Life As Performance Art 178

Friday, two days ago more than eighty thousand people, mostly young, many of them still children, converged in one of the many global demonstrations against climate change that were happening around the world that day. I am sitting this one out. As I said to a friendly bus passenger who wanted to chat while we were waiting to leave, I completely agree with and support the protesters, even if I don't share in the despair of the younger ones, but I am tired. I have done activism all my life, and I am happy to pass on the torch to younger and stronger hands. Though I cannot help but agree that the situation is dire I have hope and I strongly believe that we will get through this, not unscathed, but hopefully we will come out of this wiser, humbler and more apt to work in cooperation and harmony with the rest of nature and with one another. This is not the end of our planet, nor of our humanity. But our collective ass is going to get kicked and we are going to get kicked rather hard this time. There was, yesterday, in Toronto another, fortunately much smaller and very toxic form of protest. A gang of fundamentalist Christians had intended to converge on the local gay village, with placards and bullhorns, protesting for their own human rights, especially their presumed right to hate speech. Uh-huh. People who don't really know the Bible very well, though they presume to read it and study it, er, religiously, and even less do they appear to know the Jesus of the Gospels that they claim to know so well. I don't think they know him at all. And what if a gang of militant LGBT activists walked into one of their church services, with placards and bullhorns? Oh, but it is the same thing, Gentle Reader. As you know, my seasoned readers, anyway, I am a Christian. And I am totally ashamed and embarrassed that those whack-jobs still parade around with their Bible based hate speech making life difficult for others and constantly disgracing the name of the Saviour they presume to serve. I spent many years in ministry of presence in the gay and street communities. I remember clearly the call from God, and this came to me in a vision, while I was kneeling on the stone floor of the chapel at St. James Anglican Church in 1983. It was just following a Tuesday evening mass, and I sensed very strongly the presence of God. Then I saw a vision of a newborn baby lying on the ground in its mother's blood, the umbilical cord still attached. I sensed the words that God was calling me to walk and live among my gay brothers and sisters, to serve and love, and respect, and learn from them, without judgment, and only to serve and to love, to not judge, not criticize, not take any positions, but to also not to get sexuaslly involved with anyone, as this was a call of ministry and service. I was also going to be on a steep learning curve. I especially had to evolve out of my then righteous opposition to gay marriage, and it was through my growing friendships with the many kind and welcoming queer people, transpeople, and single gays and lesbians and gays and lesbians in couples I came to know that I came eventually to grow out of the systemic homophobia for which my religious faith has been notorious. I have other reasons for no longer wanting to participate in demonstrations. Primarily it is the us versus them, black hats versus white hats, four legs good two legs bad kind of mentality that often contaminates the protests that I have grown weary of. I try to remember that, even if I vehemently disagree with the other side, the other side is also made up of frail and imperfect and wounded persons, every bit as wounded as the people on my side, and this must never be forgotten. Life is full of nuance and nuance is so often missed in our zeal to make ourselves heard and persuade ourselves as well as others of the rightness of our cause. It is not black and white. It isn't even shades of grey. It is a matter of learning to see all the diverse and myriad colours that surround us.