Straining to see the mountain top.
All’s I see are dark, violent clouds.
Clouds that look like they are about to pour down hellfire and brimstone.
Down in the valley, I’m parched.
No amount of water seems to quench my thirst.
Down in the valley, I’m famished.
No amount of sustance can seem to sustain me.
Down in the valley, I see bones and souls of my queer siblings and beloveds in Christ.
I’m grieved at the sheer amount of bones and souls I see that were sacrificed.
Souls so wounded the bearer wishes they were dead,
Rather than walk around just a shell.
A shell that while alive on the outside is completely gone and dead on the inside.
These bones and souls scream in agony and horrific pain.
They scream because the church has slaughtered their very souls and beings in the name of unity.
They are in pain because the church has stabbed them in their very hearts with verses plucked out of obscurity.
What once brought comfort, peace and joy brings death, destruction and bloodshed because of those who wield those verses.
I cried out to the heavens where my help comes from.
What am I supposed to do?
How am I supposed to help?
What is there that I can do?
Dear God their souls cry out so loudly I can’t hear anything but their soul cry’s.
“My Dear Beloved Brian, Be the mountain top experience in the valley.”
How dear God when I’m trying to recreate it for myself?
“Be how I designed my church to truly be. Be a beacon of light for those dying souls.”
Why me?
“You are their minister. You’ve been that dying soul but remember how I sent people that breathed my breath of life back into you? You listened to who I sent because I sent them back to the valley because those souls had been to hell by people who claim to follow my Jesus.
Rise up my beloved!
Rise up strongly secured in me and the family I hand picked for you!
I need you to assist in waking up my dying church.
You won’t be alone. You’ll co-labor with many.”
My heart grieves for the church and the shell it’s become.
Why has it become a shell and dying?
Because the church has sacrificed on the altar of fundamentalism and law,
The lives of my precious, once vibrant queer siblings.
The church is with blemish,
The church is with wrinkle,
The church is soaked red with the blood of untold numbers of my queer beloveds.
The only way to heal,
The only way to uplift,
The only way to cleanse and restore,
Is SIMPLE!
LOVE!
Love as the Big W (Word) Jesus commands.
Love the queer cis beloved!
Love the transgender woman of color.
Love the gay man!
Love the lesbian couple who just got married.
Love the kinky beloved!
Quit tearing down with hatred.
Quit tearing down with saying “incompatible with Christian teaching.”
STOP CHURCH!
You are soaked with the blood of lives lost and souls lost because you hate rather than love.
We are not incompatible with Christian teaching.
Hatred and phobic behaviors are incompatible.
Misogyny is incompatible.
Toxic masculinity is incompatible with Christian teaching.
But queer souls are COMPATIBLE WITH CHRISTian TEACHING!
Stop sacrificing queer souls for the sake of your interpretation of the small w (word).
We need the church to be the church the way that JESUS CHRIST preached.
We need ministers of grace.
We need ministers of love.
We need ministers to be beacons of light and hope.
We need loved most of all.
