NYS Marriage Equality: The Spirit Smiles

On this day, when Marriage Equality has come to New York State, many people are celebrating the promise they never let go of or stopped working for – that one day in this state of all states – marriage would be available across gender identity.

In effect, in New York, by this change marriage has transcended even the best of marriage definitions from the sum total of all marriage practices in the bible. Marriage Equality acknowledges that marriage is more than just form. It underscores that neither laws nor oppression can stop the march through time of Love, that is God, coursing through all God’s human creation and equally present in the love between same gender loving couples as in different gender loving couples. Equality means that the differences separating such love have been removed. The truth is that the imposition of bygone restrictions should never have existed in the first place – and must continue to be removed wherever they exist. To do otherwise is to stand in opposition – not just to one another – but to God and God’s great and abundant love. In New York State, on this day, the Spirit is truly smiling (however it is the Spirit smiles!).

10-A: The journey has just begun again...

Some days the Spirit moves things around as it goes by, so much so that you can follow its path by the clearing it leaves in its wake. I have always know such Spirit paths as invitations to follow, ways that indicate how we are to proceed.

This day, this day of Spirit and Grace when the PC(USA) moves even closer to a fully welcoming and affirming denomination, marks the opening of one of those highways for our membership and those who will come to join us. But, unlike most other grand openings of thoroughfares, newcomers will already find folk on the path; sisters and brothers who have been there for quite a while; the faithful who have been waiting for the church to catch up with what many of us have already known: the road had only been blocked by fear and resistance to what change might bring - and that the change never needed to be feared in the first place.

It may be that the new highway the Spirit has opened is, in fact, a bridge. A bridge that now connects the too many who couldn't get here from there - for whatever reasons - with one another. Some will choose to avoid the Emmaus Road on which we now are invited to walk together. But word will spread, as it always does. And when the Spirit brings a church together, sisters and brothers together, forgotten and found side by side - there is surely more to come.

So, on this day we give thanks for the lifting of the barrier used to prevent Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender folk from serving in the full work and mission of the PC(USA). It is a magnificent banner day, indeed. And the church, the PC(USA) has done well, thanks to the Spirit and all those who stayed on the path, all those now ready to welcome others with the wildly gracious hospitality and love that has always been God's gift to us all. All.

Welcome! And stay ready...for the journey has truly just begun, again...