Saturday, May 14, 2016

The kind of church I want

Let me tell you about the kind of church I want to belong to.

I want to belong to a church that welcomes people of all gender identities. I don't care if you identify as the sex you were born as, or as a different one. You may be androgynous, genderfluid, transgender, or something else. It makes no difference to me.

I'm a cisgender male. Come, be welcome. Sit next to me, and let's talk about "Captain America: Civil War," and argue the respective merits of the sides Tony Stark and Steve Rogers took. Let's argue whether the Star Wars prequels should count as canon, and see if we can outdo one another in hating Jar Jar Binks. Tell me about your favorite books and the last time you saw live theater.

I want to belong to a church that welcomes people without regard for whom they're attracted to. Gay? That's great! Heterosexual? No problem. Asexual? That's fantastic! Bisexual? Pansexual? None of that matters. Got a fetish? I won't bat an eye.

Let's discuss theology, let's talk philosophy. I never studied Søren Kirkegaard or Socrates, although I used to fake it when I was younger. Maybe you can explain them to me so that I'll go read them for myself and understand them for real. I'm all ears. Come sit down and break bread with me. We'll share a bottle of wine as we talk.

I don't care about your past, if you've been a sex worker and you're ashamed about it or if you've been a sex worker and you're proud of it. I don't even care if you're still an active sex worker. None of that matters to me. Maybe you've got an idea for how I can get my kids to clean up after themselves, or how I can get more tomatoes from my garden. I'd love to hear it. Let's hang out, swap gardening tips and tell each other our stories.

Are you a refugee fleeing war or famine? I so want my church to welcome you, without asking irrelevant questions like what religion you belong to. Come find sanctuary. All that matters is you are hungry and weary, and we have the means to give you rest.

Actually, I do belong to a church welcomes all these people and many more, regardless of their racial and cultural backgrounds, their age or their abilities. It's an amazing thing to witness. I see glimpses of it from time to time, as from a far-off country.

And I'll fight with all the strength heaven gives me to see that church touch the earth and be found here, even if it's just once and only for a moment.


Copyright © 2016 by David Learn. Used with permission.


Saturday, May 07, 2016

Roundtop stables

Back when he was a teen my brother used to work at Roundtop Stables in Saunders Station, Pa. It changed his life.

This was largely because my brother had always been a horse junkie. The walls of his bedroom had been bedecked with horse posters while we were growing up. He took horseback riding lessons when he was in middle school, and by the time he reached high school, he already had saved enough money from his paper route to buy his own horse. I kid you not.

Working at the stables was a great way to feed his passion for horses, and also to reduce the amount of money it cost him to board Smokey there. Before he got a job working at McDonald's at the age of 16, my brother spent his summers and often his weekends, shoveling horse manure and taking care of the other horses at the stables. Not surprisingly, when it came time to celebrate his birthdays, we often would do it with some sort of celebration at Roundtop.

The most interesting incident I can recall my brother sharing with me was about a fellow in 1987 who arrived at Roundtop and announced that he had received a vision. Jesus was coming soon, and Roundtop Stables figured prominently in the Day of Judgment. As my brother relayed the story to me, Jesus was going to descend from the heavens and land on top of the hill in a spaceship. From there he would ride out and conquer the earth.

The man wanted the permission of Mike Katinsky, who owned the stables and associated land, to wait for the Second Coming on the property, so he could film the great arrival when it happened. I'm told he waited patiently, and came in good weather as well as bad, often with his young son.

In that way that he has, my brother told me he wanted to take his off-white horse out and ride it up to the top of the hill, past this ardent believer, to whom he would call out, "You dummy! I said I was going to ride up the hill."

I don't know that my brother ever did this, but I do know that no flying saucer set down on Roundtop Stables, and Jesus never rode out on his white horse to conquer the earth. The devoted filmmaker eventually went to court and tried to file a lawsuit against God for breach of promise, and one presumes for emotional suffering because of the ridicule he still attracts whenever this story is told.

Steve eventually sold Smoky to someone else because it became impractical to board the horse at Roundtop while he attended college at Purdue University in Indiana. Not long after graduation, though, he was back at his old digs where he ran into a former high school classmate of mine. She was covered in horse manure, but my brother asked her out. Not surprisingly, she judged that if being covered with horse manure wasn't an impediment to being asked on a date, she ought to give it a shot. They've been married about 21 years now.

Shoveling horse manure in the summer heat usually doesn't seem like the most exciting way to spend a summer, to me. But when it changes your life like that, I guess it's hard to argue with it.

Thursday, May 05, 2016

chamber of secrets: a new perspective

In today's interesting fan theory: Knowing of the threat muggles posed to wizards and witches, Salazar Slytherin planned ahead and built a saferoom where the students and staff of Hogwarts could hide. This secret chamber even contained a guard animal to protect them. Getting to the saferoom was something he entrusted only to members of Slytherin, because any other wizard would have muggle relatives, and therefore could be compromised in a crisis situation.

Later, there was a falling out among the founders of Hogwarts, one so bad that even Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin parted ways, though they had been best of friends previously.

Over the centuries, bigots in Slytherin twisted the legends so that the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets came to be seen as a plan of Slytherin's to purge the impure and mudblooded from the wizarding community.