Lighting a candle of hope

I did something this evening that I have not done in well over a year: I attended a religious service.

This may seem strange, since I recently proclaimed my lack of belief. I didn’t go as someone who believes though. I went because the service was promoted as being a place for those who are dealing with grief and sorrow and not able to embrace the joy of the holiday season. I went as someone who is seeking, questioning, wondering, exploring. I went as someone who is still finding healing for the grief that has clung to me for the past year. I went as someone wanting to know whether this religious community was a safe place for a queer woman with lots of doubts and questions and very little faith.

The answer I received was “Yes, you are welcome here. You are safe here. You are loved here.” I appreciate my friends John and Sheila, both staff members of Northminster Presbyterian Church, who have actively and readily affirmed their support over the past year, who have not pressured me to return to the church, to change my identity, to reaffirm a faith I do not connect with, but who have simply said “You are our cherished sister and there is always room for you here.” Tonight I tested that and found it to be true.

I’m not ready to return regularly to church. My spiritual journey is far from that place. But it is comforting and reassuring to know that I can go there if and when I need or want to. If only my experience were the norm. Unfortunately, too often churches and other religious communities are the least-welcoming places for LGBTQ people. A place that should provide refuge and sanctuary often provides precisely the opposite. Nor do churches tend to welcome those who question, doubt or explore. They are too often about inculcating certainty, fostering a particular spiritual “feeling,” indoctrinating a set of beliefs and a pattern of behavior. Tonight I experienced what church can be for those of us who do not fit within its typical cultural boundaries, and for that I am very appreciative. I dream and long for a time when this will be the norm for churches and queer people will not be excluded from communities of faith because of who they are.

As we lit candles in this evening’s service I could not light it for the reason given by the pastor -- in acknowledgement of the love of God which I do not experience -- but I lit mine in hope: in hope for my transgender brothers, sisters and non-conformers; in hope for my lesbian, gay, bisexual and asexual friends; in hope for a world that knows way too much of hatred, suffering, pain and sorrow; in hope that we can create a world in which people can live in safety, in connection with one another and in connection with their true selves. This is my Christmas wish.