Preached at Urban Abbey on June 30, 2019
Now what I just said may not seem that monumental to you, but just a few short years ago uttering those words in any public setting would’ve been absolutely unthinkable for me. In a large group setting like this I would’ve been scanning the whole crowd over and over to see if possibly there was anyone that might report back to my pastor and or church what they heard and saw. Standing up here and openly talking about being gay would’ve normally struck fear through my heart, now it just feels normal and good
When Pastor Debra asked me to explore what celebrating pride meant to me, I thought about all the parades and rainbows and I love all of that. It’s incredible and beautiful, and it’s just one of my favorite times to get together with friends and celebrate pride with all of the sparkle and glitter, and glitz. But as I thought about it a little bit more deeply and this may not make sense to you at all, but, for me celebrating pride means that I get to feel normal. You see for my whole life, well actually since puberty I guess, I’ve dreamt that maybe someday I could be a real boy instead of being a wooden Pinocchio with all my feelings and emotions locked up inside, that someday someway somehow maybe I could just be me, who I really am, that I could just be a normal guy - and it’s finally happened…And a huge part of what becoming normal is for me has happened right here in the Abbey, it’s as if there’s some kind of wonderful magic in the air here that’s turned me from a wooden Pinocchio into the real person I was never allowed to be growing up. You see for almost my entire adult life I’ve had to hide everything about who I really was from everyone. And you know, I think being gay, all that I’ve ever really wanted and I think many LGBTQ plus people would agree, is that all we really want is to be normal, just to be accepted for who we are and who God made us to be and that my friends is what happens every time I come into this place, now don’t get me wrong there’s still unfortunately a lot of hate out there, but coming here gets me ready for what I’ll face out there and what I love about being here is that people don’t look at me as Charles the gay guy, I’m just Charles and they love me just because I’m Charles, nothing more nothing less. And that makes me feel normal and it filters out into the rest of everything I do in my life.
When Pastor Debra asked me to explore what celebrating pride meant to me, I thought about all the parades and rainbows and I love all of that. It’s incredible and beautiful, and it’s just one of my favorite times to get together with friends and celebrate pride with all of the sparkle and glitter, and glitz. But as I thought about it a little bit more deeply and this may not make sense to you at all, but, for me celebrating pride means that I get to feel normal. You see for my whole life, well actually since puberty I guess, I’ve dreamt that maybe someday I could be a real boy instead of being a wooden Pinocchio with all my feelings and emotions locked up inside, that someday someway somehow maybe I could just be me, who I really am, that I could just be a normal guy - and it’s finally happened…And a huge part of what becoming normal is for me has happened right here in the Abbey, it’s as if there’s some kind of wonderful magic in the air here that’s turned me from a wooden Pinocchio into the real person I was never allowed to be growing up. You see for almost my entire adult life I’ve had to hide everything about who I really was from everyone. And you know, I think being gay, all that I’ve ever really wanted and I think many LGBTQ plus people would agree, is that all we really want is to be normal, just to be accepted for who we are and who God made us to be and that my friends is what happens every time I come into this place, now don’t get me wrong there’s still unfortunately a lot of hate out there, but coming here gets me ready for what I’ll face out there and what I love about being here is that people don’t look at me as Charles the gay guy, I’m just Charles and they love me just because I’m Charles, nothing more nothing less. And that makes me feel normal and it filters out into the rest of everything I do in my life.
So to answer the question what does celebrating pride mean to me -
Celebrating pride to me, is getting to be normal, to do the things that I only used to dream of doing, like dressing however I want to and not worrying if somebody might figure out that I’m gay.
Or going out on a date with a guy and not being terrified that someone might see me or recognize me, but kind of hoping that maybe they will and I can kinda flaunt it a little bit.
It also means that in the state of Nebraska I can now be an openly gay foster dad and I have two amazingly wonderful foster sons, Jakob and Nic. To them I am not the gay foster dad, I’m just Charles their foster dad and they recently gave me one of the best birthday presents I’ve ever had in my entire life. After church a few weeks ago, we somehow accidentally bumped into my foster son’s two brothers and their new foster dad. We ended up inviting them to go with us for my birthday lunch. I only found out later that there had been a whole involved parent trap style plot to get the two of us together, once Jakob‘s younger brother, Lucas, discovered that their new foster dad was also gay. I can’t even begin to tell you how touched I was by this because their only thought was how can we get these two guys together and to them that seemed completely normal.
And finally it’s having my 14-year-old niece asking if she could talk with me after church and sharing with me that she likes girls and then watching her having the courage to share some of that journey with all of us at our open mic worship service recently.
So what does celebrating pride mean to me? It means that I’m starting to feel normal and that feels really, really good.
It also means that in the state of Nebraska I can now be an openly gay foster dad and I have two amazingly wonderful foster sons, Jakob and Nic. To them I am not the gay foster dad, I’m just Charles their foster dad and they recently gave me one of the best birthday presents I’ve ever had in my entire life. After church a few weeks ago, we somehow accidentally bumped into my foster son’s two brothers and their new foster dad. We ended up inviting them to go with us for my birthday lunch. I only found out later that there had been a whole involved parent trap style plot to get the two of us together, once Jakob‘s younger brother, Lucas, discovered that their new foster dad was also gay. I can’t even begin to tell you how touched I was by this because their only thought was how can we get these two guys together and to them that seemed completely normal.
And finally it’s having my 14-year-old niece asking if she could talk with me after church and sharing with me that she likes girls and then watching her having the courage to share some of that journey with all of us at our open mic worship service recently.
So what does celebrating pride mean to me? It means that I’m starting to feel normal and that feels really, really good.
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