london showed many faces today; the sun shone, clouds drifted in and out, and we got little bursts of five-minute flash showers of hail (in may 😭) and rain. the sky was clunky and indecisive, leaving no room for fickle fair weather friends.
as i was walking home from work, i noticed an old woman across the street struggling to walk with a big shopping trolley she was dragging along. i’ve recently been trying to practice seeing everyone around me as an image-bearer of God (deserving of dignity, love and care) and trying to be attuned to the different ways i can be a blessing (be the hands and feet of God) in the lives of others, so i crossed the street and asked her if she needed help. i was bracing myself for her to rebuff me, but to my joy, her face immediately broke into a smile of gratitude.
she thanked me profusely, handed me her shopping trolley, took my arm as support, and together we walked her home, in the middle of the street because the pavement was too wonky. every so often, we had to stop and get out of the way of an oncoming car and she’d apologize for slowing me down and i’d say, no problem at all, i have nothing more important to do with my day.
she told me she’d twisted her ankle not too long ago and was having a really hard time getting home after grocery shopping, so i was such a blessing to her. she asked if i lived nearby and i told her i work for the church around the corner, but would be moving into the area soon.
“christ church?”
“yes!”
“my house is on the same street! i’ve been before.”
i told her we started something new there almost a year ago. turns out she’s also a christian and usually goes to the gospel centre, but because of her ankle she hasn’t been able to go. i said she’s always welcome to drop in on a sunday, and i also let her know about our open doors wednesday community coffee mornings, and she said she’d come by next week!
she asked me what my name was and said she had a feeling we were going to be great friends. and she kept saying,
“you’re an angel, you’re an angel – i didn’t even pray for one today, but here you are, right when i needed you.”
and i thought about how beautiful that idea is: that you can be an answer to someone’s prayer they didn’t even know they had.
how amazing would the world be if we were all looking out for little ways to bless each other, expecting nothing in return? surely, we’d receive so many blessings too.
when we got to her house (it really was just a couple of doors down from the church), she said she would have to have me over sometime for coffee, cake and piano (we bonded over music during the walk) and that i would be welcome to bring a friend. i ran back to church to grab some flyers for her, so hopefully she does come by next week!
in the evening, i met up with nellie to have dinner at lucia’s. they said it was going to be a one-and-a-half-hour wait, so we meandered over to a bar down the road for a couple of sodas and to catch up.
i shared with her all of the drama that’s been going on in the last week, and she was incredibly sympathetic and encouraging. she’s not christian, so it was actually helpful to get a perhaps more objective perspective on everything, because it does seem a bit crazy from the outside looking in.
i think the big question was: who actually gets hurt when you institutionalize an affirming theology over a non-affirming one? is it just people who disagree with it, and the pain they feel is a personal sense of betrayal of themselves and God? because we know who gets hurt when you institutionalize a non-affirming theology – we have the documented and anecdotal evidence of all the harm, pain and death.
will people die because your church is suddenly affirming? will people be disowned by their parents and left homeless on the street for having a non-affirming view? will people go home and cry themselves to sleep at night over their own hopeless sense of broken identity and self-hatred because the church says God might actually be okay with gay people? probably not? then what are we doing?
surely the responsible thing to do is institutionalize an affirming view that allows for everyone’s dignity and full humanity (or at least stop institutionalizing and sanctifying dangerous non-affirming views) and actually make a safe space for the diversity of people’s personal theologies and beliefs. you can only really “agree to disagree” well and safely when no one is getting hurt. it’s not simply agreeing to disagree when your harmful opinion is enshrined as absolute truth and leads to a pervasive and seemingly inevitable culture of life-destroying and ungodly shame, guilt, hatred and fear.
anyway, as we were talking about all this, nellie said i must be exhausted, and i didn’t realize it, but i am. i’m tired of shouting into a void, trying to convince people that the pain i and countless others have felt and continue to feel is real – that it matters, and that it doesn’t have to be this way.
the truth is, my struggle with my sexuality in many ways derailed my life, and it was only a struggle because of the church. i didn’t care about what my peers thought about me, but i cared about what God thought about me. and though my church wasn’t actively homophobic in any way (nobody was ever mean to me or made me feel excluded; in fact, people at my church were only ever kind and loving to me), the doctrine was enough to damn me, and people’s kindness in some ways made it more confusing.
i thought, these are kind, loving, godly people, so if they’ve got that right, they must be right about this. and if they’re right about this, then God is disgusted by me and i’m going to hell. and when you’re a kid raised to believe God is the most important thing in the whole world (and you’re too scared to talk to your parents about it because they love God and, you know, they might throw you out) that can be enough to kill you.
so yes, i’m tired of having to retread this pain, trying to get people to really listen and understand, knowing it might not even matter at all, that it might not make any difference.
i’m exhausted.
but at least dinner was delicious! some of the best tacos i’ve had in london. and it was so nice to spend time with a friend who really lifts me up and helps me find the courage, strength and perspective i need to keep doing the work.