a perfect spot for his close-up. Not only that, but the reporter's voiceover was saying, at just that moment, that early in the day, at First Christian Church, there were "workshops training homosexuals to respond to words without violence." Not Soulforce participants or workshop attendees, but homosexuals.
I'd like to report that Janet and I handled it well. But we didn't. We felt completely exposed and betrayed. We imagined the worst. At the age of 44, I thought I had done a pretty good job of covering my tracks for half a lifetime, first by denying the truth even to myself and later by simply omitting the truth to others. Janet had been even more fearful than I about participating in the weekend events and risking our privacy. One of the first things she said to me that night was (you guessed it), "I thought you said God would protect us?" I was speechless and didn't know how to respond. It was a long, mostly sleepless night while we thought about all the "what ifs." What if your parents saw it? What if my co-workers saw it? Our neighbors? My former colleagues or students at Liberty? Our relatives?
The next day we discussed what we should do, and we decided that I should call the reporter and ask her to pull the clip or at least change the voiceover. When I spoke with her, I told her that she had not only misidentified the nature of the workshop but that she had labeled everyone in attendance as homosexual when certainly not everyone who supported Soulforce was. She was apologetic and said she had tried to be careful and sensitive in her report and that she would pull the clip. "I just want you to know," I said, "that with your choice of words, you've basically outed me in a town where I have to live."
I'm not proud that I treated her as though she had slandered us. As though she had described us in some sort of despicable way instead of simply, and inadvertently, telling the truth about us. And a truth that isn't at all horrible or shameful.
In the days following, no band of outraged neighbors gathered at our front door with sticks and torches. No small groups of whispering co-workers awaited Janet at work. We haven't been driven out of town. No one has ridiculed us. In fact, since the broadcast, only two people have even mentioned to us that they saw us on the news. We've noticed a few folks ducking their heads rather than greeting us with smiles as they have in the past. So what. We can take it. In an odd way, I think that WSET reporter not only outed us to our city but to ourselves. You know what? We ARE homosexuals. And we don't have to be ashamed of it, and we don't have to care or worry over what other people think about it. We believe with all our hearts that scripture does not condemn our relationship and that God's opinion about us is the only one with which we need to be concerned.
Lawrence Reh, on his First Light e-mail group, recently posted a remark from Thomas Road Baptist Church members who told a Soulforce participant that "Mel [White] and Gary [Nixon] are the first gay people they have ever met, and they can finally see that they are people just like them." I thought to myself, they probably DO know gay people, they just don't realize it. Isn't it strange, and sad, that it took Mel and Gary having to move all the way from California so that folks here in Lynchburg could "meet" gay individuals, ostensibly for the first time? Janet and I are now thankful that we had that little push out of our constrictive, soul-wounding closet and can now be known for who we are, two Christian women in a loving, committed relationship, who are basically "just like them."
I've always been convinced that God has a sense of humor. An ironic sense of humor at that. I've come to believe that God, in fact, DID protect us that Saturday when WSET showed up. God protected us from our own fear about what other people think. God set us free.
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2. Link of the Month: http://www.e-sword.net
Faithful reader Allen Biles of Flint, Michigan, sent us this e-mail about his favorite link.Dear Adam,
I have attached a link to a site called "E-Sword". Here you will find one of the most valuable and free Bible study tools I have ever found. I have been very blessed by it, and so have many others. This man has gotten permission to download many versions of the Bible, along with a variety of Commentaries and Devotionals, and they are all FREE to download. And it is all put together, in ONE complete and concise program.
Go to the site and download it and then PLEASE let me know what you think!
I am sure the founder of E-Sword is NOT a part of the LGBT Family, but what a blessed brother he is, to offer such a wonderful thing to the Christian Community. There are so many different translations, and so many Bible study helps that he has put together. All in one place! WOW is all I can say!
I also like having the Strong's Concordance available at the click of the mouse. If you've ever used Strong's, it's a heavy book to maneuver, and then when you add to that two or three Bibles, it can feel like College Days just to do a good word study.
Here's the link, http://www.e-sword.net.
I have been really blessed by this site, and it blesses me thinking that through Chi Rho Press, others will be equally blessed.
And Adam, one last thing: Thank YOU for all you have done, and all that you are doing for God's Kingdom and for OUR Community.
In Christ's Love,
Allen Biles
Flint, Michigan
Thank you, Allen, for passing this resource on to our readers! Please check out http://www.e-sword.net and let us know what you think.
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3. 'Together In Love' now in stock
The new anthology by Roberta Showalter Kreider, who compiled 'From Wounded Hearts' for Chi Rho Press, is now in stock.'Together in Love: Faith Stories of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Couples' is an anthology of LGBT couples, telling their stories of their faith journeys as people in non-traditional relationships. 'Together in Love' has a foreword by psychiatrist Elsie Enns Steelberg, is 360 pages, and contains 26 stories by LGBT couples. It also includes other stories, poems, and a father's message to the church. (ISBN: 0-9664822-1-2)
Roberta Kreider compiled 'From Wounded Hearts: Faith Stories of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgendered People and Those Who Love Them,' published by Chi Rho Press in 1998. Now, with 'Together in Love,' Roberta has put together another impressive anthology of LGBT people of faith telling their stories.
Roberta Kreider writes, 'To truly embrace all of God's creation as good and worthy of respect and love is the most freeing experience I know. Never again do I want to judge another person by skin color, status in life, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or by what those in authority determine for me. I am experiencing in a much deeper way than ever before God's unfathomable heart of love for me. May this also be true in your experience.' From 'A Personal Message to Our Readers,' Roberta Kreider's introduction to 'Together In Love.'
'Together in Love' is $24.00 each, $18.00 each for six or more copies, plus shipping and handling. Orders over $100 have free shipping and handling for the Christmas season!
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4. Do Your Christmas Shopping at www.ChiRhoPress.com, Special Offer on Shipping
Like it or not, the holiday shopping season has begun. I got e-mail from a friend Sunday and he said he had already gotten about half of his Christmas shopping finished. Of course, I am tempted to hate him!What if we could point you to a store which is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week; where you can shop in your pajamas if you want; where you can buy books, stained glass, and even stocking stuffers; and where shipping is free for orders over $100! Of course, we are talking about our own Web page, http://www.ChiRhoPress.com.
Books make great gifts! Titles such as Steps to Recovery from Bible Abuse, The Bible and Homosexuality, Come Home!, Called OUT!, Positively Gay, My Memory Book, the new 2003 Liturgical Calendar and Lectionary, and the new Together in Love (compiled by Roberta Kreider, see the previous article) are all available and ready to ship. Plus we have five different stained glass designs, rainbow key chains and bracelets, and more!
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As a special incentive, shipping and handling will be waived if your order totals $100 or more! Yes, that's right, shipping is free for orders over $100.
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Come shop at Chi Rho Press!
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5. 2003 Liturgical Calendar Published
'A Liturgical Calendar and Lectionary, Year B, December 2002 through November 2003,' compiled by Dr. David Kerr Park. Spiral bound, 8 ½" x 11", 78 pages. $9.95 each, six or more copies for $7.95 each, plus shipping and handling.Chi Rho Press is pleased to announce a brand new Liturgical Calendar for the coming church year. Our newly designed Liturgical Calendar is packed with useful information for planning worship and preaching in the local church for each Sunday and Holy Day of the Church Year. It is intended for use by pastors, musicians, altar guilds, teachers, theological students, and anyone using the Church Year as a basis for worship or education. The Liturgical Calendar is spiral bound so it can lie flat for easy use, in a new, larger 8 ½" x 11" format.
Order your copy of the 2003 Liturgical Calendar today! $9.95 each, six or more copies for $7.95 each. Orders over $100 have free shipping and handling for the Christmas season!
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We want to remind you all of our call for submissions. We continue to look for 500 word essays for our regular feature, 'The Journey is our Home:' Sharing our Faith Journeys, as well as book reviews, inspirational stories, special links, and your letters, suggestions, and comments.*****
We are excited about our new shipping and handling policy, put in place for the holidays. For orders of $100 or more, shipping will be free! Buy four copies of Steps to Recovery from Bible Abuse and one other small item and the shipping is free!
Buy one copy each of Positively Gay, Steps to Recovery from Bible Abuse, Come Home!, The Bible and Homosexuality, Called OUT, The Road to Emmaus, and Together in Love and the shipping is free!
Buy six pieces of stained glass and the shipping is free!
Well, you get the idea. Shipping is free for orders of $100 or more from now through the holiday season. Just our way of helping you do more of your Christmas shopping at www.ChiRhoPress.com and to wish you Happy Holidays!
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I am not sure who Eustache Deschamps is, but I really like his quote, which appears at the front end of this edition of the Chi Rho Connection. 'Friends are relatives you make for yourself.' And that quote got me thinking about family values and the holidays.
The holiday season is upon us. The first day of Ramadan was Nov. 6, Thanksgiving is less than two weeks away here in the United States, Hanukkah starts on Nov. 30, then Advent and the start of the new Church year, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and New Years.
The holiday season can be an intense time of fun, gift giving, parties, and religious celebrations. It can also be a time of intense loneliness and even despair. Suicide rates tend to go up around the holidays. For many people in the LGBT community, holidays are especially difficult. Our biological families have abandoned many of us. For many, like me, our parents have passed away and other family lives far away. For those of us who are single, the holidays can be a significantly lonely time.
It seems to me that now is the time when the LGBT community can display what might be its greatest gift to our culture and society. The notion of intentional families, or families of choice, is a very important gift that we offer to the rest of our society. I am not suggesting that gay people invented families of choice. Far from it. Extended, non-biological families of choice have been around for a long time.
What I am suggesting is that the LGBT community has helped to refine our understanding of the importance and the joy of choosing one's family, rather than being limited only to the biological ties of blood. Family is important. But biological relations don't necessarily define family. Your family are the people who love you, good families love unconditionally. Your family are the people who always welcome you home, no matter what. We have learned to be good family to each other.
This holiday season, I invite you to be on the lookout for ways to expand your family of choice. Include other people in your holiday celebrations. Let your intentional family grow. Be especially mindful of those LGBT people in your congregation or of your acquaintance who are single, alone, and without other family. Let's show the world what true family values are!
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The holiday season is getting off to an exciting start for me. A co-worker at my secular job invited me to go with her to Texas for Thanksgiving, but it was too late to get good air fares. A little despondent about that, I was rescued by relatively new members of my extended family of choice. The Rev. Reg Richburg and her partner Su Chin have invited me to New York City for Thanksgiving weekend. I will be staying in a gay guesthouse in Chelsea, right near 5th Avenue, so I can see the Macy-Day Parade if I want (that's what we used to call it when I was a kid in New York).
I am making plans to visit with some other NYC friends, I'll have a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner with Reg and Su, we'll have our Chi Rho Press traveling bookstore at MCC New York on Sunday, Dec. 1, and I will be able to visit some favorite old New York places, and probably find some new ones.
I hope your Thanksgiving will be just as special!
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We have some new books in progress about which we are very excited. Our dear friend Roberta Showalter Kreider has published her second anthology, which we now have in stock. 'Together In Love' is a wonderful collection of couples telling their faith stories. The gift mix here is wide and diverse. This is a fascinating book, which we recommend to you all.
I have finished my edit of Dr. Sandy Bochonok's book of Daily Meditations, 'Living as the Beloved: One Day at a Time.' This means that all the major editing passes are complete. Now we talk with the author about significant additional edits that I made, enter all the edits, and begin the layout and design phase of our work. We won't be able to get 'Living as the Beloved' out in time for Christmas, but look for it after the first of the New Year!
We are also signing a contract this week with a new author, Mr. Jeff Lea, for a book of daily devotions for Lent. Jeff is a Roman Catholic gay man and brings that unique and important perspective to his work. Publication date for the Lenten Meditations is Jan. 5, two months before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent in 2003.
We are also working on a new edition of my booklet on Burnout, which has been out of print for many years now. This new edition will feature original artwork by gay Christian artist Maxwell Lawton.
So there is a lot going on. Your partnership with us here at Chi Rho Press is very important to us. Have a blessed Thanksgiving!
R. Adam DeBaugh, Director, Adam@ChiRhoPress.com.
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We are glad you are partners in ministry with us here at Chi Rho Press. We are eager for your comments, your suggestions, your assistance with selling our books, and your own purchases! And of course, we covet your prayers for this ministry.
Grace and peace,
Adam DeBaugh, Director
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P.O. Box 7864
Gaithersburg, MD 20898
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Copyright 2002, Chi Rho Press, Inc.
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