Our "Spiritual Universe"

As happened last week, I am writing this the day before posting it, a rarity. Usually I have several days or weeks to write and review (and review again) a post. Despite my occasional despair at the large empty spaces that I experience in retirement, I still find that life is often full, and this week served as an example.

This past Sunday, with others from what is now Ormewood Church, I attended a brief and informal graveside service commemorating the life of Rev. Peter Denlea, the one-time pastor of our predecessor Ormewood Park Presbyterian Church. It was organized by one of his sons, Colin, also a pastor, at Georgia National Cemetery to which Peter’s first vocation as a Navy bomber pilot gave him access. I wondered if the cemetery rules (above photo) really permitted a spirit as expansive as Peter’s, given its prohibition of “boisterous actions”! Later this month, his boisterous spirit will be celebrated at a wake in our neighborhood, where he once lived at the end of our block.

With a similar group from Ormewood Church the next day, I attended the celebration of the life and legacy of Judge Elaine L. Carlisle at Cascade United Methodist Church in Atlanta, a member of Ormewood Park Presbyterian Church who lived three houses uphill from us. The largely African American church was packed with fellow judges and lawyers, the City of Atlanta Police Honor Guard, and sister members of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms also attended.

Our pastor, Rev. Jenelle Holmes, offered moving and meaningful prayers at each service.

And synchronicity strikes again as, at both services, we sang “How Great Thou Art.”

I lost it each time we sang it. Remember, I mentioned last week that I had been viewing the mind-boggling 2007 series The Universe, now available on Netflix. I had just finished watching the final episode, so these words by Stuart K. Hine particularly moved me:

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder

Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made,

I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,

Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee:

How great Thou art, how great Thou art!

I’m losing it again as I type these words. They take me back to my childhood faith, which included Billy Graham evangelical meetings featuring George Beverly Shea boisterously singing this hymn. As the song affirms, I want to believe that Peter, who lived longer than I have, and Elaine, whose life was cut shorter than mine by an as-yet-unexplained traffic accident, have been “taken home.”

Former Mayor and later Ambassador Andrew J. Young, who appointed Judge Carlisle to the bench, offered “Words of Comfort” to us. His storytelling gifts as an elder preacher and politician served us all well, bringing smiles and laughter, including one tender story about his affectionate but mistaken greeting of Elaine’s twin sister in the airport of Gary, Indiana, their hometown!

But then something he said comforted me very personally in the midst of my “lost in space” doubts. He said that now Elaine was part of our “spiritual universe,” the commonwealth of God. A spiritual universe is no more unimaginable to me than the physical universe.

I was invited to be among the contributors to Ashes to Rainbows: A Queer Lenten Devotional that includes meditations for Ash Wednesday, the Sundays of Lent, and the days of Holy Week. Go to: https://justiceunbound.org/queerlent/

You may support this blog by clicking here. Please scroll down to the donate link below its description. Thank you!

Copyright © 2020 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.  “How Great Thou Art” copyright © 1953 by S. K. Hine, renewed 1981 by Manna Music, Inc. All rights reserved.

I will be co-leading “Beside Still Waters: A Contemplative Retreat” with Debra Weir April 27-May 1, 2020 at Sacred Heart Monastery in Cullman, Alabama. It is open to the public, and some limited scholarships are available. Three readable texts are recommended to prepare but are not required to have been read by opening day. Here is the link: https://app.certain.com/profile/form/index.cfm?PKformID=0x3039640abcd

Ormewood Park Presbyterian--R.I.P.

Howard, Michael, Mark, Chris, Peter at OPPC in 1994

I have just come from a funeral for my Presbyterian church. I’ve cried less at funerals of dear friends. Every hymn, every scripture, every memory, every familiar and unfamiliar face made me want to weep inconsolably, tugging at the proverbial heart strings. I held back, lest I terrify those around me. Blessed I was to be surrounded by longtime friends who felt much the same.

The sanctuary of Ormewood Park Presbyterian Church was packed with many generations of its membership for the final service, April 3, 2016. The only other times I’ve seen it filled was for its 100^th anniversary a few years ago and in 1994, for my then partner’s and my “Ceremony of the Heart.”

A love story always has a beginning, even with a church. When Mark King and I moved to Atlanta in 1993 for his job as executive director of AIDS Survival Project, we began looking for a church home where we could be open and honest about our relationship. We visited several welcoming congregations, but we found ourselves drawn to the small Presbyterian congregation at the corner of Woodland and Delaware. We moved to the neighborhood, Ormewood Park, largely because of the church.

The members were warm and friendly, both young and old, maybe especially the elderly. There was already a handful of gay and lesbian members and leaders of the church. It would be several years before it formally became one of the few More Light churches in the South, at Mark’s urging in a letter to its Session.

The pastor, Peter Denlea, a retired Navy bomber pilot for whom this was a second career, grappled personally with scriptures in every sermon—still a scrapper from his days as an Irish Catholic youth in Boston’s Southie neighborhood. During worship, he would invite us all to wrestle with a biblical text until it blessed us. The congregation was enjoying a renaissance.

Peter eagerly created and celebrated our “Ceremony of the Heart” with “God’s glorious gadfly” and LGBT/AIDS activist Howard Warren on October 30, 1994. My dear friend Michael Morgan served as organist. The congregation turned out in full, and that, with Mark’s family from Shreveport and our friends (many attending an AIDS conference in the city that weekend) filled the sanctuary.

When other Presbyterian pastors got wind of it, they called Peter to account, urging the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta to reprimand him and nullify our blessing, which, as then Central Presbyterian pastor Ted Wardlaw told me at the time, was “like trying to undo the ringing of a bell.” This gave Peter a chance on the floor of presbytery—like his namesake in regard to baptizing Gentiles in Acts 10 & 11—to defend his decision and us by giving a persuasive speech that prompted a resounding ovation and a refusal to press charges.

Today, as he left for his assisted living facility, where he still offers a friendly touch and ear to his neighbors, Peter—as straight as God can make a man—kissed me full on the lips in saying goodbye.

The church went on to be served by several capable pastors, but Peter was a hard act to follow. They continued his welcoming legacy by later attracting transgender members, thanks to one-time parish associate, Erin Swenson.  We were grateful that she led us in a conversation in place of a sermon on the Sunday following 9/11.

Though I liked the congregation, I began to feel that formal worship was not the best way for us to be a spiritual community. Then I was given opportunities to serve others spiritually in a way I could not serve Presbyterians. Thanks to OPPC, I stayed on the rolls as a member even as I served Atlanta’s Midtown Spiritual Community and subsequently, MCC, and now as your progressive Christian blogger!

Perhaps my grief is deepened by feelings of loss of the entire denomination, whose timid and tepid “welcome” of LGBT people is much less than hoped for in my 40+ years of activism within it. I am dissatisfied that it still protects the “conscience” of those who oppose us, those same people who refused to protect the conscience of our supporters. Prejudice and bigotry have no right of conscience in my possibly jaundiced view. (Grey Panthers founder Maggie Kuhn said that the advantage of being a “senior” is that you can say what you really think!)

Though the presbytery plans a “re-branding” of OPPC, which makes me think of branding cattle, Ormewood Park Presbyterian Church will also be a hard act to follow. Its members and leaders and pastors should be proud of its ministry and witness and service.

For me personally, the church not only celebrated that “ceremony of the heart,” but supported me through the brokenness of my heart when my relationship with Mark ended and my mother died within weeks of each other.

Churches are the repositories of memorable life events of all they’ve welcomed. That hallows them, and gives us a taste of the eternal.

Please support this blog ministry by clicking here and scrolling down to the donate link below its description or by mailing to MCC, P.O. Box 50488, Sarasota FL 34232 USA, designating “Progressive Christian Reflections” in the memo area of your check or money order. Thank you!

Copyright © 2016 by Chris R. Glaser. Permission granted for non-profit use with attribution of author and blogsite. Other rights reserved.