Love your enemies

The words in Matthew 5:44 from Jesus are pretty straight-forward.

But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you

Not to mention Proverbs 25:21

If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink.

And then there's the stretch of Luke that just beats you on the head with the "love your enemies" stuff.

But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone slaps you on one cheek, turn to them the other also. If someone takes your coat, do not withhold your shirt from them. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.

If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.

Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven. Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

I would be lying if I said that i follow these verses every moment of my life. It's almost impossible isn't it? The reason people would be classified as an enemy, or at least a royal pain in the behind, is that whether intentionally or not, they are making your life unpleasant. Who wants that? If the cause of  my unhappiness is clearly identifiable, it's a natural reaction to get angry at that cause.

And what of the verse of Matthew 5:39

But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also

On the face of it, this one seems to invite you to be a masochist. "Thank you sir, may i have another" whack just does not sound attractive.

Well, turning the other cheek does not necessarily mean taking pain endlessly. These passages to me are more about how we react, how we respond. Surely we have to protect ourselves and defend against violence and violation.

No, to me these passages are about responding in a surprising, unexpected way full of grace and love. Rather than returning assault and insult to assault and insult, we pray for those who offend, love them, offer ways to help and heal them. If forgiveness is central to healing and love, then we can't get to that healing and love without forgiving those who harm us.

These verses were all over my mind this week as I watched the situation in Kentucky where elected county clerk Kim Davis refused to grant marriage licenses to anyone. This she did despite directives from the District Court and from failing on appeal all the way up to the Supreme Court.

My reaction to the avowed "Christian persecution" stance is probably predictable. I'm a Christian and I don't feel persecuted by the change in law. I would feel persecuted in that county, however, if the elected official refused to perform their duties to uphold the Constitution and laws of our country. And a good number of people around the country, as Facebook and Twitter seem to show, were offended by this position.

On the opposite side of the coin, presidential candidates on the right were quick to fall over themselves to support the clerk's right to freedom of religion. The politicization and rhetoric hit the fan in ways where everyone was getting dirty.

And people got dirty. There were many photos of the clerk in the unflattering fluorescent light, as if even Beyonce or George Clooney could look good in county office lighting. People used derogatory, inflammatory, and misogynistic barbs out of their anger at this person. They aired her personal dirty laundry that, admittedly, showed signs of hypocrisy. They made mean-spirited memes that were completely unrelated to what was happening.

And, in their anger, they persecuted and returned hate and venom.

I didn't laugh at any of those remarks. I saw where they came from. They arose out of anger and a feeling of continued persecution. But they attacked a person rather than the elected official. They attacked looks rather than actions. They didn't turn the other cheek.

OK I'll admit freely that I got a great laugh out of the many tweets from a Twitter user @nexttokimdavis who pretended to be a co-worker complaining about sitting in the office next to the clerk. But what I laughed at was not the personal stuff. I enjoyed the common griping that comes when you're trying to do your job and someone else at the office makes things unnecessarily dramatic, the crassness of the media, and the hysteria of the many protesters from both sides. Thankfully, there were only sparing jokes about personal issues.

Is laughing at your enemy loving? I love to laugh. I love to find humor in sad situations. I use humor to sustain me as an optimist. But i think that personal attacks may bring a snicker or laugh and yet in the end leave you without any cathartic satisfaction. I laugh at the circumstance, at our folly, at the system that tricks people into unjust actions because it's more motivating than crying. I try to not laugh at someone's personal expense. I do, but it flies in the face of things that matter to me.

Like loving those who persecute us.

May we all learn how to be loving with each other. We may never agree on certain issues, but the sun rises for all of us, the rain falls on us all, and the rainbow glitters in all of our eyes.

Cheap Marriage (Bonhoeffer wordplay intended)

Keep out (Newberry Springs, CA, March 2015)

After listening to the marriage arguments this week during the Supreme Court's debate of "gay marriage", I could not help but feel that the opponents of marriage equality were encouraging not an old, ancient version of marriage but something rather less joyful than what could exist today. Rather than viewing God's love as an explosive, expansive, incomprehensible eternity, we heard arguments about a sacrament with old limits, rules, and constraints.

If a sacrament is indeed the outward manifestation or symbol of God's grace, then the sacrament should be special and reflect God's love unfettered. Like God's love, anyone can receive grace if they accept the sacrament they are called to receive, with a penitent heart. Exercising one's free will to accept that sacrament is opening the door to God's blessings and grace.

But crossing my mind as this played out on Tuesday was that three weeks ago was the 70th anniversary of the death of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. One of his amazing works was "The Cost of Discipleship" (1937) and in it he describes a concept that he referred to as cheap grace.

Cheap grace means grace sold on the market like cheapjacks' wares. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices. Grace is represented as the Church's inexhaustible treasury, from which she showers blessings with generous hands, without asking questions or fixing limits. Grace without price; grace without cost! The essence of grace, we suppose, is that the account has been paid in advance; and, because it has been paid, everything can be had for nothing. Since the cost was infinite, the possibilities of using and spending it are infinite. What would grace be if it were not cheap?... 

Cheap grace is the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, Communion without confession, absolution without personal confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate. 

Costly grace is the treasure hidden in the field; for the sake of it a man will go and sell all that he has. It is the pearl of great price to buy which the merchant will sell all his goods. It is the kingly rule of Christ, for whose sake a man will pluck out the eye which causes him to stumble; it is the call of Jesus Christ at which the disciple leaves his nets and follows him. 

Costly grace is the gospel which must be sought again and again, the gift which must be asked for, the door at which a man must knock. 

Such grace is costly because it calls us to follow, and it is grace because it calls us to follow Jesus Christ. It is costly because it costs a man his life, and it is grace because it gives a man the only true life. It is costly because it condemns sin, and grace because it justifies the sinner. Above all, it is costly because it cost God the life of his Son: "ye were bought at a price," and what has cost God much cannot be cheap for us. Above all, it is grace because God did not reckon his Son too dear a price to pay for our life, but delivered him up for us. Costly grace is the Incarnation of God.

So what does this have to do with the proceedings at the hearings?

Whether it was in the comments made by the counsel defending the state bans or, even more uncomfortably, the presumptuous questions made by Justices Scalia, Roberts, and even Kennedy, there was much to make me think:

Why do we debate how to restrict in a secular society something that is a manifestation of grace?

Or, perhaps in a different way:

Why do we debate something religious like a sacrament in a civil forum? 

The second question is undoubtedly the result of millennia (using the term offered by Justices Kennedy and Roberts) of state proscribed cohabitation rules. I lean towards disestablishmentarianism but this wasn't the key question so I didn't dwell on it much.

Instead I focused on how the justices were debating something that is a manifestation of grace and how best to implement it.

And it felt cheap.

It sounded demeaning.

It made me feel like marriage was once again something you negotiated, along with land, goats, and dowries.

But it wasn't the fault of the Supreme Court. It's really the entire argument against marriage equality and the supposed reasoned debate in secular spheres about what should or should not be allowed. It's all so cheap.

Did any of these three justices (and presumably Alito and Thomas) suffer personal sacrifice in finding someone to love and securing that love? Probably not. Most straight folks have it comparatively easy when you consider how much the LGBTQ have to contend with society, church, family, and employment. Did they do what I did? I went into the closet, came out of the closet, hid in the shadows of the closet again, inched out, slid back in, and finally stayed out. At times, my parents wouldn't talk with me just because I dared to be honest about how I was born.

So, for me, I struggled in the past, struggle today, and will continue to struggle tomorrow - struggle to find out how best to live out Christ's affirming love and expectations of His disciples. I don't see that struggle from what sounded to me like smug comfort in lavish leather chairs.

The discussion of the sacrament of marriage felt like, in a nutshell, nothing but cheap grace. And the struggles of those who want to marry someone who happens to be the same gender, the struggles of the teenager who is bombarded with taunts and jeers just because God made him or her differently, the struggles of a human being discovering and remedying the misidentification of their gender at birth, the struggles of all those transgender victims murdered or assaulted because of someone else's discomfort - all these struggles are the true cost of discipleship.

There's little cost to be in the privileged caste, economically or sexually.

That's pretty cheap. And the grace you pride yourself into hoarding, like NIMBY suburbanites advocating fracking unless it's in your backyard, that grace is cheap. It's cheap grace.

So those who push for continued marriage discrimination in the name of God, arrogant and proud as it may be, may indeed feel they speak from grace, but it feels exactly like what Bonhoeffer was describing.  They advocate cheap marriage.

I'm sure that many on the other side of this discussion think that we are cheapening grace, that by not repenting and becoming straight we wish to receive sacraments that we should not be entitled to receive. I might buy that Koolaid if we could indeed change ourselves into people we are not. But we weren't called to be another way. We were made thusly and God didn't make a mistake. If you accept that our wiring is not a choice, then there is nothing to repent against. We are merely accepting the cross handed to us at birth.

How is our desire to marry comparable to the base celebrity marriages in Vegas that often sometimes just a few months? How is our desire to marry comparable to reality tv show marriages? How is our desire to marry comparable to right wing commentators who marry half a dozen times and, pretty obviously according to the bible, keep repeating their adultery? Their marriages are cheap and the grace implied, this sanctity of marriage offered by the state, is the true abomination.

I don't fault those who never had to fight for receiving grace. If I did, I'd be just another person filled with envy at my returning itinerant brother. I celebrate their grace. But for them to get that grace and try to keep me from enjoying the outward sign of it in the form of marriage, well, that's unjust, arrogant, and demeaning. It cheapens the grace that they've received.

May we all remember that the cost of discipleship is fraught with peril, but it's in our courageous will to live out the expansive, wild love of Christ that we will find the truly redemptive resurrection to a life made new. Let all who are thirsty come.

Easter Reflections - Discoveries on a Journey

The Appalachian Trail, April 2015

Last week I found myself pondering Luke 24, specifically verses 13-32. It's in the lectionary cycle but for some reason it resonates with me this year. I suppose it's the idea of a journey -- the Camino de Santiago rears its knowing head once again.

Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him.

He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”
They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” 

“What things?” he asked. 

“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him; but we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. In addition, some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning but didn't find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.” 

He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. 

As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. 

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. 

Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

I think it has been working its way inside me because it reflects so much about some of the lessons I learned on the Camino pilgrimage.

Here, the disciples were confused and seeking answers. They already knew what to expect and had been told so. Repeatedly. Even Jesus reminds them of it right then and there, and yet they refused to believe. Cynicism can be a mighty beast that wins out over even your own eyes at times.

Maybe it was the tiring journey itself that obscured their senses. I'm not leaning towards that because there were repeated vignettes of disciples denying what they were observing. It was sticking with the assumed answer, the predispositions that outweighed hope. And in many ways, it's far easier to be puzzled and content than to deal with the disruptive energy of cognitive dissonance.

But at some point, they open their eyes. And once opened, there was no need for Jesus to be guiding them, because the physical Jesus was no longer needed. The spirit of Jesus was all they needed once awakened. In an odd twist of trust, once you've glimpsed the evidence, the evidence is no longer necessary.

Marriage is such a journey. It's been about a year since we married and I'm forever amazed. With every meal together, with every step we take, I realize ever more strongly that I'm in a vocation and path that was set for me by God. The evidence isn't needed any longer. I just experience the spirit moving around us.

My camino pilgrimage was in some ways like the journey these disciples took. I embarked on a walk to find out truth, to seek clarity, to walk with an open mind to learn about myself and my Creator. And as can be read in the blog posts preceding the pilgrimage, I was blindfolded by my own expectations and pre-conceived notions. I didn't see what I had been seeing, I didn't remember what I had been told.

Instead, it was in the breaking of bread, in sitting and sharing stories, in the gentle touch, in sharing time together with the stranger that we discover God in our midst. Verse 32 screams out to me: "Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road." This is precisely my feelings as I trudged with my fellow travelers. It wasn't when I was being all contemplative, inside my head, alone in my thoughts. It was when I was walking the journey with the stranger who was Jesus that my heart burned.

So I think about all the other blinders and visual obstructions and biases that keep me from making progress on my journey. As I consider them, I remind myself to be open to the stranger, to be sharing in spirit, to be unafraid of the confusion.  The resurrection of Easter can be with us every day we do so.

I pray all of our hearts can burn as well, as we invite the Creator to walk with us.

As Thanksgiving yields to Advent

The last wedding we attended was our own, six months ago. On the Saturday before Thanksgiving, we attended the holy matrimony of a dear couple, Jeff and Chris. .Weddings are an outward sign of love, community, charity, and self-assurance. Stephen and I hoped ours felt that way as much to our guests as to ourselves. We certainly saw that in Jeff and Chris's union. In offering and sharing a sign of love, weddings are the visible rainbow promised to us and where we, if we desire, can find a pot of grace granted.

As the old hymn goes, "Ubi caritas et amor deus ibi est". We used that hymn as did Jeff and Chris. It means more or less "Where charity and love exist, God is there." People can be in love and keep it to themselves. I'm sure politically, many would prefer this. But loving just yourselves is basically self-focused, with no outward benefit or creation. By sharing the love with others in the most charitable way, one creates. Creation can be in offering life, in supporting life, or in sustaining life. Some have children. I myself prefer feeding children and working towards their safety. Charity and love combined show us the face of God.

Thanksgiving itself was a marvelous affair for us this year. It started on Thursday with a morning of work at Union Station Homeless Services's Dinner in the Park. We love the set up tasks. Many prefer actually dishing up the food, but we prefer to work with the team that hauls out the tables, sets up the temporary structures, and decorates. It's very behind-the-scenes, but for us it's not important for the one hand to know what the other is doing. It's about sharing hospitality, abundance, and grace with those who are in need.

We then had a quiet and intimate dinner at my sister's apartment. It felt warm and joyful. The next day, we had a much larger, combined dinner with both sides of our family together at our place. Noise and food were plentiful as we shared stories and laughs late into the night.

And then I took off to Cancun, Mexico.

At the top of Coba pyramid in the Yucatan jungle.

Stephen had to be at school so he stayed home. I traveled and did some work from afar. I met up with a Camino peregrino - 19yo Jakob from Austria - who I befriended on my pilgrimage. He was one of the two cousins who walked not 800 km, but 3000 km as he started from his front door in Austria. Together, we celebrated, learned, shared dreams, and immersed ourselves in culture, history, peoples. Jakob is starting a 9 month journey that will take him from Mexico down all the way to Chile in South America. In that time, he'll work organic farms, find odd jobs, camp, swim, hitchhike, learn about the cultures, and improve his 5th language Spanish.

And that's what led me into thinking about Advent. Advent is about preparation and waiting. I found myself turning on a dime from a season of thanks by spending time with someone preparing for what is to come. His dreams and aspirations are so similar to what I carried with me at his age. I share with all who listen that I view my young Austrian friends from the Camino de Santiago as almost my nephews. I hope that I can share my stories with them, offer ideas not based on judgment, and encourage them. Jakob has so much going for him and his heart is as expansive as his mind.

Spending a week with Jakob allowed me to feel hopeful and alive. It was a move from the past -- where your mind must be in order to give thanks -- towards the future where your mind must be in order to have hope. Jakob takes the needed risks on this journey so that he can be ready for what is to come. He's willing to walk away from worldly conveniences and stable relationships in order to ensure that he's prepared.  I feel blessed that he helped make my Advent more meaningful and personal.

Y con eso, para mí, mi Advent ha comenzado (and with that, my Advent has begun)

Ubi caritas et amor deus ibi est

Where there is charity and love, God is there.

We were married on April 26, 2014 at All Saints Pasadena. Our procession was led by the dove, a symbol of the Holy Spirit and peace. Later, after The Rev. Susan Russell accepted our declarations of consent and our rector, The Rev. Ed Bacon, accepted our solemn vows, we were blessed.

Blessed by the church, yes. But also and as importantly, we were blessed by the cloud of witnesses who were present around us, who enfolded us in their love, support, and encouragement. In the congregation were family, friends, and even more people of the cloth, including friends Rev. Wilma Jakobsen and Prof. H Adam Ackley. We were raised high by the Holy Spirit to unite our flames and create more Light to shine around us.

I didn't read Susan's blog post This is the Day the Lord Has Made until the next day. The next day happened to also be the day we held a celebration memorial for Stephen's brother -- my brother-in-law who passed on two weeks exactly before the wedding day. I read her blog that morning and it set my wheels turning.

We celebrate God and each other when love each other, when we give of ourselves. Our church, our friends, and our families gave their blessing to us. On our knees at the altar, we felt the gift of life and strength on our shoulders, in our hands, on our head. When we celebrated Tim's life, we accepted his gift of love, sensitivity, and personal commitment to honesty.

Giving and loving. What a blessing our world is when the Holy Spirit shines bright in all God's children. It makes no sense to restrict this to the few. Grace is there for us and we can't decide who gets it and who doesn't. We can only love. And give.

To love another person is to see the face of God.

All the Single Maybes (Put a Sting on It)

On Saturday, it will be exactly four weeks to our wedding day. After five decades where I was told, taught, and raised to think that marriage was meant for some but not all, I finally get to have my own partnership blessed in the church. Three amazing priests will be have to keep me from crying the entire hour as I stand, kneel, and walk in a daze.

It's not really a dream come true. A dream is when you imagine something possibly happening. I never had these dreams because I didn't think it was possible. That's how oppressive it felt to me. I was unimaginative and thought that God and society only worked in limited ways. That God wasn't all powerful and all loving because that God was boxed in by our definitions and legalisms. But, like some dreams, the creative mind hits you by surprise and suddenly you find yourself sweating at the all too real possibilities.

My theological and faith journeys have led me to know, just know, that if marriage equality came to my church, my state, my home, I would want to my partnership to be consecrated with the solemnity that such a union merits. I grew up watching priests bless homes, pets, rosaries, schools, plumbing, bibles, and even sewer pipes. Certainly something as important as a loving commitment to another person should receive an important blessing. Until the last few years, this was just not so, and I like others watched inanimate objects receive God's favors, while my love was left behind.

The changes have been all too wonderful for me. But it's not for some gay people.

I've met many couples and singles who aren't rushing to get married or who find the focus on marriage equality discomforting. Of these, there are couples who don't see the need to have a state sactioned marriage in their union. They've worked and functioned as a couple for a long enough time that they don't require the apparent trappings that marriage entails. Some of these couples are even church goers, and they feel satisfied by their current status.

And then of course there's all the single people dream of finding their love but watch as we celebrate gay couple after gay couple. I find it hard to imagine the longing it might bring to them when they attend all their friend's weddings. I know of a few who don't attend weddings simply because it hurts them so much. They feel the sting when we flaunt a ring. They are ignored by the today's media because there are no laws that they're trying to overturn.

Then there's the example from pop-music. Beyoncé's "All the Single Ladies" is sung from the perspective of a woman who wants commitment but doesn't get it from her partner. Furthermore, that partner has hypocritical anger when she goes out to have fun, despite his unwillingness to commit. It's a fun dance number but I always wonder about their conflict in terms of marriage equality. What if one partner wants marriage and the other, because of hurt and anger at society and church, won't marry under any circumstance? I've met a couple like this and they on the surface seem reconciled to their differences, but I do wonder what it means when your concept of unity differs.

I cherish my friends who intentionally or uninentionally remain unmarried. For those who choose to stay unmarried, I pray that they may continue to cultivate the emotional bonds that satisfy them each and every day. Maybe they'll marry some day, maybe they won't. It's the networked loving bonds of family and friends that they value most.

But for those who watch the marriage equality changes and yearn for their role in it, I feel that it's more important to be true to your intended self than simply to be married. The love that can sustain for a lifetime isn't one that magically appears overnight when you find yourself single. It's part looking, part not looking, part intention, part luck. Some think of it as a game that has to be played.

I for one prefer to think of it as a journey. We are all on our individual adventures on this planet. If our trek brings us into communion with God and with another person, then a celebration seems called for, seems appropriate. But the journey doesn't end. It continues.

We're using a unity candle at our wedding. We each will have our own candles and, during the actual wedding vows, we take our candles and light one candle in unison, merging our individual flames into one flame. Unlike other services that I've attended however, we're not going to extinguish the original candles. We're going to keep them lit. I want to think that the spark of life, the magic of the Holy Spirit, as more than a zero sum game. By merging our lives and fire together, we can create more, enlighten more, see more clearly. We spread the Word and the light by sharing our lives and creation both as individuals and as couples.

We merge and create, rather than merge and extinguish.

Singles and unmarried couples have a light to share and I hope my marriage won't mask their joys, their pains, and their journeys. I pray that we all appreciate each other's lives and that our journeys together are of wrapped in beauty, creation, and sustaining love.

Post-Modern, Meet Post-Marriage

We're hip and post-modern. The LGBTQ are getting married on the country's perimeters and progressive Midwest.

But, the struggle for equality in our relationships, namely in the ability to marry the person we love, is not over. Yes, shockingly and in such a short time, we suddenly find that almost 40% of the country has marriage available in the LGBTQ community. That still means over 60% of our brothers and sisters cannot marry in their home states or churches. They could marry elsewhere and derive federal benefits, but most states will not respect such marriages.

We're talking about disrespecting people. It's just not a caring, Christian stance to me.

Beyond marriage, however, we certainly have more to do. A recent article "7 LGBT Issues That Matter More Than Marriage" points to some larger ideas that might be of interest to the community of faithful. Sadly, the issues identified aren't surprises.

1. Youth and Trans* Homelessness
40% of the young homeless are LGBTQ, a tremendously high proportion.

2. Violence
Over 2000 incidences of violence against LGBTQ in the USA have been recorded since 2012. NYC has saw 7 attacks in May alone.

3. Racial Justice
A distressing 73% of LGBTQ homicides were people of color.

4. Immigrant Justice
The hurdles and harassment facing immigrants are that much more difficult in the LGBTQ community.

5. Health
Marriage may allow more LGBTQ access to health care, but if you're LGBTQ, you're still 10-20% more likely to be uninsured.

6. Economic Justice
Forget the images of rich, gay celebrities: you and your family are twice as likely to be living below the poverty line if you identify as LGBTQ.

7. Trans* Justice
Extreme poverty and rampant suicidal tendencies are just the tip of this iceberg.

It's time we go beyond post-modern. I pray that as we work towards meeting the needs of the 60% stranded by the marriage equality policies of their states, we begin the process of addressing these other serious issues. May the words of the prophets guide us into action on building a better, safer, fairer world.