Father Bob's Reflections

Dear Friends,

The summer of ’69 was a most interesting year.  For one, I was ordained a priest of Jesus Christ on May 24th in a small unassuming cathedral in Orlando, Florida by William Donald Borders, a man I deeply loved and who became Archbishop of Baltimore.  He’s now 96 living in Baltimore.  I hope I can visit with him this fall and express my deep love and gratitude to him for calling me to priestly ministry.

That’s one event.  And they say that only the priest and his mother care about ordination anniversaries, But perhaps you might be interested to know that I wrote an extended reflection on how I have seen my unconventional priestly journey in my May 2009 reflection letter Arise “Both Sides Now”.  It’s a long piece and I worked very hard on it because I value my dual vocations as a priest and a writer, which sometimes come into tension with one another.  It’s a download document, so you can print it out and save it for bathroom or bedtime reading if you’re interested in what an unconventional priest might have to say about his priesthood and the state of the church today — or to wrap your fish-leavings, if you are not.

The three other events of the Summer of ’69 are (1) The Stonewall Riots, the anniversary of which is today, (2) the Apollo 11 historic moon landing in July and (3) Woodstock in August.  All three events intertwine with my first summer as a priest and are worth reflecting on; I  will do so during the summer.

The Stonewall riots  happened 34 days after my ordination, 40 years ago today, and is still quite unknown today — the Stonewall riots in Greenwich Village that is marked as the beginning of the struggle for civil rights for gay people.  

I want to reprint part of a column by Frank Rich of the New York Times about that event because it is important.  But first I want to say I dislike the term “gay” and I do not like the word “marriage” in regard to same sex unions, though I believe that there should be the possibility of all sorts of domestic partnerships for anyone who chooses to enter into caring relationships.  Enough of that for now.  I was not afraid to enter and write about the struggle for civil rights for black and minority people 40 years nor to state my opposition to the Viet Nam and subsequent wars and did so courageously.   (My career as a writer precedes my status as an ordained priest by several years.)

Feel free to engage me in dialogue about this issue or any other.  I am interested in beginning several conversations — getting to know our homosexual sisters and brothers as persons, being one.  Use the comment box below.

Here is a portion of Mr. Rich’s article:

But if we had read them, would we have cared? It was typical of my generation, like others before and after, that the issue of gay civil rights wasn’t on our radar screen. Not least because gay people, fearful of harassment, violence and arrest, were often forced into the shadows. As David Carter writes in his book “Stonewall,” at the end of the 1960s homosexual sex was still illegal in every state but Illinois. It was a crime punishable by castration in seven states. No laws — federal, state or local — protected gay people from being denied jobs or housing. If a homosexual character appeared in a movie, his life ended with either murder or suicide.

The younger gay men — and scattered women — who acted up at the Stonewall on those early summer nights in 1969 had little in common with their contemporaries in the front-page political movements of the time. They often lived on the streets, having been thrown out of their blue-collar homes by their families before they finished high school. They migrated to the Village because they’d heard it was one American neighborhood where it was safe to be who they were.

Stonewall “wasn’t a 1960s student riot,” wrote one of them, Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, in a poignant handwritten flier on display at the New York Public Library in the exhibition “1969: The Year of Gay Liberation.” They had “no nice dorms for sleeping,” “no school cafeteria for certain food” and “no affluent parents” to send checks. They had no powerful allies of any kind, no rights, no future. But they were brave. They risked their necks to prove, as Lanigan-Schmidt put it, that “the mystery of history” could happen “in the least likely of places.”

After the gay liberation movement was born at Stonewall, this strand of history advanced haltingly until the 1980s. It took AIDS and the new wave of gay activism it engendered to fully awaken many, including me, to the gay people all around them. But that tardy and still embryonic national awareness did not save the lives of those whose abridged rights made them even more vulnerable during a rampaging plague.  — end of my quote of Mr. Rich’s article.

For many s0-called Christians this is a hot-button issue.  We are quick to condemn others.  There is pre-judging going on in the live of many who have never known an openly gay person, just as there was about blacks 40 years ago.  Jesus cast his lot with the sinners of his day because they were the ones who responded and needed his message of love.  He would do the same with gay people today.  All of us sin seriously against love most every day.  And the the ones who are closest to God know this.

So, there you have it.  I’ve introduced a new topic to this blog.  I not going to be a crusader for that or any cause.  My crusade is that Jesus loves everyone.  No matter what.  And he would love for each of us simply to accept his love and his loving embrace and be willing to be changed by it.

Now the question is what about Mark Sanford?  Maybe he has received his cumuppance for his hypocrisy.  Let’s just stop the condemning and reach out in friendship and get to know the goodness in each other rather than fear our differences.  

Now I realize that entering this fray may induce anger and misunderstanding, by some of my readers but it needs to be done.  There is plenty of sin to go around including a southern governor, ant-gay, outraged at Clinton and Lewinsky revealing his own hypocrisy this past weak (sic).  Let’s just listen and learn from one another.  And take the beam out of our own eye, like Jesus said instead of wanting to take the splinter out of our neighbor’s eye.

Heavenly Father,

we’ve got it all wrong.

We think we’re supposed to hate.

That you only smile on a few who get it right.

Well, I thank you for finally helping me understand why you sent us Jesus —

that getting it right or wrong is not the point.

You are the Father who created us and loves all of Your children,  no matter what.

All You want of us is to accept Your love and Your wisdom 

and to love one another as Jesus your Son has taught us.

Father, as we approach our celebration of the Fourth of July next weekend

may we reflect on how our our country was founded on the principle that 

we are all created equal.

Let us realize that fundamentally

we are simply  your daughters and sons.

And that makes us, therefore, simply brothers and sisters

each of us struggling in ourselves with our addictions, failures, guilts,

remorses, sins and regrets.

You sent Jesus to show us that You are not the one to impose that guilt.

Forgive us for wanting to impose guilt on others.  Help us to  let You alone  be the judge.

Today is a new day.

A new day to accept Your love and to transform our prejudices

and hates into understanding, caring and respect.

and to love one another as you have loved us.

And I personally thank you for teaching me that I cannot preach the gospel

unless I get to know and care about people as individual.

Thank you for teaching me to preach the gospel, one person at a time.

To You Father be all honor and glory and praise

through Your Son Jesus Christ our Lord

in the unity of the Holy Spirit,

the spirit of life of love.

AMEN!

Bob Traupman

priest / writer