For Danny--
Imagine
you find a light just glowing in the air in a field. You happen upon it and are struck by its beauty. All you can do is gaze at it,
but the light is too brilliant to really figure out its dimensions, its source, or even its power. Just being near it heals
you, excites you, makes you cry. It moves you and changes something within.
You can't imagine not sharing the
light, so you tell people, and they come. One look, and they express that feel the same way about the light. More
and more people come, and eventually some person--who has told themselves
that they know everything about lights and their sources--tells the group who simply came because they were drawn by the light, "Pretty
soon, you all will not be able to see the light. More and more people
will come and you will have to wait to see it, or perhaps not see it at all." Everyone becomes afraid, and fear abruptly enters into the happy feelings the group once felt.
What if they couldn't see the light whenever they wanted? What if it was no longer "their" light? What if the light went away because too many had access to its glow?
A group of folk make a
plan for the sake of "order". They decide people would wait in line, and design how people would wait. Then, the group decides those other than the ones originally invited to see the light should only come once a week. Soon, they fear that they would leave something out in their planning, or miss some detail, so they assign roles.
Some are chosen to "protect" the light, and they build a glass container
for the light. The group votes for walls to be erected around the light, and the arbitrary group that concocted the plans becomes
the "leaders." They decide eventually who deserves the light and who doesn't, and even produce scholars and artisans to write, philosophize, and create great works about the light and its attributes.
Two
thousand years later, the light is all anyone can talk about. No one alive has seen the light. In all honesty, no one cares if the light is there or not because
everyone is too busy continuing to care for the field, assigning days for
people to visit the light, and tending to the roles they made for
themselves. The leaders are consumed with painting pictures about the light, and erecting statues for you, the one who simply happened upon the light. In the flurry of activity, they assumed the light remained, but their protection of it masked that it was long gone.
The light had moved long ago to the people who needed it most. It had moved and been seen by those who gazed on its like and felt transformed, and left the people who needed order and safety. It left the arrogant ones who felt it was there place to exclude and marginalize to satisfy their puny needs.
This is what happened to Christianity. Limited minds made
so many rules and walls that folk never realized the light was just
supposed to shine, and those who wished to appreciate it would, and
those who didn't wouldn't. The people who are carrying on in the name
of the light haven't a clue how to bring about freedom, but the folk who
need the Light surely do!
Eventually, those of us who are outside of the circle will thank God that we are. There is bondage in trying to capture and control something that can never be.
May the pain of you left out because of how God created you turn to dancing when you discover that God is on your side. To every person in the LGBTQ community who weeps and wails with longing for inclusion, may it be so, and may you know that the Light dances about you. Amen.
