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Toronto, ON
M5G 1B1
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reflections and sermons posted here are the work of individual members of Holy Trinity. Opinions expressed are those of the writer or preacher and do not necessarily reflect an official or even popular opinion within the parish.
Delighting in an Embodied Living God.
SARA BOYLES
I am writing on the Feast of Corpus Christi. It is an appropriate day to be burying Alvin's ashes. We celebrate God incarnate on this day. The holy alive in our very bones and sinew and tissue, in our flesh, in bread and wine. Alvin knew about his flesh and his gayness in a time and place where such things were denied, repressed and believed sinful. His family saw him that way and had him committed for "treatment" as a young man, treatment in which Alvin suffered and never recovered. I often wonder what his life would have been like had that episode not occurred. I believe Alvin may have had more choices and better capacity to make the most of the opportunities presented to him.
The irony of burying him in the family plot this afternoon does not escape me. Yet I will gather there with the family who has recognized and accepted him over the years, who have tried to understand a world that is foreign to them. They are good people balancing the censure of the rest of the family with a heart for their cousin, their mother's sister's child. They are thoughtful people being led for many years by Alvin to understand differently their childhood lessons and family beliefs.
One of the things I admired about Alvin was his openness about his gayness. His loves and delights were out there for all to see - his dogs, his lovers, his friends, Would that closeted gay men in the church show his courage and spunk. I do not believe it possible to live in the closet and delight in an embodied living God. Church forums and dialogues on the national and international levels cannot be represented well by closeted people. Holding their own sexuality close to their chest - the conversation is impersonal, remote and theoretical no matter how many "stories" are heard, how many reports are written. To live and breathe and be the body of God people need to live out loud. We need to be real, honest and searching in our own personal lives and in our corporate life.
Such living is messy, slow and sometimes frustrating but it is the only way I know to embody the word, to breathe life into old bones, to know fire in the belly. This feast day suggests that someone recognized these things long ago. We remember and are restored to live the mystery within day by day. We are reminded of the glory of our lives and the holy mystery held within and between people, with the living and the dead. Glory be.
Sara
November 30, 1999 |
