"Out of the Closet", Faithfully

 

This is Pride Month in Canada, an opportunity to acknowledge the challenges and accomplishments of the LGBTQ2S+ community across the country. We attended the regional event in Picton, a town in Prince Edward County and somewhat to our surprise there was a big turnout and a really celebratory vibe. I saw a long lineup of really...colourful...individuals at a food venue where the vendors were a Syrian once-refugee family we know, the two women dressed in black hijabs. I had to smile, proud that this is the Canada I want to celebrate, one where there is broad acceptance and inclusion. 

I caught a glimpse of a former parishioner from a congregation I served and I sought him out through the crowd. He was there as part of a group sponsoring LGBTQ2S+ refugees from countries where their orientation is shunned and decried, often led by religious groups. In some of those countries their orientation is illegal and even punishable by death.

We caught up on our lives and he told me that his partner had died, a source of deep sadness. I assumed that he was a gay man but he never spoke of his orientation and he never acknowledged he had a same-gender partner even though we had several LGBTQ2S+ staff members in the congregation. 

Looking back through 37 years of pastoral ministry I can identify a number of LGBTQ2S+ members in the various congregations I served who never "came out of the closet" during my time, or only did so with considerable caution and with the assumption that I wouldn't share this reality with others. They didn't want the drama or possible rejection and in some situations they were not "out" to family or even spouses. Closeted is an older but apt term because they too often were in a stiflingly enclosed place psychologically and spiritually. And think about it, heterosexuals don't have to identify their orientation in any public way.

A couple of weeks after I began ministry in 1980 in outport Newfoundland a boy of 16 took his own life. He walked past his family watching television, took a rifle out of a cupboard, and went  into the backyard where he shot himself. The traumatized family called the paramedics, police, and the new minister. Because the first two were nearly an hour away I arrived first to the chaotic scene and went to the body in the dark. There is no seminary preparation for this sort of pastoral situation and I was 25-years-old. 

It was decades before it occurred to me that this bright young man, passionate about the arts and theatre, may have been gay and quietly in despair. While this may be stereotyping on my part, his interests were certainly uncharacteristic for guys his age in that culture. Derogatory jokes and nasty terms for gay people were still very much in use at that time. 

We have come a long way in our society but we need to continue on a path of affirmation and love in Christ's name. God give us the grace and courage to lead the way, faithfully. 

The SBC, Untruth, and Disunity

 

The men take themselves so seriously

with their coats and votes,
while Spirit laughs, plants trees, grows fruit.
The Southern Baptist Convention
said women cannot preach and lead.
So silly. Like standing on a bank
yelling at the river to stop flowing.
Like ordering dawn to become night.
Like scolding the tide from the shore.
Like expecting Spirit to ask permission
before descending where She will.
Women will keep preaching
because a voice older than any vote i HAV IN
keeps saying: Yes, her. She’s the one.

                                     Samantha Bise 

Not long ago I wrote about the impending creepy and misogynistic motion at the Southern Baptist Convention to deepen its ban on women preaching, including commenting online about sermons. The measure, sponsored by Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler, is known as the "Truth and Unity Amendment". In the end the vote wasn't even close with 75% of the "messengers" supporting the amendment. This is supposedly biblical, ignoring the Easter story in John's gospel in which Mary is the first witness to the Resurrection.  

It's part of the relentless efforts by male leaders in the SBC to silence women in expressing their God-given faith. Some congregations and high profile women have been kicked out, harassed out, or left in frustration. This is about power and control, not the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

There are some great cartoons out there including one where the Risen Christ speaks to Mary Magdalene on Easter morning:

Jesus: Go and tell the men I have risen!

Mary: Crap, This is gonna sound crazy but I can't. In 2026 the SBC voted to silence me.

Jesus: What's the SBC? 

I wish I could share the image with you but it isn't accessible. 

I have included the powerful poem, above. "So silly. Like standing on a bank yelling at the river to stop flowing."

Cat Stevens & Morning Has Broken

 

1 Morning has broken like the first morning,

blackbird has spoken like the first bird.

Praise for the singing! Praise for the morning!

Praise for them, springing fresh from the Word!

2 Sweet the rain's new fall sunlit from heaven,

like the first dewfall on the first grass.

Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden,

sprung in completeness where God's feet pass.

3 Ours is the sunlight! Ours is the morning

born of the one light Eden saw play!

Praise with elation, praise every morning,

God's recreation of the new day!

                                                       Voices United 409

In the early 1970s Cat Stevens was the folk/pop/rock dream guy. With dark and unruly hair and beard he churned out hits including Wild World and Peace Train and Moonshadow --I can hear you humming them!

 Perhaps the most improbable of his popular songs was a cover of a hymn with lyrics written in 1931, set to an even older Gaelic tune. Morning has Broken is in many hymn books and over the years folk in different congregations were surprised that we were singing a pop song,  assuming Cat Stevens wrote it. 

                                              

                                                                       Rick Wakeman 1970s

I discovered recently that the jaunty keyboard intro to Steven's version was created by Rick Wakeman of the prog rock band Yes. Steven's heard him noodling before the recording session for the hymn and liked the tempo and feel of his playing so asked him to do the intro in that style. When you listen there is a sense that the ear-catching first bars settle into the hymn in a more familiar way, with Cat's guitar as accompaniment. 

It's interesting that while this is a Christian hymn, reflecting Stevens' spiritual quest, he eventually embraced the Islamic religion and changed his name to Yusuf Islam. He all but gave up musical performance and song-writing for a couple of decades. Eventually he realized that musical expression was not forbidden in Islam and now performs and records under the name Yusuf. 

Fifty years after the the 1970 release of Tea for the Tillerman, in September 2020, Stevens remade the album as  Tea for the Tillerman2. This version includes new lyrics and new instrumentation, and he sings along with his 22-year-old self in Father and Son. We received this second version as a gift and quite enjoyed the changes. 

The Solstice and Celebrating Creation

 

                                                                 Killbear Provincial Park

All things bright and beautiful,

all creatures great and small,

all things wise and wonderful:

in love, God made them all.

1 Each little flower that opens,

each little bird that sings,

God made their glowing colours,

God made their tiny wings.  R

2 The purpleheaded mountains,

the river running by,

the sunset and the morning

that brightens up the sky;  R

On this Summer Solstice our daughter Emily and husband Brad are camping in beautiful Killbear Provincial Park on Georgian Bay. It is a place of memories for Brad's family and where he proposed to Emily. They are urban people with a trendy part of downtown Toronto as their current habitat but both of them spent lots of time in the outdoors as they grew up and still love the natural world.  

                                                      Killbear photos June 21 2026 -- Emily Hendriks

They were also raised in Christian families which attended church but that's not part of the rhythm of their lives at this point, Yet they have noted that there is a sense of the sacred in this place and that they have spontaneously sung a couple of hymns while they're rambling about, a somewhat surprising admission.  In a text exchange Emily commented that the hymn All Things Bright and Beautiful was bumping through her head yesterday. It sounds perfect for the location. 

Perhaps our favourite Solstice Day ever was on Haida Gwaii a couple of years ago. We celebrated the astonishing natural abundance of this island archipelago off the BC coast on what is also National Indigenous Peoples Day. It couldn't have been a better setting. 

Wherever we are today we can give thanks to the Creator and celebrate the gifts of Creation. 

3 The cold wind in the winter,

the pleasant summer sun,

the ripe fruits in the garden:

God made them every one.  R

4 The rocky mountain splendour,

the lone wolf's haunting call,

the great lakes and the prairies,

the forest in the fall;  R

5 God gave us eyes to see them,

and lips that we might tell

how great is God our maker,

who has made all things well.  R

Refugia for Butterflies

                                                        Yellow Swallowtail

"The private garden has become the last viable habitat for many butterfly species in developed regions of the United States. A functional house — with correct slot geometry, a puddling station, and untreated wood — can mean the difference between local extinction and a stable population. The problem is not people's willingness. The problem is that most commercially available butterfly houses simply do not meet the basic biological requirements."

Dr. Patricia Nguyen Entomologist, UNC Asheville — Dept of Biology & Environmental Studies

 Nearly 20 years ago I stepped away from congregational ministry for a few months to recalibrate and renew.  I spent about half the time in an old farmhouse on Ragged Chutes Road in the back of beyond. The sprawling farm was at the end of the gravel road and I was alone during the week with Ruth joining me on Thursdays evenings after work, then driving back early on  Monday mornings. During the week it was just me and the critters, the deer and bears and coyotes. There were also birds and dragonflies and butterflies aplenty. I called this spot Refugio, a Spanish word meaning shelter used to describe the hostels on the Camino pilgrimage. The farm was a safe and healing place amidst the big pines and maples. 

I came across the word in it's plural form recently in the title of an article in Nature magazine about the decline of butterflies in North America: More than 70% of Americans live in areas with no natural refugia for butterflies. The private backyard may be the last one left.

Butterflies are not decorative. Where they disappear, the birds that feed on their caterpillars disappear. The wildflowers that depend on them for pollination stop reproducing. The decline is not an aesthetic loss — it's a collapse signal. And the signal has been flashing red for years.

The article is also about Dot Calloway, a woman who crafts butterfly refuges for backyards, something I'd never heard of before. They are essentially butterfly hostels with carefully calibrated slots where the butterflies can tuck themselves away from predators as well as providing a source of water with a perch. To me they look like little chapels. What a wonderful vocation, a practical commitment to Creation. She writes a letter to every buyer. Sadly, Dot is closing her workshop after more than 30 years. 

In our backyard we see monarchs and swallowtails and viceroys and others. We are we are always pleased to observe them at a couple of bushes adjacent to our deck with blossoms that attract them. I suppose it's very nerdy to get excited about a yellow swallowtail but I'm happy to confess that for me it's a sacred encounter. 

Dorothy "Dot" Callaway (75) in her workshop in Weaverville, NC. Thirty-two winters, more than 3,000 houses — and now the last collection.

https://craft-folk.com/pages/dots-butterfly-house?gad_campaignid=23758989514&wbraid=ClMKCAjwrs7RBhAlEkMA0iCF2XNz_KmwAoCAYzEN_MJH86DkYdVDqEe3ALAPVu2_DQPaziiontPRHztcK0HSn-24ZxXbBQ__5FoSm70FSM_9GgJgUg&shem=rimspwouohe,

Juneteenth, Hush Arbors & Black Ecotheology

                                                                  Hush Arbor Worship Service 

 Happy Birthday to our wonderful son, Isaac, and to Wordle -- definitely in that order.

This is also Juneteenth, a federal holiday in the United States to commemorate the end of slavery following the Civil War. The enforcement of the Emancipation Proclamation happened last in Texas on June 19, 1865 and by the 1890s Juneteenth was used to acknowledge this auspicious date.

On  this Juneteenth I'm pondering all those people who were enslaved by supposedly Christian supremacists yet continued to worship the God of liberation and hope. And I'm particularly mindful of those who chose to join together for worship away from their enslavers in secluded outdoor settings termed "hush harbors" or "hush arbors". A harbour is a safe haven and an arbour is a wooded area so both make sense. These meeting allowed Black identity to flourish away from white missionaries and slave masters who used religion to enforce submission. 

I wonder if theses "invisible churches" were part of the foundation for Black eco-theology which is now receiving scholarly attention. I mentioned last year that I read the eye-opening Night Flyer: Harriet Tubman and the Faith Dreams of a Free People. Author Tiya Miles posits that Tubman, a courageous liberator of enslaved persons "is arguably the most famous Black ecologist in US history" because of her broad knowledge of woods and waterways on the secretive path to freedom.

Miles quotes scholar Dianne Glave who notes that African Americans have long envisioned the environment in luminous and evocative, capricious and perilous ways.

Happy Juneteenth to all those who seek the depth and breadth of this day in all aspects, including Black eco-theology. 

Creating an Ethical Will?

I came upon a passing reference to a legacy document in certain expressions of Judaism termed an "ethical will." The term intrigued me so I did some searching and found this in my Jewish Learning:

For centuries, Jewish parents have passed down wisdom and values to their children by crafting end-of-life documents called tzava’ot or “ethical wills.” Much as a legal will enables one to dole out assets and possessions to one’s heirs, an ethical will gives the writer an opportunity to share their wealth of wisdom: lessons they’ve learned over a lifetime, where they found meaning in their lives, and what they may want for their loved ones going forward.

Traditionally, Jewish ethical wills contained a number of items, including burial instructions, debts and obligations to be paid, requests that family members carry on specific religious traditions, and blessings over the family. But modern ethical wills are less about accounting and instruction and more about imparting wisdom or wishes or simply reviewing one’s life. They are often written in the form of a letter and addressed to one’s children, but they can take many forms. There is no halachic (Jewish law) template or script they must follow.

In the Middle Ages, ethical wills were shared privately among families. One of the most famous ethical wills from this time was written by Spanish Jewish physician and scholar Judah ibn Tibbon to his son, Samuel when he died in France in the 12th century. It ran over 50 pages long and covered a wide range of topics, from the importance of books — he wrote the familiar line “let books be your companions; let bookcases and shelves be your pleasure grounds and gardens” — to a harsh rebuke of his son whom he felt wasn’t living up to his expectations.

 Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum and Memorial in Israel holds a number of ethical wills hastily written by Jews before they were killed at the hands of the Nazis. 

I hadn't heard about ethical wills before but the notion grabbed me. We have three adult children with partners as well as four grandchildren so during the pandemic we updated our will from decades ago, doing everything online. We were relieved to have attended to this legal housekeeping but it never occurred to us that we might create a complementary will conveying wisdom and values.

I'm pleased that all of them have adopted our love as nature, so this is already part of our legacy. We have encouraged Christian faith with the components of generosity and compassion and we see this to varying degrees in each household. We brought our children up to be respectful and welcoming to what we then called gays and lesbians. All of them have LGBTQ2S friends and are open in ways we couldn't have imagined when we were young. 

What would any of us include in our version of the tzava'ot or ethical will? I want to give this a lot more thought in the days ahead, because the clock is ticking!