SEEING FROM WHERE I STAND

Ruth S. Weaver

I remember driving from Banff British Columbia to Lake Louise and Jasper one year mesmerized by the incredible mountain range as we traveled mile after mile. And as we moved toward those beautiful mountains, our view kept changing but the mountain range itself did not change. Meanwhile others at different places along the highway had different perspectives, each one partly true; all of them (including mine) incomplete.

I recall a conversation on MennoLink (basically a Mennonite chat room) and the wisdom of Martin Lehman of Sarasota, Florida. Martin had written that truth never changes but that one’s view of truth undergoes constant change, especially if one is moving. Martin had used the motif of a mountain. He had reminded us that it is important while driving in mountains not to forget our earlier view, to remember what we saw earlier, to recognize how it has changed and how it will continue to change, and to know that God’s view takes in the entire mountain of truth. God sees what all of us see and what we do not yet see.

The mountain motif and the Haitian proverb "We see from where we stand" illustrate my journey of understanding and beliefs about sexual orientation.

When I first encountered the issue as a young adult (I am now 65), what I saw was something "wrong." Clearly we had to be heterosexual or the species would disappear, right? Only later did I acknowledge that, among other things, humanity was in a population explosion, blowing the importance of that thought out the window.

But from my own internal perspective, I did not comprehend the orientation, and of course it was immoral. So yes it was wrong.

Then along came Anita Bryant, a former beauty queen and singer who did orange juice commercials and led a grassroots effort to repeal a Florida law that banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Now I was seeing from a new place. In my head I thought she was right, but my heart said she was wrong. Okay, so it was immoral, but the ways she spoke about homosexual people reminded me of the ways the army trained recruits, demeaning whoever happened to be our enemy.

For a number of years the whole matter was a dormant one for me. This was the case even as I was aware that my maturing children were seeing this (and other issues) from different vantage points.

One day a single friend gave me the gift of trusting me with the news that this person was homosexual. Then a second—and married—friend did the same. Startled and curious, I now began listening closely to their stories of being unacceptable. I found myself walking and seeing from a new perspective. These are good moral people; I realized there are likely other good people I know who must carefully guard the truth of their sexual orientation.

I realize there can be multiple causes of sexual orientation and that I am not seeing the whole of the mountain of truth. I can’t make blanket statements that cover the whole of this (or any issue). Yet from within my own experience, this is what I am seeing:

There are good, moral people who are gay and lesbian. This is not a choice for them. (When did I choose to be heterosexual?) We are who we are, heterosexual or homosexual. Some have known this since they were very young. Many have spent years in denial, willing themselves to change without success; praying that God would change them but without having that happen.

I also see that some church members believe all homosexuals must change—they are unacceptable as they are. Other Christians, while not requiring change, believe gays and lesbians must remain celibate. The painful reality for me is that too often when this issue is discussed, I experience a fingernails-on-chalkboard reaction when I try to listen with the ears of my married lesbian friend.

And I realize that if I were a lesbian believer in many of our congregations, I would not have the inner strength to allow my brothers and sisters to know who I really am because I would fear it would jeopardize my continuing to belong to the community. I would fear being marginalized, maybe ostracized and evangelized. These are my people—still I would be unacceptable as I am. Allowing myself to be known would be too costly.

I recall an incident that helps me to understand the disconnect I experience here. While spending time with an elderly woman whom I dearly love, the subject came up and her distress was obvious. "Oh, I sometimes think it cannot be that some people in the church don’t think this is wrong anymore."

I did not want to deepen her distress by discussing it, so I just nodded in sympathy, and we went out for a walk. Coming toward us was a younger, obviously (to me) lesbian couple who smiled and exchanged pleasantries with us, delighting my companion. After they had passed, she exclaimed to me, "What lovely young women!" Yes, they were, I agreed.

How, I wondered, could I point this out to her? As we continued walking I also asked myself, Who am I as a heterosexual to deny others the right to commit their lives to each other?

These are some of the things I am seeing from where I stand today: There are gays and lesbians among us whose actions or beliefs are not being attacked; it is their very selves that are unacceptable. We no longer (I hope!) use the Anita Bryant rhetoric, but our speech too often betrays lack of acceptance of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters as they are.

Our perspectives on this issue seem to grow more and more diverse. I hear men and women in the church calling the rest of us to join them in dialogue, to continue talking and discerning and finding our way through this. But I am also aware of others who see no need for dialogue; the truth they are seeing seems very clear to them. Therefore why talk about this?

Looking another direction, I see those who are encouraging the church to accept gay and lesbian couples. I can no longer find it within myself to believe they are wrong.

Instead, I am finding within me an acceptance of all Christ-following couples (man/woman, man/man, woman/woman) who commit to a lifelong covenant and relationship of fidelity.

But I linger and stand at a place along this path where I can see and hear the official church description of the mountain, and it does not include this perspective.

Looking up, I wonder how the creating, redeeming, sustaining Holy One sees this mountain of truth. And us. I suspect that God’s larger concerns are our love and compassion and openness to hearing each other.

God willing, I want to keep moving and listening and growing and seeing others’ perspectives as well as my own.

—Ruth S. Weaver, Ephrata, Pennsylvania, is a spiritual director.