This is an email I wrote to my faith communtiy in South Australia after sitting at the SA Synod, after driving home in tears. The post is personal and I will not be entering debate over what I see as a part of my faith journey, I offer it in the hope that we can move past the "Proceedure, Policy and Sides" discussions and into where WE are vulnerable, WE hurt together and WE listen together.
And where God can speak to US in a different way. I stress I will not enter debate, discussion yes but not debate. Question my theology, my faith journey, tell me I'm wrong or right and I'll ignore the response as its not useful to me at the moment. Ask me about my feelings and journey, tell me about your feelings and journey I'll read it without any bias, with a heart and mind open and with the understanding that it is all confidential. If you post your response/story to the List and I'd expect that everyone else follows the same guidelines. Up to now Ive found this discussion very wordy, bery boring and hard to get into, Ive also found it cluttered with male dominant voices. I hope this can change and that we're not arguing but discussing and listening, this is a move to feeling and expressing. - start post now - I've been listening to the debates and discussions over the "sexuality" issues within the Uniting Church of Australia for almost a half of my life now and it was only the other day that I realised the thing about this debate that hurts me more than anything else. But first let me tell you a bit about my father. My dad and I have a great relationship, when I was young he pulled me out of the Murray River as I was drowning, in the process he lost his wedding ring, but he did re-gain me. I remember him leading kids club, being involved in my scout group, driving me to synod church services, paying and encouraging me to go to Easter camps. When the sexuality debate started about 14 years ago a youth worker I knew well came out and let everyone know that he was homosexual. Instead of my dad banning me from seeing him he allowed me to make my own decisions, allowed me to make my own calls and faith statements. He supported me to find my own voice, to speak out against the abusive language that was coming from my local church. When the UCA did some mean and nasty things to me and I became depressed and disillusioned with the church he was there, when I started going to the tolls community he was interested, when I moved in and out of the family house he was always supportive. He supported me through my theological study and for a few years we studied side by side, when I received recognition for my BTh he was there receiving his Bmin. As I've grown, he's been there supporting me. I have been shaped by the way where my father has been open with me, allowed me to go on my journey and come up with my responses to things. Sometimes I sound a bit hazy and unsure, but it's me, and that's ok with him. Yet on our journeys we've come to different perspectives and understandings on many issues, the latest and most interesting one is the sexuality discussion. Yet we still are family, we still eat at the same table, we still share our lives, we still support each other, and we still worship the same god. What hurts me the most out of the discussions where people are saying that "we cannot co-exist as a church if this resolution is not reversed" is that what they are effectively saying to me is that my dad, my family and I can co-exist as a family, but it is completely impossible for us to co-exist as a church. And it hurts me to the bone to think that there are people that are saying that dad and I can exist as a family only, that next Christmas or next year or later on in my life we will not be able to worship together, or in the same church because of this sexuality and theology stuff. It cuts me like a knife for people, including my dad to be saying that we cannot co-exist. Jesus called his friends his brothers and sisters; we are called to be a family. My family has its problems, yet we are still a family, I still love my father and he loves me. Don't ever think that this is a god-caused division because its not, it's an institution-caused division and unfortunately it's making me hear things like "you and your family cannot be in the same church." To be told that it is impossible for my family and I to co-exist in the same church is one of the rudest things that people in the church have EVER said to me, I find it abusive, upsetting and destructive. I reject everything they say because as we can co-exist as a family for God's sake we better be able to co-exist as a church. Now I find myself completely depressed in the idea that there are people around who have forgotten that we are brothers and sisters, not evangelicals and liberals, not gay or straight, not orthodox and post-modern, not Jew nor gentile. Forgotten that we are a family, and as such we do not have the ability to choose our brothers and sisters, that job's God's not ours. "People killin', people dyin' Children hurt and you hear them cryin' Can you practice what you preach And would you turn the other cheek Father, Father, Father help us Send us some guidance from above 'Cause people got me, got me questionin' Where is the love Where is the love Where is the love Where is the love The love, the love" - "Where is the love?" by the Blackeyed Peas Shalom Darren Wright "Give us today, the bread of tomorrow" www.tollsonline.org --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). 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