Made a trip out to the
west end this Sunday, and finally got to attend the church with a roof like a
skateboard ramp :P.
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Case and point.
I had a feeling this would
be a good one. Especially when the church leader said that there are rhythm
instruments at the front of the church for anyone that wants. This church was composed of mostly seniors
roughly 70 people, most of them women.
The service started out in
prayer. Then it was asked if any of the
children would like to come up and light the Christ candle. That was done by a
very cute blond little 5 year old girl in a pink shirt (with some adult
assistance.)
Today’s service addressed
the issue of jealousy. The church leader made a shocking statement as he
straight out said “we have a lot of jealousy in the church.” And then we went
on to explain why. He pointed out the fact that people are often left thinking
“some other people must have more faith then me.” Or they might be asking “why
do I have less passion?” for when I confess my love to god, then the person
beside me?
He brought up an
interesting story. He once knew a senior lady named Florence. Florence had a
lot of jealously. She was jealous of people’s ability to pray spontaneously. As most people could stand up and make up a
prayer right on the spot, Florence could simply not do it. She would have to go
home and read prayers that other people had already written. Ironically, there
was a flip side to the coin. There were actually many people in the church that
were jealous of Florence because she was a strong reader and had read the bible
4 times with ease. To put this to an even larger perspective he also described
how there is jealousy between entire “churches”. Examples of this would be
thought like “why is that churches attendance keep growing while ours is not?”
or “why can’t we hold fundraiser that are as successful as that other church?”
He then brought up that we have to remember what we ourselves are successful
in. The United Church is very effective in creating social justice. Cool stuff.
He would also like to note (despite what some people may think.) the united
church is not Pro-Palestine, however they are very pro-human rights. He
encouraged the congregation to read deeper into the conflict and to be aware
that the news is very one-sided at the moment.
There was a fair bit of
singing in this church, but I found it difficult to sing along with any of the
songs except one.
The scripture lesson today
defiantly got my attention. Let me drop you a link to the story.
Quick version is that
there is this guy named Jacob. Jacobs’s life isn’t that great. He is a twin. He
was born mere seconds after his older brother, which would not be such a big
deal, except for the fact that because he was not first born he got nothing. No
inheritance, no land, and never mind the fact that his older brother was the
pinical of manliness and success (Jacob was a scrawny wimp). So in short he got
the shit end of the stick. Jacob was not
interested in looking for a wife at the time, but family pressures forced him
out into the world to go and find a lady to wed. In his travel he finds a lady named Rachel.
Falls madly in love with her, and makes a deal with her father to have her hand
in marriage in exchange for 7 years of labor. So he goes to work 7-year go by,
and then there is a great party, and on their wedding night, the father sends
Leigh (Rachel’s older and uglier sister.) Into bed with him and he doesn’t
realize that it is the wrong woman until the next morning. He comes out in rage
and goes to her father demanding an explanation. He father says that it is not
in there custom to marry a younger daughter before the older, and that is he
wants Rachel he will have to work ANOTHER 7 YEARS. (poor guy) and so he slaves away for another 7 years and finally
gets to marry Rachel. *insert happy ending here
Ok, not really. They didn’t bring this up in church but Jacob
continued to favor Rachel in their marriage.
So god decided to bless Leigh with the ability to have children and
Rachel was barren.
Rough.
Then the crazier part of
all this is that he got the 4 children in the church to come up to the front
and act out the story (to a certain degree). I was deeply comical, epically
when looked at the little 6 year old girl and told her “you get to be Leigh and
Rachel’s dad! Ok, cross your arms arm’s and look like a grumpy old man!”. There were defiantly some golden moments. So
at the end of all this he sits the children down and gets them to think about
how all the different charters feel. The message he left them with the message
that sometimes we have to wait a very long time for things we want. And even
thou it is difficult; sometimes you just need to be patient. It is clear that
this man has a great love of children.
One very interesting thing
I noticed about this Fellow leading the church service was the fact that he was
clearly gay. In the best possible way.
I had some big questions
for him and I was not sure if he was willing to be open with me, but thankfully
he was . I was surprised to find out
from the granny sitting next to me that he was not a regular full time Minister
there and was just sub-ing in half the time until they have a full time person
put in. Another shocking fact that I discovered was that he was not trained for
the United Church (which is known for its acceptance of the gay community.) The
church he was training for was the Presbyterian. At the moment he told me that
my face must have gone white. Let’s just say that I am still recovering from
what I saw at the last Presbyterian Church I went to. Living nightmare. I
brought this up with him and he recommended that I seek out “First Presbyterian
church’s”. And that they are apparently “much better”.
He told me that his story
began with him down east living in Ontario and going into seminary. At that
time his life’s plan was to devote himself to god and push-away his homosexual
feeling and be abstinent for the rest of his life. Surprisingly enough it was in
his first year of studies that his teachers encouraged him to come to terms
with his feelings. He look a few years to find peace with himself, he came out
to his parents (who quickly disowned him), met his boyfriend, fell in love,
moved out to Alberta and never looked back. Like Jacob I am sure he is darn
happy to have left his home town.
I asked how dose one
survive being a gay Minister in a branch of the church that does not accept homosexuals.
His response to that is that they run on a “don’t know, don’t tell” policy. He
mentioned that his partner had come to church with him many times before and
everyone knew who he was he just was not allowed to introduce him as “my
partner”.
I asked him if he had
encountered any clear acts of discrimination against him since he started his
time in the church? He sighted one particular instance that did occur. He made
the personal decision to be a sperm donor for a lesbian couple in Saint
Albert. And he told the church this.
There were people that did leave and never come back. Surprisingly the ones
that left were young families and the ones that were compassionate towards him
were the seniors. Personally I would have thought it was the other way around.
I only had one other question for him, and that had to do with this piece of
stain glass.
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Windmill. Just a little
one tucked away in the corner. I asked him what it was doing there, he honestly
answered by saying he had no idea why it was there. We came closer to it and
noticed that the stain glass panel was done in memory of 2 people with Dutch
last names. Possible explanation? Ya, sure why not… LOL.
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Funny side note* you know
that horrific Presbyterian that I attended at the start of this experiment?
Word on the grapevine is that’s it is shutting down. I hope the few people there
can move on and find a better place. ( ok lets be real, almost anywhere is
better than there.)
Peace out people. *pop!
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