The Practice of Love

Today, December 1, is World AIDS Day, and Sarah wrote an absolutely beautiful reflection on the topic of love and loss for her Facebook page. With her permission, I share that piece with you here:

On World AIDS Day, I remember David and Charles. They came to church together. They had a fluffy dog named Barney. The place where they lived had a pool, and when we went to their house for dinner we got to swim in it.

They came to our house and helped [my sister] Martha with her science project: making mayonnaise (emulsification—I’ll never forget that word) and sat around with us in the living room folding socks together. They were kind and funny and gentle.

That’s what I remember about them. There was a lot I didn’t see. My dad [the priest at their Episcopal church] in conversations with them where he admitted he didn’t understand and wasn’t comfortable, and they said it’s okay. Ask us anything.

Early 80s California was a dreamy time to be a kid who likes rainbows and riding bikes. I had no idea what a scary time it was for David and Charles. They got sick a few years later, I think. After we had moved to Massachusetts. I got the news that David had died and Charles was dying when I was in my first year at Haverford College. Somehow I got to send him a note. But that was it.

There’s so much more to their story, and so much more that could have been. I just want to testify about them and say, David and Charles (and Barney), I love you.

We don’t always know what is going on in the lives of our friends and fellow church members.  We don’t know all the secrets they keep, all the things they don’t admit because they are afraid of being rejected or judged or ostracized. It may be their sexuality or gender identity. It may be some form of mental illness. It may be a secret addiction. Whatever it is, the rest of us need to make the church a safe place for them to be brave enough to share these deep parts of their lives. It helps if we too share the things that are difficult, that make us look like the heel instead of the hero, that prove we are not the perfect people we would like to present to the world.

I’m not encouraging indiscriminate “sharing,” in which you tell too much too soon or in an inappropriate way. I’m talking about making the church a space where it’s okay to be flawed, it’s okay to be different, it’s okay to have problems. Because you never know—you might be throwing someone a lifeline. I can only imagine the comfort David and Charles took in knowing that they could go to their priest (and others in the congregation, it is to be hoped) and be able to be honest about who they were and be received with honesty and compassion in return.

The United Church of Christ has a designation for churches that are “Open and Affirming” (ONA) of all people regardless of sexual orientation, gender identity, race, disability, or any other category that is used to divide and exclude. Community UCC does not (yet) hold this designation, but you don’t have to be an officially ONA church to be a church where love is practiced. That is, I am convinced, Jesus’s vision for the church, and so it is our high and holy calling to practice love, no strings attached. May we respond to that calling in faith and obedience.

Grace and peace,
bob