Update

November 18, 2010

Since I last posted to the blog, I've accepted a role as a blogger on Huffington Post (www.huffingtonpost.com) and a position as Executive Director of Soulforce (www.soulforce.org). It is interesting to reflect on both in terms of my blogging on this site---I find it much more palatable to blog in behalf of the issues confronting our community in those venues than blogging about my life in general. I have never been particularly faithful to journaling, so perhaps personal blogging is similar. Maybe, if I am truthful, I feel vulnerable as a person who is "out there" when I share too much about my daily life or family.

I have a mantra when I feel afraid about anything (ranging from rattlesnakes in our garage to death threats on our phone). It is simple and it helps me. Faith.Faith.Trust.Trust. Repeat until real. I will go to sleep speaking it tonight.

The work at SoulForce has been very intense and great. I love working with the Equality Riders and our Board has been very supportive.

Sue is well, enjoying her work at the Center, taking good care of her mom (and of me!). Joshua and Hannah are amazing and wonderful and teaching me new things every day. I am blessed to be their mother. Joshua and I were able to do a "joint blog" on Huffington last week about our family and that was really fun and felt great to do. I hope we get to do more. He is a fabulous writer. I like to "tee up" an idea and see him run with it.

I also read something this week that I love. The engineer Buckminster Fuller is often cited for his use of trim tabs as metaphor for leadership and personal empowerment. I love nautical language so this appeals to me. In the February 1972 issue of Playboy, he said, "Something hit me very hard once, thinking about what one little man could do. Think of the Queen Mary--the whole ship goes by and then comes the rudder. And there's a tiny thing at the edge of the rudder called the trim tab. It's a miniature rudder. Just moving the little trim tab builds a low pressure that pulls the rudder around. Takes almost no effort at all. So I said that the little individual can be a trim tab. Society thinks it is going right by you, that it's left to you altogether. But if you're doing dynamic things mentally, the fact is that you can just put your foot out like that and the whole ship of state is going to go."

Fabulous!

I never returned to blogging after my last post-- so much time has passed. Sue and I are in Abilene, Texas where continue my work as an Advocate for adults living with chronic illnesses, Center, as a part-time volunteer staff pastor at Exodus MCC and managing our most recent investment, the Natural Food Center (www.naturalfoodcenter.net).

Sue is retired from the public schools and working at the Center, going to Fort Worth to care for her mother, Sissy, two days each week. We still live at the lake and the sunrise and sunset continue to fill my heart each day. Our two pups, Timmy-Dog and Lily, are wonderful companions for us. We live in a migratory path for birds so we've seen thousands of geese, sand hill cranes and Great American white pelicans this year. They pass overhead at sunrise each morning as they progress to feeding grounds and back in the evenings. I love the predictability of their path and hearing their "calls" to one another. Our church continues to thrive with so many babies and young children. Their voices enliven our services and they participate in all parts of the service. They remind me of our future as MCC and always encourage me. Last week I got to do something totally out of my realm of experience---a show called "What's Cooking" on a local tv station. I made Ahi Tuna with Wasabi and Avocado. It was so fun to do. I love learning new things every day--it helps me stay alert to all of the possibilities and, I think, helps me feel young. Soulforce will be with us in Abilene in the second week of March and we will help host the Equality Riders as they visit Abilene Christian and Hardin Simmons. In April, I will be blessed to appear on a panel for Equality Texas at the Capitol talking about Pride and Faith. I appreciate these partners in ministry so much and really value the opportunity to stay current on the issues that face our community. A recent attack in Austin on two gay men has heightened awareness of hate crimes here. My 55th birthday was Monday, February 22 and one of the best parts of the day was hearing from so many MCCers and friends via Facebook. I am so grateful for this way that we can connect. Sue and I have also been blessed to join a book club with five heterosexual couples and one single woman. Each week we feel ourselves opening up to them and visa versa in ways that we could not have envisioned. Spirit is just the best arranger!

Great Day in Washington

The final day of Clergy Call in Washington, D.C. was fantastic. We did the press conference with the Capitol as backdrop. It was an amazing experience to be on the podium with Tony Campolo and hear his public profession of support for LGBT people. We spent the afternoon lobbying with our representatives---Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson and Rep. Pete Sessions for my state, Texas. HRC and the Equality Forum hosted a reception at HRC for everyone involved and also provided rooms for UCC/United Church of Christ, MCC and two other groups in attendance to have some time together. I stayed for the first part of this gathering as people shared their experiences from Clergy Call. HRC Director of Faith & Religion, Harry Knox, Sharon Groves and their team did a fantastic job of organizing this event.

Blessings,

Cindi

With Gratitude

Thank you, Rev. Margaret Walker and Monica, members of Exodus MCC, Rev. Tom Emmett, Rev. Charlie Arehart, Rev. Jen Glass, Rev. Jackie Carter, Jerry Small, Rev. Carolyn Mobley, Rev. Joe Cobb, Chuck Phelan and members of the Board of Pensions, Marina Laws, Rev. Carol Trissell, Rev. Ron LaRocque, Lupe Valdez, Joe Rattan, Jennifer Justice, Tammy Erwin, Bill Hooper, Frank Zerilli, Franklin Calvin, Rev. Elder Troy Perry, Deborah Maurelli, Rev. Elder Cecilia Eggleston, Stedney Phillips, Ann and Fran, Rev. Robin Gorsline, Marsha Warren, Judy Dale and Denise Junious.

Clergy Call Washington, D.C.

I am still in Washington, D.C. Today was an amazing experience as 300+ clergy gathered at Calvary Baptist Church to hear the new head of President Obama's Faith Based Initiatives Council, Betsy Pursell, VP for Public Education and Outreach (HRC), Rt. Rev. V. Gene Robinson, Rev. Loyce Newton-Edwards (Church of the Open Arms UCC in Oklahoma City), a panel entitled Gender Identity and Our Faith Communities by Melanie Martinez, Rev. Tara Wilkins, Rev. Elijah Nealy and Allyson Robinson (HRC). In the afternoon, we heard Marty Rouse, Rabbi Denise Eger, Joyce Hardy, Lea Gilmore, Ellen Kahn on the Local and State Context: Marriage Equality and Adoption. Then we heard Rev. Carolyn Mobley, Faisal Alam, Rev. Dr. Elizabeth Leung and Cuc Vu.

I got to have dinner with my daughter-in-law, Melanie Martinez, a rare treat---then the interfaith celebration (Advocacy from a Spirit of Abundance) which was just fabulous. The Washington DC MCC choir knocked it out of the park along with Marvin Matthews and others.

Blessed, graced and loved....

May 3, 2009

I've just arrived in Washington, D.C. for the Human Rights Campaign Clergy Call events at the Capitol. This is the second time that I will participate in this process with my colleagues from throughout the United States, more than 300 at recent count. Tonight is a casual dinner with other presenters, tomorrow includes a workshop and training with participants and Tuesday will find us all on Capitol Hill. Please pray for us as we lobby for Senate passage of the Matthew Shepherd Hate Crimes Bill and the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (both houses).

Remarks of Rev. Dr. Cindi Love, Clergy Call for Justice and Equality, Washington, DC, April 16-17, 2007

I am Rev. Dr. Cindi Love, author of Would Jesus Discriminate? The 21st Century Question, Executive Director of Metropolitan Community Churches (MCC) and an ordained minister of a gospel of good news delivered by a subversive Rabbi—a Teacher named Jesus Christ. The good news Jesus delivered is this—the Divine is in each one of us—we are the beloved people and children and family of God and nothing can separate us from that love. And, as children of God, we are not to be muzzled like oxen. We are worthy of our labor—worthy for hire. (1 Timothy 5:18)

As a pastor, I am often the first person called after a partner or other family member when a lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender person loses a job. People in our community get to process all of the same stages of grief about losing a job that other people do, but they have to do so without benefit of the protection of law and with the added burden of being fired just for being who they were born to be. We get to go home and tell our spouses and our children the bad news that the pay check isn’t coming not because we did a bad job or even because of sanctioned layoffs in a down economy but because of whom we are.

As a pastor and a citizen of the United States, I believe we have a moral and civic responsibility to say once and for all, stop discrimination in the workplace against people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender. My great-grandfather would have said, “Let me earn my keep and you earn yours.” Let me share a personal story with you.

My spouse, Sue, and I have been together 29 years. She retired early in 2005 from a small public school district in Texas after a life-time of distinguished service as an elementary counselor. She decided it was time to retire when the superintendent of schools asked her to remove a Human Rights Campaign sticker from the back of her car. A school board member had suggested that this sticker meant Sue was gay. She told him that the sticker was about human rights and, by the way, she was gay and she wasn’t going to take the sticker off until there was no more need for it in this country. Until that incident, we never felt afraid for her—even though the neighborhood where she worked was a high-crime area. Now the real risk of harm felt like it could come from her co-workers or supervisors or one of the fundamentalist church goers who represented a large population of the parents. And, we knew and we know today that no one would do anything if someone hurt her---beat her up as she left school at night or raped her to prove that she could be “cured” of her lesbianism.

We are also here today to remind our neighbors and legislators that hate crimes legislation is not about limiting free speech, but about limiting real acts that terrorize, maim and kill real people in our communities. It is time for equal protection under the law for employment and for hate crimes protection to include sexual orientation, gender identity and disability. Now is time to do the right thing.