Subject: Seeing Xty thru lens of AIDS // pamphlet From: Chris Ambidge Date: Mon, 22 May 1995 19:02:41 -0400 This is the text of a pamphlet assembled by Integrity/Toronto for distribution at General Synod 1995 to be held in Ottawa in June 1995. The pamphlet is a direct reprint of one assembled in 1992. A note on the presentation: it is a two-fold 8.5 x 11 pamphlet, with the cover caption "Seeing Christianity through the lens of AIDS" There are two articles. You are welcome to use this text, and to place the text anywhere that you think it will benefit lesbigays. I would appreciate being told if such text is used. Chris bullfrog to the buttbows )+( and Integrity/Toronto person going to General Synod 1995 ========= begin text ===== SEEING CHRISTIANITY THROUGH THE LENS OF AIDS In 1987, I lived in a small town where AIDS was what you provided to people who had walking disabilities. This new disease that city people seemed to be talking about was no concern of ours. Where we lived, everybody knew everybody (or so we believed) and nobody WE knew was high risk. And so in our churches, for example, the flurry of paranoia some years ago over the use of a common cup at the eucharist was simply a non-issue. AIDS was somebody else's problem. Not any more. AIDS is my problem. In the past year, I have been to the dying of one person with AIDS, and conducted the funerals for two. I have spent enough time at Casey House (Toronto's AIDS Hospice) to have learned the names of the volunteers. I have spent hours reading and musing both about the disease itself, and issues related to sexual orientation and the rise of drug abuse. And I have wept. No doubt, it is to be expected that my profession would place me in the way of those with AIDS. But you see, it isn't just my job which makes me passionate about this. I have lost a friend, too, in the past year. And yet another acquaintance has been recently diagnosed. AIDS is with us. And with the number of diagnosed cases in this country expected to quadruple in the next four years, some of us are going to die. Others will be bereaved. All of us will have the problem. In some ways, the rest of our society has been much quicker to recognise this than the Church has. Professionals and groups in every quarter have mobilised their resources and energy to provide treatment, support and research. And they have done a remarkable job. The tendency for the Church is to be a bit overwhelmed by other people's expertise. After all, we reason, we don't have the medical training to provide comfort. We don't know the system well enough to organise home care or volunteers to run errands. We don't have the money to subsidise loss of income. We don't have the facilities to provide palliative care. We don't have the expertise to do research. The tendency for the Church is to think it has nothing to add. Well, fortunately, there are people who don't believe that. Last summer a young man -- a boy, really -- wandered into the coffee hour looking for a priest. As far as I could make out, he had no church connection anywhere. He certainly didn't know anybody here. But he latched onto me as if I were his only friend in the whole world. And why? Because he had to tell somebody -- and not just anybody, but somebody who believed that God cares about stuff -- that he had just been told he was HIV positive, and he was afraid he was going to die. Here is my question: Why do you suppose that he came in here? The church hasn't exactly got a reputation for Christ-like compassion when it comes to AIDS. Why wouldn't he have chosen his doctor? Or an employee assistance programme officer? Why not a drinking buddy? Or his parents? Why a priest? Why the Church? It is a source of constant amazement and discouragement to me that Christians have such an impoverished view of what they have to offer in the face of something like AIDS. Just as it is a source of constant amazement and much joy to me that every once in a while, somebody -- like this young man -- will come forward and dare to demand our ministry anyway. Every so often, someone will come forward and beg us to be who we are. For we do have a ministry, and a ministry which is uniquely ours because AIDS itself is a disease which forces us up against matters profoundly religious, profoundly spiritual. And, we are, after all, a people -- the people -- who have made it our daily business to sit in the very presence of God and to reflect on things of the spirit. There are at least four aspects to our ministry to people living with AIDS. First, AIDS is a terminal disease. It forces us to deal with the fragility of our human existence, and with death. And the gospel is about nothing if it is not about this. There is no other institution in our society -- unless you count the Department of Vital Statistics -- which provides a rite of passage for death. It is the Church, with its confidence in the God who lies beyond, which is able to coax people to embrace their dying as they have embraced their living. It is ours to teach people how to die. Secondly, AIDS is not the kind of tragedy that inevitably brings out the best in people. It is not like, say, the site of a natural disaster, where even the most miserly people will be falling all over themselves to be generous to victims of the tornado, or whatever. AIDS isn't always like that. Often enough a young man must not only tell his family that he is terminally ill; he is also telling them for the first time that he is gay. And it doesn't take much imagination to realise that if he hasn't told them that until now, it is because he was afraid they wouldn't take it very well. There can be a morass of conflicting emotions, anger, blame -- in short, a real mess. And my friends, death is no time for a family to be at enmity. One ministry which the Church can provide is the ministry of reconciliation. And the gospel is about nothing if it is not about this. Indeed, it seems to me that this is our very charter ministry: we only exist as Church at all because Jesus Christ reconciled us to God. And we are to be reconciled to one another. Thirdly, if you have ever been depressed, if you have ever been bereaved, if you have been diagnosed with a life-threatening disease, you will know that what gets you through the valley of the shadow of death is the hope that tomorrow the sun will shine. The church can be a voice of hope. And the gospel is about nothing if it is not about this. Hope for us is not mere wishful thinking. It is dogma. We believe, as an article of faith, that the good has the power to triumph over evil, the cause of health over sickness, life over death. A Christian is, by nature, an optimist. And in these dark days, we very badly need optimism. And fourthly, there is nothing like a terminal disease, and particularly a terminal disease which is more apt to claim young lives than old lives, to make people ask WHY. We are rational creatures: God made us that way. And so we look for meaning in the things that bewilder us, we seek order in chaos. Why does God allow suffering? Does God send it -- ever? Does God care? The Church is in the business of interpreting the ways of God to the world. And the gospel is about nothing if it is not about meaning. There is an awful lot of bad theology out there. And it is incumbent on us to seek the best in biblical scholarship, to study our theological tradition diligently, to examine our own experience of God prayerfully, and to speak the truth in the best way we know how. Companions in dying, ministers of reconciliation, purveyors of hope, prophets of meaning: This is what we can be. It is, I believe -- profoundly -- what we are called to be. The question is, Will we? = = = = = SEEING CHRISTIANITY THROUGH THE LENS OF AIDS is a sermon preached in Ontario on AIDS Awareness Sunday in 1989. It is reprinted from Integrator, the newsletter of Integrity/Toronto. ===== ===== ===== [page turn] ==== ===== ===== FELLOW TRAVELLERS by Peter Carey The last time I saw him was about seven months ago. We were fellow travellers. Like millions of other New Yorkers, I take the subway to work. Every weekday morning, when I reach the platform to catch my train, there is always a cluster of familiar faces. He was one of them. He looked young, maybe 20 or 25 at most. He seemed easy- going and relaxed. He'd usually be there, waiting for the train at more or less the same spot, at more or less the same time. Dressed in a suit and tie, he'd be reading his New York Times. When the train pulled in, he and I would often end up in the same half-empty car that only filled up when it reached 34th Street. And we'd get off, along with hundreds of other people, at the Madison Avenue end of the Fifth Avenue station. About a year ago I noticed that he seemed thin and pasty-looking, and that began to worry me. Then he developed a dry hollow cough, and I really got worried. Then one day he wasn't there. A week passed, then two, then three. Then a month. I suspected it was AIDS. Finally, one Monday, he was back, except that he was greatly changed. I watched him holding tightly onto the guard rail as he came down the stairs to the platform. He walked slowly, a little unsteady on his feet. He was painfully thin. His shirt and tie were now several sizes too big, and his suit hung on hi like a scarecrow's. The E train pulled into the West 4th Street station. I took a seat opposite him and found myself unable to take my eyes off him. He noticed my stare, and when his eyes met mine, I smiled, as if to say, "I know. I understand. I'm glad you're back." He smiled and his eyes seemed to say, "I know you know. Thanks." After that, when we saw each other, we would exchange smiles, but not words. We didn't speak, yet somehow we were friends. I watched him day after day and saw his struggle get harder. I thought he couldn't keep it up much longer. But he did keep it up -- for six months or more -- and I admired his courage. After a while, I missed him, and I would often think about him as I waited for the train. Then, one morning, about three months later, I saw him again. As I came down the stairs, I saw him standing on the platform. The sight of him surprised and pleased me so much that I smiled the biggest smile that I could manage. I wanted him to know that I was glad to see him. He returned my grin. He was leaning on a cane and he looked like an old man. He said, "I'm going in today to sign some things and to say good-bye. I think I ought to say good-bye to you, too. Thanks for everything." I didn't know what to say. All I could manage was a choked-up, "Good-bye." The train had come to a stop, and the doors were open. He must have noticed that I couldn't see a thing through my tears because he gently took my sleeve and led me onto the train. ========= PETER CAREY still rides the E train to work. This article is reprinted from Outlook, the newsletter of Integrity/New York ===== ===== ===== ===== ===== Published by Integrity and distributed at General Synod 1995 Integrity/Vancouver Integrity/Edmonton Integrity/Toronto [addresses and phone #s omitted] ===== end text ===== comments and discussion welcomed Chris -- Chris Ambidge / ambidge@ecf.utoronto.ca / ambidge@ecf.toronto.edu Great Green Giant Bullfrog (in the inclusive sense) of God