Nate Knows Nada

For a few months now, I’ve been thinking about posting a fairly
personal essay here, one that freely gives up some of the details of my
life, an essay that talk about my coming out and coming in as a gay and
spiritual person.  I rarely talk about the details of my inner
life in such detail here, keeping a fairly firm wall around parts of my
personal life in this forum.

Also, since the Times put up a story this morning on why some gay people are seeking marriages in the church, even if the state doesn’t recognize their unions, it seemed appropriate to put this up for now.  Best quote there:

It is a perennial complaint among members of the clergy that many
straight couples regard the chapel as little more than a stage set for
a picture-perfect wedding. In contrast, many of the gay couples who are
heading for the altar are regular worshipers who say in interviews that
religion is central to their lives.

Anyway, at the risk of getting hate comments, I am posting my story here. 
And I might note that while this described where I was in January 2000,
it’s not necessarily the same story I would tell now.  But much of
it is.

It’s probably trite to write about this today, but I thought I might
note that today’s the “heavenly birthday” of (St.) MLK.  He’s
being played all day on the Harvard radio station, WHRB-FM,
and the sermons are fascinating.  MLK is often discussed as the
more acceptable of the civil rights leaders of the 1960s (as opposed to
the less acceptable Malcolm X).  But if you listen to these
sermons and speeches, much of what he says is clearly radical, not in
its call for violence of anything like that, but by the very fact that
his steeping in the fullness of the Christian tradition and especially
the black American tradition.  Every phrase rings with Biblical
allusion, with the cries of the agony Psalms, the prophets, and the
Gospel, and with the radical upending of social power, complacency,
various kinds of violence, and death.

The man is a saint and a martyr (we include him in my church’s calendar
of commemorations, essentially a modern-day calendar of saints). 
But since we are so close to him, and we can remember him, we often use
him to our own purposes, using him (like the Bible or other highly
revered texts) to support whatever we happen to advocating.  As
Body and Soul points out, George Bush just did it. 
But W. is not the only offender, nor is the Right the only piece of the
political spectrum who has tried to twist this saint and martyr to
their own expediency.

Anyway, join in the listening, or listen to some of his sermons
somewhere else, or just read one of them.  Or even listen to the
U2 song, “MLK”

Sleep, sleep tonight
And may your dream be realized
If the thundercloud passes rain,
So let it rain, rain on me.