Saturday, September 26, 2009

Encountering a shrug

It was busy enough this week that I decided not to go to a concert last Thursday and didn't go to another this evening. Rather nice to live in an area where there are so many good cultural events that I can't get to them all. But that explains why I'm only getting around to this story now.

This past Tuesday I took our new woman pastor out to lunch. I wanted to tell her about the wonderful Reconciling Ministries Convocation I wrote about earlier. I knew that to describe the conference I had to come out to her.

I was caught off guard by how much of a non-event it was.

This is only the third pastor I've told (over the last 9 years). The first was a bit surprised. The second immediately reassured me it would not change how he thought of me (it didn't). This one merely said the equivalent of, "That's nice."

So, we talked about Convo, other things she would like to see from me the Stewardship Guide, and the general state of the church. It was only two hours later on the way back to the church did she say, "Do you have a partner? I've never seen you with someone and wonder if you might have a partner who didn't like the church." When I replied I'm single, she went on to say, "My brother-in-law was gay, well, bisexual." Was? Alas, yes. He died of the same kind of heart problems that plague her husband. And that explains why my revelation was met with a shrug.

No comments:

Post a Comment