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Critical Conditiongrief, repentance, and healing |
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Those words were written the evening I first heard of the attack and torture which had occured on the plains of Wyoming upon a young college student named Matthew Shepard. Unable to sleep a few nights later, I posted the following message to a CNN message board, (#3652 on "gay rights/hate crimes").
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I am a relatively conservative Christian who feels grieved and ashamed at our sins of omission in speaking out against violence against same-gender attracted people, and our sins of commission in rejecting and otherwise alienating them, which have resulted from our unacknowledged fears and our lack of humility in reflecting God's true compassion and unconditional love.
I am further troubled by the emotional pressures and political diversions in connection with the recent Exodus ad campaign, and all the more distressed with a sense of responsibility in my capacity of leading a support group for people such as myself who feel a religious conviction that same-gender sexual relationships are not how God is leading us, even though it is possible there might never be another potentiality for expressing romantic love in this lifetime. http://www.pacificnet.net/~sonia/sp.html
How can I possibly offer support to others who find themselves in this situation while genuinely respecting the virtue and spirituality of gay people who have different honorable inner convictions? The question of how to bring meaningful reconciliation in this bitter cultural war is something I grapple with daily, and I cannot say the path is always very clear. Fortunately, I am not alone -- there are others who have a passion for true justice and respect for all same-gender attracted persons and a call for the Church to be truly Christ-like where they are concerned. http://www.npiec.on.ca/~scalverl/jr_sa30.htm
Somehow it seems fitting to share an excerpt of something I wrote last week while praying, too devastated to even weep. (The tears didn't flow freely until the next day while I was trying to help lead the Sunday service...)
Shepard, who is 5-foot-2 and weighs 105 pounds, was breathing with the aid of a ventilator. (quoted from http://cnn.com/US/9810/10/wyoming.attack/)
When I look at the photograph of this beautiful young man (representative of more youth than I can bear to comprehend), my chest is seized in knots, a distress that holds tears in suspended animation. I cannot sleep.
I am haunted as well by the faces of the young adults who committed this calculated violence. Theirs are faces not of executioners, but of terrified children, frozen in their inability to hear amid torture an appeal for mercy, drowning in a milieu of dis-identification with the humanity of another differing only in the flow of sexuality.
With the parents and with the offenders I am at once bereft and lost.
Unlike many others, my framework for working through this is more personal than political, and I cannot claim to understand the formation and implications of hate crime statutes, but I do believe this: that to consider ways of mitigating specific symptoms of violence is not a devaluation of other victims' needs, not an appeal for "special" rights. Ultimately we must grapple with causes not symptoms, but in the meantime the particular abcesses caused by this cultural inflammation must be drained and wrapped until the entire system can be made healthier.
May we receive the grace and courage to embrace this healing process.
Sonia B
10/17/98
The ministry of repentance and forgiveness (as "...a just and respectful response to persons who experience same gender attraction") is the mission of the Justice and Respect site, formerly conceived by a man in Canada, and being rekindled here.
In faith for healing in a world fractured by harsh polarization concerning homosexuality, Bridges-Across exists "...to provide models and resources for building respectful relationships across the divide in the homosexuality issue." In these discussions, the opportunity afforded is one of personal sharing (e.g. in "journeys" and "faith" discussion lists) of God's redemptive power to heal lives, repentance for where the Church falls short of His example of humble servanthood, and genuine listening to others' journeys so as to learn and be refined by God.
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Updated 11-28-99. Migrated to J&R October 10, 1999. Written Oct. 17,
1998.
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