MyOutSpirit.com Gay Spirituality Blog

Byron Katie: The Work of Gay Liberation

Byron Katie, the founder of The Work, has one job: to teach people how to end their own suffering. As she guides people through the powerful process of inquiry called The Work, they find that their stressful beliefs—about life, other people, or themselves— radically shift and their lives are changed forever.  In this exclusive interview with MyOutSpirit.com founder, Clayton Gibson, her first in a gay publication, Katie addresses LGBT suffering and our struggle for equal rights in terms of The Work.

Katie is one of the most beloved self-help authors in the world. Her best-selling books include LOVING WHAT IS, WHO WOULD YOU BE WITHOUT YOUR STORY, A THOUSAND NAMES FOR JOY, and I NEED YOUR LOVE: IS THAT TRUE?  Katie will be a keynote speaker at the Liberation 2010 LGBT Spiritual Conference in Los Angeles in April 2010.  (Mention MyOutSpirit to save $50 on conference registration - enter code "mos50") 

 

Read the Whole Interview on MyOutSpirit.com.

Highlights:

"When it comes to suffering, we’re all the same. Straight or gay, we suffer only when we believe our stressful thoughts. The world can never be our problem; it’s only our thinking about the world that can cause us a problem. All these struggles for identity are very real, of course, and cause us untold misery. We attach to an identity—“I am straight,” “I am gay,” “I am the woman whose mother doesn’t love her,” “I am the man who isn’t good enough”—and we don’t realize that it’s the thought we’re believing in the moment that creates that identity. But the truth is that when we understand who we really are, we move beyond all identities, and life becomes very simple."

"Many people think that there is a contradiction between loving what is and activism. That’s not my experience at all. I’ve heard people say that they cling to their painful thoughts because they’re afraid that without them they wouldn’t go out and try to change the world. “If I felt completely peaceful,” they say, “why would I bother taking action at all?” My answer is “Because that’s what love does.” To think that we need sadness or outrage to motivate us to do what’s right is insane. As if the clearer and happier you get, the less kind you become. As if when someone finds freedom, she just sits around all day with drool running down her chin. My experience is the opposite. Love is action. It’s clear, it’s kind, it’s effortless, and it’s irresistible."

"When you attack someone who is anti-gay, however valid your viewpoint is, do you think that he’ll be open to what you’re saying? You’re threatening him with your attitude, and the facts can get lost, because you’re coming from fear and righteous anger. All he’ll hear is that you think he’s doing it wrong, it’s his fault, and he’ll go into denial and resistance. But if you speak to him without stress, in total confidence that everything is just the way it should be in this very moment, you’ll be able to express yourself kindly, effectively, and with no fear about the future.

"Violence teaches only violence. Stress teaches stress. If your heart is clear and loving and non-judgmental, our hearts will change much more quickly. That’s how it works. And if you do that genuinely, without violence in your heart, without anger, without pointing at homophobes as the enemy, then people begin to notice. We begin to listen and notice that change through peace is possible. It has to begin with one person. If you’re not the one, who is?"

 

Read the Whole Interview on MyOutSpirit.com.

 

 

HELP! Los Angeles Mission & Photo Shoot

 

Help MyOutSpirit founder Clayton Gibson get to LA in April 2010!

I have two big things to do in Los Angeles in April, but I need your help.

First, I'm receiving an award at the Liberation 2010 Conference (April 8-11, enter MyOutSpirit discount code "mos50" when you register to save $50), "a weekend long spiritual conference designed to empower LGBTQ people friends, family and fans to come out of the closet spiritually."  

They're expecting 1,000 LGBT people doing deep spiritual work, and MyOutSpirit needs to be there!  

I get into the conference for free, but I need help covering my travel and lodging expenses.

 While I'm in Los Angeles, I also have an opportunity to work with renown radical photographer, Justin Monroe (pictured above), on an amazing "Bible & Homosexuality" themed photo shoot.  

The images will appear as a photo editorial in MyOutSpirit Magazines, on MyOutSpirit.com, and on posters available everywhere commenting on what the Bible says, and doesn't say about homosexuality. The images will be tasteful but edgy, educational but with tongue-firmly-in-cheek!

This kind of project requires an irreverent spirit, and Justin Monroe's got that in abundance.  

The goal here is not to be respectful or gentle.  Justin's MyOutSpirit photos will be a sexy little Bible-bomb that helps people take religious condemnation of LGBT people far less seriously.  

We're not talking about irreverence for simple shock value.  That's been done.  

No, this photo editorial will do more than get public attention (especially among young people) or media coverage (because it will be controversial).  These photos are primarily educational, and will arm LGBTQ people with information to stand up for themselves against attacks on their identity and rights from biblical grounds.  

People still struggling to reconcile their LGBT identity with Christianity could find this art life-changing.  

In fact, this first MyOutSpirit photo shoot will be our largest salvo to deconstruct the deeply internalized cultural belief that queer people and families are not whole, sacred, and equal - "because the Bible says so."

Please help make it possible.

I need to raise $2,000 ASAP to reserve a day on Justin's calendar while I'm also in LA, and another $3,000 for travel and photo shoot expenses.  I can't do it alone.  Please give as you are able.

 

P.S.  I know it's a terrible time to have to ask for money to support my work.  All our hearts and wallets are open to Haiti, where the devastation and suffering are unimaginable.  You can also donate to the American Red Cross relief fund by clicking here:

 

Hate the Sin? Tony Campolo Speaks

Dr. Anthony Campolo is a speaker, author, sociologist, pastor, social activist, and leader of the Red Letter Christians.  "Over the past couple of decades, Evangelical Christians have often been associated with the Religious Right and the most conservative positions of the Republican Party. Rebelling against this designation are those who prefer to be called  Red Letter Christians, desiring to live out the red letters of Jesus' words in the New Testament. Believing that Jesus is neither a Republican nor a Democrat, Red Letter Christians transcend partisan politics and concentrate on issues viewed critically through a moral and biblical lens." {from TonyCampolo.org}

Awakened by David LaChapelle

Looking at the extensive works of renown gay photographer and filmmaker, David LaChapelle, I found this series, called AWAKENED and presented at the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in NYC. David’s works are often full of references to religion, spirituality and sexuality (see "Jesus is My Homeboy" or his famous Madonna works), but in this case the images are very different.  These images are missing the usual richness and opulence characteristic of LaChapelle's photography. 

AWAKENED is about the internal light in every human being, no matter their age or shape or gender or sexual orientation or profession or belief system.  We are all swimming in an ocean of Love, and we are not other-than that Love, that Light.  So many religions teach us that this world is in some way an illusion, although an illusion we have to go along with for efficiency's sake.  Sometimes, though, it's good to add a semi-colon - to close our eyes, press our hands together in the universal prayer mudra, and acknowledge what we really are: AWAKENED.

Centering Prayer Course with Father Thomas Keating

Prayer As a Path to Deepen Your Relationship with God

BEGINNING JANUARY 20, lesbian-owned spiritual recording company, Sounds True, presents Father Thomas Keating in an eight-week interactive, in-depth training in Christian contemplative prayer.

Centering Prayer is a silent prayer practice that can move you toward profound relationship with the Spirit of God within. It is a way of praying that opens the door to the Divine Indwelling—the ground of our being. With Centering Prayer, Father Thomas Keating and his colleagues Gail Fitzpatrick-Hopler and Father Carl Arico present the first online course in this method for deepening your intimacy with God and ultimately consenting to the presence and action of the Divine in all aspects of your life.

A Prayer Practice Inspired by the Christian Mystics

Father Thomas Keating, answering a life calling, sought to renew a prayer practice that goes beyond asking for aid or offering praise—one that invites you to enter into a deeper relationship with God. Based on the wisdom sayings of Jesus and inspired by teachings from the classic 14th-century text The Cloud of Unknowing, Saint John of the Cross, Teresa of Avila, Thomas Merton, and others, Centering Prayer is a method of four guidelines that has sparked the modern renewal of contemplative Christianity. “Centering Prayer does not replace other types of prayer,” teaches Keating. “Rather, the practice gives a new depth of meaning to all forms of prayer.”

Training from a Respected Voice in the Revival of Contemplative Christianity

This interactive eight-session intensive-learning program is highlighted by four live audio-teaching sessions with Father Thomas Keating and his colleagues from Contemplative Outreach, Gail Fitzpatrick-Hopler and Father Carl Arico. If you can’t make one of the live sessions, the audio will be available for download shortly after the session’s conclusion. The course also includes private journaling, along with an online discussion group to foster community. You will also receive over nine hours of downloadable audio and video instruction, plus a rich selection of written exercises and information that you can fill out on your computer or print at home.

Centering Prayer provides precise, direct training in contemplative practice—as well as a treasury of wisdom from Father Keating himself. His teachings, stories, and insights reveal the fruits of fully engaging in this path of complete consent to God's presence and action within. Join him as you learn this simple yet transformative method for taking prayer to its deepest level—and inviting the grace of the Divine to live through you.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

King’s Vision on Healing Injustice

Many people working for justice today stand on the shoulders of Martin Luther King Jr. But King's vision of justice is often gravely limited and misunderstood. Too many people thought then, and continue to think, that King's statements regarding justice were only about race and the African-American community. However, we fail to see how King's vision of justice was far wider and challenging that we might have once imagined.

For King, justice was more than a racial issue, more than a legal or moral issue. Justice was a human issue. And this was evident in King's passionate concern about a wide range of concerns: "The revolution for human rights is opening up unhealthy areas in American life and permitting a new and wholesome healing to take place," King once told a racially mixed audience. "Eventually the civil rights movement will have contributed infinitely more to the nation than the eradication of racial injustice."

Moral leadership played a profound role in the justice work that King did. He argued that true moral leadership must involve itself in the situations of all who are damned, disinherited, disrespected and dispossessed, and moral leadership must be part of a participatory government that is feverishly working to dismantle the existing discriminatory laws that truncate full participation in the fight to advance democracy. And surely part of our job, in keeping King's dream alive, is to also work to dismantle discriminatory laws and dehumanizing structures.

However, if King were among us today, he would say that it is not enough to look outside ourselves to see the places where society is broken, like our institutions and workplaces that fracture and separate people based on race, religion, gender and sexual orientation. We must also look at the ways we manifest these bigotries.

Often, we find that these institutions and workplaces are broken, dysfunctional and wounded in the very same ways that we are; thus, being mirrors not of who we want to be, but who we really are.

King would remind us that we cannot heal the world if we have not healed ourselves. So perhaps the greatest task, and the most difficult work we must do in light of King's teachings, is to heal ourselves in relationship to our justice work in the world.

In "The Old Man and the Sea," Ernest Hemingway said that the world breaks us all, but some of us grow strong in those broken places. King's teachings invites us to grow strong in our broken places - not only to mend the sin-sick world in which we live in, but also to mend the sin-sick world that we carry around within us. And we can only do that if we are willing to look both inward and outward, healing ourselves of the bigotry, biases and the demons that chip away at our efforts to work toward justice in this world.

I know that the struggle against racism that King talked about is only legitimate if I am also fighting anti-Semitism, homophobia, sexism, classism - not only out in the world but also in myself. Otherwise, I am creating an ongoing cycle of abuse that goes on unexamined and unaccounted for.

We are foolish if we think we can heal the world and not ourselves. And we delude ourselves if we think that King was only talking about the woundedness of institutional racism, and not the personal wounds we all carry as human beings.

In light of King's teachings I believe that when we use our gifts in the service of others as King has taught us we then shift the paradigm of personal brokenness to personal healing. We also shift the paradigm of looking for moral leadership from outside of ourselves to within ourselves; thus, realizing we are not only the agents of change in society, but also the moral leaders we have been looking for.

Our job, therefore, in keeping King's dream alive is to remember that our longing for social justice is also inextricably tied to our longing for personal healing.

~ The Reverend Irene Monroe

Top GLBT spiritual arts stories of 2009 named

Noah’s Gay Wedding Cruise, a humorous painting that supports marriage equality, is the top LGBT spiritual arts story for 2009, JesusInLove.org announced today.

The painting got the most visits and enthusiastic comments at the Jesus in Love Blog on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender spirituality and the arts.

The top seven GLBT spiritual arts stories of the year were named today by lesbian Christian author Kittredge Cherry. She founded JesusInLove.org to promote artistic and religious freedom with a blog, e-newsletter and related websites.

“2009 was an exciting year for queer spirituality and the arts, Cherry says. “LGBT people and our allies found inspiration, laughter, eroticism and God through a wide range of new artistic creations. In a sense, we were all sailing on Noah’s gay wedding cruise toward a future of love and equality.”

Here’s a round-up of the year’s best with links to the original posts:

1. “Noah’s Gay Wedding Cruise pictured” was the most popular story of 2009. Happy gay and lesbian animal couples mingle with today’s GLBT celebrities in the painting by Ohio artist Paul Richmond. His gay version of Noah’s ark even has drowning sinners -- opponents of gay rights such as Ann Coulter, Fred Phelps, and Larry Craig with his toilet!

2. “An Erotic Encounter with the Divine” was the most influential and top gay story of the year. “Soon after I began silently inviting the Divine Presence to be with us during lovemaking, I noticed that both Scott and I became more aware of each others bodies,” gay Iowan Eric Hays-Strom wrote in a powerful post. It was reprinted in the Dignity USA newsletter and other blogs, as well as generating lots of other positive feedback. It continues to get huge traffic at the Jesus in Love Blog.

3. “300 protest transsexual Jesus play” was the year’s biggest controversy and the top transgender story of the year. More than 300 conservative Christian protesters picketed the Scottish opening of “Jesus, Queen of Heaven,” a play by Jo Clifford about a transwoman Jesus. Clifford’s goal was to create greater understanding of transgendered people like herself.

4. Ruth and Naomi were the favorite GLBT saints and the year’s top lesbian story. Ruth expressed love for Naomi in the Bible with famous vows that are often used in weddings: “Whither thou goest, I will go…” Visitors enjoyed the post about Ruth and Naomi so much that it ran twice in 2009, launching a major series on GLBT saints. “Whither Thou Goest” by Atlanta artist Trudie Barreras illustrated both posts.

5. “Gay artist says Jesus never married” got the most comments of the year at the Jesus in Love Blog. A new poster by California artist Dirk Vanden states, “FYI: Jesus never married, nor commanded nor advocated nor performed ‘marriage,’” The poster sparked a passionate blog debate about Jesus’ position on marriage.

6. “Transvestite Jesus appears in photo project” was the most thought-provoking story of the year. A transvestite Jesus and a female Jesus appear in a new series of alternative Christ photos by Colorado artist Bill Burch. The project inspired a South African blogger to write a major essay and stirred controversy at the artist’s school.

7. “Gay Mohammad art censored” got the most hate mail -- for two years in a row! Gay Mohammad images by Iranian-born artist Sooreh Hera were censored from a Dutch art exhibit. The artist defended her work as an expose of Islamic hypocrisy on homosexuality. It was posted back in February 2008, but STILL gets more hateful, obscene comments than anything else by far. Most of the comments are left at the Gay Spirituality Blog, where it is cross-posted. There were 44 comments (22 made in 2009) as of Jan. 7, 2010.

Founded in 2005, JesusInLove.org presents a positive vision of GLBT spirituality and tracks censorship of queer religious art. “We specialize in new gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender art that is too queer for religious institutions and too religious for GLBT organizations,” Cherry says.

JesusInLove.org has reached thousands of people all over the world, won many honors -- and gotten a lot of hate mail from religious conservatives.

“The ongoing religious bigotry proves that Jesus in Love is needed now as much as ever,” Cherry says. “Christian rhetoric is being misused to justify hate and discrimination against GLBT people, but Jesus taught love for all.”

What’s YOUR favorite story of 2009?  Vote for your fave now at the Jesus in Love Blog.

(Image credit:“Noah’s Gay Wedding Cruise” by Paul Richmond, 2009. www.paulrichmondstudio.com)

Bearing False Witness in Uganda

By Rev. Harry Knox, Director of HRC's Religion and Faith Program

It’s not easy to be lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender in Uganda.  There are no legal protections for LGBT people or families and there is a criminal sodomy statute on the books.  Anti-gay violence is common.  It looks like one of the last places on Earth that would need to be saved from the “homosexual agenda.”  But last March, three American Evangelicals, posing as “experts” on homosexuality, led a conference there about what they called the dangerous gay agenda, and provided advice on making gay people straight.  In October, when Uganda’s legislature introduced a bill making homosexual acts punishable by death, those American “experts” and their peers tried to distance themselves from the Ugandan government’s homicidal hatred of gay people.  But they can’t. 

We now have 40+ years of education that homosexuality is not a choice, that homosexuality does not harm people, and that people who are homosexual don’t harm their neighbors.   When these extremists  said in Uganda (as they also say in America) that gay men prey upon teenagers, that there is a gay agenda to destroy families, and that gay people can and should be changed to straight, they were bearing false witness against their neighbors. 

When they brought their roundly discredited “ex-gay” ideology to Uganda, they both bore false witness and violated God’s command that we treat others as we wish to be treated. Who, indeed, would wish to be subjected to a counterfeit therapy rejected by the medical profession in order to erase who they are?  That is what the “ex-gay” movement is peddling.

To believe that there is no relationship between their actions and this legislation, you have to believe that a person can travel to another continent, present themselves as an expert, lie about a group of people who already have it pretty bad, and urge that this group be treated differently based on the lies without being responsible for fomenting hatred.  Theirs is a message of hate.  When you bear false witness, when you tell the majority to treat a small group of people very badly based on falsehoods, you send a message of hate.

Because the messengers are Christian and tie their message to Christianity, I’m running the risk of inviting outrage for shutting down religious speech.  I’m not. The three Evangelical leaders have a full legal right to say whatever they believe.  As their fellow Christian, I have moral mandate to hold them responsible for what they say, especially when their speech harms those most beloved by God – the marginalized and rejected in any society.  Free religious speech allows hate-mongers to tell the biggest whoppers they can devise, but lies must  never go unchallenged lest God’s concern for the “least of these” cease to be the Church’s and our nation’s priority.

Scott Lively one of the participants, who also consulted with lawmakers, is reported to have been disappointed that the legislation went as far as it did.  How far is far enough?  Far enough to subject gay people to discredited, damaging “therapy” that seeks to change who we are?  Is keeping us from giving children a loving and permanent family far enough?  Is the denial of a life-sustaining and community-enhancing job enough?  Is it enough to make us outcasts in our families and communities?  The jail time that gay people already face in Uganda – is that sufficient?   What fruits of his lying would Mr. Lively accept?  I admonish him to remember the scriptural wisdom that we reap what we sow.

You might argue that the real problem here was not the message but the missionaries’ misreading of Uganda.  After all, Americans have been subjected to the same views for years and there has never been a death penalty law proposed here (though private executioners commit thousands of hate crimes against us). 

Wherever they go, these people preach that it is wrong to be gay like me and dangerous for a society to let people like me be ourselves.  Even when it does not spawn atrocious legislation, it is still false witness; it is still mistreatment of other human beings; it is still lying to achieve power over others.  

There are many unanswered questions about American involvement in Uganda’s consideration of a homicidal stance towards gay people, and we need answers.  By all accounts the State Department is taking this horrendous situation seriously, and the next step is for the United States to condemn the legislation outright.  We must then take the necessary steps to stop Uganda from passing a mass death sentence for its gay citizens.  Some of our voices have imperiled our brothers and sisters.  We have the power, and the responsibility, to protect them.

Archbishop of York calls proposed Ugandan law 'victimizing'

[Episcopal News Service] Archbishop of York John Sentamu, a native of Uganda, recently said that proposed changes to that country's anti-homosexuality laws victimize and diminish people.

In a Dec. 24 interview on the British Broadcasting Corp.'s Radio 4 Today program, Sentamu said:

"I am opposed totally to the death penalty. I am also quite not happy when you describe people with the kind of language you find in this Private Member's Bill, which seems also not only victimising but diminishment of individuals."

The Ugandan Parliament is considering a bill proposed by one of its members (David Bahati), rather than the government, that would introduce the death penalty for people who violate portions of that country's anti-homosexuality laws. Recent reports have speculated that politicians might be bowing to public pressure and reconsidering the severity of punishments proposed in the legislation.

[continue reading the full article from the Episcopal News Service]