Pink Christmas

I love Christmas. It is truly the most wonderful time of the year, as the song says.

But I also reside within two bodies which can be challenged by the holidays.

The first of those bodies is my physical body, which is gayer than a three dollar bill.

The second is that branch of the Body of Christ which we call Abiding Peace Lutheran Church. Within that body are the most wonderful people one could hope to meet. Many of them are also "three-dollar-bill-like."

This is a prayer for my sisters and brothers in the Pink Triangle Nation. May God surround you with joy and hope this Christmas. May you be loved and accepted for who you are. May your families, and extended families, and in-laws, and neighbors treat you with all of the affection, kindness, and respect you deserve.

The holidays can actually be a little rough on us homos. Family is at the center of the holidays, and it sucks when your family doesn't seem to have the same value as a "normal family." Or when the older generation asks every member of the younger generation about their love lives--except for you, because they don't actually want to know. Or when the person you've shared your life with for twenty-five years is introduced once again as your "friend."

Or when your mother-in-law sends you a copy of her E-Christmas-Card, and it waxes rhapsodic about what each of her children, grandchildren, and sons-in-law are up to, and how proud she is of them. You, her daughter's partner, have apparently been on a desert island all year, because you are strangely absent, and apparently didn't even accompany your partner on her fabulous vacation to Hawaii.

That last one isn't about me. It's about someone else who went to Hawaii this year. And I'm not bitter, either.

Just a little sad, and a little tired of those emotional left hooks out of nowhere. I'll have a little eggnog and get over it. Because I am blessed with a terrific wife and terrific friends and a really amazing church family. So little slights are a small cross to bear.

If you are carrying a big cross this holiday season, reach out. Find a church, call a friend, do something wonderful for yourself. You are a unique part of God's creation. You are beautiful. You're created in the image of God--you have to be beautiful. There's no other option.

If you are reading this, and you are one of the beautiful straight people who treat gay people just like you treat everyone else: thank you. You probably don't know what a gift you are. You are the face on our hope for the future--the time when we can look forward to Christmas without bracing ourselves.

May this Christmas be a time of hope and joy for all. And may you get everything you want, and especially what you need.